Jupiter and the Cats

By G.J. LaGarr

If you like cats as I do, you have perhaps thought about the possibility that they have a mysterious power of communicating with humans simply by staring into your eyes. Every cat has their own personality, and some seem to read your mind, even to the point of being creepy. I never thought my cats were creepy, but they definitely expose the window to their soul when they stare into my eyes. I suppose all they really want is to be fed and petted, but sometimes it seems like it’s a lot more than just that. Cat lovers know exactly what I’m referring to. So the next time you have your cat on your lap, look deep into their eyes, and I think you will see way beyond just their eyes. Just like Jupiter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662451706

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Jupiter and the Cats

G.J. LaGarr

Copyright © 2022 G.J. LaGarr

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

ISBN 978-1-6624-5169-0 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-5170-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 1

Late summer brought good fishing, swimming, hunting, and time to start thinking about going back to school. Samuel (Sam) Matthews was twelve years old, and his younger sister, Sadie, just turned ten. Sam and Sadie spent a good portion of their hot summer days at the popular swimming hole just a short distance from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They caught an abundance of crawdads and took them home for their family to eat, along with some catfish that Sam caught on his stick-and-string fishing pole.

Their parents did their best to provide for their two children, and in spite of being as poor as church mice, they managed to put a hot meal on the dinner table, a new pair of shoes each year, and a warm coat. Other than that, they scrimped and saved, having to turn to the town church and ask for donations. The Church of All Christians had a relatively decent-sized congregation that gave generously as much as meager-salaried parishioners could give.

There wasn’t a lot of employment opportunities in the small town of Peyton, Louisiana. Mostly farmers made up a good portion of the population of approximately 1,500 within a seven-square-mile radius.

Sam and Sadie’s father, Tim Matthews, worked as a security guard in the tiny, little bank that had only two bank tellers and a manager. He brought home only about $150 per week, and that was hardly enough to feed two children, a wife, and himself. Betty Matthews made a little extra money by taking in ironing, baking bread and rolls for church bake sales, and sewing an occasional quilt and clothing to sell at flea markets and yard sales.

They were most definitely a churchgoing family. Betty made sure that she raised her children with religion, just as her mother and father did. She was the last survivor of the Perkins family since her last remaining sister died a few years past. Betty was dedicated to her family and to her Lord Jesus. Tim Matthews, although a good father and husband, and a hard worker, wasn’t really convinced that there was an invisible man in the sky who watched over all of them, but to make Betty happy, he went to church with her and the kids.

They all lived in a small house that had about two and a half bedrooms. The half bedroom belonged to Sam. He was cramped somewhat but was at least happy to have his own room, which was basically a closed-in porch, made into a bedroom. He had a tiny, little television (this was, of course, long before video games, not that the Matthews could ever afford a computer, and cell phones were yet to be out on the market).

They didn’t even have a telephone, and communicating between the family members was, to say the least, somewhat difficult. They also did not have an automobile, so Tim walked to work every morning, rain or shine, close to two miles into the main part of town.

They did, however, have some farms animals, chickens, and a couple of horses, but there was nowhere to tie the horses in front of the bank, so Tim chose to walk to work. He was also concerned about his family in an emergency, needing to ride into town, so the horses were for Betty and the kids, basically.

Every year, Betty planted a bountiful garden that produced most all the vegetables they could possibly ever need, and even a few fruit trees, and she canned the peaches, plums, and tomatoes as well as grapes off the vines. Citrus fruit grew well down there, so they had plenty of lemons, limes, grapefruit, and she even tried a small little orange tree, which was doing pretty well. Of course, the melons and cantaloupe were everywhere along with beans of several types. Pumpkins, squash, and cornstalks were everywhere as well, so the Matthew family was blessed with getting a year’s worth of food in their cellar. Being resourceful by nature, they usually had most everything they needed providing severe weather and flooding didn’t hit their area.

Betty had fought for years with the school board and finally got the town’s school bus to go just a short way outside of their boundaries to pick up her two children for school every day. They were a poor family in terms of wealth but very rich in love and faith. Betty was also resourceful at saving money, so after five years of scrimping her money from sewing, growing, and selling, the parents got enough money to put in the bank and eventually qualified for a small business loan. They got enough money from the loan to purchase a used car as well. Of course, Tim and Betty had to learn to drive and get their driver’s license, but Tim told Betty she could have the car.

He still chose to walk to work, but on cold days or inclement weather, she would drive him to and from work. No arguments, she told her husband. He complied. Tim and Betty decided to try their luck with buying a small little grocery store with their bank loan, so Tim had to eventually quit his job as security guard at the bank to tend to their little store.

It was located just on the outskirts of Peyton, and the residents were all very grateful that they had a second choice and place to buy their goods. They all said that the Crayton’s store was just getting ridiculously high in prices. Tim took care of the stocking and delivery runs for the store, while Betty minded the cash register and did the bookkeeping end of the business.

