Annie and the Grateful Dead

by Denise Dietz

  Copyright © 2013 by Denise Dietz

  Cover image By Cindy See (originally posted to Flickr as Sonny Bunny) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

  For more information about the author, please visit www.denisedietz.com

  ANNIE AND THE GRATEFUL DEAD

  A Story to benefit the International Fund for Animal Welfare

  HELLO, GORGEOUS!

  Please don’t call me “cat.”

  I prefer “feline.”

  A cat can be a lion, tiger, leopard, jaguar, cougar, lynx, not to mention cheetah. How would you like to be lumped in with a beastly assortment of undomesticated creatures?

  I’m housebroken!

  I’ve seen numerous Tarzan movies on Annie’s TV, more than enough to know that Cheetah was the name of Tarzan’s chimpanzee. How would you like to be compared to a chimp?

  I’m not afraid of heights and swinging from vine to vine might be fun, assuming there were vines in my urban neighborhood, but Cheetah’s squeals make my ears bleed. Tarzan’s victory cry of the bull ape doesn’t sound much better, and Annie once said Tarzan’s yell was created by combining the recordings of one baritone, one tenor, and a hog caller from Arkansas.

  Cat, often used with “around,” can mean to search for a sexual mate. I hate to brag, but I don’t have to search very far. Humans tell me I’m handsome, and I’ve got to agree. Actually, they say I’m gorgeous, as in, “Oh, Annie, he’s gorgeous!”

  Annie is the woman I chose for my pet. She calls me Grateful. My full name — the name Annie gave me when I adopted her — is Grateful Dead.

  If I could have named myself, I would have named me Elvis. My great-grandmother lived at Graceland and my mother, Blue Suede Shoes, told me all about Elvis before I was weaned. You should hear me sing “I ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.” Cracks me up. Humans don’t seem to get it.

  When I sing “I ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog” to my favorite female feline, The Fluffster, she laughs so hard she pees her litter box.

  The Fluffster is what I fondly call my favorite female feline. Her owner, who has no imagination, named her Fluffy. The Fluffster is white, with patches of black, including a black “love patch” from her mouth to her chin, not unlike that Olympic skater on Dancing With The Stars.

  Annie likes to scoop me up and dance around the room when Dancing With The Stars is on the TV. Her long hair — the same color as Apple the Irish setter who lives next door — tickles my nose. I allow the bouncy ride because Annie laughs, and she doesn’t laugh all that often. The Foxtrot is my favorite dance but I despise the Quickstep.

  The Fluffster’s love patch is to die for, and unless she’s having a bad fur day, she lets me lick it.

  You could say I’m oyster-white, one shade lighter than beige. My ears, face, front paws and tail are cocoa. Annie tells her friends I’m part Siamese, but I’ve seen pictures of felines and, in my humble opinion, I look more like a Himalayan.

  Annie thinks she’s in love with her old high school boyfriend, Robert Dumbrowski, aka Rocky Dove. He wants to be a rock star. I detest Robert. For one thing, he doesn’t exactly adore felines, even a “gorgeous” feline like moi. So I’ve got to find my pet a mate who’s more — shall we say compatible?

  Frankly, if Annie had to choose between Robert and me, I think she’d choose me, but I can’t take that chance. Besides, if she chose me over Robert, it would make her miserable. Not that she’s happy now.

  She gets depressed because she thinks she’s too fat. That’s because her mother — who’s as thin as six o’clock — keeps telling Annie she’s fat. If I could use Annie’s mother as a scratching post, I would. Because Annie is not fat! She has what I call “comfortable curves.” Like Marilyn Monroe — and for that matter, Jayne Russell — in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

  The Fluffster has a collar with gems that look like diamonds, and she purrs when I sing “Diamonds are a Feline’s Best Friend,” but I digress.

  Annie has the most comfortable lap I’ve ever sat in, and I’ve had to endure some lumpy laps. Even worse are skinny laps, where jutting hipbones feel like pneumatic piercing tools.

  God must have fashioned Annie’s lap for felines. When I climb into her lap and express my pleasure in purrs and song, she says I sound like Julie Andrews.

