Cat TV
/Julie Rea
Two housecats and a woman sat in a tight triangle on the sidewalk before the restaurant, the woman's eyes fixed upon the animals. Her pantsuit was wrinkled and torn, her face grimy, her bobbed hair mussed. Yet she sat ram-rod straight and nodded, as if receiving important instructions.
Freya, looking out the restaurant window, took in this scene. "Weird," she said.
As if the woman had heard, she sprang to her feet and bolted off, the cats at her heels.
"What?" asked Steve, turning to see. The cats and woman had disappeared.
Freya described the scene.
"Vagrants," said Steve.
"By the way--how do you feel about cats? I have a few."
Steve, her date, picked up sushi. "How many?"
"Three. They accumulated over the years.”
"Are they enjoying the West Coast?" Two months before, Freya had moved from Brooklyn to Greenville, a small town in Southwestern Oregon, to take her first post-graduate job: a tenure-track position in the English Department of a small college. Steve taught French there as an adjunct.
"They're enjoying the view from inside," said Freya. "I live near the river road, so I worry about the water and cars. And other life. Cats are murderers."
"It's not supposed to be safe down there, the river road."
"Really? Why?"
"Drug addicts," said Steve. He reached across the table and lifted a white hair off her black cardigan. "I don't mind cats."
When Steve said he'd like to see her again, she said yes: she liked his red hair and the thought of curling up with him; she'd been alone for a long time.
At home, Parker, a giant grey tabby with a circle around one eye like a monocle, almost ran out the door; it was a thing he sometimes did when Freya was late. Mister Dobbins, a charcoal tabby, long-tailed and big-eared, meowed. Snowball, fat, white, and fluffy, rubbed against her legs.
She changed into sweats, put up her hair, poured a glass of wine, and fed the cats. She sat at her dining room table. Before her, a window looked out to her sliver of backyard. There the moon glinted off the paving-stone path. A few feet beyond was the grassy plunge to the river.
She opened her laptop and browsed the internet, landing on a video of kittens wrestling.
Parker yowled. The cats flanked her chair, all wide eyes and dilated pupils.
She scratched cat heads, stroked arching backs, stopped the video, and got up to use the bathroom.
When she returned, Parker sat on the laptop keyboard, large eyes close to the screen. Mister Dobbins stood on the chair. Snowball, on the floor beneath them, tail whipping about, looked up.
Freya shouted, went to grab her wine before it got knocked over, and shooed the cats onto the floor.
On the computer screen was a crude animation of Adolph Hitler, with a black mop of hair, a Lego block of mustache, and a swastika armband, black on white on red. Hitler, in profile, made the Sieg Heil salute, appearing oblivious to a cat at his feet. The cat, an animated silhouette striped red, white, and blue, looked up, tail lashing, then sprang onto Hitler's leg. Hitler flailed at what looked like a wiggling American flag attached to his thigh. The video faded to black and then a still image of the red, white, and blue cat reappeared, with text below it reading,"Vote CAT for total win today." Beneath the video was a cat emoji. Thumbnails of other videos lined the right side of the screen, each labeled with images of cats.
Freya clicked on one of the other videos, one of a cat after a pigeon, fur and feathers flying. The cat got the pigeon by the neck, the bird went limp, the cat dropped the bird and, its mouth red and wet, stared at the camera, as if to say, and that's how you do it!
Freya closed the browser window, shuddering.
Another window popped up, this a video of a cat batting at an injured mouse. Every now and again the cat eyed the camera, as if wanting to be sure everything was recorded.
Freya looked at her tabs on her internet browser. Prior to her visit to the bathroom, her open web pages had been for her personal email, her work email, Twitter, Facebook, the school library, and a bread recipe. But now, all of her tabs featured icons of cats.
When she returned, Parker sat on the laptop keyboard, large eyes close to the screen. Mister Dobbins stood on the chair. Snowball, on the floor beneath them, tail whipping about, looked up.
