Cat Shopping on Porter St

Written by Priscilla Wong

Before the internet, Porter St. used to be Pioneer St. Cat could see clearly that wok needed to be done on its land and its people.

Before Cat was Cat, she lived with mice. The mice told her although she may have been born a cat, she'd always be a mouse. In all fairness, Cat was especially small. Small enough, that is, to be a mouse. Cat adored shopping. There was no better activity in all the world. She knew that if she catered to a certain idea, she'd be able to explore her free will. All the land of Pioneer St. would be hers and maybe even eventually, Porter St. Only then, would the mice stop nibbling at her heels.

Cat hated mice. As annoying as toads and frogs.

Honest.

Who'd want to live with vermin?

What could possibly be offered other than servitude?

Across from Porter Pioneer, was Clown St. There was a very nice Frog who also adored shopping. Materialism certainly shaped Mr. Frog, not unlike certain mice men. The more, the merrier. Mr. Frog may have been addicted to shopping. He made sacrifices to shop. Every member of his family shopped until they dropped.

It's possible that nothing feels better than making a fire purchase to Mr. Frog.

Not even Cat herself.

Cat knows the feeling of a steal. Nothing compares to a steal, other than a look.

A look from whom?

Her logic was simple. A stolen object eventually rings hollow. A lasting look is effervescent.

Mr. Frog walks those polished streets like a stranger in borrowed skin, red soles clicking against concrete that don't know his name. The darkish KKKs, they're his people now - or so he tells himself, scratching at that acceptance like a dog at fleas. His chest hairs peek through silk blouses worth a field worker's month, and the deformations on his face catch shadows under department store lights.

Fancy shoes can't hide what he is, just like cologne can't mask fear. Mr. Frog who learned to walk upright, pretending he hasn't got a single wart, pretending the silk purse wasn't sewn from a sow's ear.

The toads on Clown, they see him coming. They smile their toad smiles and take his money, but they know. How they know. He's as cold as drought in a swamp, as out of place as a pearl in pig slop. But he keeps coming back, day after day, maybe if he spends enough green, he'll stop being green himself.

No amount of shopping going change who's there. There is no label going cover up the slime. He's just another frog on Clown Street, hopping from store to store, trying to buy himself a different life. But when the sun sets and the shops close their doors, he's still just a frog, and Clown's still just Clown, and all the pretty things are just pretty things, gathering dust in a empty house.

That's what Cat told herself to avoid Mr. Frog.

Porter St. cultivated a certain kind of insouciance. The very thing that made her look at Mr. Frog in the first place - he, who preferred the company on Clown St. The same thing that allowed mousy Cat to become more Cat.

They clowned around.

Steals, there were many.

Stolen goods and stolen glances.

The more, the merrier.