5. Charlotte Brontë

           At times I felt like Thad loved Charlotte Brontë much more than he had ever loved me, even though she had been my cat for the last decade, and he had only known her for the last three years.

           “Who’s the pookie? Who’s the pookie?” Thad said, crouching down to rub Charlotte Brontë’s fat furry belly.

           From my Study, I looked up from grading midterm essays to frown and

grunt. 

           What?” he said confrontationally.

           "Nothing.” I said.

           "Yeah…” he chided.

           I paused, about to let it go, then spat: “You know you used to call me that.”

          “I did not,” he snapped from the other room.

          “You did too. You used to call me ‘pookie.’”

          The grey and white tabby the size of a large raccoon, lolled about the floor like a princess have a very pretty seizure. She rubbed her fur deeply into the new chinoiserie carpet, where she knew I would have to remove it by hand. I know she did this on purpose, as she liked to see me down on all fours, down on her level, picking up her detritus. 

He stood up, “Oh for God’s sake, are you jealous of the cat now?” 

“No,” but of course I was.

Charlotte Brontë mewed her annoying ‘mee…yap’ and Thad dove to scratch at her big belly, baby talking her with, “Who wants a treat? Who wants a treat? Do you want a special kitty treat?”

She ‘mee…yapped’ and with that he ran to the kitchen to get her treats.

She, on the other hand, did not budge. She had trained him to bring the treats directly to her. She rolled over to look at me with that devious cat look of hers, and curled up her nose, and I recognized the stare: She was looking at me exactly the way  the French look at Americans. I frowned back.

I had originally gotten two small female kittens from my friend Oliver from the Universty over a decade ago. I dubbed them Charlotte and Emily Brontë for obvious reasons. But after a few weeks some things-appeared-to denote that Charlotte and Emily were actually Charles and Emeril. I didn’t change their names as I was greatly entertained by the fact that I now had two male brother cats named after two female sisters, who were forced to write under male pseudonyms (Currer and Ellis Bell), so it all made sense to me, plus they were cats, so they really had no idea what their names were anyway. Anyone who says their pet is smart is in dire need of human contact.    

It was about this time that tragedy occurred: Emily Brontë began peeing on everything, and I mean everything: couch legs, the marble topped living room commode, my bed.  So I had no choice but to begin calling her ‘Pee Kitty,’ as in ‘Come here and eat Charlotte Brontë and Pee Kitty.’ And as the problem would not stop, I ended up having to break up the brothers/sisters and gave Emily Brontë back to Oliver, who still had the momma cat, and was happy to take her back. Luckily, as soon as Emily got home with the Momma, she was totally fine and happy and quit peeing all over everything. So I felt good for that, but bad for Charlotte, who was so sad for exactly three days. But after that she totally forgot and we had lived happily together ever since.   

But now with the addition of Thad, and his constant puerile attentions toward her, there was now a weird Gay-Cat-Gay triangulation going on, and I did not like it.

Thad returned with a handful of treats and she rolled over, mouth open, waiting to be fed.

“You know if you just bring her the treats,” I continued to lecture from my Study, “you are denying her exercise, and eventually her legs will just rot off from disuse, the way humans no longer need their appendix. And then she’ll just be a little ball of cat fur that we will have to roll from room to room to feed.”

“That sounds cute.” He put the treats down in front of her. “Doesn’t it pookey? If we just roll you around like a beach ball?”

“And you have to stop with the baby talk. It’s giving me the diabetes.”  

“You are so jealous of this cat.” He said in his cutting harpy way.

“I am not!”  I lied.

Charlotte Brontë rolled over and began eating the treats, her fat tongue rolling out of her fatter mouth. She appeared to be in kitty heaven, which I guessed was heavily carpeted. Thad began to vigorously rub her back and she drooled and ate and drooled and mewed her stupid happy “mee…yap.”

“Are too,” he said after a minute.

“Well, why the Hell not!” I burst out “You used to bring me treats and rub my belly…”

“I still treat you…”

“You do not! You’re as lazy as she is now…”

“Oh, okay, Fine!” he said, rising quickly, and running at me with an ominous open hand.  

“What are you doing?” I said, pivoting in my desk chair as he lunged at me, one of his hands snapping my head back while the other popped something into my mouth.

I grimaced as I bit down: It tasted of tuna and shame.  
He hooted and danced back as all 18 pounds of Charlotte Brontë made a run for it. He giggled and clapped his hands, “There you go! You got your treat! It will help your coat shine!”

I spit the cat treat at him, my automatic vomit reaction about to kick in. The spittled cat treat hit the wall and slid down behind a credenza in a thick drippy glob. “You idiot! That could have poisoned me!”

“Oh, not just one little treat…” he cackled and ran from the room.

I bolted after him, setting in action a middle age game of chase which will eventually land one of us in the hospital. And if its him before me, he can count on me bringing him a candy box full of cat treats to help in his recuperation.