She tried to log on to Twitter. The browser redirected to Cat TV.
She began swearing as she clicked around the tabs, all pages from the same site, with a URL of www.catTV.cat. She took out her phone and Googled Cat TV virus but found no relevant hits.
She tried to close her internet browser, and when the computer didn't respond, held the power button down until the machine went dark.
When she rebooted, the browser opened up automatically to Cat TV.
Christ, she thought. She shut down the computer, which had long before aged out of its warranty, and paced around the house. She wasn't financially in a great place for this.
Parker meowed at the closed laptop.
#
When Freya opened her cheap replacement computer, Parker leapt into her lap, pink nose twitching. Mister Dobbins and Snowball jumped on the table. Mister Dobbins mewed and rubbed his face on the edge of the screen.
"What is it, my dudes?"
After they ignored offerings of treats and catnip, she set the infected Mac on the floor and turned it on. Cat TV appeared, and the cats flocked to it.
She graded papers at the dining room table until a loud growling and hissing from Cat TV distracted her. She turned the volume down on the Mac and went back to work. A minute later, the sounds returned. She looked down and saw Parker pawing at the volume key.
She stared, freaked. Was she hallucinating?
She had lots to do, though, so tried to forget everything related to Cat TV, put in her headphones, and returned to her work.
When she took a break to reheat her tea, the growling and hissing had ceased. Now, Cat TV featured the head of a black cat with green eyes looking into the camera, going, "Meow meow meow-mee? Meow meow meow-mee? Meow meow meow-mee?" Freya's cats looked on. Snowball held his mouth half-open as his nose wiggled. Mister Dobbins held his long tail upright, the end twitching. Parker, unblinking, sat on his haunches.
Freya watched, disturbed, wondering who had recorded and uploaded this and why.
Not long after, she shut down both computers and went to bed. Parker and Mister Dobbins cried; Snowball nuzzled her face; Freya pulled a pillow over her head and went to sleep.
She dreamed of the black cat from Cat TV asking her, "Are you lonely? Are you lonely? Are you lonely?"
The next morning, instead of taking their usual posts by the windows, Mister Dobbins jumped on the counter and pawed at her as she passed, Parker knocked crap off shelves, Snowball meowed, and all of them got underfoot as she got ready for work. So, she put Cat TV on. It captured their attention.
Henceforth, she kept Cat TV on all the time.
#
Freya unlocked and opened a window in her house to let in some spring air and saw the screen, slashed along the bottom, move with the breeze.
Somebody had tried to break in.
She closed the window and locked it, heart hammering, missing Brooklyn's crowds. Here in Greenville, in a house with forest on either side and the river behind, she could be killed, her screams unheard, and nobody would know until she didn't show up for work.
Later, she saw an ad on Cat TV for the TigerLady Self-Defense Claw. She ordered one online, and it arrived in the mail a few days later. It fit in her palm, and when she squished the soft rubber base, three two-inch, sharp claws jutted out between the fingers of her fisted hand.
She put it in a bedroom dresser drawer.
#
Freya had never taken care of her nails beyond using clippers. But lately, in faculty meetings, she felt like a shabby grad student next to her manicured colleagues. One night, she got out a file, color, and coat, sat at her dining room table, filed her nails, and watched Cat TV, hearing the river through her half-open window.
After losing track of time, with a start, she looked down at her nails. She'd shaped them into little points.
#
Freya ate her kung pao chicken, extra spicy, while Steve complained about his day job. He translated for French-Canadian purchasers of Oregon agricultural equipment. He described something about how XYZ part wouldn't cooperate with ABC component.
Freya, to stay awake, ate a pepper the size of a finger and started to cough. She drained the remainder of the wine from her glass and went for her water, polished that off too, and continued to cough, waving at her face.
Steve gave her his glass and looked for the waitress. "Where'd she go?" he asked. "Jesus, you're really--" He patted Freya's back, then went to the waitress, where she bent over the hostess stand, her phone before her face.
