a short story by Jerry Zinn

I am reminded of my English teacher, an ornery old woman with wet hair and Basset Hound cheeks, each time I come across Shakespeare. She warned me then of how the great writer left fingerprints everywhere, like a hesitant kleptomaniac. She was impressed with the sound of that, as she so often was with her original turns of phrase. Shakespeare, in her estimation, was responsible for his works and all works since.

Mrs. Lasseter-Childs’s sterling reputation contrasted drastically with her in-class conduct. I found her rude and impatient — she frequently referenced the “futility of instructing ill-tempered youths.” She once called me a “reprehensible cad,” when I suggested Much Ado About Nothing was not the funniest thing ever written. Alternatively, former students described her as, “thoughtful and energetic.” More than ten times elected “Teacher of the Year” in our yearbook, The Magnifier. 

My older brother Eddie, who espoused her virtues for years, was baffled. “She must have dementia or a blood clot because she’s the reason I’m an English major. Remember how I used to hate reading? I was still burning novels for fun until a month into her class.” 

Her Jekyll-and-Hyde personality frustrated me during my senior year of prep school, given that I only met Hyde. We butted heads frequently. I, by challenging her grandiose assertions. She, by negating my “ignorant” point of view. I, by whispering jokes to keep myself awake. She, by calling me a hellion, a rascal, a cad – Victorian insults.

One of Mrs. Lasseter-Childs’s more annoying traits was a troubling fixation with her cat Townsend. Dozens of his pictures covered the cork board. Oil black with judgmental eyes and a crooked spine, he cast an uneasy darkness. “Townsend Fever,” as we called it, appeared without warning, more out of place than her rants on judicial reform. Though I never owned a cat, even Lisa (from a household of three calicos) commented, “it’s really too much.” 

When one of my classmates was overcome with boredom, he broke a pencil on his desk.

“A broken pencil? May I have it? Townsend adores pencils. Unusual I know. Doesn’t eat them, but he chews them as a dog does a stick. I place them in the bowl with his wet food — he’s partial to sockeye salmon and Ticonderogas. They stick out of his litterbox like yellow weeds. He’s an author trapped in a cat — a Greek curse.” 

Mrs. Lasseter-Childs was an Anglophile. She quoted Churchill, hated French cuisine, and extolled the virtues of 1:00PM high tea in the living room of her “residence.” In the classroom, Shakespeare posters announced old festivals in cosmopolitan cities: Paris, London, Toronto, Seattle. I often wondered if she attended them or found a deal at a yard sale. We read three of his plays that year – Much Ado About Nothing and two others.

Thankfully, the school year ended. Following our graduation she retired, a year shy of earning a 30-year plaque. One night, over beers from our dad’s garage fridge, Eddie dared me to visit her. 

“Just go to her house. Get her talking about Shakespeare and slip in, hey have you had any aneurisms? At least you’ll get an answer.”

Eddie uncovered her address in an old paper directory.

Pride and curiosity — I never backed down from Eddie’s challenges — took me to her porch the next afternoon at 12:59PM, nursing a dull headache. A small house with a tin roof, tucked behind another home — hardly a residence. The house poorly attempted an English accent, with ivy clawing up the cracked brick, and concrete angels lying among flowers. We were not in Hertfordshire. After ringing the bell, I considered leaving. If it was a brain episode, what was I supposed to say?

 “Company!” she exclaimed, announcing my arrival. “Very well then. It’s you. Just in time for high tea.”

 “I don’t mean to bother you…”

“Nonsense. Come in then.”

The saccharine scent of mulling spice candles was suffocating. Beside the door a stale litter box contained the peculiar mixture of pencils and pellets. She offered me a leather chair in her cramped living room, busy with a patchwork of Oriental rugs and stacks of New Yorkers.

“This is a surprise,” she said, filling a teacup with boiling water. “There’s English breakfast, Earl Gray, and Darjeeling. Steep for two minutes. Not a second either side. Earl Gray is the most traditional.”

Mrs. Lasseter-Childs was miniature in the tall chair, wearing a flat, lipless smile, which drew her cheeks to the side like stage curtains. A gas fireplace crackled, while cold air buzzed from the window AC unit. 

“Shakespeare… I didn’t really appreciate him in your class like I should have.”

“Another affliction of young age. Careful now! It hasn’t been two minutes. Let the cup be.”

Her presence was unnerving, and my headache was pounding. I felt like I was back in her class.

“Mrs. Lasseter-Childs, I know I caused trouble this year. Maybe I wasn’t the best student. I apologize. It’s just, since I came on campus, people always said your class was the best in the school. You had my brother, Eddie. He’s three years older. Eddie never read a book for fun in his life until your class – he used to burn them. Now he’s an English major at Brown. He was shocked we never had the vibrant discussions he loved. I just wondered if… did something happen?”

After checking her watch, Mrs. Lasseter-Childs took a first sip. I followed her lead, burning my lips.

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” 

Shakespeare, I assumed. By the way she held her head high and gazed in the distance. 

“Frankly, my boy, I was not myself this year. A regrettable truth. Townsend’s health took a turn, just before school you understand…” she trailed off and sipped Earl Gray. “Have you seen him?”

“Townsend? Your cat? No.”

“Oh he can be a right ol’ beast! It’s a special bond we share — Townsend and me. I was Lasseter you see. My husband was Childs – Townsend Childs. When we were divorced, he was free of me without a hitch, since he never added my surname. We were married a long time. Mere hours after we signed the papers, he was already back in London. I adopted a stray cat and gave him the most fitting name. One Townsend leaves, another enters. And if that cat would come when I — oh! There he is!”

When I saw him, I dropped my steeping Darjeeling. Not the most traditional but just as scalding.

“Isn’t that just like Townsend?” she asked, stroking his undular back. “Plain sight.” 

Mrs. Lasseter-Childs hadn’t noticed the teacup shards or the darkness spreading on the Oriental rug. 

“He’s been cross with me. Hasn’t eaten since they stopped stocking sockeye at the grocer.”

The cat blended into the over-decorated space. But once I saw Townsend’s judgmental eyes, I couldn’t look away. Seeing in them the answer to my question. Ten years on, whenever Shakespeare appears in a bookstore or in a new film adaptation, I remember that afternoon at high tea. A peculiar old woman, dead now, petting a cat covered in baseball-stitch scars. Its paws pointed bizarrely — perhaps she performed the job. Her beloved Townsend. Stuffed.