Eat The Cat

Doctor Blake hesitated, then said, "There is one thing you could try."

"What is it?" I lifted my head out of my hands and shuffled my chair up to his desk like a mad seal. "Please, for God's sake, tell me!"

"You have a cat, don't you?"

"I do! I do!"

"Getting old by now, I should think."

"He is! Yes! Very old!"

"The one thing you could try, Vincent—you COULD try—and this is by no means prescriptive, let's make that clear—the one thing you COULD try is..."

"Yes? Yes?"

"Eating your cat."

I gawked at him, silent. Had he just said what I thought he'd said?

"You want me—if I heard you correctly, Doctor—to... eat my cat?"

"I don't WANT you to. I'm merely proposing, if indeed you are as desperate as you say you are, there's a chance it might fix the problem."

"But... Eating... A cat?"

"Yes, exactly. Just pretend it's porkchops or something."

"It WILL be a porkchop!"

"That's the spirit!"

"No! The cat!" I hid my head back in my hands and groaned. "The fuckin' cat's name is Porkchop."

"Oh... Oh-ho, ho ho! Oh, boy! That's funny."

It wasn't. Porkchop had been in the family for twenty years, he was more an heirloom than a pet. But then, Doctor Blake had been our family practitioner for twice that long and he'd never given us bad advice.

"I don't know about this. He's my mother's cat... I mean, he was, before... you know."

Doctor Blake cleared his throat. "I do, and I'd hate to see you suffer the same fate, which is why I'm straying into unorthodoxy here."

I looked up. "Say that again."

"What?"

"That last thing you said, say it again."

"It's because I don't want to see you suffer, that's why I'm straying into unorthodoxy."

"Stray. What about a stray? If I found a stray there'd be no need to butcher Porkchop."

Doctor Blake slid his spectacles off his nose and placed them carefully on the desk. "No, no... It has to be your own cat."

"Why?"

"It just does."

I looked at him with suspicion. Why would that matter? How does any of this work, anyway? "Okay, okay," I said, attempting to recenter. "Explain to me the science."

He shook his head and shrugged. I copied him, mockingly. "You don't know? Christ, with all due respect, Doctor, you sound like a maniac."

"Vincent, listen to me," he said with sudden earnestness, "before I came to Kelby Oaks I studied all around the world, from the cutting edge of medicine in Europe, to the shamanic rituals of the Po Hi in Polynesia, and in all my travels I only ever heard of one"—he struck a bony finger in the air—"cure for your ailment. Will it work? I don't know. But if an animal has to die in the experiment, best to carry it out precisely, right?"

I nodded, meekly.

"So," he said, leaning back in his massive leather chair. "Be sensible. Eat Porkchop."

"God... This is quite the pickle," I said, then an image of Porkchop stretched out in a baguette with slices of pickle over his eyes flashed before me, and I regretted the idiom.

"Hey, here's a thought," said the doctor. "You're a screenwriter, you're used to putting yourself in a character's shoes, are you not? Why not invent someone who COULD eat a cat, and then channel that persona to complete the task?"

"Channel the persona?"

"Yes, you know, like actors do when they recite your scripts. You can rehearse here first, and I'll teach you how to kill the animal painlessly. That way you won't risk, er, putting the cat among the pigeons, so to speak."

"An actor hasn't recited one of my scripts in years," I muttered.

But it was worth a shot. I'd told him I'd do anything, and fair dues, Porkchop was old, blind, all he did was creep around the apartment denying space a better use, hardly different from my dirty underpants, philosophically speaking.

I drove home. I got drunk. I slid my keyboard from under my desk and, after I'd feng-shuied my lucky Hula Doll into harmony with the Great Tao, I got to work. Somewhere between 2 and 4 a.m. I succeeded in crafting an appropriate character—that is to say, I had estimated a man, and wrote him in a scenario that ought coax his exploitable traits. Observe:

FADE IN:

INT. ALIEN SPACESHIP - NIGHT

ARNOLD THE SPUT, exiled king of Panglomodus and intergalactic freedom fighter, together with his young wife PAMELA FOUR, and concubine BARRY, is chained to the mechanisms in the alien spaceship's hull. There is no hope of escape.

It's been weeks since they've eaten, and Pamela Four, who is pregnant with Arnold's prophesied offspring, cannot hold out any longer; their only option is to fish the alien larvae from their crevices and pray it doesn't poison them. Or so it would seem, until:

ARNOLD THE SPUT

Wait! Put that damn crotch mollusc down, Pamela Four! There's nothing on this God-forsaken ship that won't kill you, haven't you learned that yet!

PAMELA FOUR

But what about your baby prince, my liege? I fear if I don't eat something he shall soon expire!

ARNOLD THE SPUT

Better he die warm in your womb than ravaged by alien disease! But hold, my love, for there is another way.

PAMELA FOUR

What other way?

Arnold turns to Barry. Barry lifts his emaciated head from between his knees and looks at his king through petrified eyes.

