10 Minute Prompt: An impactful story from your childhood...

As a child growing up in suburban Georgia my only window to urban life and values was Sesame Street. Then, in third grade, I read a book about a little boy who lived in an inner city housing project, or maybe it was a tenement in Harlem, and who found a little black and white cat in a vacant lot. This was the first sad story about a child I'd read. But also, the story as I am barely able to remember, didn't end so well for the little black and white cat. And the fate of the little boy, who had enjoyed so much emotional attachment with the cat, is lost to my selective memory.

I have often thought of that book and wondered what the name of it might be, and if anyone else read it and what they thought of it, and of course what happened to the little boy. I have heard similar stories through the years of people whose attachments to animals rivaled, surpassed, or supplanted their attachments to people. And in turn I reflect on my cat, Killer, whom I adopted before I could afford cat food. I fed him cheese and raw eggs for four days, and tore up newspaper for his litter box. I made time to sit quietly with him, 20 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening. He was old enough to spray inside the closet before found an affordable neuter clinic.

Killer always seemed to think something strange was going on when my roommates were on acid. He grew to enormous size, weighing nearly 20 pounds and retained his preference for lap over any other bed. He was named for a punk band, Killer Pussy From the Cult of Planet Playtex, which was written in blurring ink on his white flea collar.