The Cat Who Had 14 Tales Part 6

Food? Oh, they climbed out of the Canyon and begged at the back doors of the restaurants. I'm sure they caught rodents in the alleys and explored garbage pails. And, of course, they shared the lunches of visitors at the viewing fence. I saw cats gobbling doughnuts, grapes, olives, peanut b.u.t.ter sandwiches, hard-cooked eggs-everything anyone would offer them.

Sometimes they made friends with visitors and were taken home. I wanted to adopt the white kitten, but my landlord was a tyrant, and he simply would not allow pets. The Princess had heavenly blue eyes! I discovered that one day when I took my opera gla.s.ses to the fence. When I mentioned it to Paul, he said he liked females with blue eyes. You see, my dear, my eyes were a p.r.o.nounced blue when I was young. They have faded with age, I'm afraid.

What did the cats do in bad weather?

There were nooks and crannies where they could shelter, and in winter the city delivered bales of hay to the Canyon, which provided some protection. They were hardy animals.

But let me tell you about the nurse!

The second time I met Paul at the viewing fence, we were chatting about my favorite movie star. Did you ever hear of Francis X. Bushman? He was called the handsomest man in the world. Well, we were talking about his performance in Ben Hur, when a strange character got off the streetcar, carrying two large bags of something. Her clothes were drab and shapeless, and she wore men's sneakers. She looked like a witch.

"Here comes the nurse," Paul said. "She comes almost every day." Although the fence was posted with Keep Out signs, the woman squeezed between the railings and climbed down into the Canyon. Then she started examining the cats. One was limping, and she pulled something out of his paw with tweezers. She did things with eye drops and cotton swabs. If a cat looked listless, she popped a pill down his throat.

Finally she approached the Princess and gave her something to eat. I a.s.sumed it was a tidbit worthy of royalty, like roast breast of pheasant. Whatever it was, the little white cat devoured it eagerly.

Was the nurse on the city payroll?

No, she was a self-appointed custodian-very professional and unemotional. Also very mysterious. Paul said there had been a newspaper story about her, but it didn't reveal much. She lived on a farm near the city limits, and if she found a dead cat in the Canyon, she took it home on the streetcar and buried it. Some persons believed she was an eccentric millionaire; you know how rumors spread. Some said she had been a hospital nurse, accused of a mercy killing. Others swore she was a doctor's wife who had shot her husband for infidelity and had served a prison term. We never knew the actual truth.

After the nurse finished treating the Motleys, she crossed the battlefield and did the same for the Grays. Then she climbed out of the hole and circled the fence, holding out a tin can saying: "Pennies for medicine? Pennies for the kitties?" Her voice was surprisingly well modulated.

One day I asked her about the little white cat. Why was she so different? So reserved? So aloof?

The nurse looked surprised. "The white one?" she repeated. "Why, she's blind." I was stunned. "How did she get here?" I asked.

"Some son-of-a-bootlegger dumped her," the nurse said, and she walked away, shaking the tin can and asking for pennies.

There was something about that poor blind animal that tugged at my heart. I pleaded with the landlord to let me bring her home, but he was adamant. At the office my drawing board was in a north window overlooking the Canyon, and whenever I glanced up from my work to rest my eyes, I automatically looked for a ball of white fur contrasted with the gray and green of concrete and weeds.

One day I witnessed a beautiful incident. A young cat from the Grays walked boldly across the battlefield in broad daylight. I knew he was young, because he was lean and muscular-a handsome fellow with perky ears and a definite swagger. He spotted the Princess sitting on a sunny ledge and ventured very close to her. Of course she couldn't see him, but I know she sensed his presence. He stayed for a minute and then bolted back to his own camp as if he had been shot.

I saw Prince Charming come visiting frequently after that, and one day I saw him touch noses with the Princess. It was so romantic and so sad-I wanted to cry.

I imagine I was in a sentimental mood because Paul and I were "going out," as they said in those days, and our friends.h.i.+p had reached the moonstruck stage.

What did people do on dates when you were young?

