Purrfect Rivalry

Chapter 18

After a long trek, we finally made it back to Hampton Cove. We passed through the small marina, the streets pretty much deserted, as one would expect in the middle of the night, and that’s just the way we liked it. And we were about to head on home and sample some of that delicious kibble our humans like to put out when Brutus froze midstep, and stared straight ahead, like a pointer dog—which is odd, since Brutus doesn’t even like dogs.

“What’s wrong, Brutus?” asked Dooley, ever considerate.

“This is the end,” he breathed in a stertorous voice. “I’m throwing my hat in the ring.”

“But you don’t have a hat,” Dooley pointed out in an admirable display of logic.

“Look, fellas,” Brutus heaved. “Look over there.”

We looked over there, and that’s when we saw what had suddenly made him pant like a pointer. It was Diego and Harriet, seated on the roof of The Hungry Pipe, the popular restaurant that’s one of the marina’s draws. I could just make out their silhouettes as they were sitting, heads together, backlit by that same moon that had fascinated Clarice so much.

“It’s our spot,” Brutus said, still sounding as if he’d swallowed a mosquito. “The spot I declared my everlasting love and devotion. The very spot I vowed to love and protect, to honor and cherish, to be all that I could be…” He heaved a soft sob, and for perhaps the first time since I’d made his acquaintance, I could see actual tears glisten in the tough cat’s eye.

“That’s not very nice,” said Dooley, in a massive understatement.

“He’s doing it on purpose,” Brutus said. “He knows how much this place means to me and he’s just rubbing my nose in it.”

It seemed a little far-fetched to think that Diego would know when Brutus would pass by The Hungry Pipe and see him and Harriet on the roof. The cat might be evil, but he was not clairvoyant. What had probably happened was that Harriet must have pointed the spot out as one she favored, and Diego decided to humor her and see what the big deal was.

The big deal is that Colin Carret, the Pipe’s proud owner and a perennial optimist, always overestimates the appeal of his place, and prepares more food than his clientele can ever tuck away. And since his kitchen happens to be on the top floor of the building, a lot of that food makes its way into his garbage bins, which are located on the roof before being transferred to the alley below via the kitchen elevator in the morning. Every cat in Hampton Cove knows that the Pipe is the place to be to get your paws on some high-quality grub.

I decided not to introduce this sordid materialistic theme into the conversation. Brutus was hit hard enough as it was. And as we watched, Diego and Harriet’s profiles retreated, and moments later we could see them descend the fire escape, reach street level, and stalk off in the direction of home and hearth, where presumably Diego would eat my food, drink my water, poop in my litter box and take my place at Odelia’s feet.

“I can’t go home,” Brutus announced brokenly, and staggered towards that same fire escape, and was soon mounting the steps, in the throes of a debilitating emotional crisis.

“We can’t leave him like this,” I told Dooley.

“Yeah, he doesn’t look very happy,” Dooley announced.

“You wouldn’t be happy if you were forced to watch the cat you loved canoodle with some other cat.”

“I’ve been watching Harriet canoodle with other cats all my life,” Dooley reminded me. “I think I’m a canoodling expert by now—at least where it concerns Harriet.”

He was right. Dooley had always nursed a quiet passion for Harriet—a passion which unfortunately had never been reciprocated by the haughty white Persian. “One day, Dooley,” I told him. “One day you’ll find the cat for you.”

“I already found the cat for me. She just hasn’t found me yet,” he said simply.

I never knew my best friend was a closet philosopher, and the upshot was that as I trotted after Dooley, who was trotting after Brutus, I had to wipe a tear from my eye, too. It was that moon. It was having a strange effect on all cats—even hardened ones like me.

“When are you going to fall in love, Max?” asked Dooley as we mounted the stairs.

“I’ve had my brushes with romance,” I told him.

“I know you’ve had your flings, Max, but when are you going to find true love?”

I shrugged. “I dunno, buddy. When true love finds me, I guess?”

“You are by far the most unromantic cat I’ve ever met.”

