Éminence Grise

An introduction to my psychotic nitwit pervert furball.

People talk about having hyperfixations — birding, for example, or puzzles. My cat Mercutio’s hyperfixation is our basement. He sees it as the Elysian Fields, just with more cobwebs. As far as he is concerned, no finer place exists. He despises me for trying to remove him; granted, he despises me anyway, but this is a particular offense. When I try to remove him, he turns into Silly Putty. Then he goes tactical. Removing him from the basement is like trying to maneuver a tiny, raving gorilla who is trying (with some success) to claw you to death.

Finally, after all lacerations have been applied and expletives yelled, Merky is back upstairs, caked in filth dating back to 1997, which I am NOT allowed to remove. He then spends the afternoon in Snit Mode. Once this subsides, he sits beneath a chair, thinking “heh-heh-heh,” lying in wait to attack me. Huge bonus points if he can get me to scream.¹ So I point at him and bellow, with great authority, “NO!!!!” Which as you cat-owners know makes all the difference in the world.

So of course I get attacked anyway. And I scream anyway, causing Merky to collapse in the cat equivalent of a wild laughing fit. And I think to myself: I allow this creature to emit feces in my house?

(On which note, a side question: what’s the deal with that metaphor about “draining the swamp” in Washington? Why not “scooping out the cat box”? That would be more appropriate.)

Merky’s other Power Move is to destroy things until I get up. The instant I move a particle in bed that might indicate consciousness, he knows food is coming, and the destruction begins. He doesn’t do it all at once. What he does is scoot things off surfaces, slowly. Like this: SCOOT… SCOOT… SCCCCC…OOO…OOOOO…OOOOOOOO…T (TINKLE TINKLE CRASH). Moments before, I lurch up and run over, diving for the object. I am of course too late, and I clean up the remains of adored objects while spitting invective. Then Merky gets fed.

Merky lives a charmed life; this is lived almost entirely in my apartment except when we get his nails trimmed. At least, I think his nails are getting trimmed; Merky believes he is being vivisected. He thrashes and flails and lunges with eyes of murder, while the saintlike man and woman who run the place hold him down, grabbing his scruff for dear life. (Grabbing the scruff immobilizes the cat. It also evokes their mother carrying them, so the cat will calm down. Except for Merky, who simply attempts to kill you while immobile.) The nail trim sounds like a major military operation, only with more cat screams:

WOMAN: Turn him over. Turn him over. But not till I say go. Are you ready? You ready? Ready? Not till I say go. Ready?

MERKY: YOWWWWWWOWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRROOOOWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOWRRR

MAN: Further over! Further over! Now! Go! Go! Go NOW!

MERKY: YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

So the nail-trim team are doing God’s work, except that God would be more likely to turn the gig down. This is assuming He even offers nail trims. Most don’t, especially if Merky and I have already visited. There are forbidden symbols over pictures of us in pet stores as far away as Iceland. One time, we walked into a grooming place and the girl in front greeted us with a bright and cheery, “Nice to see you!” Then, turning to a colleague, she said in the flattest, most ominous tone you have ever heard: “Miguel, el gato gris y muy [SOMETHING BAD] está aquí.” Which means: “Miguel, the gray and very [SOMETHING BAD] cat is here.” Astonishingly, Miguel had stopped giving nail trims. Just at that very moment. What were the odds?

Some have warned me Merk will die from his nail-trim stress. I’ve certainly worried about it. But here’s the thing: he’s always okay immediately after. The instant they clip his last nail, he calms down. “Well, that was fun,” he seems to say. “Same place next time?” Then he invites the technicians to crash at his place, eat pizza rolls and watch adult movies. No hard feelings. And we’re all done! For another six weeks! Then we’ll do it all over again! Fun! I wish I had a dog!

On another occasion, I discovered Merky knew how to menace and sexually harass someone without even moving. I had sold an item on Facebook Marketplace, and an extremely no-nonsense, rather tense Indian woman had come to buy it. She was saying something to me on her way out, and it sounded like this:

“Thank you, and have a-aaAAAAAA!”

In her path lay Merky, playing dead, eyes rolled back, fangs bared, spread-eagled, balls on view for all to contemplate.

“I have never seen a cat do that,” squeaked the woman, paralyzed.

“Uh, heh,” I said. “So, let’s just walk around him here…”

The woman left graciously, but you could just tell she was going to leave me a bad review on Facebook Marketplace (“Has demented vampire flasher pervert cat. One star”).

On the other hand, we should all be so fortunate to live life with Merky’s confidence. He steadfastly believes he is a Stone Cold Stud, and no one is going to tell him otherwise. Back when I lived in the Bronx, he ate a piece off a bed blanket (why not?), resulting, for awhile, in him going around with a red string hanging out his rear end.

Only he wasn’t merely “going” around; he was strutting around as if he owned the world. Never mind that he looked like some sort of pull-string toy designed by proctologists; he was Merky.

My roommate attempted to have a rational conversation with him. “You know,” she said, “if you didn’t eat fabric, you wouldn’t have a string hanging out your asshole.”

These are words of reason; words, in fact, that we could all stand to heed. But Merky did not. He simply fixed her with a withering stare that said, “I’M GORGEOUS.”

It’s hard to argue with that. Actually, it’s easy to argue with that, but it won’t get you anywhere — no more than anything has, with me and Merky. Throughout all the years of howls and shreds and yowls and threads, he has learned nothing, compromised nowhere, never stood to believe anything but that he is the best, most beautiful of animals, no matter what is dangling out his rectum, dammit.

My point is, a lot of us could stand to feel half this good about ourselves. I’m not saying you need to eat fabric (although what you do is none of my business). I’m saying maybe you could stand to walk a little taller, speak up with more courage, feel a bit better about who you are. That, if nothing else, I’ve learned from this cute, horrid little fuzzy creep who has never doubted his worth for one second. Why should you?

We are a bonded pair, he and I. And honestly, I can’t imagine it any other way. Perhaps this means I have Stockholm Syndrome, and my captor is a fourteen-pound psychotic nitwit pervert furball. But whatever the case, I’ve grown attached to him. People talk about heaven, and how they hope to go there after this existence. It sounds great and all, but I don’t know that I want to go. Because Merky won’t be there.

1. I have post-traumatic stress disorder, which is HUGELY entertaining to Merky. The way he sees it, it pushes him to new heights, as an artist.