a dead cat was the centerpiece of my day spent wandering the outer reaches
of Long Island City and venturing toward Jackson Heights. the cat was
freshly dead, few flies or bugs circling, and it lay serenely and
symmetrically on a mostly vacant stretch of sidewalk.
i hate to say it but these casualties make for great photographs. those
were my best shots of the day, i think, same as wehn i spotted a large,
fly-infested corpose of a cat near St. Michael’s Cemetery on July 4th. the
stillness of the creature and the abundant afternoon sunlight raining down
on the busybody flies and other bodily scavengers made for a pretty
excellent photo, is all i have to say. today’s dead cat photo op was less
abundant in activity, but it was something to think about.
i don’t carry a cell phone around these days, so i could not call 311 to
report it. i thought later that i could have wriktten down the street
address of the dead cat, and report it to 311 from a payphone, but i
didn’t think to do that. someone else will deal with it, i guess. it’s not
like i had an opportunity to call ahead and *prevent* the cat from being
mauled by whatever killed it.
the cat i saw on July 4th was too disgusting for me to look at. its face
was frozen like lockjawed, and the legs extended from its body were
already gnawed at and partly eaten. that cat looked fat, too, and old.
today’s cat was slender, and young. its legs were similarly extended,
as if all cats lie dead in the same sleeping position.
today’s cat was not so repulsive to behold. freshly dead, the buzzards
were nary circling, and the body still looked fresh. in fact, i first
thought that the little beast was sleeping when i first spotted it.
a couple of years ago i spotted a dead chicken or rooster on Northern
Boulevard. it was in a shopping bag, near the curb, on the street. at
first glance i thought it was bizarre to see freshly dead livestock tossed
curbside in an urban area. i later realized, though, that for as odd as it
looked this was probably not as random as i thought. there are any number
of Pollo Vivo places in the area, where one can buy live or freshly dead
poultry and goats and other things. my guess regarding the animal i
spotted there in that bag is that it originated from one of those places,
and that someone dropped it off their bike or truck.
in a related incident a few months ago i passed through Rainey Park and
noticed a dead chicken or rooster at the base of a tree. it was in a
flower pot, and looked like a sacrifice. whatever it was, however it got
there, it obviously was not uspposed to be there. it was not a pigeon or a
crow, but a rooster or something (i don’t know my partly-decomposed
livestock as well as perhaps i should). a week later i passed by the same
spot, and the piece of poultry was still there, even more decomposed than
the week before. that time i got the attention of a couple of park
rangers, telling them that i was sorry to bother you but there is a dead
chicken or rooster or something over by that tree, in a flower pot, and
whatever it is it ain’t supposed to be there. they responded quickly,
driving their truck over to the tree that to which i had directed them.
one of the rangers got out his rubber gloves and plastics baggies and
commenced to remove the dead beast from the grounds.
there was something funereal, procedural, and morbidly arch about the
procession, this NYC Parks truck moving in on the dead body with a mix of
curiosity and trepidation, the confusion perhaps muddled by understandable
uncertainty about my credibility, i being just some random dude new to
them, as were they to me.
today’s wander was good for the intake of sunlight. i have had notions of
taking a trip up to Valhalla, to see the Kensico Cemetery. i’ve heard
about it so much over the years that i should really see the dang place.
lots of fallen stars are there, including Rachmaninoff, Babe Ruth, Ayn
Rand, and a bunch of others either at Kensico or the Gate of Heaven
Cemetery, which is owned by the same diocese as Calvary here in Queens.
i also have a .plan of sorts to go back to Daytona Beach. the property
there has been up for sale for so many years now that I am curious to see
it, to see if it has sunk into shitholery, or if it really is just this
Obamaconomy that halts investors from buying up properties like mine which
is up for sale at an absolute bargain price. and Daytona Beach is a cheap
vacation. 3 or 4 nights for ~$500, I think… it might be fun to check in
on some of the places I used to see when i spent parts of my summers there
in school.
as i recounted to a friend the other night, i had an encounter at an
oyster bar in Daytona Beach that vaguely haunted me a couple of decades
later. but that might not be suitable subject matter for the public
Intertubes, even if this site is blocked from legitimate search engines…
