Gethers - The Cat Who Went to Paris

Books by Peter Gethers

FICTION

The Dandy

Getting Blue

NONFICTION

Rotisserie League Baseball (coauthor)

The Cat Who Went to Paris

To Dad. Youre missed.
To Mom. Youre appreciated.
To Janis. I cant believe you let me do this.
To Norton. What can I say? Youll be hand-fed
Pounce as long as Im around.

First and foremost, thanks to Leona Nevler. All she did was come up with the idea for the book, think of the title, have confidence that I could write it, then come up with all the right suggestions to fix it. Thats a good definition of a great editor.

Esther Newberg deserves a line or two (or a hundred) for convincing me that this was a good idea and, just generally, being the perfect agent.

Kathleen Moloney went through the manuscript word by word, as a favor. That was invaluable.

I wouldnt have Norton if it werent for my brother, Eric. Theres no way to even try to thank him for that.

Also thanks to everyone who let me write about them (whether they knew it or not).

A few weeks ago, I made out my first-ever will. At thirty-six, it left me feeling slightly melancholy, more than slightly middle-aged, and somewhat sentimental. Looking to share my sentiment, I mentioned to my mother that I hadquite magnanimously, I thoughtleft my New York City apartment to my brother Erics one-year-old son, Morgan. Instead of the expected motherly glow of affection and pride, she looked at me as if I were an insane person.

Can you do that?! she asked.

I didnt understand her wide-eyed confusion, especially since, on the scale of human accomplishment, my mother ranks her small grandchild somewhere between Mahatma Gandhi, Thomas Jefferson, and Bo Jackson.

Why not? I said, just a tad confused. I mean, I hope he doesnt get to use it for another forty or fifty years, but if he does, itll go to Eric first and he can

Did you say Morgan? she interrupted.

Yeah. Who else?

I thought you said Norton, dear old Mom told me.

My cat? You thought I left my apartment to my cat?

Well, she said, in a particularly wise moment, and shrugged, with Norton, you never know.

This is a book about an extraordinary cat. However, the extraordinary thing about any cat is the effect it has on its owner. Owning a cat, especially from kittenhood, is a lot like having a child. You feed him, do your best to educate him, talk to him as if he understands youand, in exchange, you want him to love you. He can drive you mad with his independence. He can, just as surely as a child, create a tremendous desire to protect him from anything bad. He is small, vulnerable, wonderful to holdwhen he lets you. And he throws up on just about the same regular schedule.

Like children, cats exist on a separate and probably higher plane than we do, and like children, they must be at least partially defined by their relationship with their parents. And though they can do all sorts of amazing things such as hiding in the tiniest room imaginable and refusing to be found no matter how late you are for wherever it is you have to take them, they cannot write their autobiographies. That is left to humans. So this, as it must be, is also a book about people. And thus about relationships. And all sorts of other things cats have no business being involved with but cant seem to help themselves.

My involvement with a cat was strictly accidental. In fact, I had to be dragged into it kicking and screaming.

By way of example, a little over seven years ago, someone asked me to name ten things that I believed were truly self-revealing, deeply heartfelt, and absolutely irrevocable. This person, a woman I was going out with, asked me to do this, I believe, because she thought I was a person without much emotion, without a lot of passion. She had, I also believe, been through way too many years of Upper East Side New York therapy in which she had made way too many lists like this. The fact of the matter was that I had plenty of emotion and plenty of passion. I just didnt have much for her. People often seem to fall into this trap in their relationships. They seem to feel that if someone doesnt do what he is expected to do, then there must be something wrong with him. This is a much easier way of getting through life, I suppose, than having to think there might be something wrong with the expectations or oneself or the world. Or life.

I did, finally and over my better instincts, make a list of ten things I believed were true about myself. This is another trap that people fall into in their relationships (which cats never fall into): we do a lot of stupid things just so we dont have to be alone.

Anyway, this is the list that appeared:

1. I will never vote Republican.

2. Love does not usually hold up to close inspection

3. except for baseball. I love baseballwatching it, listening to it on the radio, talking about it, reading box scores. I am a baseball junkie.

4. Life is basically a sad thing, with an even sadder ending, so anything that brightens up a moment along the way is okay. Especially if its funny.

5. I dont like being a part of anythinga religion, a regular softball game, a corporation, a government, you name it. As soon as someone becomes something, I tend to think he or she is lost.

6. Friendship must be earned. It is too important to fritter away on someone who doesnt want it, wont reciprocate it, or isnt worthy of it. As near as I can tell, people dont have all that much inherent value, but friends sure do.

7. Theres very little cause for cruelty.

8. On the other hand, Ill pick entertaining and intelligent over nice any day of the week.

9. I dont care what anyone says: I think Meryl Streeps a lousy actress.

10. I hate cats.

In the years that have passed, a few of these irrevocable items have actually remained steadfast. Several have been altered somewhat, some bordering on the brink of unrecognizability. And there is one of the above that is so ludicrous it now seems inconceivable that it ever crossed my mind, much less made it through my mouth or found its way onto paper.

Numbers 1, 3, 6, and 7 remain absolutely unchanged.

Number 4 is basically sound, although I cannot be nearly so definite about the word anything. There are terrifying things I did not conceive of when I made my initial list: oat bran, crack, People magazine cover stories on recovering alcoholic celebrities, wilding, sequels, and Abe Rosenthals On My Mind column in the New York Times.

Numbers 8 and 9 are a little tricky. 8 now depends more and more on my mood and how hard my day was. And Meryl Streeps Australian accent really is astonishing.