1 FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD IN THE CITY hunger and danger chase you all day long And you if you are a city cat chase food and safety Every day it’s a race I am a city cat Today hunger is winning It’s winning by a lot I’m very hungry I check all the usual spots for food starting with the garbage cans on 10th Street There are already five big cats digging in them No room for you the cats growl They do not want to share and I do not want to fight Next I check the bakery which isn’t far from these particular garbage cans But I only catch food there when I’m lucky so not today
The train stations busy noisy and stinky on most days are so full of humans that I can’t get close enough to the places where they might drop food Behind the restaurants where there’s often food all I see are shadows At every café table there’s a human in a bad mood A human who says Go away shoo shoo I’ll have to find a dumpster Dumpsters are where you can easily catch food but where danger far more easily catches you if you are not prepared for a fight I was born under a dumpster in fact A big one behind a restaurant In the city that’s a good place to be born If you’re a good fighter it’s safe and there’s food nearby Most city cats seek out dumpsters when they’re hungry Not me and here’s why Dogs Love Dumpsters Most city cats make short work of dogs Our nails are sharper and we’re faster than they are Even the fiercest dog is no match for a fierce cat My mother who was famous for her city cat ways chased two dogs and three rats away from our dumpster before I was born She was one of the best fighters the city ever had 3
I’m not brave and fierce like my mother but I am hungry And hungry cats do desperate things Today my belly is so empty and angry with hunger that I walk all the way uptown to a dumpster on the city hospital’s north side It is the least dangerous dumpster in the city Partly because it’s far away from the city’s center but mostly because the food you find there is terrible I smell it before I see it Old coffee Jell-O and warm yogurt Chipped green and uglier than ugly I take another smell hoping there’s something in it that’s better than spoiled egg salad Once long ago I ate the remains of an omelet with ham and cheese It was from old Mrs Gianni who normally flicks a dish towel at me but sometimes gives me food The omelet made me picky about eggs It was beyond magnificent magnificent I jump up on the dumpster dumpster and start to poke around for the spoiled egg salad I move aside a crumpled coffee coffee cup and some soggy fried 4
potatoes And then suddenly I get a small whiff of a turkey sandwich It’s bliss and joy and oh glorious food It’s not just any old turkey sandwich either but one with a bit of cheese still attached This is the blessing of being a city cat Everything is terrible until just like that it isn’t But as I start to dig for the turkey there’s a rustle down in all the tossed away things A huge rat pokes his head out of the trash and shows me his teeth I jump back in surprise feeling annoyed and scared right down to my paws Those are sharp teeth Beat it Stripy he says I have white lines that crisscross my gray fur My brother sister and our mother sometimes called me Mr Boots instead of Harvey because of the white fur on my paws As nicknames go I prefer Mr Boots to Stripy My name is Harvey I say I try to say it with the pride and dignity our mother insisted all cats in the city have We are simply the best she’d tell my brother sister and me Maybe so but it’s hard to be proud or dignified when sitting on the edge of a dumpster full of the city’s saddest garbage 5
