What I Will Do

India Choquette

I will feed your cat if ICE takes you away.

It was a joke I told as you retrieved your cat from the hallway. We both laughed, you with the slight gap between your teeth, the old white cat in your arms, a hand braced against the peeling drywall. As we recovered, I caveated with the classic, “Gotta laugh or you’ll die crying,” and you kissed the cat’s head, casually, instinctively, automatically.

I remember that moment as I stand in the silent hall. I was worried about how I’d get into your apartment, but the door is ajar.

 You were a real neighbor. There aren’t neighbors like you anymore.

We both had cats, which was how we met. You kept carrying my Chewy delivery up and leaving the boxes outside my door, 5D (an extra flight for you). I thought it was the mail carrier, but then I caught you one day. I almost accused you of stealing, but I knew better. (I took an English class called Black Women in college, and we had a whole unit on white tears. One student complained, saying the class was supposed be about Black women, not white women. She dropped the class. I never got to tell you about my college experience — did you go? I can picture you taking ESL classes at night, your broad shoulders bent over the desk, fluorescents keeping you awake. But your English is very good.)

“I buy from across the street,” you panted, as we climbed, box in your arms. The walls had scribbles, not interesting enough to be graffiti, more like doodles. I’d lied and told Livvy they were gang signs because I wanted her to feel bad and pay for my drinks, but they weren’t — just a few names, a few swears, a cartoon picture of a hamburger.

Your straining forearms were as scarred as the walls were marked, not from self-harm like mine, but from work, standing out pale pink on your skin. You promised me the litter was easy to carry, so you were either lying or strong. It was two boxes, forty pounds each.

I asked if you had a story in your culture like the one about the man (or was it a boy?) who carried a calf (or a pig?) up the mountain. He got stronger as the calf got bigger. You said you did not. So, I told it to your back, my hands half lifted in case you fell. (Once upon a time, a man wanted to marry a witch’s daughter. The witch said he could if he carried her baby cow/pig up the mountain every single day for some amount of time — a year, maybe…) A patch of sweat grew on your gray t-shirt between your shoulder blades. A real neighbor, a real gentleman.

Livvy won’t even visit our neighborhood, but I’d told her, “People are people.” And we are: we have beating hearts, both love our cats, and are nearly the same height. Amazing that last part—you are compact like a bullet. Indestructible. But when they took you, I watched from the window, you looked as small as a child.

I enter your apartment.

I will feed your cat if ICE takes you away. I will not make my body a shield when they take you in the night, but I will come in the morning and slip through the door and feed the cat. You understand. Even though I insist on being called a “person” in the workplace (and I complain to HR when they call me the “social media girl”), in this case, when they come, I am just a girl (just as you are just a boy). And what could a girl do? (And same for you — you did not resist).

Your cat rubs up against me. He’s old and stiff, which is probably the only reason he didn’t flee through the door that you/they left open.

Your apartment surprises me. I’m not surprised by the smell of garlic and chili, but I’m very surprised that it’s bigger than mine, with two fire escapes (why didn’t you use them? If you’d climbed up, I could’ve hidden you! In my closet? In my bed, under my covers?) and, when I pull the cat hair covered sheets off the couch, it looks brand new — thick coarse fabric. It's blue, easily seating five. I know you had guests. It’s funny: when I first moved up here, I heard them through the floor, laughing, arguing, yelling, singing. Playing that same song over and over, the one with the man yelling right before the Latin beat drops. Or maybe it wasn’t the same song — maybe it just all sounds the same. I’m sure I could learn to tell the difference. You could teach me.

But I hated the music back then. “I have to wear noise cancelling headphones,” I complained to Livvy, who told me to meet her in SoHo. Sometimes, when I had caught up on emails, I’d lie with my ear against the floor, listening to your noise. How were you happy when I was sad?

I’m sorry: I can’t post about your disappearance because it wouldn’t make sense for my brand. My feed is cats and accomplishments only. Cats. Accomplishments.

Cats: Twyla, my black and white tuxedo who I taught to do a high five, her little paw tapping mine as I kneel in front of her. Those videos got a lot of likes in the beginning, but she’s gotten fatter and grumpier, and it’s only the one trick. But it was something to do when I moved  here, when my loneliness was so intense that I felt like I was turning inside out. Me and Twyla, on the floor, treat after treat, “High five!” I’d say in a baby voice, lifting her paw to mine. And then, one day, she got it. She just did! I felt so powerful — I’d made this fluffy little animal obey a command.