Oh, Paul and I might have dinner at a nice restaurant-five courses for a dollar! Then go to a jazz club or a motion picture. The movie palaces were very grand, but the movies were silent and black-and-white, and the actors looked as if they were powdered with flour. Sometimes Paul would come to my apartment, and I would prepare chicken a la king in a chafing dish. Then we would listen to a symphony concert on the radio-with a live orchestra! Radio was quite different then.

Were you and Paul having a relations.h.i.+p?

Not what you young people mean by that term! We were enjoying an old-fas.h.i.+oned courts.h.i.+p. Flappers were supposed to be cynical about love, but I was a hopeless romantic.

Now I'm losing the thread of my story . . . .

The gray cat was touching noses with the blind kitten.

Yes, such a poignant gesture! It was early October, and the days were getting cool. The leaves were falling, and I had an ominous feeling that it was the end of something. Paul had gone to Chicago on business for a few days, driving his automobile instead of taking the train. I watched him chug away in his Model T, and I felt very lonely.

At the same time it appeared to me that Prince Charming had stopped visiting the Princess. While working at my drawing board I kept glancing out the window, and for several days there was no sign of a meeting between the two. She sat on the concrete ledge, waiting and waiting, and I knew she missed him.

Then one day . . . the Princess herself disappeared! She was not in her accustomed place and nowhere else in sight. My eyes kept straying over to that bleak concrete landscape, searching for that ball of white fluff. She was so very white! After work I walked around and around the Canyon, hoping to catch a glimpse of her-somewhere. What could have happened?

The next morning I kept an eye on the Canyon from my office window until the nurse lumbered off the streetcar with her two large carrying bags. Then I flew down the stairs and across the street, dodging recklessly through the traffic and signaling her to wait for me.

"You know the little white cat," I cried, all out of breath. The one that's blind. Where is she? I can't find her!"

"Oh, that one," the nurse said, nodding. "She's dead. I buried her yesterday." The tears came to my eyes. "Oh, no, no!" I said. "What happened to her?"

"She ate some of the wrong weeds," the nurse said. "Some of the weeds are poison, and the cats know enough to leave them alone."

"But she couldn't see them," I wailed. "She couldn't tell they were poisonous!"

"She knew," the nurse said. "She knew what they were. They all know. It's instinct." I returned to my office and wept-until the art director told me to go home. Later that evening I was still moping around my apartment when the telephone rang. It was Paul!

He had arrived home safely; the trip had been a success; he had missed me very much.

Then, before I could report my sad news, he related an amazing incident.

On the day he left for Chicago he had been driving for some time when his automobile boiled over. They were always boiling over, you know. He stopped to pour water in the radiator, and while he was removing the radiator cap he heard some pitiful crying. He lifted the hood, and a gray cat leaped out and ran into some bushes. Paul searched for a while and couldn't find him, but he was sure it was Prince Charming from the Canyon.

He had climbed up under the hood to keep warm when the Model T was parked in front of Paul's office.

But you couldn't be sure, could you? There are lots of gray cats.

Wait till you hear the rest of my story, my dear . . . . The next day Paul and I met at the viewing fence at noon. The nurse was making her rounds. Some of the cats were climbing out of the excavation to beg sc.r.a.ps from lunch-boxes. And down below, a gray cat was hobbling across the battlefield.

"There he is!" I shouted. Oh, he was a pathetic sight-skinny and dirty-with one ragged ear, and blood caked on his fur. He walked painfully, stopping every few steps and lifting one sore paw. He was headed for the Motley side of the Canyon.

"He must have walked all the way back downtown!" I said. "Miles and miles! How did he do it? He looks starved, and you can tell he's had some terrible experiences. Has the nurse noticed him? Could she do anything for him?"

Paul said: "I wonder if he burned his feet under the hood of the automobile . . . . Look at him! Where is he going?"

He was looking for the Princess, of course. The battered animal wandered unsteadily toward the ledge where they used to meet. Then he turned away and started climbing up to street level, with great difficulty. I started toward him.

"Don't touch him," Paul said. "He's going over to the alley behind the restaurants. After he gets some food, he'll give himself a bath. A cat's tongue is his best medicine." As the injured cat limped into the street behind us, I made an announcement: "I'm not coming to the viewing fence anymore," I said. "I'm too sentimental. I get emotionally involved. And I'm going to ask the art director to move my drawing board to another-" I was interrupted by screeching tires on the pavement behind us, then the cries of pedestrians. We turned to look. Someone was running toward the fence, shouting, "Nurse! Nurse!"

