The 'Fridges of 'Meowdison County

The Beginning

It’s late July. One of those hot, sultry, days that makes a cat’s hair feel like moose hide. To make matters worse, I’m sitting without a fan of any sort, trying to coax a story that will not be written out of my weary brain as my paws slip softly off the pads of my trusty Smith-Catrona.

You might ask me why I’m not using a catputer. Most everyone does. Truth is, I’m finicky. Old school. A writer who’s been kickin’ around forever who just can’t seem to get used to the feel of that keyboard under my paws. Don’t even ask about the illogical use of the word mouse in the world of soft and hardware. I just don’t get it.

Looking down at the pile of discarded paper cat food bands I’d been trashing as I tried to compose my prose and text, I know I’m in deep scoop on this afternoon. Too many abandoned strips of paper snake around my hind feet, a dead giveaway that my writing is going down the litter pan.

But just because I realize I’m getting nowhere fast; doesn’t mean I’m going to walk away from the task at hand. My writing teacher always told me to keep one thing in mind, and it’s stayed with me for my entire career: there’s no such thing as writer’s block. Writer’s schlock, maybe, but no block. So, I mull. And I stare. And I ponder my paws.

This is going to be a long afternoon...

Happily, the sound of the ringing phone breaks my lack of concentration. It’s just the break I need to get my whiskers screwed on straight, so I knock the receiver off the hook and meow.

I’m taken aback (and afront) by the voice; the caller is a sweet-sounding kitten with the unlikely name of Catlyn Schwartzmews. Seems a feline with a name like that should have rung a bell, but it didn’t. I held my tongue and didn’t ask the obvious question: exactly what were your parents thinking when they picked your name?

No matter. I was immediately hooked by her first words: She had a story I might be interested in writing, she purred teasingly. Without hesitating to ask if I’d be up for the job, she started to roll out just enough of a saga to whet my whiskers, then she shut up like a sardine can on an assembly line.

Here’s what I learned in that brief teaser:

The tail was about her deceased mother, an exotic-sounding kitten born in the mid-East who lived out her life as a rather common domestic shorthair until something wildly exciting entered her nine lives and turned them all upside down.

Catlyn wouldn’t reveal more unless I agreed to meet her and her brother Mickey, in Des Mews. No amount of mewing could get her to reveal more, so I didn’t push it. I tried to sound nonchalant when I agreed to keep our date in that hellhole of a town, but somehow, I think this kitten knew she had hooked me from the start. I was a sucker for a good story.

Sketchy as the details were, the call piqued my interest more than anything had in decades. What the hell, I thought. I’m not making progress with my article “Ten Ways to Lure a River Rat Onto Your Dinner Plate,” anyway. I agreed to meet the Schwartzmews’ at a pet motel I was familiar with on the following day. It would be air-conditioned, so the trip wouldn’t be a total waste.

Resolved to put my house to order before leaving it - should I become road kill en route (a habit my mother got me into by telling me it was akin to humans putting on clean underwear in the event a traffic accident caused all the world to peer at dirty panties) - I picked up the mess I’d scattered on the floor, tucked it into my overflowing garbage can, leapt upon it with the weight of my entire body to push down the compost, then began to gather up my stuff for the trip. Packing was an art. It would be a long night.

As a weaver of dreams, writer of tales and devotee of all things aesthetic, I didn’t know the meaning of traveling light. I had my own personal litter box, a lifetime supply of clumping litter (won in the early hours of dawn during an illegal riverboat game of “Go Fish”) and my portable typewriter.

I had tins of gourmet sardines ready to travel and plenty of labels for writing. Looking over this curious gathering of possessions, I couldn’t help but yowl. How many times had I professed my life a simple one --devoid of material encumbrance, not to mention cucumbers? Yet here I was, a creature of comfort, about to pack up my possessions for a journey filled with more mystery than an Argyle Christie novel.

I shook my head. Helped myself to a couple of fingers of Kitty Sark and rolled around in the dirt a little. Life was good, yet I couldn’t sleep that night. First, that spontaneous roll in the dirt had caused more damage to my coat than I intended so I had to keep licking at my fur to clean it up for my meeting with the mysterious Catlyn.

Further, my nose for mews was happily engaged. Catlyn’s voice had stroked my ego with lavish compliments about features I’d written for Cat Fancy and Catnip. She’d quoted from “Catcher in the Rye Bread,” “Mouser, Last King of Siam,” and, of course, my award winning “Tail of Two Kitties.” She knew my literary strengths well.

I could hardly wait to hear the story she urged me to consider penning after we talked...especially since she had gotten my mind thinking the most extraordinary things. A little weary from licking my coat and obsessing over the merits of myself all night, I finally snapped off my alarm clock, called a cab and headed for the airport where I took the red eye to Des Mews. I was prepared to be dazzled and my expectations were met.