Accomplishments: my graduation, baby blue gown, me and Livvy on the back of the lion statue. We weren’t supposed to climb up there, but everyone does. What you don’t see in the photo, standing behind the professional photographer, is Livvy’s dad and mom, her older brother in his pink button-up and big hands. What you don’t see is my parents, but they weren’t there at all.

Instagram is just the wrong platform for your story. It’s performative, and what happened to you is so, so real.

The more substantive thing to do, the thing I will do, is water your plants and feed your cat.

Also, you have plants! I wasn’t expecting that — high floating shelves around the top of the ceiling, the vines threaded around with little plastic hooks so that the heart-shaped leaves circle all four corners of the room, a nest of vines. It’s very British cottage, very fairy tale — I didn’t peg you as a romantic! I thought you’d have soccer posters and flags and maybe some of those pictures of Saints. Instead, you have this living crown.

Don’t worry, it doesn’t take me long to find the cat food, even though I’ve never been inside your home. You put it in the same place I do: the cabinet on the bottom! What’s the chance of that? What does surprise me is the brand of cat food. It’s fancy. I know because tiktok recommended it. Did the pet store give you a deal? Maybe you did odd jobs, and they paid you in food?

What is your job? I never asked. I’d hear you shower in the morning, and then I’d hear you at night around eight, when you came home and turned the music on.

I do post a picture of your white cat — who I call Mr. Pablo in the caption because, it’s so funny, but I can’t remember his name other than “Mr. something — on your fancy blue couch. I run upstairs and get my tripod so I can recline with him beside me. We both have green eyes.

 I wait in your apartment. I’ve closed the door by then, just for safety. I hope you come back. I open the cabinets. You have chamomile tea. I almost Facetime Livvy to show her. I feel like she should know that someone taken by ICE drinks herbal tea. That’s even more powerful than “we all bleed the same color.”

You don’t have any beer or drugs, which is what I’m looking for. On those loud hot summer nights, my ear to the floor, everyone coming and going, I thought you must be drunk. I was always sober. I took a break from drinking after that Thanksgiving — but I’ll tell you about that in person. Later, so you can brush the tears off my cheeks.

I used to think you had a crush on me. Isn’t that crazy? But why else would you carry my boxes up all those stairs?

 I spend the night in your bed. Not because I don’t have my own, but because I’m afraid I’ll miss your knock. I brought my baby, Twyla, downstairs too, but she and Mr. Pablo hiss at each other, so I close the bedroom door, Mr. Pablo outside, Twyla with me. She’s hiding under the bed. Don’t take it personally. The smells are unfamiliar, and I have to say, you used a lot of cologne. It’s spicy and sweet, and with the garlic and the chili from your kitchen, it’s a little much. I crank your air conditioner until it’s as loud as an airplane.

Your sheets are softened with use. Not crisp and clean. But you are a man — I wouldn’t ever expect you to have clean sheets. Tomorrow, I tell myself, what I will do is wash them. It’ll be so nice to come back to a clean bed.

I sleep like a baby! Is it a sign? The sounds in the alley don’t keep me up like usual. Is that because the room’s so much bigger, or because your AC drowns it out? In the morning, when I’m going through your neatly folded shirts, it occurs to me that you might be gay. The cat, herbal tea, cologne, and you never made a move on me, even when I knocked on your door late wearing my pink silk pajamas, so loose around my chest that you could look right between my boobs down to my flat stomach. My red hair in a messy bun. “My bathroom ceiling’s leaking!” I said. You were in a black sweatshirt and basketball shorts, Mr. Pablo in your arms getting his white fur all over. “You call the super?” you asked. I shook my head. You shifted Mr. Pablo to your hip, pulled out your phone, and started talking in Spanish. “He’ll meet you upstairs,” you said finally.

I mean, you closed the door on my face, really.

So, are you gay? But you aren’t, are you? Is it the Latinx culture — the machismo but also the hair gel? It’s so hard to tell!

Yowl! Mr. Pablo is on the other side of the bedroom door, and I slide on a blue t-shirt of yours. I forgot to bring clean clothes — I’ll grab them later.

The tree in the alley sways in the wind. The open curtains catch the sunlight in their folds. Someone is scream-singing Cher (“Do you believe in life after love?”) and a chubby Black boy is hanging red sheets over the railing of the fire escape across the way. Don’t they know that the government is falling apart? Here I am, keeping your home safe for you, and they are just business as usual.

I bet they don’t even vote. I do. I always post a story of me with my “I Voted” sticker. Not my main feed — we don’t do that anymore. I set the bowls down for the cats. Twyla likes the new food. When you are back, I’ll ask how you get it.

I think about that moment of reunion: me opening the door, Mr. Pablo in my arms. “Oh! You took care of him for me! You angel!” you’ll say. And we’ll hug, the cat between us.