  I’ve seen Julie Andrews on TV in The Sound of Music. Doe a deer, my furry butt! I’m not a soprano, not even close. A tenor, maybe, when the moon is full. Or k.d. Lang singing “Hallelujah.” Or, if I’ve sniffed too much second-hand smoke, Johnny Cash.

  Call me a vocalist, melodist, crooner, even yodeler, but please don’t call me Julie Andrews.

  PICTURE ELVIS IN A CAT FOOD COMMERCIAL

  Annie is also miserable because she’s an artist and artists don’t have a steady income. She inherited some money from her grandfather, but, according to Annie, it’s “running out faster than the sand in Dorothy’s hourglass.” I’ve seen The Wizard of Oz on TV, and I always wonder why Dorothy doesn’t simply turn the hourglass over.

  Here’s the scenario: The wicked witch, not the brightest sardine in the can, is noticeably clueless when it comes to telling time, the flying monkeys are, categorically, not Planet of the Apes quality primates, Oz doesn’t appear to have clocks, and a sundial needs . . . well, sun. The hourglass sand is about to run out and Dorothy is the only one in the room, right? The witch plans to kill her when the sand runs out, right?

  Turn the hourglass over, girl!

  I guess, when it comes to an inheritance, you can’t turn the hourglass over.

  Frankly, if Annie would only use her head, I could help her pay her bills. I hate to brag, but I’m much prettier than any of those felines on TV. Picture Elvis with oyster-white fur.

  From what I’ve seen of those TV ads, I’d get free food. Annie used to feed me tasty kitten chow. Then, when she received her inheritance, she switched to that yummy canned food, the kind with salmon and tuna. Now she gives me diet kibble. I blame that on her matchstick mother, who has the thing about weight. I once tried to express my displeasure by ignoring my bowl, which is white and says KITTY in blue letters. Have you ever tried to ignore a white bowl with KITTY in blue letters? Trust me, it’s impossible. Especially since, despite many scrubs, the bowl still smells fishy.

  Happily, I’ll never starve. Though we live in a rented basement apartment, it’s only half underground and there’s a small window above the bookshelves. Most of the time Annie keeps it open. “For air,” she says. I managed to loosen the latch and the screen with my claws, which wasn’t easy. The one advantage humans have over felines is hands. Not that I’d give up my lovely paws. Lord only knows how often I tongue-lick them clean. Cleanliness is a virtue, especially when it comes to felines (dogs don’t seem to give a rat’s spit).

  When Annie leaves the apartment, I sneak outside and stroll over to a nearby epicurean restaurant, where a chef named Ratatouille is my bud. Or I visit The Fluffster, who lives down the street. Her pet, a widow-lady named Patricia D. Graham, who looks vaguely familiar as if I’ve met her before in one of my lives, has a big house with a feline door that swings back and forth. You enter into a room that smells like soap and has mountains of thick towels, ideal for — pardon the expression — cat-naps. There’s also a bowl that says FLUFFY in pink letters, and is always filled with gourmet cat food.

  If Annie had money, she’d be happier. She thinks I pretend to love her but she’s wrong. My motives are pure, simple, unselfish. If she had more money, she’d buy more protein products, and who do you think would get the leftovers? I’m not into Ramen soup. Nor pasta, except for shrimp linguini and spaghetti drenched in clam sauce.

  On the other paw,
if Annie had money there’s a good chance Robert would move in with us. The only reason he’s “touring Canada and the US of A” is because he wants to make it big in the music business, but I have to ask: Have you ever heard of Rocky Dove?

  If Robert shared our living quarters, do you honestly believe he’d let Annie spend my TV-commercial paychecks on food? Or even her career? Fish poop! He’d use the money to buy a new guitar, recording equipment, studio time, imported beer.

  Somehow, I must convince Annie that she’d earn good money designing book covers. Her mother, The Toothpick, likes to leave romance novels around the apartment. A not-so-subtle hint to lose weight, I think, because the books always have skinny girls on the covers. Skinny, that is, except for their ta-tas.

