Cat In A Zebra Zoot Suit

1

Off-Black

In every relationship, there are times when polite illusions must not only be tolerated, but embraced.

At least, that is what I tell myself as I sneak out of my Miss Temple’s rooms long after my namesake midnight hour, dragging a white plastic Albertson’s grocery bag over the walnut parquet condo floor to the ajar patio door, and outside.

With a powerful swing of my neck and shoulder muscles, I cast the bag and its ghastly contents over the balcony’s low railing. The bag plummets through the night like a suicide victim in a nightshirt. It lands one story below with a sickening crunch on the asphalt, barely missing the rooftop of Mr. Matt Devine’s freebie silver Jaguar. Car, that is, not the Big Cat.

I breathe deeply at my narrow escape from inadvertent automotive vandalism. Then I scan the parking lot below for witnesses. None but the moon. I swing over the railing and climb down, landing lightly on my feet.

Okay. I do not land so lightly, being a muscular dude with a lot of bone mass.

Twigs and leaves rustle in the tall oleander bushes ringing the lot, warning me of possible unseen e yes. Las Vegas never sleeps, nor does Midnight Louie when he is on a mission.

My teeth snag the white bag and I continue to drag its broken contents away from the Circle Ritz condominium and apartment building. The black marble circular façade gleams in the moonlight like a giant chocolate icing-frosted doughnut. Wait. My home, sweet home is classier than that. It shines like the Coliseum in Rome magically made whole again and enameled Punk Black.

A guilty twinge assails me. These plastic bags are intended to be recycled at the grocery store. I am contributing to unauthorized littering. Yet I must remove the evidence of my crime from the premises and into other custody. I can only hope my contacts are the ones shaking the oleander branches. Every bit of that plant is poisonous, but not as vile to me as the contents of my bag.

A piece of shadow separates itself from the trembling leaves.

“Have you got the goods?” a rough voice asks. Similar shadow figures bunch behind it. I am now confronting a gang.

“Right,” I answer. “Primo stuff, freshly imported.” I flick the bag lying between us open with a razor-sharp nail. “You can do a sniff and taste test, if you like.”

“I like,” Gravel Voice responds, edging near to do just that.

“Hey,” I cannot help noting, “this is Family business. One would think you would trust your own son.”

“Hah!” answers Ma Barker, Cat Pack clowder leader and my long-lost mama. I sometimes wish had remained long lost. A clowder is the feline equivalent of a street gang-cum-extended family, and you do not want to mess with the leader of the pack. So I remain mute as Ma Barker admonishes me as if I were an ignorant kit. “You are sneaking around on your Miss Temple Barr like some craven domestic slave. Why would you be straight with me?”

“I am not owned,” I say. “I am a free and independent roommate.”

“Who freely rips off this expensive domestic-slave gourmet food.”

“For the Cat Pack, Ma. I do not see you turning up your whiskers at my, er, donations.”

“Whadda my whiskers have to do with it?” Ma advances with a growl.

I shrink back slightly. Whiskers are a sore point with Ma. Hers are not only grizzled, but more prominent on her chin than her muzzle now that she has reached a certain age. She is still the only female clowder chief in Vegas, maybe the world, for that matter.

“Punk,” she sniffs. Then the yellows of her eyes narrow as she gazes over my shoulder. “It looks like your roommate is entertaining a gentleman caller. No wonder you snuck out.”

Behind the glass French doors, a pinpoint of bobbling light tailed by a tall, black shadow passes by.

My eyes widen as the Front Four shivs on my limbs curve into asphalt for traction. My brain processes several facts. Mr. Max Kinsella, my Miss Temple’s ex, has headed to Ireland on secret agent business. Mr. Matt Devine, her current and closest, not only works nights, he never sleeps overnight in her condo on religious grounds, although Miss Temple’s religion allows her to visit his quarters on overnights.

“You need backup?” Ma’s harsh voice asks behind me.

“Not hardly.” I yowl. I rake my claws into the nearest oleander trunk for a dose of poison. I am already halfway to the leaning palm tree that is my ladder to our balcony.

I am twenty pounds—give or take sixteen ounces here and there—of snarling defensive fury. If my dereliction of duty tonight causes one glorious red-gold hair on my Miss Temple’s head to acquire a split end, somebody’s epidermis is getting a bone-deep massage.

I am up the palm tree’s rough trunk like a Singer sewing machine set on “Gather”. I bound to the railing, then to the balcony floor, and shoulder the door wide open. It hits the wall loud enough to wake Miss Temple and cause a thumping and shrieking in the bedroom. I hesitate momentarily.

Ma is right, human bedroom activities can be…er, confusing to those of our persuasion. Has Mr. Matt come home early from his Midnight Hour radio gig and paid an amorous visit, despite past restraint? Is this assault or ecstasy? I am sure humans ask the same thing of my own kind’s activities of that nature.

Yet this is no time for inter-species sensibilities to hold me back. With a banshee battle cry (or one of my own courtship wails) I charge into the darkened bedroom.