Mini Story

When The Cat’s Away: Thursday Inspiration

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Thursday Inspiration #306 – “Alabama”.
 This is my response to the challenge.

For this week’s Thursday Inspiration prompt, Jim Adams asks us to respond to the challenge by using the prompt word ‘wheel’, referring to the song “Alabama” by the Neil Young or another one of his songs, or anything else we feel fits. Since I’ve always been a pushover for a red car, I’m going with a little story I wrote based on Jim’s photo prompt.

Image from Jim Adams @ Thursday Inspiration

When The Cat’s Away

I came home to find my apartment keys didn’t work. Changed locks. Inside, laughter …. his and someone else’s.

Through the window, I saw him: that slick black moustache I used to trace with my finger, now nuzzling another woman’s neck. Her red Cadillac …. the one she’d stupidly put in both their names …. gleamed in the driveway.

Three weeks. I’d been gone three weeks caring for my dying mother.

This woman was everything I wasn’t …. delicate, blonde, trusting. The kind who wouldn’t notice missing jewelry or forged signatures until it was too late.

I could call out, warn her. Instead, I walked to the Cadillac, hot-wired it in forty seconds flat. My mother had taught me useful things.

As I peeled out, I saw his face in the rearview, finally rattled, finally scared. I lit a cigarette. Tasted like freedom.

Let him explain this one. Let him charm his way out of grand theft auto charges.

The blonde would figure it out eventually. They always did.


This is “Red Cadillac and a Black Moustache” by Robert Gordon w/ Link Wray


LYRICS

Who you been lovin’ since I been gone
A long tall man with a red coat on
Good-for-nothing-baby you’ve been doing me wrong
Who you been lovin’ since I been gone
Who you been lovin’ since I been gone

Who’s been playing around with you
A real cool cat with eyes of blue
My foolin’ baby are you being true
Who’s been fooling around with you
Who’s been fooling around with you

Somebody saw you at the break of day
Dining and a-dancing in the cabaret
He was long and tall, he had plenty of cash
He had a red cadillac and a black moustache

He held your hand and he sang you a song
Who you been lovin’ since I been gone
Who you been lovin’ since I been gone

Who’s been playing around with you
A real cool cat with eyes of blue
My foolin’ baby are you being true
Who’s been fooling around with you
Who’s been fooling around with you

Somebody saw you at the break of day
Dining and a-dancing in the cabaret
He was long and tall, he had plenty of cash
He had a red cadillac and a black moustache

He held your hand and he sang you a song
Who you been lovin’ since I been gone
Who you been lovin’ since I been gone……

Writer(s): Lillian May, Willie Bea Thompson
Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com

Thursday Inspiration #306 Alabama

Many thanks to Jim Adams for this week’s inspiration. Thanks to you all for stopping by for a look and a listen.

That’s all she wrote, kids. See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2025

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