  I say feed those girls a cheeseburger every couple of hours and buy them some sturdy foundation garments and they’d look more attractive, but what do I know? All I know is that Annie is talented enough to make money doing what she loves best: drawing horses and children and felines and, above all, humans in love. So I nudge The Toothpick’s romance novels into Annie’s lap and then stare hard at the covers (as only a feline can stare), but Annie never seems to twig. Instead, she laughs and says, “Do you want me to read this book out loud, Grateful? Well, okay, but you are one weird cat.”

  Feline, Annie. Feline, not cat!

  BIRD FEATHERS VS. HAIRBALLS

  “My Boyfriend’s back and we’re gonna be in trouble. Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend’s back.”

  I’ve been hissing that song non-stop, changing “you’re” to “we’re,” but Annie doesn’t get it. Instead, when Robert surprised us by bursting through the doorway and running for the powder room (what he calls the can), she said, “Grateful sweetie, I know you don’t like Rocky, but maybe if you open your heart to all his good qualities, you can at least tolerate him.”

  Good qualities? What good qualities? I suppose he’s good-looking from a female human’s point of view. He’s taller than Annie, barely shaven (on purpose), and looks like Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise. Robert’s pierced nose and lip are somewhat disconcerting, but most of the time his tattoos are hidden by his rolled-up shirt sleeves, vessels for his cigarette packs.

  He arrived this morning, roaring down Annie’s street on his 2009 Harley-Davidson XR1200, that, according to him, was a bargain at only $9,750.

  “Hey, GD,” he said, his motorcycle boots stomping to the far side of the living room. After peeling off his black leather jacket — like a caterpillar digesting itself — and then pawing through the pillow case that serves as his luggage, he tossed a rubber mouse in my direction. Robert is dumb but he’s not stupid. He knows that one way to Annie’s heart is through moi.

  He smelled like cigarette smoke and exhaust fumes. Fresh from a shower, Annie smelled like the towels in The Fluffster’s laundry room. “Oh, Rocky,” she said. “It’s so good to see you. You’ve been gone such a long, long time.”

  “Don’t start with the accusations,” he said, sinking his butt into my favorite armchair. “Got any beer?

  Annie’s face flushed. “I wasn’t accusing you, Rocky. I’ve missed you, that’s all. And yes, I have beer in the fridge, waiting for—” she bit her lip “—the right occasion.”

  I knew she was about to say, “waiting for you,” which might sound like another reproach.

  Robert, dumb but no fool, patted his lap. “I forgot how pretty you are,” he said. “I like your hair long, it looks like flames. Forget the beer, for now, and give us a kiss.”

  I shut my eyes when she kissed him, but opened them again when he said, “And that poster. Very nice.”

  His arm snaked around her body as he pointed to a large poster, leaning against the wall. Above the lettering is an illustration of a beautiful blonde girl-child, cuddling an oyster-white feline with cocoa-colored ears, tail and—

  Annie’s face flushed again, this time with excitement. “The poster is for a cat show,” she said, as if he couldn’t read the big letters from halfway across the room, as if he hadn’t graduated from high school.

  In my humble opinion, they let him graduate in order to get rid of him!

  “The cat show is for charity,” she continued. “Every cent we make will be donated to IFAW—”

  “I-what?”

  “FAW. The International Fund for Animal Welfare. Among other things, we plan to sell raffle tickets. I donated the original drawing I used for the poster. Sydney St. Charles, supposedly a witch, donated a huge stuffed cat, sewn by her great-aunt Lillian, who inserted good-luck charms into the stuffing. I’d sure like to win that raffle. I could use some good luck.”

  Annie paused for breath, her face momentarily sad. Then her expression brightened again. “My posters are all over town, Rocky. It costs twenty dollars to enter a cat in the show, and we’ve already had thirty entries, but we’ll probably have more by tonight because the event is tomorrow and some people wait until the last—”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “The cat show committee. I’m in charge of publicity and entertainment. Oh my gosh, I have a great idea. You can be part of the entertainment.”

  “Without the Flyboys? They all went home in order to make enough money to continue our tour.”

  Flyboys? Rocky Dove and the Flyboys? I didn’t know that. Confession: I’m not into chasing or, god-forbid, catching birds. In my humble opinion, feathers are worse than hairballs. Sylvester can have his Tweety-Bird raw; I prefer my fowl plucked. Plucked and then roasted, baked, fried, grilled . . . even fricasseed, despite the onion, celery, cayenne pepper and garlic that The Beanpole, Annie’s mother, always adds.