And if you are gay, it’s okay. It really is. It’s a reason for asylum, actually. Because who knows how they treat homosexuals in your country — Mexico? Venezuela? Colombia? They all have machismo. “Which is so anti-feminist,” Livvy said.

She’s so full of it. You’ll hate her, I just know it.

I open your bedside drawer again. There are condoms. I should pretend I didn’t see them — it’s awkward, but I have to admit, it makes me crazy jealous. At least the box is mostly full.

Here’s something crazy: what if we get married, and this is our story? “She took care of my cat when ICE took me away. She’s an angel.”  

Livvy will be a bridesmaid. Her babies will be so white and ugly, but our babies will be gorgeous.

 Three days. Mr. Pablo misses you! He sits by the door all day — isn’t that sweet?

I work from home on Mondays (I brought my ring light down). Your wifi password is on the back of the router.

I facetime Livvy and fill her in. She starts to cry. “The world is so horrible,” I say. “Can you send a picture of him?” she asks. She might post something, so I tell her no, even though you have a framed picture of yourself. (Of course, not just yourself — your family — I’m guessing. It’s fifteen people, but you have big families). Livvy shouldn’t get credit, not when she won’t even come up here. “Did you find his keys?” she asks. “Because ICE could have them, which means that law enforcement can enter whenever.”

She stays on as I search. I accidentally trip over Mr. Pablo as I check the pockets of your sweatshirt, and he skitters down the hall. “They’re not here,” I say.

“You should call a locksmith,” Livvy says.

I don’t bother telling her that a locksmith probably wouldn’t let me change the lock, not without building approval, and definitely not without my name on the lease.

“I just want you to feel safe,” she says. She knows about what happened in college. But just because she knows, doesn’t mean she cares.

Doesn’t matter. I can keep myself together. I order a lock on Amazon (I have prime) and a screwdriver, too. A man with a handlebar mustache shows me how to change it in a Youtube video. I feel like it should be harder. Just undo a few screws, basically. Maybe working in the trades is, like, not that hard.

This is going to be much better for you, too. I can’t imagine how scary it will feel to know that ICE has keys to your apartment.

I understand what it’s like to be afraid, don’t I? Okay, I’ll tell you. That Thanksgiving at Livvy’s, her brother shoved his hand up the linen dress I’d borrowed from her because I didn’t have anything nice enough. I imagine me telling you this story, and you saying, “I’m going to kill him,” and then I have to calm you down. “He’s not worth it.”

We understand, you and me, what it’s like to be treated unfairly. Livvy’s parents gifted her an apartment after graduation. My parents left me with loans.

I’m not jealous. It’s just that life isn’t fair.

I look at your family photo. Everyone looks alike. Are the girls there your sisters? Your cousins? Or are they not related to you at all?

Your bathroom has different tiles from mine. Mine are white, yours are gray. I stand naked in it, now that the lock is changed, and use your citrus soap.

 My mom texts me. She saw the post of me and Mr. Pablo, days late. “Do you have space for a new cat?” I don’t give her details. I just say, “Yes.” Because your apartment is big enough.

But I wish they got along. When you come back, we’ll have to figure it out. For now, I lock Mr. Pablo in the bathroom with a towel that has Twyla’s scent on it. I have to chase him in there. Herding cats.

They are marching downtown. I wish my mom had asked me if I was safe because it’s all over the news, but she doesn’t. I mean, I don’t go to the protests. I don’t like crowds, and I don’t like chanting. Protests don’t really work. Most people are only there to post.

In college, Livvy was one of the organizers of Slut Walk. Do you know what that is? It’s this big march that’s supposed to protest the whole “she was asking for it” thing. But Livvy spent over two hours picking out her outfit — a sheer white bra and a pair of white short-shorts. The whole thing is just an excuse for girls to dress skanky and call it feminism. I tried to get Livvy to wear the linen dress she’d loaned me from Thanksgiving, but she just laughed and then told me to wear this gold tank top she had because I was a “gold digger.”

It was so mean that I still don’t fully believe she said it.

I should have been more forceful the night I went to your door. I should have let you know it was safe to touch me. You were probably scared. I get it. A woman like me — a man like you…

Knock, knock.

I freeze. Is it you?

They are trying the doorknob.

You have to believe this: I cannot make myself get up. I cannot make myself go to the door. The college therapist explained that there are fight, flight, and freeze, and just like last time, I freeze, freeze, freeze.

Now, they are pounding on the door, desperate. But they don’t call out.

Soon, they are gone. But for hours, I freeze. Was it you? I didn’t hear keys. I changed the lock, yes, but you didn’t know that.

