...Aunt Bernice Allen was the soul of nineteenth century womanhood. Short and matronly round, her appearance was that of the Pillsbury doughboy except for gender. Her white hair was expertly put up in a high coiffure atop her head. Her cheeks were rosy and hinted slightly of rouge. Her high-topped workman’s boots peeked out from beneath a longtime, faded-blue cotton morning dress. A faint aroma of biscuit dough gave one visions of a pan of brown-topped sour dough biscuits cooling atop a wood-burning stove. She wiped the dusty flour from her hands with her apron.
“Why, good morning, Mr. UPS man. You’re certainly here bright and early this morning.”
“Morning, Miss Bernice. Brought you a couple of packages. Looks like one might be from a spice company. Smells like it, too.” Joey Mack held the packages out toward Miss Allen.
“Why, it could be, Joey. I’ve ordered some more nutmeg and cinnamon, some ginger too. Why, Christmas is coming and one needs plenty of spices for sweetbreads and cakes. I’ll make one for you and your family. You know how I like my spices just a bit fresher than the ones in the supermarket. Why, I remember when the Watkins Man used to come around. We always waited and ordered our spices and fixings from him, you know, the Watkins Company. They used to sell medicines, remedies, and spices, sent everything by mail. You remember that from when you were young, do you?” She cocked her head in a nineteenth century flirtatious manner and smiled her charmingly beautiful smile that highlighted her dimples.
“Well, no, Miss Bernice, not really. That was probably before my time. I just look naturally older than I am.” Joey smiled at the older woman as she stepped aside to allow him to enter so that he could sit the parcels down on a nearby table.
~
She crept out from beneath the truck and started through the gate. She watched the pair of man-beasts conversing at the entrance of the house. She kept low, slowly moving forward up the walkway toward them. They still hadn’t seen her. This was almost too easy.
Joey Mack stepped into the darkened interior of the house. Miss Bernice was turning behind him and closing the screen door when she saw the approaching animal. She paused for a moment, mouth agape, and just stared. Then she screamed a long, piercing wail. “Joooooeey, Joey Mack!” She jerked the screen door closed behind her, its slamming sound reverberating through the small house like the discharge of a shotgun.
Joey Mack still had the packages in his hands. Startled by the woman’s scream and the slamming of the screen door, he jerked toward the sound just in time to see the cougar’s final approach. She couldn’t halt her attack once she had launched her body. The chubby female man-beast had slammed the door, but the barrier was flimsy. She felt the mesh wire of the screen door buckle as her head struck the door between the middle and threshold wooden supports. The momentum of her charge tore the screen from the thin wooden supports of the door and carried her body through the shattered door and into the interior of the man-beast’s lair.
Joey Mack watched in astonishment as the mountain lion’s head struck the screen door. It was almost like it was in slow motion. First he observed the bulging of the screen wire as the animal’s head penetrated the soft barrier of the flimsy door. The hole in the wire opened widely and the huge body of the cougar followed the head through the opening. The size of the animal was huge.
“They looked so much smaller on television and in the zoo.” The thought seemed to echo through the UPS driver’s mind. The cougar seemed to fill the small room with its bulk and fury. Joey turned from the brunt of the attack and stumbled into the bedroom on the left of the parlor. He saw Aunt Bernice Allen running toward the kitchen at the rear of the house as he was closing the door. “Run, Bernice, run!” he yelled at the fleeing form. She seemed to just float along the floor. He imagined her short legs and her feet in the large work boots just pumping vigorously beneath the faded dress. He slammed the door behind him.
She stood to full height, shook her head savagely, and blinked her eyes to adjust them to the darkness of the lair. She saw one man-beast dash off to her left, caught the movement of the door, and heard his yell as the door to the room swung shut. Then she glanced right and forward just in time to see the fleeing form of the female man-beast disappear into the rear of the lair. She smiled, long tongue extended over her lips, and started forward.
Two bounds carried her through the open doorway where she confronted the angry female man-beast. The woman had something in her hands, swinging it fiercely in front of her, attempting to keep the roaring puma at bay. All the while the woman’s mouth was open, screaming, the sounds having no meaning other than portraying fear and anger in their sound.