“I simply don’t like being tied down. I’m a free agent, Dooley.”

“You just haven’t found the right one yet, Max.”

I didn’t enjoy this conversation, so I decided to cut it short by ghosting my friend for the rest of the climb up the creaking, rusty contraption. The ladder was Colin’s fire escape and rarely used by humans except for couples to sit and pucker their lips for a smoke or a kiss or both. For cats, though, it was the main gateway into Colin’s culinary paradise, for it led straight to the spot on the roof where he liked to dump the Hungry Pipe’s tasty leftovers.

The scent that drifted down was intoxicating, and as usual about half a dozen cats could be found snacking on the premium morsels. When they saw us, they turned their heads. All of them were in cat choir and had refused to choose our side in our enduring conflict with Diego. In return, we ignored them. I must admit cats aren’t above being petty.

Brutus had dragged his weary bones to the spot where Diego and Harriet had been enjoying each other’s company, and Dooley and I watched him with a measure of concern.

“You don’t think he’s going to jump, do you?” asked Dooley.

“Cats don’t commit suicide,” I told him. “Only humans do.”

“And why do you think that is?”

“Because cats are too smart to hurl themselves off rooftops. Besides, we tend to land on our feet. And then there’s that whole nine lives thing to consider. We’d have to plunge to our deaths nine times before the jig is up, and who wants to go to all that trouble?”

“Maybe we should tell Brutus before he takes the plunge,” said Dooley.

“He’ll be fine. And the moment we drive Diego out of town he’ll be even better.”

“You think we’ll be able to drive Diego out of town?”

“We did it once, we can do it again,” I said with a conviction I wasn’t really feeling.

“Clarice did it once,” he reminded me. “And she’s refusing to do it twice.”

“So we’ll do it ourselves.”

“But how?”

“We’ll figure it out.”

We sat in silence, keeping a keen eye on Brutus, who clearly wanted to be alone at this point, and might have sat there for all eternity, if not a disembodied voice behind us had piped up.

“You were right,” the voice said.

When we turned, I saw that the disembodied voice belonged to Shanille. She looked as miserable as a cat can look without possessing the opposable thumbs to hold a liquor bottle.

“He kicked me out,” Shanille announced. “Diego kicked me out of cat choir, can you believe it? My own choir. The one I started. And he goes and tells me that from now on he’s the new conductor. Says I couldn’t conduct my way out of a paper bag. Basically calls me a talentless hack and a fraud. And the worst thing is that not a single member opposed him when he put it to a vote.”

“I told you. He’s pure evil,” I said. Though I should have felt sorry for her, the fact that she’d thrown us out on our ears still rankled.

“I’m so sorry, Shanille,” said Dooley commiseratingly. “I think you’re a great conductor.”

The tiger-striped tabby smiled weakly. “Thanks, Dooley. And I’m sorry for not listening to you before. You were right all along. I should have known better than to be taken in by his smooth-talking ways and his promises of endless supplies of Cat Snax.”

“Those endless supplies of Cat Snax are paid for by Odelia,” I told her. “Which makes him a liar and a thief.”

“Oh, and to think my week started so great. Saw my favorite singer Charlie Dieber from up close—got a wink and a smile from him…” A beatific smile momentarily crept up her face at the sweet memory.

“Wait—you were there when the Dieber got shot?”

“Charlie didn’t get shot,” she said. “His bodyguard did.”

A thrill of excitement rushed through me. “You saw what happened?”

“Of course I did. I saw the whole thing.”

And she’d just finished telling us about her startling discovery when the sound of a human talking had me look up. Somehow the inflection sounded familiar, so I padded to the edge of the roof and looked down. “Hey, it’s your human,” I announced. Dooley joined me.

“Hey, it’s Grandma,” he said.

“That’s what I just said.”

Odelia’s grandmother was walking down the street, in the middle of the night, talking on her phone for some reason. Odd. Very odd. Then again, this night had already proven to be the oddest night I’d had in a very long time. So Grandma Muffin roaming the streets of Hampton Cove at night was simply par for the course.

