Now you can see two mini-houses lined by iron bars spaced wide enough apart for the inhabitants to sneak through as they please. The white mini-houses each have a shingled roof and four doorways under an awning of sorts, which doubles as a place for the cats to stretch and be lazy. A mini red-and-white Canadian flag flies from the top of the left house.
There is a boardwalk for the cats to strut across, and this is kept clear of snow—my guess is that the caretakers shovel it as necessary.
Bowls of cat food are placed at various spots around and on the mini-houses, and according to Max, volunteers take care of the colony on a daily basis.
The area around Parliament Hill really does look like England; I have decided it’s true, even though I have never been, nor will I ever be likely to go, to England.
The back of the Parliament Buildings is round like a cathedral with many pointy spirals and also sort of looks like a spaceship, although I didn’t say that to Max.
When we arrived early in the morning, the day after Father McNamee went to join Mom in heaven or purgatory, Max explained much of the above, and then he took off ahead of Elizabeth and me—he started running like an excited little boy just as soon as he saw his first cat in the distance.
“Cat Fucking Parliament!” he yelled, and skipped a few times as he ran. “Cat Fucking Parliament! I’m finally fucking here!”
“Have you ever been that happy?” Elizabeth asked me, and I honestly don’t think I have ever once been that elated, never in my entire life.
Max grabbed the bars when he reached the cat sanctuary and he studied the few cats that were out in the morning sunlight.
Elizabeth stopped walking, and so I stood with her, maybe twenty or so feet away from Max, allowing him a private moment.
When we finally approached him, his cheeks were striped and tears were freezing to the bottom of his chin like a small beard.
His lips were trembling.
He kept sniffing and snorting.
“Are you okay?” Elizabeth asked Max.
“It’s so fucking beautiful.”
“The cats?” I asked.
“Fuck, yes! But also the fucking fact that people take care of stray cats. Cats! For all these fucking years. They feed them. They fucking give them shelter. They didn’t forget about the cats when they no longer served a fucking function. These cats are completely useless to society now, but people feed them just because. Isn’t that fucking beautiful? Isn’t it just so fucking—humane? Do you even understand what I’m fucking talking about here, hey? Cat Fucking Parliament is the most beautiful place in the world, hey! You do see it, right? The fucking beauty?”
Elizabeth and I nodded as we watched a calico and a gray tabby eat breakfast, nibbling on tiny pieces of cat food.
“Look at them! Just fucking look. Beautiful! Fucking beautiful! This exists!”
After twenty minutes or so, Elizabeth and I retired to a nearby bench, and we watched Max enjoying his stay at Cat Parliament.
A few children accompanied by their mothers stopped to look at the cats, and as they stood next to Max, the juxtaposition was striking. For a man who said the word fuck at least once in almost every sentence he spoke—even the sentences that contained only two or three words—his heart was definitely childlike.
“It was my life goal to have a drink with you,” I said to Elizabeth.
“Max told me,” she said. “That’s why I asked you to have a drink at the bar last night. To maybe help you feel better about losing Father McNamee so suddenly. I thought, at least you could cross off your life goal as completed. Sorry I ruined it by sharing my exit strategy. It wasn’t a very good first date, was it?”
My heart leaped at the word date, but I played it Richard Gere cool and said, “You can share whatever you want with me. I mean it. Don’t ever hold back. I think we need to be honest with each other, if we are going to help each other out.”
“I agree. Thank you.”
“I have a new life goal. Do you want to know what it is?”
“Sure.”
“Someday—and it doesn’t have to be soon, so please don’t feel pressured—but I’d like to hold your hand for a short period of time. Maybe just a minute—and maybe behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art, near the Water Works, while we listen to the river flow. It’s my favorite place in the world. You’d like it, if you’ve never been.”
I couldn’t believe I was saying this—my heart was pounding so hard.
But I was now extra Richard Gere cool on the outside.
Fairy-tale suave.
Elizabeth smiled and said, “Maybe someday we can hold hands behind the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but not today, obviously, because we’re in Ottawa. And it may have to be a long way in the future, if at all, because I have a lot to work through. I’m pretty sure all three of us need help, and I think we should get some when we return to Philadelphia. Okay?”
“I understand,” I said, and I did. “We should get help. We will get help.”
Elizabeth and I sat there silently for hours as Max admired the residents of Cat Parliament.
It was cold, but we weren’t about to make Max leave, because we didn’t know if he or any of us would ever make it back to Canada’s capital city, let alone this very spot, and even if we did, somehow we knew it would never be the same as right then. There would be different variables, if we came back, a totally different equation made up of wildly different circumstances; it just couldn’t be helped, because life was always evolving and changing, and therefore, no matter how much we’d like to, we would never, ever have that moment again—even if we tried with all our might to re-create it, going so far as wearing the same exact clothes even, we would fail, because you cannot beat time; you can only enjoy it whenever possible, as it zooms by endlessly.