ARNOLD THE SPUT

Him. We can eat him.

PAMELA FOUR

Barry? Sire, he is a loyal servant to the crown. Could you in good conscience sacrifice this courageous man? He who has suffered with us till the end?

ARNOLD THE SPUT

What end? If the man's conviction is as hardy as you say, then THIS... THIS will be the end he craves!

(to Barry)

Barry, my sweet Barry, you have been my concubine for two wonderful months—

BARRY

Ten.

ARNOLD THE SPUT

Ten! Wonderful, wonderful months. You bathed my feet in the Holy Elixir when I contracted a fungal infection in The Sands of Sortoesia. You mopped my brow and sang to me as microscopic warfare raged on my throbbing toenails. You, Barry, are a stand-up guy. Now you must surrender all the meat on your skeleton that my son may one day rule the universe. For that, your name shall be honored through the ages. Hark! the baby prince lies weak in his fleshy cot - make short work, we must, of your imminent martyrdom!

BARRY

(sobbing)

For Panglomodus?

Arnold punches his fist in the air.

ARNOLD THE SPUT

Panglomodus!

With that, Arnold lunges at the quivering Barry and starts tearing great chunks of flesh from him, spitting them over to Pamela Four. After six or seven bites he swallows one for himself, and is delighted to find it tastes rather like his grandmother's boiled space giraffe.

FADE OUT:

So the persona I'd use to complete the dreadful task, it seemed, would be Arnold the Sput. He certainly would not have any qualms about devouring a cat. After some perfunctory line editing and a couple more beers (eight... and some cocaine), I realized I hadn't seen Porkchop since I got home.

"Porkchop!" I shouted, rising from my desk. "Porky, where are you?" I listened for his mew, which was weak but usually audible in the apartment at night. "Where are you, you nuisance, you."

I checked all the usual spots, his bed, under the pinstripe cushion on the sofa, on the edge of the bookshelf next to the potpourri, but he was nowhere to be found. Had he run out when I'd opened the front door? No, he never did that. Eventually I looked under my bed, and there in the shadows I made out his fuzzy penumbra. "Hey! What are you hiding from?" I said, to which a voice in my head answered: "You, asshole."

I reached out and scooped him up, expecting he'd wriggle, but he was completely inanimate as I slid him across the hardwood floor. I knew the deal before I picked him up. "Oh, Christ. Come here. You poor old boy." I carried him into the kitchen and laid him on the dining table. "What the hell happened, Porky?"

For a long time I just sat there, looking at him. Eventually I came to imagine how Mom would react if she were here. She'd be in bits, no question about that; I'd have to deal with her, I'd have to deal with all our sycophantic neighbors blubbering over her (she was almost as much of a failure as I was, but had somehow managed to convince Kelby Oaks she was Jane fucking Austen.) And the burial, of course - I'd be expected to take care of that, no doubt. Then I wondered what Mom would have done if Doctor Blake had put to her the quandary he'd put to me. My gut says she'd have given him the finger, but, you know, when the stakes are as high as these, I guess there's no telling what someone might do.

The fact that Porkchop had died without my... 'input' made the task a little more palatable, which is to say, still not by a long shot. You'd think the murdering would be the hard part - maybe it would - but looking at the poor little fella now, stretched out like a tatty old draft-stopper, that familiar gross goop on his still-shiny nose, it was the prospect of leaving him in the oven that really turned my stomach. What if he wasn't dead? What if he woke up mid-roast, his fluffy white coat singed down to its sizzling follicles, in too much agony to scratch the oven door to let me know he was alive? I stood up and paced around the kitchen. "Stupid, stupid, horrible thought!" I picked him up and shook him as hard as I could. "Porkchop! Are you in there! Porkchop!"

How long does it take to cook a cat? A large chicken takes around an hour; the body mass is roughly the same. But were there other factors? A cat's skin, for example (there was no way I was skinning Porkchop, no darn way), did that affect the cooking? And how much of him did I have to eat? His paws? His butthole? The whole of his head? I sat back down and took a long, deep breath. "Okay. Think. I'm Arnold the Sput. I'm Arnold the Sput. What would The Sput do here?" I closed my eyes and let my thoughts fly. Carefully, gradually, I harmonized myself with the Great Tao: "King. Exiled. Fighter... The Sput is mega. Sput rules. Everyone loves The Sput, because he is somewhat handsome, and has hair like He-Man. I am our last hope against the testicle-thieving frogs from the fourteenth dimension. I am pumped and I believe, like the sax player in The Lost Boys. Or more like a mix between that guy and Spartacus... the Kirk Douglas one, obviously."

My eyes shot open. "Wait. Say that again... more like a mix between..." A MIX. THAT'S IT! The Great Tao had given me her horrible answer; horrible, but rational, that being twelve hundred watts of plop 'n' watch, chop-shreddy ultimate kitchen convenience, Mom's Vitamill 9000 all-purpose blender. I hadn't used it since before she died, but I remember that thing could grind old boots into Guinness. If a man needed a cat in him pronto, that was the way to do it.