“Yes, Chancellor. No, Chancellor. Yes, Chancellor,” she was saying, her voice carrying up to where Dooley and I were sitting and watching. “No, I don’t think the current crisis can be solved with violence. Diplomacy is the solution, Chancellor Merkel. Oh, yes, I told Ban the same thing I’m telling you now. Yes, I will put in a good word for you. No big deal. Yes, I’m always at your service, Angela. Day or night. We all need to do what we can for world peace.”

She passed around a corner and her voice drifted off.

“Angela Merkel,” Dooley said musingly. “Somehow the name sounds familiar.”

“German Chancellor. Top European politician. But why Grandma would be talking to her beats me.”

“She’s been talking to a lot of important people lately. She even talked to the President the other day.”

“Our President?”

“I don’t know. Do cats have a president?”

He raised an interesting question. Did cats have a president? I didn’t think so. We’re anarchists by nature, apt to adhere to no one. Then again, we do like Abraham Lincoln, since he allegedly used a golden fork to feed his son’s tabby at White House dinners. I guess a guy like that is worthy of our everlasting allegiance.

Brutus seemed to have finally tired of sitting by himself, and wandered over. “You know? I’m starting to feel that maybe we should give Dieber a second shot at adopting us.”

“He won’t adopt us, Brutus,” I told the cat, who’d clearly lost his mind. “We’re males, and Charlie only adopts females.”

“So what if I tell him I identify as female?” Brutus suggested. “Wouldn’t that work?”

I wanted to ream him out for talking nonsense when there was a commotion behind us. The rickety fire escape was groaning and creaking violently, indicative of a large body climbing up. If this was a cat, it was a substantial one. Moments later, a head cleared the roof, and then a bare tattooed torso, and I saw that once again we were in the presence of Charlie Dieber.

“Hey, dudes and dudettes,” the irrepressible singer caroled. “Now this is what I call a fine gathering!” He looked a little unsteady on his feet, swaying dangerously, his eyes half-lidded. I hoped he wouldn’t come near the edge of the roof, for if he fell off and got squashed he wouldn’t get up again. No nine lives for the Dieber. He caught sight of us and frowned, pointing a finger in our general direction. “Dudes! We have got to stop meeting like this!” He lurched, then pivoted, his arm outstretched, until he was pointing, like a weathervane, at Shanille. He blinked a few times. “Um, so are you a dude or a dudette, dude?”

“I’m a dudette, actually,” said Shanille, whose exuberance had returned at the sight of her great idol.

“I think you’re a babe,” the Dieber announced, then did the most outrageous thing. He scooped Shanille up into his arms and started staggering back to the fire escape. “You’ve been adopted,” he announced to a slightly startled Shanille.

“Oh, that’s fine, Charlie,” she trilled.

“Shanille!” I cried. “Where are you going?”

“Didn’t you hear? I’ve been adopted by Charlie Dieber!”

“But… what about Father Reilly?” I asked, referring to her most recent human.

“He’ll just have to learn to live without me,” she said, and gave us a diva-like wave farewell. “Just like I’ll have to live without cat choir! Goodbye, cruel world! Goodbye!”

The three of us watched, stunned, as Charlie disappeared down the fire escape, this time clutching the former cat choir conductor in his arms.

“I didn’t know Shanille was such a drama queen,” said Dooley.

“It would appear Diego brings out the worst in cats,” I said.

“Charlie should have picked me,” Brutus lamented. “I should have told him about my transition.”

“Oh, stop talking nonsense, Brutus,” I said. “Cats don’t transition. Do they?”

“If it gets me out of the house I share with Harriet I’ll do whatever it takes, Max. Anything is better than having to feel this pain. This searing heartache. This tristesse.”

Wow. Talk about drama queens.

“It’s the pain of lost love,” Dooley said knowingly, then placed a sympathetic paw on Brutus’s shoulder. “I feel your pain, brother Brutus.”

“Sister,” Brutus announced. “From now on I’m a dudette.”