 Images courtesy of the author
Today: Anna Merlan, author of REPUBLIC OF LIES: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power; and Trevor Alixopulos, comics artist and author of The Hot Breath of War.
Issue No. 204Be Our Guest
Anna Merlan A Comic
Trevor Alixopulos
Be Our GuestAs with many successful con artists, it can sometimes be difficult to remember how he entered our lives. The first time he appeared, as far as I can recall, he was trying out the neighboring apartment building where a half dozen kids live, all of them eager to claim him as their own mangy new toy. The cat is very large, by cat standards, a stately tuxedo with a white crescent moon on his face and very fat cheeks, because no one bothered to get him fixed for years and that’s apparently what happens. He hung around the courtyard of the apartment building for a while, cadging food and sleeping in a pile of abandoned outdoor toys, a jumble of grimy paws, his cheek pressed against a plastic airplane. The kids proved a little noisy for his taste, I think, and the next thing we knew he had taken up residence in the backyard my husband and I share with three other neighbors. One day, it was hot, and he was huddled against the side of the house. We brought him a dish of water and a can of tuna hastily unearthed from the emergency food bin; he looked at us curiously when we set it down, waited for us to step back a few feet, then dug in. This went on for weeks: we fed him. One of the other neighbors fed him. He took to standing on the railing next to our back steps and demanding to be petted. He napped on the roof of a shed where we keep spare junk; from there, he could also peer into a kitchen window, awaking when he heard me in there and howling for service. We bought cat food because, we reasoned, it was cheaper than tuna. Then, inevitably, one day we were taking too long delivering his breakfast and he invited himself inside, waltzing through the back door of the house and looking around the kitchen. We put a ratty towel on the floor. He kneaded it with his claws, heaved an audible sigh, and promptly went to sleep. The cat, it seemed clear, had previously lived in a house. He was eager to shred the side of the couch and tried very hard to drink out of the toilet, both behaviors we told him we found objectionable. Instead of kicking him out, however—perhaps our fatal mistake—we covered the couch with a rug and put a dish of water on top of the toilet so he could pretend to be drinking from the bowl, but without all the fecal bacteria. He came and went as he pleased; later, we learned that during some of his absences he was visiting the other neighbor, where he executed more or less the same routine. Much like the finance reporter who wrote about handing a shoebox containing $50,000 in cash over to a scammer, in this way I’m forced to relive—to reckon with—the sequence of events that has led me to spend the last two years feeding, petting and paying for the medical care of an odorous little creature who doesn’t even know my name, who gets on the kitchen table when I tell him not to, who has come into the office repeatedly while I write this to demand that I rub his belly and then let him outside, then back inside, then out again. He goes out all night, then chooses one of the two houses he has access to and sleeps all day, squinting with disgust if someone dares to make too much noise near him or, worse still, operate the hated Roomba. He likes to explore the bedroom closet and will put his nose against it in silent rage if we close the door. Three times he’s required emergency vet care, twice for eye infections and once when a fight with another outdoor cat left him with a gash in his head and the other guy’s tooth embedded in his paw. There have been eye drops and antibiotics that require Tod to put him in a gentle half nelson to administer them.  The neighbor who was also hoodwinked by him bought pet insurance; we started a group text to share intel on the cat and split up the vet bills and flea treatments. (We disagree on his name and politely avoid using our chosen cat designations around each other.) Eventually, we got him fixed, a situation that barely seemed to faze him, except for the downtime it required afterward. Whenever the cat has to stay inside because he has a cone on his head or some kind of gaping wound or a fresh lack of testicles, he’ll be miserable: howling to leave, grudgingly pooping in the hated litter box—turns out he knows how to do that too—and glaring murderously at us. In the winter, he started sleeping on our bed, staying more or less to the towel I put down as a show of decorum. I should mention at this point that I am, as a general rule, incredibly allergic to cats; for some reason, I am not remotely allergic to him. The situation is ludicrous. He’s not our cat, not the neighbor’s cat, not anyone’s cat. Yet I spend half my damn day sticking my head out the back door to look for him. When he sleeps inside he inevitably wakes me at 3:00 a.m. to go out again; lately, he’s been waking me up seemingly just to hang out. In recent days he’s managed to charm a third neighbor, who feeds him when none of us are around or maybe when he simply decides he likes her better. I now have a text chain with her too, entirely devoted to grainy pictures of the cat and updates on his movements. In this way, my life has gradually molded itself around this creature, whom I protect against the evil eye by telling him he’s stinky, dirty and ill-behaved while petting his face. He drools on me, purrs outrageously, and is so obsessed with Tod that he freezes at the sight of him, eyes widening in ecstasy, before following him around yelling piteously for attention. He refuses to stay inside for more than a day, no matter how much we beg and stonewall. Every time I let him out I worry it’s for the last time. The other morning I awoke at 6:41 a.m. to an irritable text from Neighbor 1, telling us the cat has refused his healthier wet food since we started with the Fancy Feast. Could we please get better food, he asked, naming a few brands that cost twice as much. I huffed and scoffed. The cat eats bugs, I told Tod, who nodded in agreement. The cat sleeps under the house sometimes and emerges caked in dirt and spiderwebs. I once saw him run off with a raccoon under the moonlight, as if they were attending a coven together. We do not have to feed this cat the equivalent of Whole Foods. A brief silence ensued. Then, of course, we bought a case of the nicer food.
HUZZAH!!And three cheers for Kọ́lá Túbọ̀sún, whose film, Ebrohimie Road, has won the Best Documentary Prize at the Africa USA International Film Festival!!! 🔥🔥🔥 Fiery congratulations!!! 🔥🔥🔥
A Comic
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