Aunt Bernice had grabbed the number ten iron skillet from the cook stove as she dashed into the kitchen. Now, with both hands clasped around the iron handle of the skillet she waved it frighteningly in the direction of the approaching cat. And she screamed. She couldn’t stop screaming. Her mind was detached from her body’s motions. She couldn’t believe this wild thing was in her house, in her kitchen.
“Well,” she thought. “Well, that’s just about enough. The nerve of this thing!” Bernice swung lustily at the beast’s head with her skillet and struck it a glancing blow, hard enough so that she felt the shock from the impact as it traveled through the handle and into her palm. Then she threw the skillet at the startled animal, lunged for the antique dough rolling pin that lay on the countertop near the stove, and screamed again at the startled animal. “Get out of my kitchen, you, you carpetbagger!” She thought of her mother and her upbringing. Her mother, God rest her soul, would turn over in her grave if she knew that her only daughter had used such a vile epitaph as carpetbagger in reference to anything. But this was an extreme moment. This vile beast was in her house, in her kitchen! “Out, get out!” She waved the rolling pin in the direction of the big cat.
She watched as the frying pan began its descending arc toward her head. She opened her mouth to roar, to frighten, to quell the woman’s attack. But it was too late. This time she had underestimated her frightening appearance on the victim. The frying pan struck her between the end of her nose and the top of her skull. The blow didn’t carry enough force to kill, but it hurt. Pain radiated from her laid back ears all the way down her body to the tip of her tail. She gritted her teeth and tossed her head. She wanted to scream her anger but it hurt too much. Unwittingly, she retreated from the diminutive and aggressive female man-beast. She shook her head again to ease the pain and stop the ringing in her ears. When her vision cleared, she realized that the woman was advancing toward her.
The frying pan was in the air now, thrown by the irate screaming woman. It struck her hindquarters just forward of the hip joint. She could not believe this female man-beast. Still screaming, still advancing, she was now waving what looked like a short, fat, squatty pole. This was too much. She tilted her head back and barred her long fangs and roared forth her rage. Spittle flew from her open mouth and she lashed the air in front of the advancing woman with her right front paw. But it did not deter her attacker. She took another step backward. This was a strange sensation. Never had she retreated before. But this was different; this man-beast showed no fear. And like all cats, she knew that if she was to be injured by her prey, she might not survive. The fear was not caused by possible pain from the blows of the prey, but from the pre-ordained knowledge that when wounded she couldn’t stalk or hunt effectively; and death by starvation was not a likeable alternative. Knowing this fact and realizing just how aggressive her prey had become, she chose to continue to retreat.
As the big cat backed out of the small kitchen, Bernice picked up the large butcher knife that rested in Great-Auntie Maggie’s old bean crock and brandished it above her head. Bernice didn’t know it at the time, but she had just assumed a taller pose by brandishing the knife high over her head. That appearance of menacing height and the attempt to fight back had served to intimidate the attacking animal. The cougar turned in one sudden spin of its body, huge, thick tail swinging behind it, and plunged through the torn screen door to freedom. Aunt Bernice bounded toward the doorway and slammed the solid oak front door closed, ending the attack. She leaned against the door and expelled air from her lungs in a deep sigh of relief.
~
Rising on tiptoe, she peered through the small glass pane at the top of the door panel and watched as the cougar ran past the front of the UPS truck and disappeared into the darkened forest beyond the road.
“It’s gone,” she said softly. Then she remembered Joey Mack. She glanced up. The door to the guest bedroom was closed. She moved slowly toward the door and timidly knocked once, then twice with her small fist on the door.
“Joey, Joey Mack. Are you in there? You can come out now. It’s gone. It went back into the forest. Joey, are you in there?”
She felt like a mother probably did, calling to her children, telling them that all was safe. “It was an instinct, just a protective instinct, I guess,” she mused to herself. “How dare that animal invade my kitchen, threaten that nice UPS man. How dare she!”
The bedroom door opened slowly and Joey Mack peered around the door cautiously, eyes very large, searching, looking past Miss Bernice into the shadowed room. Gradually he opened the door wider and prepared to step out. Then he saw the knife in Bernice’s hand and moved to shut the door again.
Aunt Bernice realized that she still held the knife in an attack mode. Sheepishly she dropped her arm and released the knife. “It’s all right, Joey, the animal’s gone. Come on out now before you mess up my clean bedroom.”
“Yes’m,” was all he said....