Was it the super? Did he check the cameras in the hall, see me go in?

But no one calls me. No one emails.

It could be the landlord. I don’t know the rules about getting arrested, but — I shutter — it’s likely they’ll kick you out of this big apartment if you don’t come soon. Oh, please come soon! Everything can be taken away.

If we were married, our assets would be merged, and it’d also be mine, but right now, I’m just a neighbor, a friend. A girl.

A girl alone in a strange apartment. Which is why I didn’t go to the door. You understand.

I unlock my phone, thinking I’ll text my mom something like: There’s room for you to visit. I sometimes feel like I have to remind her that she doesn’t pay attention.

Instead, I find myself shakily swiping and poking my way to Instagram — I do it without thinking.

Because my algorithm is the way it is, Livvy’s story is first, her in a white dress, big sunglasses and hat, little rainbow circle around her. Livvy’s always posting stories in the summer — electric blue sky out of the window of a plane, thick green smoothies with a little yellow umbrella, pink manicured toes in front of a clear blue pool. I heart them all.

I press my screen.

He pops up. She has her arm around him and is kissing his cheek. His white shirt is unbuttoned in a way that says, “I’m at the beach,” and kissing his other cheek, another woman with a swoop of a nose and long dark brown hair, holding up her left hand, a diamond glittering — glittering even in the flat picture. “My big brother is getting married!” Pink hearts throb above their heads.

I close my phone and sink onto your blue couch. The air conditioner roars in the bedroom, and I think, Fuck them.

Mr. Pablo sneaks out of the bathroom while I’m aggressively plucking my eyebrows. The college therapist called plucking “harm reduction,” and I’m supposed to do it instead of cutting. That or snap a rubber band against my wrist or hold ice cubes.

The cat’s old legs waddle, beelining right for Twyla, who is crouched under the couch.

Hiss.

“Stop!” I yell, one eyebrow arched. He swipes at her — her face! — gets her right across the nose. I see the blood, a thin line on her wet nose. Blood!

I snatch Mr. Pablo, slide the window up, and drop him out on the fire escape. He clangs as he lands. I’m not worried. His legs are too stiff to climb.

It’s humid and thick outside — the Real Feel is over a hundred or something. That will teach him. I tell myself to bring him in just after the rain starts. He needs to be disciplined.

I finish my other eyebrow, but then pencil them back in. I don’t want to look too sparse. We are working from home today because of the flash flood warnings. I have a meeting. I had to take it — this is how I pay my rent, how I pay for my shitty cat food.

I forget about Mr. Pablo until nighttime. It happens. Sometimes, I’ll be honest, when I’m lying in your bed or using your shower, I forget about you. It’s not because I don’t care, it’s just because we cannot focus on someone else all the time. We come back to ourselves.

There’s a siren down the street, which makes me worry about fire (these old buildings go up like matchsticks — I see it on the Citizen app all the time), which makes me think about the fire escape, which makes me think about him.

But he’s not there.

I could lie! I could tell you that Mr. Pablo snuck out after you were taken — the door was open after all. That is my first plan. But then I remember: I posted the picture. What are the chances you’d see it? Still — I’m hoping that, somehow, you’ve been stalking my social media, magically watching me from your detention center. Maybe you got my name from the Chewy boxes. Maybe you lurk on my page.

I get another idea. I could tear your place apart. Rifle through the drawers, steal your electronics, dump out your body wash, slash the bag of flour. Make it a real crime scene. That way, when you see your home’s been ransacked, it’ll make sense that Mr. Pablo is gone.

I will feed your cat if ICE takes you away. It was just a joke. It’s not my actual job to keep him safe, to keep your bed warm. It’s not my job to take care of you.

As I’m swinging from drawer to drawer, strewing your silverware, your stacks of paper napkins, your mail across the floor, I can’t help it: I think about our wedding. Central Park would be a dream, but even if the ceremony couldn’t be there, the photos. Bethesda Fountain. The bridge. “These are so basic.” I can hear Livvy say. Her brother’ll probably get married in Italy or Greece and won’t invite me.

I turn the overhead light on, and there are the leaves, circling, growing, getting tighter and tighter, strangling. Twyla watches me with big yellow eyes.

I’m telling you all this because — why am I telling you this?

Truthfully, when I first moved up here, I was so proud of myself. I never thought I’d get my own apartment — I thought I’d have to have ten roommates until I was forty-five. But then, I got the job and found the listing. I applied on my own, no help from anyone, used all my savings for the security deposit. It was May, and I’d just graduated. I did it, I remember thinking.