Steve tried to get the waitress's attention. He shook her shoulder when she failed to respond. She jerked upright, put the phone aside, reached for a pitcher of water, and hurried towards Freya.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am," she said as she filled Freya's glass. "Are you all right?"
Freya tried to still her jerking throat muscles and smile. "I'm fine," she got out. "Thank you."
The girl nodded and hurried away.
Steve stiffly sat down, took his napkin off the table, and put it back in his lap with a little huff.
"It's okay," said Freya as Steve refilled her wine glass.
"I know somebody who isn't getting tipped tonight," he sing-songed.
"Come on."
"She's up there watching cat videos as you're choking to death."
"I wasn't choking to death, and she depends on those tips." Freya had waited tables throughout college.
"Then I guess she should work a little harder." He punctuated this with the small smile he reserved for the aftermath of the eruption of one of his unfortunate opinions.
Freya found her shoulders near her ears and a low rumble coming out of her mouth. She stopped and drank more wine, confused by herself.
"You all right?" Steve asked.
"Can we talk about something else?" she asked. "Help me think about what I'm going to do with my cats while I'm gone." She had an academic conference in a week, where she would present her paper on the maltreatment of animals as a metaphor for human slavery in the work of the Brontë sisters. She'd always been bad with budgets, and after replacing her computer and paying her rent and student loans, she didn't have much money for a kennel.
"I can look in on them."
"You're sure?" She'd assumed he wouldn't volunteer, given how he felt about where she lived.
"No problem."
"Wow, okay, I appreciate it," she said, feeling guilty because the last few days she'd been rehearsing break-up conversations. The sex was mediocre, the conversations banal. She didn't see their thing going beyond the three-month stage and didn't want to lead him on.
But she really needed somebody to look after her cats.
She dreamed of the black cat from Cat TV asking her, “Are you lonely? Are you lonely? Are you lonely?”
#
In class the next day, Freya squeezed her way from student to student, answering questions in a classroom crowded with desks and computers.
"Okay, scoot over," Freya said to a student who didn't understand the library's online database. "Now watch this." She clicked through a series of links.
A student called for Freya.
"Just a minute," Freya said. "No," she said to a student on her other side. "Put that in a different paragraph. Make sense? All right," she said to the student waiting. "Here I come."
She climbed onto the desk. "What's up?" she asked, as the students looked up at her, goggle-eyed.
On a wave of laughing and muttering, she realized where she was and scrambled down. "Okay," she said, finger to lips. "Time to work." Thank Christ no administrator had walked in, she thought. What was she doing?
After class ended, as she packed up her satchel, lost in thought, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She jumped and turned in one motion, hands raised, hissing, sinking into a crouch.
"I just wanted to turn in my paper," the student said, eyes big behind her glasses.
"Oh right, sorry," said Freya. She stood and took the paper. "You scared me, I guess. Ha." She cleared her throat. "Thanks. Have a good weekend!"
The student hurried away.
Freya picked up the satchel, swiped an eraser over the white board, dreading her end-of-semester evaluations: professor hisses and climbs on furniture. Was she going crazy?
#
Only Mister Dobbins and Snowball met her when she rolled her suitcase inside after the academic conference. "Where's Parker?" she asked and went around the house, calling. When he didn't appear, she rushed outside with the treat bag, shaking it and yelling his name. She dug out her phone, called Steve.
When he answered, she said, "Hi, I'm home, can't find Parker."
"Yeah, bad news," said Steve. "He got out this morning. Went right between my legs when I opened the door. I looked for him for a long time. Hey." His voice broke. "He's probably just exploring the forest."
"Or he's lost," she said. "Or fallen in the river. He's an old cat."
"Yeah, but--"
She wanted her cat, not consolation, and said, "I have to go."
