Chapter 38
Louie Seeks Solace
I am not one to wash my dirty linen in public, but I am in a quandary.
The A La Cat commercial has been unmentionable ever since my regrettable abduction and alteration.
Miss Savannah Ashleigh and the Divine Yvette left town so suddenly that they may have been abducted themselves by a UFO. (Do not laugh. There is a lot of that around Las Vegas and the nearby Air Force base, the famous Area 51 beloved of alien-intelligence aficionados.) I have had no opportunity to confirm the dread news about the lovely Yvette. Is she indeed soon to become a mother? Perhaps she will lose her kittenish figure and no longer be in demand for television commercials.
I know that Miss Temple Barr has no use for the Divine Yvette's mistress. She is still in a snit about my terrible experience and mutters every now and then about suing the cellulite off Miss Savannah Ashleigh yet. I am certainly being treated like a king around the Circle Ritz, as I should be, but I do miss the action and the limelight.
And one little thing bothers me. Well, maybe two.
While it is true that I am an extremely educated street dude, I have to admit every once and while to a significant gap in my knowledge. In this embarrassing instance, the gap affects a very personal area. After thinking it over for several days, I see no help for it but to apply to Ingram, the Thrill 'n' Quill mystery-bookstore cat. I do hate to go to an inferior for advice, especially in a delicate area, but I get up and go.
By the time I amble over--and I amble a lot these days, apparently there are some thorny things called "stitches" in my abdomen that make Miss Temple giggle, if not me --Ingram is ensconced in his display-window den.
There he sits and snoozes, collar neatly buckled, rabies tags glittering at his throat like they were medals, shirtfront pristine and tiger-stripes licked into place.
I shudder at presenting my problem to such a stuck-up prig, but at times even the best of us must bow and scrape a little, and ignorance is a terrible condition to be in.
I extend a claw to rap on the window.
Ingram opens one yellow eye and wrinkles the stripes on his forehead. I know what he is thinking: he does not wish to disturb himself to leave his sunny snoozing spot and come out in the November chill to talk to me.
Tough. If he does not do so, I will get in and disturb him far worse.
He knows this, so soon he is mewing at the door until Miss Maeveleen Pearl, the proprietor, is cooing at the open door.
"Your little friend has not come to visit for some time, Ingram. Run along now and have fun, but do not wander too far."
Ingram is constitutionally incapable of wandering any farther than the fish market three doors down. Which is where we stroll to.
"You have been getting notorious, Louie," Ingram notes as he puts one white-socked foot in front of the other.
"I presume you refer to my new career in film."
"Huckstering," he says with a sniff. He sits down to rub a grain of the sandman's sleep out of one eye. "What do you want?"
"I have a technical question. Perhaps I should wait to ask it until we are back at the bookshop. You may need to look up something."
"Spit it out. I do not want you around the Thrill 'n' Quill too much. Miss Maeveleen Pearl is very soft-hearted, and she might give some of my belongings to you. I have never forgiven you for being responsible for those odious stuffed representations of Baker and Taylor, the Scottish fold cats coming to the shop. They sit atop the shelves, flattening their ears at me day in and day out, taking up good snoozing space and attracting attention that should be mine. I would like to claw the stuffing out of them."
'Then why not do so?"
"I am not a violent individual, like yourself."
'That gets to my problem. I am not like myself anymore."
"Oh? It does not show."
"It should not show, as it is in a very private area."
Ingram waggles the whiskers over his left eye, an effete gesture he uses to signal skepticism.
"I understand that you have had the neutering procedure."
"Indeed, and I recommend it highly. No muss, no fuss. No howling in the night, no howling in the daytime when Miss Maeveleen Pearl discovers the places you have marked while night-howling. No females to muddle one's brain and distract it from socially redeeming literature, no nasty seepage of a foul nature. Have you become enlightened enough to undergo the socially responsible procedure? You amaze me, Louie. I thought you far too regressed to voluntarily surrender your lower nature."
"Actually, it was not voluntary. And I am confused."
"Why do you not consult your esteemed pater?"
"My what?"
"Does not your sire reside now at Temple Bar? So I heard on the grapevine."
"Well, this is something I would prefer not to trouble the old man with. He has had an untrammeled life, and does not understand the demands of civilization."
"I could say the same of you." Ingram brushes an immaculate whisker with a pearl-white paw.
I would hate this guy's guts, if he had any.
I swallow and explain my adventure with the plastic surgeon. "Miss Temple Barr keeps using the word 'vasectomy,' and I am afraid I am not acquainted with it. I know I have a few stitches in my tummy, but that does not seem to be what a vasectomy is."
"Yes, I thought your pouch was looking a trifle sleeker. Silly me. I attributed it to a rigorous indoor-exercise program. I should have known better. 'Vasectomy,' you say. That is impossible, my good goon."
I overlook "goon" because the word "impossible" always attracts my attention.
"How so?"
"We of the four-footed kind have a simple, and sometimes brutal, procedure to control our raging hormonal tendencies toward reproduction. Words vary, from 'gelding' for horses to the general 'neutering.' It consists of cutting off the, er, balls is the street word, I believe, and I would never utter it if I did not have the unpleasant task of explaining the facts of life to you at this late date. Are you sure Three O'Clock cannot help you?"
"Quit with the Three O'Clock! And keep talking."
Ingram sighs. I suspect that is another of the many side effects of this neutering he is discussing. But he does go on. And on.
This rather drastic, but quick and inexpensive, method results in an animal that is neither male nor female, but more pro perly an 'it.' It also releases the poor beasts from the tug and pull of natural urges that only serve to overpopulate the planet and cause untold misery for the unwanted young. A neutered male will no longer mark territory with pungent. . . er, urinary liquids. He will no longer fight other un-neutered males for female favor. He will no longer haunt unwilling females to force his attentions--and unwanted offspring--on them. You can see that this procedure is completely beneficial to society, and to said males, if they only realized it. Once it has been done, we are perfectly content, I assure you, and much relieved not to be troubled by urges to roam, fight or mate. It is, in short, cat heaven."
I stare at this dude. I cannot believe him. What a happy, dancing robocat.
"Miss Temple seems to think that this vasectomy is something special."
Ingram yawns. "Not really. By being subjected to this surgery reserved for humans, who have a great many psychological blocks to tampering with their sexuality, you now have the worst of both worlds. You will still hunt, fight and chase females, but you will be unable to sire kittens. All the mess and none of the warm, domestic comforts of family life. You will still live it up like a rogue male, with no evolutio n of your conscience or social responsibility. In other words, you will still be the same, selfish, hedonistic slob you always were, except that you will not bring unwanted young ones into the world."
'The dames I see, they will not get... you know?"
"Spit it out, Louie! No, they will not get pregnant. Your dubious genes will never be passed on again. Hallelujah."