Big Cats

Stories

Holiday Reinhorn

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2007
• eBook ISBN: 9781416584674
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

Big Cats opens with "Charlotte, " in which a young girl with a broken pelvis spies on her voluptuous neighbor during a long, hot summer night, setting the tone of irrepressible curiosity and yearning that is evident throughout the collection. In "Get Away from Me, David, " a bank manager tries to overcome his haunted past as he deals with the aftermath of a minor earthquake and the body of a customer who died in the lobby. "Big Cats" pits two teenage girls against each other in an escalating catfight at the zoo where they work, culminating in a blowout in front of the lion cage.

LAST SEEN

Five days before Abraham Lincoln’s first home football game against Ulysses S. Grant, senior Jennifer Langsam, captain of the girls’ volleyball team and National Merit finalist, discovered a pair of soiled men’s underwear briefs lying in the bottom of her locker. The briefs, stained with an unidentified clear substance, were of a powder-blue color and had been draped over Ms. Langsam’s white athletic shoes in such a manner that foul play was immediately evident, not only to Ms. Langsam and every member of the team but also to Dr. Jean Churchill, girls’ varsity volleyball coach and director of Abraham Lincoln’s physical education programs.

Dr. Churchill wrote down an official, if abbreviated, description of the incident on her clipboard as she stood beside the tearful and obviously shaken Ms. Langsam, who claimed that she would be unable to practice until both the shoes and the briefs had been placed in the trash receptacle and the locker “fucking boraxed by a janitor.”

Dr. Churchill promptly excused the girl from the afternoon’s practice and put a teammate (Ms. Melissa Bone) in charge of escorting her to the TriMet bus shelter located in front of the school at 2400 S.W. Kokanee Terrace.

According to Dr. Churchill, Ms. Bone returned to the gymnasium premises within ten minutes’ time, and volleyball practice resumed, after which Ms. Langsam was last seen by football coaches John Churchill, Donald Radcliffe, James McCortle, and Brian Apple approximately twenty-five minutes later on the A. Lincoln racing track, running 880s in street clothes and bare feet.

Head Football Coach John Churchill: “When I saw Jenny running like that, I blew the whistle and told her to stop. You run on a basalt track without shoes on—it’s going to shred your paws.”

“Oh God, my baby. My chickie. God. Oh God!”—Mrs. Ardiss Langsam, Mother

Dr. Vera L. Rose, Principal: “As a community, an institution, a living, breathing body. We are doing everything. Everything we can.”

“I’ve known Jenny since she was a tiny, tiny girl. She used to water my plants for me when Ken and I had the boys in hockey camp up at Vail. I used to tell her, ‘Eat anything you want while we’re away.’ And she really would.

“Once we came home and all our Häagen-Dazs ice cream was completely gone, and she had put the empty cartons right back in the freezer. I never said anything about it to her. Maybe she thought we wouldn’t notice.”—Mrs. Martha Kern, Neighbor

“Do you think I’m not thinking about it? Of course I am! What do you think I’m thinking? What are you thinking about?”Mr. Russell Langsam, Father

Can you tell us your name, please?

Brian Apple.

Is that your full name?

Yes, it is.

And what is your occupation, sir?

I’m a football coach.

Thank you. And can you tell us, please, what you saw on the afternoon of October 11?

I saw Jenny.

You mean Ms. Langsam?

Yes.

And where did you see her?

Well, first I saw her on the edge of the football field. Then I saw her on the track.

What was she doing on the track?

She was running on it. I guess you could call it running. I’m not sure.

And what were you doing when you saw Ms. Langsam earlier, on the field?

I was with the team and coaching staff, getting ready to practice. That means taking the footballs out of the billow bags and setting them down on the thirty. This is when I saw Jenny, standing by the north goalpost on the opposite end. The track runs in a ring around us, so that was about seventy yards from me.

And you say she was just standing there?

Yeah. [Pause] And I waved at her.

You waved?

Mm-hmm.

Just casually?

I guess.

Dr. Jean Churchill, Girls’ Varsity Volleyball Coach: “There are always going to be pranks at the high school level involving condoms and underwear, and during the homecoming weeks, it’s going to get particularly bad. Some years I’ve seen them [students] all but wallpapering the halls with Trojans and Black Cats.

“In the scheme of things, finding a pair of stained underwear in one’s locker around here before one of the first home football games is relatively minuscule. I have no idea what it was about those blue briefs that set the girl off.”

Interview w/ Apple, Coach Brian (Cont.):

So, in order to see her there and just wave casually, you must know Ms. Langsam fairly well, is that true?

Well, I’m married to her big sister, yeah, so I knew Jenny all along. When I dated my wife, and then later, when I married her, Jenny was in the wedding. She was the flower girl, supposed to throw the petals into the aisle, but she didn’t end up throwing them. She just walked up to the front of the church, holding the straw basket, and there was a big sisterly argument at the reception about it, I can tell you.

How long have you been married to Ms. Langsam’s older sister?

Too long. [Laughs]

And her name is?

Kelly. Kelly Ann.

And of the two, who would you say is better-looking?

Excuse me?

Mrs. Ardiss Langsam, Mother: “When Kelly married Brian, it was the happiest day of Jenny’s life. I mean it. The poor thing was so overcome with excitement, she forgot to pick up her own grandmother and bring her to the church!

“Of course, Russell and I were not too thrilled with Kelly marrying somebody. Well … we know Brian is a wonderful coach and an ambitious person, but let’s just say Jenny was aware that her father and I wanted her sister to go on to college.”

Contents of Backpack Found in A.L.H.S.
Classroom 230/Biology Lab:

1 Red Canvas Wallet w/ TriMet Bus Pass, 2 transfers still available Oregon Driver’s License, #LANGSA360CDK

Cash: $5.35

The Strange Effects of Faith, Volume 2, by Joanna Southcott (247 pgs. with highlights)

Past Finding Out: The Tragedy of Joanna Southcott and Her Successors, by G. R. Balleine, Macmillan, 1956 (151 pgs. with highlights)

1 Jumbo Pack Trident Sugarless Gum (Cinnamon), 3 sticks remaining

1 Mead Spiral Notebook, College-Lined, selected pages used

(See Report)

Mead Notebook, Ms. Jennifer Langsam.

The next time I go out with Dean Schumacher, he will take me to Roxy Heart’s and pay for the whole thing, which, by most standards, is a pretty cheap date.

I will have the Dungeness sandwich. He will have the Reuben à la Roxy. Then we will drive out to Sauvie’s Island and crawl under somebody’s barbed-wire fence. And we will walk out into somebody’s cow pasture holding hands.

The sun will be going down, and I imagine we will walk in the direction of that setting light until a farmer shows up and starts shooting into the air. He will come toward us with a gun, the farmer, and Schu will drop down onto his stomach in the grass.

“Oh, come on,” I’ll whisper to him. “Don’t be such a chicken. You’re doing exactly what he wants.”

Schu will not seem to care a bit about what I’m telling him, though. He won’t get up no matter what I say, so I will just hang on to his hand and keep still and look into the fading color without even blinking, until the farmer is right up on us. He will be old and hillbilly and panting hard.

“You kids better get the hell off my prop...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Charlotte
• Get Away from Me, David
• Big Cats
• Golden Pioneers
• Fuck You
• My Name
• Good to Hear You
• The Heights
• By the Time You Get This
• Seashell
• Africa
• The White Dog
• Last Seen
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author