Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit (2 page)
Read Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit Online
Authors: Carole Nelson Douglas
“
Do not turn your head away," she beseeches. "Your
segment
is coming up.”
Yes, I see that my rear appendage is lofting to great
advantage.
. . .
“Louie!
You are on!”
I am forced at last to play couch potato and turn to
view the television screen. It is rerunning the ending of
my least favorite
show,
Sabrina.
I
have nothing against
teenage witches, although I have never consorted with
them, but that black, mothball-mouthed feline supporting
puppet is one bad actor. I could chew the scenery with
far
more effectiveness.
In fact, a demonstration of this is coming up, as I come
on. Eat your heart
out,
then lend it to me for
a snack.
In a moment a
perky voice-over chorus pipes
into the
room: Ooo-Ia-la. A la
Cat!
We see white-gloved hands removing a
crystal dish
from a cupboard. A
silver spoon deposits some wet glop the color of Silly Putty into the dish's
pristine center. The
entire mess (I am speaking metaphorically here of a prod
uct I dearly love, of course) is gently laid on a high-gloss
white floor.
“
Dinner is served," announces Jeeves
Black-sleeves
the butler. A pale,
patrician pussycat ankles over to in
spect
the offering and begin eating with dainty abandon.
Mon amour, the Divine
Yvette, draped in silver foxiness.
The camera pulls back to reveal a Big White Set from the
Hollywood musical heyday of the thirties and a flight
of
stairs to cat heaven, lined by dancing dudes in jelly
bean-colored zoot suits. Down the center aisle, floating
like a butterfly, windmilling his limbs like an
aerialist,
hustles yours truly in
full black formal attire, crowned by
a
flamingo-pink fedora that perches precariously over one
ear and eye.
I four-step from left to right in the wide center aisle,
gaining momentum as the music swells into a full or
chestration. Suddenly, I do a Fred Astaire drag to the
left, ratchet up the mandarine-orange leg and torso of a
chorus
boy, and end up balanced on his shoulder like an epaulette with the black spot.
The
guy's grinning face assumes an even more frozen
expression as all sixteen of my extended shivs sink
through
fabric into flesh.
After flourishing my only unclawed member, I leap
down
to the white stairs again and continue my descent.
While watching my acrobatics, I squint at the small
screen, hoping to see the noose of twine that a rival has
slipped into my
path to trip me up. Alas, apparently the
evidence has ended up on the cutting room floor, just
like
my competition for the
job of A La Cat spokesdude, the yellow-bellied Maurice.
“
You certainly are quite the high-stepper," my
a straight-up two-yard dash? That poor dancer looks
like
he's been spindled, stapled, and
mutilated. But he kept a
game smile on his face. What a pro!”
Hey! I am the pro here. It is not every day one has to
dodge a bullet, so to speak, on camera without
mussing
a hair.
And I certainly am slick and sleek as I finish my de
scent by nosing up to the Divine Yvette and sharing her
repast
of A La Cat on Baccarat crystal.
“
Ooo-la-la. A la Cat! Ooo-la-la. A la Cat!"
the offscreen
kitty chorus trills
while I preen and lick my chops and the
Divine Yvette lowers her smoky eyelashes to snick a
crumb from my
chin.
“
What a natural,"
words from my
mind. She ought to know, being an ace
freelance
public relations lady, and now manager of my
sudden performing career. Considering my real profes
sion is
private dick, I am doing all right as a TV star.
She rewinds the bit, so we can play it again, Sam
Spade.
We are no less impressed on second sight.
“
Well," she says, "if they do not get a good
response
from that commercial, there is
something very wrong with
the American viewing public.”
This disturbs me. Of course there is something very
wrong with the American viewing public! They are only
human. I had no idea that my media fate would depend
on them. I can only hope that cats everywhere know
where
the remote control is, and use it.
But
to let me rest upon
my laurels, as firm and fluffy
as they may be.
She is fooling with the VCR again, her curly red head
shaking in disgust as it snaps and whirls its defiance at
her manipulations. I do think these particular devices
have been planted among humans by subversive alien
visitors.