#
Parker didn't return. Freya kept dry food and water by the back door. She put up MISSING CAT posters around town. She put away Parker's blanket and his cardboard box near the window.
At night, she took pillows and blankets from the bed and joined Snowball and Mister Dobbins on the floor in front of Cat TV, only able to fall asleep there.
#
She texted Steve she needed a little time to herself. He responded by calling and texting her repeatedly. She wanted to vanish, but she owed him a phone call and decided to get it over with.
"I'm really sorry about your cat," he said when she rang. "Freya, you've got to believe me, I feel terrible."
"I do," she said. "But please, don't. I should've warned you he's sometimes an escape artist."
"Even so," he mumbled.
She rubbed her eyes, feeling like a real jerk. "But--uh--Steve? I don't think we should see each other anymore. It's not about Parker, okay? It really isn't. I don't think we're really compatible." She paused. "Steve?"
"Uh, yeah." Some shuffling noises. "I'm sorry you feel that way," he said. "Bye."
"Wait--" She'd planned to offer friendship--he hadn't been a bad guy, and she wanted to hurt him as little as possible--but he'd already hung up.
#
A few days later, Freya sat at her dining room table, trying to plow through a stack of student papers that had accumulated during the time she'd been away at the academic conference and distracted with the loss of her cat.
Around one in the morning, she stood up and stretched, looking out the window onto her moonlight-illuminated backyard.
She saw a hooded figure outside, close to the glass.
She shrieked, dashed to her bedroom, and got the TigerLady out of her dresser.
Then she hid behind her bedroom door, trembling, clutching the soft rubber of the TigerLady, desperate to remember where she'd left her phone.
Somebody knocked on the front door. She jumped. "Who is it?" she yelled, pitching her voice low.
"Steve," said a voice from outside.
She looked out the peephole and saw his red hair, the white hood of his sweatshirt pushed back. "What the fuck?" she said. "You almost gave me a heart attack."
Through the door came a choked sound: Steve was crying. "Sorry to bother you," he said. "Can we talk for a minute?"
She sighed. "I don't know. It's really late."
"There's a couple of things I need to tell you."
She shook her head but put the TigerLady in her back jeans pocket and opened the door. Steve stood there, wiping his eyes.
"A minute," she said.
He blinked and nodded. She smelled the booze as he passed her going into her dining room. She looked for his car in the driveway but only saw hers.
"How'd you get here?" she asked.
"Walked from the bar downtown."
Her stomach dropped as she understood letting him in had been a mistake. "So," she said. "What's up?"
He sat down at the dining room table and put his head in his hands.
She wrung her fingers in frustration and sat down across from him.
The Mac on the floor played an interview with a couple, the owners of a cat who'd chased away a dog mauling their toddler. "He saved baby's life," said the woman. "Every home needs cat for best protection." On one side of the couple sat the boy, his leg bandaged; on the other sat a brown tabby. Mister Dobbins and Snowball swiveled their heads from the Mac on the floor to Freya and Steve and back again.
"Cats," said the man in the video, nodding. "Best protectors and preventers of loneliness. Fight to win for you."
At night, she took pillows and blankets from the bed and joined Snowball and Mister Dobbins on the floor in front of Cat TV, only able to fall asleep there.
The cries of a child caused Steve to look down at the laptop. "Wow," he said of security camera footage showing the cat's heroics: after the dog seized the kid, the cat went for the dog like some angry, furry squid.
Steve looked at Freya and put his face back in his hands. "I've missed you so much," he said, voice muffled.
"Look," she said. "You're a cool guy and everything. But we weren't together that long, you know? I don't think we were ever that close, were we?"
"Is that what you think?" he asked. "Freya, I love you!"
She groped for words. He loved her? They'd seen each other on weekends for a month and a half. He hadn't spent one night at her place. She stood up. "I'm going to call you a cab, but I want you to wait outside."
He got up too and fixed her with a red-eyed stare. "I love you, Freya!"