They even put the kids to work after school, doing small chores like sweeping and mopping the floors, cleaning the glass windows, occasionally labeling and pricing the items. That was the fun part of it, and Sam and Sadie always argued about whose turn it was to do that. Once the kids finished their chores at the store, Tim took over the register and front of the store, while Betty drove the kids home so she could start with supper and allow the kids to do their homework.

Tim insisted on closing up the store at 7:00 and walking home. Betty wanted to pick him up in the car, but he wanted her home with the kids and tending to supper since he was always famished when he got home. That worked out for Betty and the kids.

Tim had two other brothers and a sister who all lived within a one-hundred-square-mile radius of one another. Pearl Dawson (formerly Matthews) lived in Baton Rouge, while Ray Matthews and Earl Matthews lived around ten miles east of Baton Rouge, but Ray and Earl lived around seven miles away from each other. A large lake divided them.

Ray was married to Jenny for nearly twenty years and worked as a mail carrier, while Jenny was a substitute teacher who worked on an as needed basis. They had no children.

Earl was an early retiree who had to have hip surgery after a fall off a ladder while working at a construction site. They mostly lived on the settlement from the company that Earl worked for, claiming that the equipment he was using, an extended ladder, was defective, sending him fifteen feet down to the ground and landing on his left hip.

The actual truth was that he had been drinking while on that ladder, but no one was around to witness it. His libel suit rendered a pretty decent settlement, so he didn’t even have to claim social security, but that didn’t stop him from making a claim on his disability. They didn’t even ask him about his settlement with the company, so he managed to swindle the Social Security Administration on top of his settlement, and he managed to pay off his farm and retire quite comfortably. His wife, Pauline, worked part-time as a church counselor for youths who needed help along with their families. Pauline was a good woman, as was Jenny. Pauline’s husband, not so much.

Earl was a heavy drinker, and it was rumored around town that he even had his own small little still in the back of his barn, designed to yield enough whiskey for his own personal use.

Earl used his hip injury as an excuse to Pauline to drink, indicating that the whiskey was the only thing that helped with the pain of surgery that left him in constant pain and discomfort. Naturally, Pauline believed him since she was rather gullible and naive. It worked for him, anyway. She never argued with him as it was useless after so many years since he would sneak off and take a drink whenever he wanted to, which was usually always. He tended to be somewhat mean when he drank whiskey, as most men are, so that was all the more reason she just left him alone.

Earl and Pauline did have a son; however, he joined the Army in 1969 and was sent to Vietnam, where John was killed in about four months into his tour. Earl was so devastated he fell to pieces and basically just didn’t give a shit about hardly anything or anyone anymore after that.

That was when he really started to drink. Pauline, however, turned to her church and her Lord.

She prayed to him to give Earl the strength to overcome their tragedy, but nothing seemed to help for years. Then one day, he seemed to come to the end of his rope and was on the verge of suicide when he just stopped drinking. He did, however, sink into a never-ending depression, and he fell deeper and deeper into the black hole of depression when he just decided to give up and drown his sorrows into a whiskey bottle. That may have been a temporary fix, but as soon as he sobered up, he went right back into a drinking binge again. This went on like this for several years. Pauline knew this was taking a toll on his health, but he didn’t care.

He just turned sixty-one, but his face looked like he was ninety-three. Still, Pauline prayed for him because that was the kind of person she was. She tried and tried to get him to go to church with her, but he said it just wasn’t for him. And he asked for her to stop asking him to go. So she stopped.

Ray was still carrying mail for his county at the age of fifty-seven. He liked to keep in shape; otherwise, he would have retired since he was eligible even at fifty-five to retire. The post office had awesome benefits, so he decided he would work until sixty. Jenny planned to retire from the schools when Ray did so they could go together and possibly do some traveling. She always wanted to take a European tour, so they made it part of their bucket list.

Pearl married a somewhat wealthy architect who, for the most part, was a decent man, but he told her from the beginning that he couldn’t have children of his own and had no desire to adopt. So Pearl remained childless her entire life. She would occasionally drive to Peyton and take Sadie and Sam for the weekend to give her brother a break and visit with the kids. She had the extra space for them. Jim Dawson was never particularly thrilled about having them there, but he let Pearl have her way, and the two kids were relatively well-behaved and caused virtually no trouble at all. He was just the complaining kind of guy who liked everything perfect about his house and didn’t want them to touch anything.

They enjoyed seeing their aunt Pearl but felt a little uncomfortable around Jim since they could sense he really got annoyed at the very thought of them spending time in his immaculately clean and ridiculously organized house. He provided well for Pearl and told her to buy new bath towels every time they slept over, which was only about one weekend every three or four months.