And then, Livvy wouldn’t come. She wouldn’t help me move — she was confused because I hadn’t hired movers. She didn’t want to help decorate, she wouldn’t come up for dinner or The Bachelor, which she now inexplicably hated. She didn’t want anything, and suddenly, my home didn’t seem as nice. I was up here, alone, listening to your fucking music through the floor, your laughing.

Then, somebody posted about Twyla. They’d adopted her during the pandemic. It was a whole thing, the day I brought her home: I took public transport out to get her in Queens but sprung for an Uber on the way back. I held the meowing crate in my lap and cooed through the mesh, not even caring that the driver heard me tell her over and over, “It will be okay. It will be okay.”

And things were okay. Until they took you.

There’s something about animals, isn’t there? They’re so helpless. You understand, I know. I remember the way you kissed Mr. Pablo’s head.

After closing Twyla in the bedroom so she doesn’t walk through the spilled flour, I climb out the window and stand in the rain, watching it pour into the dirty alley, pounding the pile of black trash bags below, the leaves of the poor tree. I don’t see a flash of white on the ground. That’s what I’m afraid of: that Mr. Pablo fell. I’m afraid of seeing his body.

But he’s not down there.

The storm smells.

Either he’s down or he’s up, and I can’t see him down. I start to climb, the wet ladder flaking in my hands. I don’t have to be quiet: it’s raining too hard for anyone to hear. Could he have climbed? With his old wet legs?

One floor up, my old floor, I shuffle across and peek in my old window. It’s dark except for the blue light of the router. I see my old things: the couch I bought off Facebook Marketplace, the stack of books from college that I couldn’t sell back. It’s not as big or nice. Not even close.

My chest tightens, and oh, God, I feel responsible. I am crying, but the rain covers it. I tell myself it’s not my fault. I was doing you a favor. Without me, he wouldn’t have lived this long. Nobody else would have fed him.

Hope is a tightrope. Long, thin — it’s taken me my whole life to learn to cross, but even now, at every instant, I can plummet to a broken leg, broken neck, or worse. We don’t want to believe something bad could happen to us, but of course, anything can happen to anyone.

I’m twisting myself with this mental gymnastics. I can pretend that you’re coming back, but for all I know, you’re on a plane right now, being disappeared to El Salvador or Louisiana. And what if you are illegal? Or a criminal? A cat food stealing criminal? I’d understand — I want the best for Twyla, too.

But maybe there isn’t a reason. Life isn’t fair. It just isn’t. Whatever’s happened to you, whatever’s happened to me, we’re powerless —

Yowl.

My head snaps up. Wet, faint, anguished. I climb, inching along that tightrope, my eyebrows melting onto my face. The people above me have a garden on their fire escape: cherry tomatoes and herbs. Basil. I can smell it in the rain.

And poor Mr. Pablo — he’s there, crouched underneath a window box that’s been hooked onto the railing. In the storm, his eyes look black, and the sky is orange-black, and his wet white fur makes him look misshapen.

I will feed your cat if ICE takes you away.

It is the absolute least I can do, but it’s also the absolute most.

I scoop him into my arms. In the story, the boy/man carries the calf/piglet up the mountain every day, getting stronger and stronger. But let me tell you, the fire escape is slippery, my arms full of him, shaking, dripping, and I’m going down, not up. One misstep, and I will fall.

I assume the boy/man marries the girl in the end. I don’t remember. I never really finish things.

Because life isn’t a fairy tale, is it? We have what we have, we make the best of it. I’m sorry you were taken away, so sorry. Some people have nice things, others don’t. You and I may never meet again. I can’t do much because I don’t have much.

And here’s what I want to tell you, and why I’m writing this, just in case you come home to find that your home isn’t yours anymore: you can hate people like Livvy and her brother, or you can learn from them, right? They have a lot, and they take a lot. That’s been my mistake: I let people walk all over me. When we never went to Paris or Italy, I say okay. When they can’t help me pay for college, I say fine. When they say they can’t come to my graduation, I say, of course.

I guess what I’m saying is if you’d noticed me before, if you’d asked me out and we were dating, maybe you wouldn’t have been in this situation. But you closed the door in my face, and I have your cat, but that’s really all I can do for you right now. And what I will do for me is I will live without you.

And once I close the window, the rain becomes a shhh, and I forget about the love story. I forget about your forearms, your jokes, you carrying my boxes, your music, your parties — shutting that door in my head. Just like you did. Instead, Mr. Pablo burritoed in a towel in my lap (because I will take care of your cat, your old, old cat), I open my phone and type an email to our — my — landlord: “I’m wondering if it would be possible for me to take over another unit’s lease?”

That is what I will do.