  I brought my attention back to Annie. “You have your guitar,” she was saying, “and volunteers constructed a wooden stage and there are microphones for—”

  “Microphones? Don’t tell me you’ve already hired someone else.”

  “Not someone, honey. Tap dancers, kids from the local dance studio. We need the mikes to amplify their taps.”

  “You know what?” Robert shifted Annie to the floor and tapped his forehead with his finger. “You’re not just a pretty face. I have a bagful of CDs, leftovers from my last gig. At fifteen dollars apiece, I can—”

  “Donate the money to the IFAW.”

  “What? You’ve got to be kidding! Why would I do that?”

  “For the publicity. TV cameras will be there. Reporters are desperate for human interest stories to sandwich between the latest congressional screw-ups. Even better, a couple of the tap-dance moms said they’d video their kids. For YouTube. I’ll ask them to YouTube you, too. After all, that’s how that kid from Canada was discovered. By Usher, I think. Or maybe Justin Timber—”

  “Yeah, sure, the moms can video me, that’s a great idea, but I can still sell my CDs and donate, oh, say ten percent. No, twenty percent! Will that make you happy?”

  When Annie shook her head and opened her mouth to reply, Robert held up his hand like one of the Supremes. Then he scowled and said, “Knock it off, Annie. You’re about to cry and that’ll make me feel bad. We’ll talk about your damnfool cat show later.”

  ARE THE KITTENS WHO LOST THEIR MITTENS A HOAX?

  Later turned out to be bedtime. Banned from the bedroom, I could still hear most of what Robert and Annie said. Not that I was eavesdropping, but at times it pays to know what’s going on. Especially when it comes to Robert. Who kept telling Annie how pretty she was and how he liked to twist her red hair around his neck like a noose. Then he murmured a grandiloquent tribute to her ta-tas and I knew Annie would soon let loose with a happy yowl, which I did not want to hear, thank you very much.

  I was about to beat a hasty retreat through the open window above the bookcase, when all of a sudden Annie said something about the cat show. Robert got mad and Annie began to cry. Like those three little kittens who lost their mittens.

  Don’t you hate it when a writer gets it wrong? Felines do not cry. They meow. They even — excuse the expression — caterwaul. But they neve
r snivel, sob or blubber. Even if they could, they wouldn’t. Felines have a certain reputation to maintain and “aloof” is at the very top of the list.

  If a feline is hungry, he or she might let loose with a mournful mew. If a feline is in heat, she might whine, even drone. If a feline lacks warmth or companionship, he or she might utter a loud, profane complaint. But cry over mittens? I don’t think so.

  I’ll never understand why Annie brought up the cat show, especially when she was on the verge of a yowl, but she did.

  Robert stomped out of the bedroom and slept on the couch.

  He slept in his underwear, his jeans on the floor.

  Another feline might be tempted to curl up on those trousers, but, in my humble opinion, trousers are useless unless you put ankles, legs, tummy, tail, and pulsating organ inside.

  How do I know the words “pulsating organ”? It’s from one of those romance novels The Beanpole left for Annie, who read it out loud.

  Obviously, the hero wasn’t neutered.

  HAVE YOU EVER TASTED A RUBBER MOUSE?

  When Annie awoke the next morning, she looked out the window and said, “I prayed for a beautiful day, Grateful, and it looks like my prayers were answered.”

  I leapt onto the windowsill and gazed up at the blue sky, where a few wispy cloud-sheep were chasing cloud-rabbits, or the other way around, not that I’d ever chase sheep and rabbits. Just dogs. I chase dogs. So it cracks me up when Robert flops on the couch and says, “I’m resting my dogs.”

  “I don’t care if Rocky stays here while we go to the cat show,” Annie continued. “And if he doesn’t find a job and pay half the rent, I’m kicking him out.”

  She sounded uncertain about that last part, but I flaunted my approval with a low, vibratory murmur deep in my throat, while, at the same time, I rubbed against her ankles.