Paul started toward the scene of the accident and abruptly returned. "Come away," he said, leading me in the opposite direction. "Don't look." That was sixty years ago, and I've never forgotten.

It's a sad story.

Yes, my dear, a very sad story. But there is an epilogue.

I married my young architect, and do you know what he gave me for a wedding present?

Two kittens. One was gray, and one was white and fluffy. I named them Romeo and Juliet.

Tipsy and the Board of Health (The following interview with Mr. C. W. was taped at the Old Sailors' Home in November 1985, for the Oral History Project of Gattville Community College.) Sure, I'm old enough to remember the Depression. Herbert Hoover, Prohibition, bread lines, soup kitchens, FDR, Repeal. I remember all that. If you wanna know, things was tough then, boy. I washed dishes, did street sweepin'-whatever I could get. Worked on the boats when I could. That was before they tore down the waterfront and built them fancy skysc.r.a.pers with fountains and trees and stuff like that.

What was the waterfront like in the thirties?

On Front Street it was all docks and warehouses. Behind that was tenements, meat markets, candy stores, a coupla beaneries, two churches, a school. Blind pigs, too, but that was before Repeal. It was a nice neighborhood. Everybody knowed everybody. The school had one of them fire-escape chutes from the second floor. Looked like a big tin sewer pipe. That's all gone now.

Fella come to see me last week. Used to be a butcher at Nick's Market on the waterfront.

"Porky" is what we called him. He's still fat as a pig and smokin' them stinko cigars. We talked about the old days. Hamburger, thirteen cents a pound. Trolley cars, a nickel a ride. Porky says to me: "Betcha you don't remember Tipsy and the Board of Health." I says: "Betcha two bits I do. I told my grandkids about Tipsy. They'll be talkin' about her long after you and me cash in our chips."

What did you tell your grandchildren?

Tell 'em? How Tipsy made us laugh when there wasn't much to laugh about. No jobs.

No unemployment insurance. Couldn't pay the rent. Some folks would starve before they'd go on welfare in them days. That was what the Depression was like, boy. But Tipsy made us laugh.

Who was Tipsy?

Funniest cat you ever laid eyes on! She hung around Nick's Market, huntin' for mice.

They didn't have fancy pet foods then, I don't think. Folks had a hard time feedin'

themselves. Cats and dogs, they had to rustle up their own grub.

How was Tipsy involved with the Board of Health?

Well, now, that's a tale! I was there when the inspector first seen Tipsy. I went over to Nick's Market to get a chaw on credit and shoot the breeze with Porky. Mrs. Nick was behind the cash register, scowlin' like a bulldog. Nick, he was still in the hoosegow doin'

time for boot-leggin'. And Tipsy, she was in the front window, smack between the carrots and cabbages, givin' herself a bath. Cleanest thing in the whole store, if you wanna know.

So, in walked this fella in a brown suit and white s.h.i.+rt and tie, lookin' like City Hall.

Carried a big thick book with black covers. He stuck his nose in the meat cooler, sniffed in the backroom, and wrote somethin' in his book. He gave Tipsy a sour look, but she gave him no mind-just scratched her ear.

Then the man says to Mrs. Nick: "Two weeks to clean up the store and dispose of the animal."

Mrs. Nick give him a fierce look. "Animal? You tell me what about animal?" Her English wasn't so good.

"Get rid of the cat!" the inspector says loud and clear. "The cat! The cat in the window!" Mrs. Nick stands there with her arms folded, like a reg'lar battle-ax. "I not get rid of no cat."

The man says: "City ordinance, ma'am. No cats allowed in food stores." Mrs. Nick says: "Hah! The city, it like mice better in food store?"

"Set traps! Set traps!" he says. "If the animal is still here in two weeks, you can expect a ten-dollar fine."

She bangs on the cash register and waves a ten-spot. "I pay now. I keep the cat."