If there was even one string out of place on one of her dish towels, he would have her cut it up in rags to wax down his precious candy-apple red Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Pearl was pretty sure that if there were a fire in the garage, the car would be saved before she was. Well, maybe not.

Well, no, maybe. It was hard to say. She hoped it was never put to the test. Then one day he drove up to their circular driveway, in a pink Corvette convertible, and she thought he must have had a moment of weakness, where he felt he should do something totally out of his stingy behavior and buy her something she never in a million years thought he would buy for her. It never occurred to her. She often wondered if he didn’t do something he felt guilty about and wanted to make up for it within his conscience. Either way, she loved it.

When she pulled up in front of Tim and Betty’s little ram shack to pick up the kids, she felt like she was gloating and showing off. She told Tim that although she loved it, she felt a little ridiculous in it, but not enough to ask him to take it back. They all laughed at that.

Sam and Sadie thought it was the coolest thing they ever experienced, riding in a convertible with the top down, wind in their hair. When they went to visit Aunt Pearl, she would take them to amusement parks, carnivals, movie theaters, museums, swimming pools, out to nice restaurants, and even on ferryboat rides down in the gulf in New Orleans. She wanted them to have fun and do things that she would never get to do with her own child (if she had one, that is).

She explained that to Tim and Betty because she didn’t want them to feel inferior in any way or that she was in any way trying to outdo them. She loved her brother, and she loved their kids. She had the utmost respect for Betty and thought of her more like a sister than a sister-in-law.

In spite of all the fun they had together, Sam and Sadie were still glad to get home to their parents and sleep in their own bed. They loved their Aunt Pearl, but no one was like Mom and Dad.

They would also enjoy going to visit Uncle Ray and Aunt Jenny. They were really nice too, but they had to share one bedroom (with bunk beds) when they went over there. They too had a limited income, and they felt more like they were at home when they were over there. Sometimes, Sam would go with Uncle Ray on his mail route and get to talk to a lot of people.

There was this really nice old lady in a wheelchair who lived with her daughter, and she always had some fresh-baked cookies for him. She had the coolest dog he ever saw. She said it was an afghan. And it was a very expensive dog. She called him Ali-Babba. He didn’t seem to like to be petted too much. Sam decided the dog was too snobbish for him.

Sadie stayed home and made fresh-baked cookies with Aunt Jenny and go to the park to feed the pigeons and ducks. Once in a while, Uncle Ray would take them to a drive-in movie that was about twenty-five miles away from their town. Sam liked monster movies, and Sadie liked animal movies.

They all had fun either way.

On one occasion, they went to visit Uncle Earl and Aunt Pauline on their farm. That wasn’t very fun though because Uncle Earl was always drunk, and Sadie didn’t like the way he would stare at her when she wore her summer shorts. It made her extremely nervous, but Sam told her that was just the way he was, and he was harmless. He always gave Sam quarters and Sadie, candy.

Sadie mentioned it to her father, but he said, Don’t think nothing of it. Uncle Earl is harmless.

Sam told her to just ignore it and, next time, not to wear such short shorts around him. Even at ten, it pissed off Sadie that he would be so unconcerned. She squinted her eyes at him in disdain.

Even at ten, Sadie knew there was something that really bothered her about Uncle Earl and the way he would look at her. Even at ten.

Labor Day weekend was about three days away from beginning. Tim and Betty Matthews had decided to take Tim’s friend Max up on the offer of driving down to Galveston and taking a ride on his shrimp boat for the holiday.

They put a sign on the door that they would be closed on the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday for the holiday and for everyone who needed something urgently to try to get it before Saturday. It also mentioned that they would return on Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.

The Matthews had a pretty good little business going with the store, and by Christmas, they were making about a $400–$500 a week profit on their little store, which was fine with them. They had the nicest Christmas they ever had. Even the kids bought presents for everyone ’cause they earned money from their parents for working in the store for a couple of hours after school every day.

Sam bought his father a really nice Black and Decker electric drill. He also bought his mother a new electric mixer. He bought his sister a pink fuzzy sweater and bought candy and snack trays for all three of his aunt and uncles. They had a beautiful Christmas tree with a bunch of lights and decorations. Candy canes everywhere, a Christmas ham with all the trimmings, all the home-baked cookies you could eat, a ton of presents for everyone. They celebrated as though it were their last Christmas all together.

It was.

Chapter 2

Pearl Dawson just got home from curtain shopping at the mall in Baton Rouge when she got a phone call from Sadie. She was surprised that Sadie even had her phone number.

Auntie Pearl, I would like to know if I could talk to you next weekend, just me and you. I want to tell you something really important, and my parents don’t think it’s a big deal, and neither does my brother. He thinks I’m just being a dumb girl, but I think it’s important, but I don’t want to tell you until I see you.

"Okay, honey, I tell you what, I’ll pick you up at your house when you get out of school on Friday, and you can stay with me all weekend until Sunday afternoon, but be sure to ask your