I scrambled around the cupboards, smashing crockery and knocking cans of tomato soup all over the floor. "Where are you!" I screamed, "you insurrectionist scum!" (I was in character and intended to stay that way till the deed was done.) Eventually I found her fallen on her back behind a parapet of flour bags, and carried her to the dining table, solemnly, as a farmer carries his shotgun on his way to euthanize an injured cow. "Come ye, weary maiden, we are in this together."

She took to her duties admirably, whisking the old boy to juice in eight seconds. I let her fly for another eight, but it wasn't really necessary: the brassy crackle of his skeleton being liquidized lasted less than a second, after eight I could tell you he was a strawberry slushy and you'd pop yourself a straw in him, no questions asked. Porkchop was no more, but two scarlet pints of potentially curative mush bubbled over the beaker's brim, waiting for a decision. As the bodhisattva Patrick Swayze once said to kouhai Utah, "hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true." Which is pretty stupid when you think about it since the time it takes to recall such advice exceeds what one would normally count as hesitation. In the end, I took the Nike approach, "For Panglomodus!" I cried, and downed that shit like a pelican.

For better or worse, the deed was done. No going back. That's all she wrote. For all you cat lovers out there, I offer you solace in the fact he went right through me like a potter's finger. Honestly, I barely had time to clean my teeth before I felt the push and had to scramble to the John. My alarm went off just as I'd finished wiping; seven-thirty, Doctor Blake would be arriving at the practice about now, and I needed instructions on what to do next, so, I flushed thrice, railed a line (three), then drove there as fast as I could. I screeched into the parking lot, and barged into his office.

"Doctor Blake!"

"Vincent?"

"It is I," I announced, dismissing quickly the realization I'd forgotten to put on trousers.

"Sit down, you look ridiculous!"

"I've been up all night!"

"Have you been drinking?"

"Boy, have I!" I sat down, so giddy I was gasping for air. "Doctor... listen, listen... Porkchop, he... I... Well, I did it!"

Doctor Blake eyed me up and down, then put his half-eaten egg bagel back in its Tupperware and sealed the lid. "Do you mean to say... you killed your cat?"

"No! No! That's the thing, you see, he perished nobly in glorious martyrdom, all on his own!"

"Why are you talking like that?"

"Why? You told me to channel my character!" I stood up and perched my fists on my hips, flaunting my Pima cotton-swaddled junk like a Myrmidon. "Doctor!" I said, triumphantly, "meet Arnold the Sput."

"Arnold the... fuck me, Vincent, will you sit down and tell me what the hell you're doing here, please? I was trying to have breakfast."

"All right. Here it is. Last night I got home and did as you said, I wrote a character so mean, so aloof, so inexorably friggin' butch that I was sure if I channelled him I'd be able to go through with it. But then I found Porkchop under the bed- he'd died already, Doctor, of natural causes."

"Oh, Vincent, I'm so sorry. Poor creature, he'd been in the family for twenty years, hadn't he? Where is he now?"

"Now?" I replied, a little confused. "He'd be getting sucked around the septic system about now, I should think." I picked a little something from between my back teeth. "Give or take a whisker."

The doctor cocked a bushy eyebrow above his spectacles, leaned forward and asked me, "Vincent... did you... eat Porkchop?"

"Well, yeah," I said. "I mean, yes... That was the plan, wasn't it?"

"No!" he yelled, slamming his hands flat on his desk. "No! No! No! That was NOT the plan, Vincent! The plan was you'd write a character, you'd practice that character here, and then, and ONLY then would we put the animal down. Vincent! Do you know what you've done?"

"We got lucky," I said, "I got the Holy Elixir and I didn't even have to kill anything, man, it's a win! What's wrong?"

He glowered at me, that bushy eyebrow of his rising even more impossibly above his glasses. "You gormless nimrod!" he sputtered, "it was a ruse!"

"It was a what?"

"A ruse! A ruse! Eating a cat to cure writer's block? Are you out of your damn mind!"

"A ruse, you say?"

"Whoever heard of eating a cat for anything? It was just a trick to get you into the head of a character, to get you writing again!"

I gawked at him as the reality of the situation dawned on me.

"But... you were so convincing, Doctor Blake, like with the Po Hi tribes in Polynesia... What about the Po Hi, Doctor?" I lunged across the desk and grabbed his shirt. "What about the Po Hi!"

"Vincent! Let me go!"

I released him and slumped back in my chair, trembling. For the rest of my life I would be a guy who had eaten a cat. Worse, I had drunk one, then barged into my doctor's office in my underpants to boast about it... That was it. That's all she wrote. "What now?" I said.

Doctor Blake popped a couple of Valium, sighed, then tossed me the bottle. "Have you considered the catering industry?" he said.

What an asshole.