"I don't want your money," he says. "I just told you what the law requires. Get-rid- of-the-cat!"

"I make it twenty," and she waves a tenner in each hand.

So then Porky comes out from behind the meat counter, jabbin' his cigar at Mrs. Nick.

She was his mother-in-law. He says to her: "See? What'd I tell you? You gotta dump that smelly cat."

"She smell better than you," she says.

Porky tries to explain to the inspector. "She's from the Old Country. I keep tellin' her you can't have no cat sittin' on the vegetables. It ain't sanitary."

"Hah!" Mrs. Nick says to Porky. "You go make some sanitary hamburger, and this time no cigar b.u.t.t in it."

Why was she so stubborn?

If you wanna know, Tipsy was good for business. She sat in the window and made pa.s.ses at flies, but it looked like she was wavin' to people on the sidewalk. The kids, they was tickled pink, and they come in the store to spend their penny. Grown-ups got a laugh out of it, too. It was good to see someone smilin' in the Depression.

Where did Tipsy get her name?

That's the funny part. She was white all over, with a black patch over one ear. Looked like a black hat slippin' down over one eye. Gave her a boozy look. To make it even better, she staggered, sort of, when she walked. Musta been somethin' wrong with her toes.

Was she still there when the inspector returned in two weeks?

Tell you what happened. Porky was always feudin' with his mother-in-law, and he was bound and determined to get rid of the cat. So one night after Mrs. Nick went upstairs to bed, he puts Tipsy in a soup carton and lugs it to a drugstore six blocks away. I was there to get an ice cream cone when Porky walked in. You could get a triple dip for a nickel then. Three flavors only. Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.

"Hey, Sam," Porky says to the druggist. "You still got trouble with mice? I found you a good mouser."

"I don't want no cat," Sam says. But Porky dumped Tipsy out of the box anyway, and she staggered around like she was four sheets in the wind. You should hear the customers whoopin' and hollerin'. They said: "You gotta keep her, Sam." So Tipsy moved in. Made herself right at home. She caught a coupla mice and then bedded down on some clean towels behind the soda fountain.

Sam always played cards with us in the back room at Gus's Bar, and he told us what happened the next day. Tipsy was entertainin' the customers when in walked the man from the Board of Health. He gave Tipsy a long hard look. Seems like he recognized her but wasn't sure.

"Have a root beer," Sam says to him. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything except the cat," says the inspector. "The law prohibits animals in establishments vending food and/or beverages."

Well, Sam wasn't one to fool around with City Hall, so he pitched Tipsy out in the alley.

How did the customers feel about that?

They was disappointed, but-you know what? The little devil staggered right back to Nick's Market-six blocks. When Porky got to work the next day, there was a crowd around the front window-people laughin'-kids jumpin' up and down. Tipsy was on the string beans, wavin' at them.

Next night, Porky put her in an evaporated-milk carton and took her to Gus's place. It was a blind pig before Repeal. After that it was Gus's Timberline Bar. He had it fixed up like a log cabin.

I was helpin' out behind the bar when Porky walked in with the milk carton.

Gus give him a wallop on the back and says to me: "Pour the ol' galoot a shot o' red tea to warm his pipes." He liked to talk logger-talk sometimes.

Gus was a nice old fella, but he looked half-crazy. Gray hair stickin' out every-which-way, nose crooked, no color in his eyes. Used to keep a saloon up north near the lumber camps, and he was a tough cookie. When I got to know Gus he was pretty old, but he could still jump over the bar and bounce a foundry worker or dockhand if they was makin' trouble.

I remember the bar-all made of logs, with a pine slab three inches thick. A beaut! There was a potbellied stove with about fifty feet of stovepipe. And all over the wall there was animal heads-deer, elk, moose. A stuffed racc.o.o.n, stuffed weasel-all like that. Gus said he bagged 'em all himself, but n.o.body believed it. He was soft on animals. We guessed he'd shoot a man before he'd shoot a squirrel. He had a pet chipmunk in the saloon up north, and some drunk bit its head off on a bet. Gus laid him our good-with a peavey handle.

What did Gus think about Tipsy?

He thumped the milk carton and says to Porky: "Whatcha got in the kennebecker?"