I have never known a household appliance more capable of driving people to
extreme measures.
“
I know I got it,"
herself or
to me it makes no difference. She is clearly out
of control in either case. "I double-checked the time and
channel
... do not tell me—! Ah.”
I watch some dopey introductory shots filled with noth-
ing but close-ups of people's faces.
They are all grinning
like pumpkins, and
it is not even Halloween, except for
the faces that are
grimacing as if they had just eaten
fermented Free-to-Be-Feline,
my least favorite health
food.
Thinking of which, I burp.
sorbed instead by the whirring sound the tape player
makes as it reels and unreels until she has the exact
place
she wanted.
“
Now." She rises, aims the
remote at the machine, and
zaps it into loud life.
I
flatten my ears. These afternoon talk shows are filled
with yowling, keening people lined up to engage in hissy
fits and claws-out fist-fights, making a spectacle of them
selves. If I had a shoe, I would heave it at them. in
fact,
I
watch with interest as
beside me on the couch, kicking off her navy-and
burgundy high heels with the leather rosettes on the toes
so delectable for chewing.
She settles in, absently
patting my head off-center. I
hate that!
I
observe the scene on the screen: the usual lineup,
the usual host pacing like a major cat behind bars, the
usual zoo of exotic guests, the usual peanut gallery of a
growling and
spitting audience. Miss Temple leans for
ward when our upstairs neighbor, Mr. Matt Devine, walks
on, and from then on I do not even get my head patted
off-center.
Not only is this show interminable—unlike my snappy sixty second commercial
debut—but
Mr. Matt's segments over
again. It is like
watching an entire television program with
a bad case of the stutters.
I cannot take it, and soon drift off to
where cat food
commercials are the main event, and peo
ple are confined to sixty second cameos. In my dreams,
the Divine Yvette, shaded-silver queen of the screen, is
joined
by her glorious shaded-golden sister, the Sublime
Solange. I feel my whiskers twitch with bliss. I am not
only skimming down the endless flight of steps to their
supple Persian sides, but I manage to give the evil Mau
rice a karate kick on the way down. He flies into the air
and disappears in the dark wings of the
stage set.
My triumph is complete . . . until the buzzer rings and
hauls
us all offstage.
I wake up punch-drunk and blinking, to find
and the VCR tape on permanent hold.
Mr. Matt Devine's earnest face is frozen on the screen, but
“
What?" she is saying. "That cannot be.
It is ridiculous."
She pauses.
"Of course I can come over, but I hardly
expect to be able to do anything about it, other than to
talk some sense into the workmen, and they are not
the
type to listen to me . . . no! I
really do not need any more
'backup,'
thank you very much, Aldo. I can handle this,
solo.”
My ears perk up. If there is something to be
"handled,"
and if Miss Temple Barr is insisting to someone else that
she can do it "solo," my special skills will
definitely be
needed.
It sniffs as if something is up at the Crystal Phoenix
Hotel
and Casino, where Miss Temple's grand plan of
renovation
is even now coming to fulfillment, now that the
classiest little hotel and casino in Las Vegas is her big
gest client. I have a major stake in the Crystal
Phoenix
from the old days. Back
before it was remodeled into the
elegant
joint it is today, it was a derelict hotel along the
Strip, like the Aladdin was now and then for
years until it finally fell like the walls of
Crystal
Phoenix is where I began my career as dude
about-town
and unofficial house dick. That was before I
met
at
the Circle Ritz apartments and condominiums.
I glance at the television screen and wrinkle my nose.
That was before Mr. Matt Devine came into the picture,
or even before
Vegas
Debonair: Max
Kinsella, a magician known as
the Mystifying Max. He
lived up to his
billing by vanishing without a trace for sev
eral months, leaving a vacancy with
Mr. Max is back, an ex-magician, but not ex-enough
in
other departments, which both Mr.
Matt Devine and yours
truly are not exactly gleeful about, if you get my
drift.