When I arrived at the Pet Motel the following day, my claws were itching to know this Catlyn Schwartzmews’ secrets. Kitty McVeigh greeted me, a good old girl I’d flirted with over the years. I sensed her disappointment when she realized I couldn’t be talked into taking her out for her favorite pizza with anchovies that night. I tried to explain that this was a work trip, but she wasn’t buying it. I sure hate it when felines sulk. It makes their tails droop.

What made things worse was that I had to ask Kitty to ring Catlyn Schwartzmews’ room. Apparently, Kitty had registered the young feline herself and suspected monkey business. Usually eager to sooth my old buddies and the ladies who had shown me a good time in the past, I had no time for schmoozing this morning; it diverted me from the intrigue that teased my brain. Yet I put up with Kitty’s dour face and headed down the run toward Catlyn, somehow knowing that destiny awaited my arrival.

Even now...years later...I can’t believe my good fortune. Who knew I was about to be given the story that would win a Mewlitzer Prize and unlock the enigmatic answer to another riddle that had eluded me for nearly seven of my lives? The vision made my pulse race as I picked up speed and scampered along.

Kitty, it seems, was going to get her licks in before she was done, she had given me directions to Caitlyn’s room that took me by the dog run. A Shar-pei nipped at my tail. Kitty’s goodwill had run out. But that’s another story. One you’ll want to read about in the next book I’ll be marketing through my representatives, William Morris the Cat Agency. I’m thinkin’ of calling it Slow Schmaltz in Geezer Bend, but that’s gonna depend upon whether someone else is already holding the catpyright.

Catlyn, Mickey, and I made our introductions once I found their room, then tried to make some small talk. It was awkward at first. After all, we were strangers, brought together by fate and a dream. Once we broke the mice, however, things got easier, and we must have yowled for fourteen hours. Lots of the time taken up sizing up the situation and trying to get all the characters in the story straight.

We worked for hours – me listening and taking notes and the two of them meandering -- until all of us needed a change of scenery. They padded on over to my place where the verbal saga continued unabated.

Since I hadn’t been expecting company, my place was already an embarrassing mess. Treat bags were strewn around my bed and a few unopened bottles of beer got Catlyn’s head swiveling in my direction as if to say, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all.”

But she soon relaxed, with a sigh. “Guys,” I think she meowed, but I couldn’t be sure. It could have been “pies.” No matter.

Sure, some of our time was devoted to catnaps, but who could resist, given the intensity of their tale? It was a humdinger. The story was about their mother, Nicoletta, and a love affair she had decades ago with a wandering tom named Roger Kincat.

To verify the details, they brought along their mother’s journals and an IAMS bag filled with pictures and magazine articles, all of which appeared to have been chewed out of the pages of the publications after being retrieved from garbage bins.

This Roger had even pawed a book--a mighty impressive one, too. Most everything but the book smelled of old garbage and stale mice. Some were so delicious, I just had to lick. The siblings understood. They experienced the same urge the day they brought out this treasure trove of memories from the produce bin of the abandoned refrigerator their mother had adopted as her sanctum sanctorum.

The booty the kids put in front of me was nothing short of mewveleous. Rich evidence of a love affair that seems, even now, beyond the imagination. To stress the covenant the two sought, they made me promise I would forget about what they were about to share with me if I decided not to write the story. Fat chance.

I knew from the get-go I would write the story. Should write it. This gift of a priceless tale was the equivalent of a freshly caught salmon plus a case of beluga and a dozen bootlegged lids of cattibus.

Matter of fact, no one else could write it. I was the cat for the job. They knew it, too, and in the end, we all agreed to bring forth this tail of unrequited love with a profound respect for the two cats who could not tell their story themselves.

To help with my literary journey, Catlyn and Mickey were generous to a paw, pointing me in all the directions I needed to go - even Amewna, Iowa, where the ‘fridge that brought their mother together with the love of her life had been manufactured.

I’m still not sure why they gave me the appliance’s warrantee and installation instructions, but I figured it didn’t matter. Paper chases always made a research project look grand and important. This would be a doozy. It took two days of nonstop conversation to impart all the details the siblings could recall. This included hourly naps, or we might have kept it to just one day.

Leaving the company of two generous felines with so long a list of resources to follow up, I felt frightened and empowered. But in the end, I also felt a strange sort of salvation that promised an unexpected outcome. My instincts were on the mark. When I was done with the research and the writing, I confess to having become Roger Kincat in many ways. Some were good. Others still disgust me

For instance, I found myself ordering his brand of milk and bumming his brand of bugs. I was rude to my mother. I tossed kittens around like they had no felines. Lord help me, Roger’s soul became part of me and will remain with me for eternity. Or for all my nine lives. Whichever comes first.

As an addendum, I must add that researching and writing this story has altered my perspective about life and love. Perhaps I am less cynical than I once was. It’s a harsh world we inhalibut...but I have learned to look upon it as a more purrfect place since Nicoletta and Roger entered my heart.

I’m sure you’ll understand what I mean when you allow my words to take you on a journey back in time to a love that lives on today. You may even find, as I did, that Nicoletta Schwartzmews learned to purr again.