Why Missouri?  You may recall a bit of advice from Vonnegut in Cat’s Cradle.  Commit this to memory: “Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from god.”  God put this suggestion in mike’s head by getting him hired to work as a boss-man psychologist at Fort Leonard Wood (aka Fort Lost in the Woods).  My beloved servant mike would no longer be at the bottom of the psychologist heap.  Instead, he would have risen to the lofty equivalent of Staff Sergeant for psychologists.  He was so proud.

When anybody starts a climb to the top, moves happen. So, mike hired a pack of thieving movers, The Yellow Knight Moving Company.  In time, mike learnt the Yellow Knight feared complaints more than a deer fears headlights, but with one difference.  If the Yellow Knight suspected complaints, he did not freeze.  He ran.

Yellow Knight’s squires arrived to load the trailer 4 days after Chaucey got folded into his grave. Roberta didn’t trust them.  She jailed me, Bart, Fielding, Quine, and Chicago in an empty restroom.  She shut the door and put a sign on it that read “CATS. DO NOT OPEN. USE HALL BATHROOM” in English and Spanish.   Anybody wanting to have a pee or what-have-you had to use the other toilet.  Perhaps with a team of over-educated squires, the sign would have worked.  These squires looked to have spent more time in tattoo parlors than schools. 

It was just a matter of time.  One of the squires opened the door, freeing us.  We all skedaddled.  Everybody but Bart headed to my old bedroom that Roberta had, without my permission, made into a nursery.  Bart took a different route.  Out of the house like bat out of hell she went.  Roberta, almost as fast, locked us into the now unfurnished nursery.  By the time she rushed out the front door, Bart had vanished. When mike told me about it, he said anybody, including the squires, could see the steam coming out of her ears.  I should have told her that with illiterates it is better to rely on pictures rather than words.  I could also hear from the nursery her saying some not very kind stuff to the squires. The prescient Yellow Knight could not be reached. 

The longer Bart was invisible, the more murderously angry Roberta got. The squires stayed clear of her too.  When they finally had packed out the house, they got their truck started and rolling to Missouri.  These squirers may have had profound dyslexia in Spanish and English, but they were smarter than to dare mention a tip to Roberta.  That’s why they are all still alive.

Now picture it.  There we were.  The house was empty.  The next thing was drive to Fort Leonard Wood.  Fielding’s fate was in the balance.  In theory, she was still the responsibility of her across the street neighbor.  That neighbor kept assuring that cats should decide for themselves where to live.  When asked if Fielding was going to Missouri, he said, “Yes.”  Fielding was grateful ever after.  On Fielding’s tale about it, mike was the conduct of the bus.  He, not Roberta, had given her a ticket to ride. 

Roberta felt good for Fielding, but she was obsessing about Bart.   Roberta announced she would stay in San Antonio until she found Bart.   Bart heard that.  She felt so guilty she came out.  She may have preferred to stay in the Barrio, but if Roberta loved her that much, as Bart told me, “You must reward that kind of love in a servant.”  We were all tucked into the two cars: Millie and Juan.  Millie was Roberta’s white Chrysler 300 and Juan was mike’s burgundy Mercury Marquis. Juan insisted that mike put on a cabbie’s hat whenever he drove him.  The cars fired up.   The Northeast journey had begun.

I must mention the sadness that gnawed my heart as I felt as I prepared to leave.  Walt, my rescuer at Martinez Creek, refused an offer from mike to come to Missouri with us.  Walt had befriended mike and they respected each other.  When asked why he was staying in Texas rather then come to Missouri, Walt explained his rolling-stone lifestyle wasn’t suited for living with servants.  Walt asked for one last favor.  “Feed me a last bowl of my favorite vittles on the porch.  It will be my last supper with you., a sign of our everlasting friendship.”  And so it happened.  And so it was.  We love you, Walt.