She backed away, her hand going to her jeans pocket, to the TigerLady. "Steve," she said. "You're drunk. I want you to leave. Right now!"
He grabbed her face and kissed her, pushing her against the refrigerator and pinning her arm, the one going for the TigerLady, behind her.
She cried out in pain and anger, and, with her free arm, pushed him as hard as she could. He put a forearm to her neck, and she feared passing out.
Then he grunted, and she gulped air as his arm eased up. From the kitchen table, Mister Dobbins had launched an attack, sinking his teeth into Steve's side. The cat's head seemed pinned to Steve's sweatshirt, front legs treading the air as rear legs balanced on the table.
Steve yelped, striking Mister Dobbins with a fist, flinging the cat aside. The cat fell to the floor, shook himself, and leapt back on the table, where Snowball also bristled and growled.
Freya got the TigerLady out of her pocket. "Get out," she yelled. She pushed the TigerLady into the arm holding her. "Get out, get out, get out!"
She squeezed the TigerLady and---
click
Steve screamed and jumped back, the TigerLady stapled to his bicep via its three claws.
"What did you do to me, you bitch!" Blood stained the arm of his hoodie in a spreading circle around the TigerLady. He fell into a chair.
"Jesus Christ," she said, on the verge of puking. She grabbed her phone from the dining room table and began to dial 9-1-1.
He stood and, with a cry, pulled the TigerLady out of his arm. Blood splattered on the floor, the drops black on the stained wood.
She dropped the phone.
As soon as she could make her muscles move, she ran for the door, hearing him roar behind her. There was a grey streak, Mister Dobbins, on her left and a white streak, Snowball, on her right.
Her sweaty hands fumbled the doorknob. When she opened the door, the cats flew out, and so did she, aiming for her car.
Her hands went to her pockets; she'd left her car keys inside. She circled the house, thinking about getting back in and locking Steve out. Her feet slipped on the backyard paving-stone path.
She heard the bang of the front door. She looked behind her and saw him lurching around the corner of the house.
A yowl.
A feline form launched itself from the roof and landed on Steve's head.
It looked like he wore a writhing, growling hat.
“Cats,” said the man in the video, nodding. “Best protecters and preventers of loneliness. Fight to win for you.”
He tried to free the cat from his head with both hands, then stumbled and fell, his head connecting with a paving stone. There came a muffled crunching sound, like a plate in a sack breaking. One of his arms spasmed.
A giant grey tabby with markings like a monocle detached itself from Steve and came to Freya.
Parker meowed.
What Freya heard was Hello, friend.
She ran to Steve and dropped to her knees and shook his limp form. "Oh my God," is what she tried to say.
But a long, anguished meow came out of her mouth.
Parker nuzzled her.
Mister Dobbins and Snowball joined them. Parker meowed at length. Freya understood. She pushed Steve a handful of feet until he rolled over the precipice and down the hill to the river, picking up speed, the hood of his sweatshirt flopping as he spun through the grass. He fell face-down into the river with a splash and floated there, pulled downstream by the current.
Parker led her back, on her hands and knees, to the paving stone streaked with blood. Snowball and Mister Dobbins were already lapping away.
Parker too bent and licked the bloody stone.
Following Parker's lead made Freya feel like she'd finally come home. She ran her tongue over the rock and tasted salt with an oddly smooth tongue and bloodied teeth strangely lacking points.
After that was done, they went inside to clean up the house and each other. They finally curled up with one another, watching Cat TV and waiting.
Author’s Commentary: "Cat TV" originated from the habit of my cat of running over my computer keyboard when he wants my attention, which sometimes leads to unintentional internet activity.
Julie Ann Rea’s work has appeared in The Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, TERSE. Journal, Broadswords and Blasters, Drunk Monkeys, and other places. She lives in the Philadelphia area, where she teaches and writes about life in a wheelchair and other fascinating subjects. You can find her on Twitter @phillylitgrl
