Face Off in the Parking Lot

We pull up to the fence and get out of the car. It's a chain link fence with a steep grass bank on the other side and we can see into the gardens of houses on Sumner far below. Five or six cats are running up the bank to greet us, tails aloft. We still can't get near them, but I guess they've come to recognise us. Bess fills the two plastic water bowls and I leave a couple of piles of dried food in the usual places. We walk back to the car and watch everyone chow down.

'Look,' I say pointing, 'there's the fluffy one. I haven't seen him in a while.'

He trots across the Walmart parking lot to join the others. The others are a tabby whom Bess has provisionally named Tree Cat, two black and white with markings which give them the appearance of Adolf Hitler - mother and son, by our estimation - a black cat, and a sleek grey who closely resembles our own Grace.

We do this every Tuesday evening on behalf of the Feral Cat Coalition, feeding the strays here and over behind Advance Auto Parts; because there will always be stray cats, so it's better to encourage healthy, stable colonies which can be more easily trapped, neutered, and then returned.

Sometimes we show up and there will be some guy sat in his car. Occasionally it will be some guy who lives in his car. Such is the economy. We leave them alone and they leave us alone, but tonight it's just us and the cats.

It's cold so we get back into the car and sit for a few more minutes, just watching the gang.

Another vehicle pulls up, a red Chevrolet. The door opens dispensing a massive dog, an English bull terrier which runs around the grass, wagging its tail and barking happily.

'Oh fuck,' I say.

'Are you kidding me?' Bess asks rhetorically.

The dog lays a turd, then another one. It doesn't seem to have noticed the cats.

'It isn't er… doing anything,' I suggest, hopefully.

'Let's wait and see.'

The dog, which is fairly large and muscular, suddenly barks and runs to the fence, after the cats.

'Oh hell no!' Bess leaps from the car. I get out too.

There's a woman sat in the other vehicle, window down, playing with her phone. She hears us talking and gets out. She's Hispanic with hair dyed different colours, maybe thirty. Her clothes look cheap and feature glittering panels. I'm about to say something about keeping the dog on a leash but I hear my wife's voice rise up like an angry guest on Jerry Springer. 'You better control your dog, bitch!'

Without looking I can almost sense my wife's head doing the cobra thing, side to side. I'm slightly shocked and even a little depressed that the term bitch has already entered the negotiation process. I don't think I'm going to be able to get the lid back on this one.

'Who the fuck are you calling bitch?' the woman demands, not without some justification, I feel.

I raise my hands in the air like a school teacher. 'There are plenty of dog parks. You can't just let your dog run around here.'

'She needed the toilet. She was crying!'

'Sure, but we're here to feed the cats, and your dog should really be on a leash.'

'There are leash laws in this city, bitch,' my wife proposes, or something along those lines.

'Maybe if we could just not call each other bitch for a moment,' I suggest, but no-one hears me.

There follows some more hooting and hollering and then we're back in our car, driving away with no idea of what just happened beyond knowing that the situation wasn't going to get any better. My wife had a lousy day at work and wasn't in the mood for bullshit. She doesn't often get angry, but when she does it's quite impressive.

'The cats will have run away,' I tell her, hoping that I'm right.

We drive down towards Lowes where we see a cop. Bess took a photo of the red Chevrolet on her phone, so we have the license plate, and you don't just let your dog out to shit everywhere, no leash and with no intention of cleaning it up.

We turn around and drive back up to Walmart. The red Chevrolet is still there, but no dog so she must have called it back. This is a relief because taking it to a cop would have felt a bit too much like the actions of one of those twitchy fuckers who posts on Next Door about strangers seen calling at houses in the neighbourhood.

We go home.