The Cat at Light's End

THE CAT AT LIGHT'S END TELLS fourteen stories set against the backdrop of Irvington, an inner-city neighborhood in Portland, Oregon.  The stories reveal moments from the lives of diverse protagonists, ranging in age from fourteen weeks to 102 years.  Here are capsule synopses for the stories:    * In "The Cat at Light's End, " a family lives at Irvington's edges in a van.  Jayne gains new hope from the example of their cat asleep on the dashboard.     * Bruised by life, Kim walks through fog to a Broadway Bridge jump.
 What would have been a one-night stand with a passing motorist in "Zigzag" changes Kim's plans.    * A responsible and devout Christian, Webb Rowalski panics after his car strikes a pedestrian.  At his civil trial in "Fear & Trembling, " Webb renews his faith.    * Benno of "Marbles on the Loose" throws out his marbles in a desperate giveaway to regain friends.  But how does he win his marbles back?    * Pliny, out walking to shake up his 102-year-old bones in "The President, He Slept Here, " falls.
 While unconscious, he talks with Jimmy Carter, visiting Irvington in 1978.    * In "Red Ball, " a fourteen-week-old boy discovers, among his playthings, a self.    * Trinity watches her parents separate and longs to make right what is the heartbreak of "Valentines in Valhalla."    * With Sisyphean endurance, retiree Laura in "La Mosca" accepts she has but months to live.  She remembers la mosca, the human fly from years before who showed her grace-filled acceptance.    * The high-tech metaphor of "Timed Out" changes the familiar December-May adultery story.
 The errant husband discovers, a second time, the woman he first loved.    * Having left hippie-era parents, now working produce at a natural foods grocery, Austin finds something to give others with a Diggers-like gesture in "Talking Cabbage Heads."    * In "Past Perfect, " a busy realtor, Kyla, anxiously awaits the return of her son Alex from college, not knowing he intends to step off the treadmill of education.    * MiniDisc money to play mp3s is reason enough for teenage Cydney to get a job.
 In "Cydney's Bent, " she learns customer service the hard way.    * "Espresso'd" relates a cautionary tale: Cripplingly self-focused, computer guy Nelse pursues a feminine fantasy--CaraJo, the coffee barista--only to be hoisted on his lookist petard.    * Insurance actuary Marsha Ngo in "Steps" knows risk.  Away from work, though, can she accept that life's joys and risks are often inseparable?