cat

It’s five in the morning and a cat is keeping me awake. It’s not my cat; I don’t own a cat. Is it possible to own a cat? The cat in question is asleep in a pet shop 16 kilometres away.

I go to the shop yesterday to buy a dog coat. The JRT spends cold days in his bed on my tiny back verandah while I’m at work. Even the cleverest dog can’t pull a blanket over his bonce when condensation drips off the underside of the roof.

I leave with a cherry-red body-suit, size 40. The size 33 looks likely to throttle the lad. Previous dog-coat research suggests he needs a 35. The woman in the shop says that ‘they’ don’t make a 35 in this design. I have my doubts.

Back at my good woman’s place, I feed the JRT’s legs through the leg-slots, snap three press-studs at the neck and zip the coat along his right flank. It looks pretty spiffy, but not as snug as a body-suit should be. I check the interweb: no size 35. This time we all go back to the shop, me, my good woman, the JRT.

The JRT looks like a burst saveloy in the size 33. My good woman finds an expensive moleskin jacket. It fits well. The JRT and I parade down one aisle and up the next. The indignity of this coat-wearing business has got to the JRT, who stands abject next to a ginger moggie in a cage at the end of the aisle. The cat slinks along the wire wall, pleased by any company.

Transaction complete, I go back to the cat cage; my good woman goes to the supermarket for milk and bread. A boy of 11 or 12 looks at the cat. He wants this cat. So do I.

“Mum won’t let me have him,” he tells me. “It’s the money.”

At $180, desexed, micro-chipped, vaccinated, he’s a cheap cat. He’s also rangy, mottled, with a ginger circle round his mouth like Homer Simpson’s. A sign says he’s from Homeless Hounds. He preens and smooches, sniffs our fingers through the wire. 

  

Months back my good woman tries to dissuade me from getting a cat, now she’s all for it, proffering names.

So I lie in the morning dark, considering. Cost—food, kitty litter, vet bills, registration. He’s young and bouncy; he’ll eat furniture, sleep on my desk, spray the bookshelves, terrorise an old dog—me.

I fire up the interweb, Homeless Hounds: there he is, on Death Row. (Upper case.) Blackmailing bastards! It’s now seven. Ninety minutes to decide.

Rock on.