The Regal King
Robert’s heartbeat quickens as he stares out of his second story bedroom window. The Cat is there, once again.
With a fervent repetition, he runs his hands through his hair. It’s greasy from a night of potently horrible dreams of being smothered to death by the vile creature. Down there, it sits on its haunches next to a parked truck — its head lifted toward the window, staring at Robert. Robert can do nothing else but look back, like a cowardly child.
It pierces daggers at Robert from harsh green eyes set evenly on a giant smug face. And The Cat is a giant. Like a huge turtle, it sits motionless, as tall as the wheel of the parked truck behind it. Grey and white hair flow in a striped pattern down its back.
Robert never imagined he would be bothered by a cat, and yet, here we are. The part that bothers Robert the most is a bright red collar with a small gold ornament dangling obnoxiously off the end. Someone cared enough about this thing to give it a pretty piece of decoration, and now it’s terrorizing him.
Robert hates this cat.
Many mornings Robert finds himself locked in a staring contest with The Cat, which he invariably loses. Either trying to fumble for his phone to take a picture or to throw open the window to yell obscenities at the thing. But this is how The Cat wins, for when Robert manages to draw his camera app open and aim the lens steady, or lean out of the window to unload a stream of hate — The Cat is gone. Robert is left alone. And afraid. And a Coward.
“That’s pretty harsh to be honest,” I said to nobody, I guess, “It’s just… a cat.”
I didn’t try to get my camera ready. Instead, I sit back down on my bed and groan and rub my shoulder. A rough night of nightmares has left it in shambles.
I ruffle my hair vigorously trying to shake the fatalist feelings from my bones. I promise this isn’t my usual state…it’s just that cat.
My cellphone begins ringing, and I see it’s my sometimes-occasional-when I’m up to it-live in girlfriend, Keisha
I answer after a few rings and she’s already too chipper for this morning.
“Hey bean!”
“Hey. The Cat was there again”
“Oh, again? But it wasn’t there the last two nights when I was over!”
“Yeah.”
“Heck, and I wanted to see it for myself. Is it still there? Take a pic and send it?”
“Nah, it’s already gone,” I didn’t bother checking, what’s the point.
“Heck! Well why don’t we try again tomorrow and I stay the night?”
“Maybe. I’ll call you.”
“Oh, okay. Well I’ll hear from you later th — ”
I hung up.
—
He went to work. The Cat wasn’t downstairs. It wasn’t on the street as he walked to the subway either. It didn’t show up in front of his office, or in his cubicle. It wasn’t The Cat that called him into its office to say he couldn’t take leave next week, because of “deadlines.” Was it The Cat that barged into the bathroom blabbering about deals(???) and didn’t wash its hands? Nope.
The Cat definitely didn’t try to invite Robert to some kind of after-work shindig at a bar downtown that serves cheese plates on a back patio. Nah, The Cat didn’t do any of those things, but Robert definitely thought about it all the while.
He floated through the day until four o’clock when he realized he never once looked at his phone. He snatched it and brought the screen to life. Beyond the myriad of notifications from social media and news, he saw a few texts from Keisha waiting patiently since 11am. Like the loser that Robert is, he managed to let himself get so self-absorbed with his own problem he forgot to let her know about tonight.
I didn’t want to make the choice. But I also didn’t want her to not be there. The texts are all supportive words of encouragement but, cleverly, don’t mention tonight. She wants me to pull the trigger.
Robert’s little brain is nothing but The Cat and he can’t help it. This must be a solvable issue, right? But he’s not smart enough to solve this alone. He needs help.
So he taps on the screen, because he can’t be arsed to call her. He composes a message, “Dinner tonight?” and hits send.
And “Sent” it stays, giving him a middle finger. Minutes go by and whatever work Robert should have completed this afternoon is a faint memory. The sent text is his work now. The blaring open office around him is fucking annoying. He sinks into his chair and stares at his monitor. On the screen, there’s a blank Word document with a blinking cursor. It challenges him to get back to work, to write the thing that’s due whenever.
But The Cat, though.
And Keisha too.
Robert can’t say which is the priority.
His phone screen lights up and he fumbles in place, trying to sit up.
“Definitely,” it says.
—
I made a simple rice and meat dish. I’m pretty good at that, at least. Keisha seems to like it.
Okay, here’s my plan: I’m going to ask her for help. That’s the plan. I’m going to have an honest conversation about an evil cat and see what she suggests because I’m done trying.
But now she’s sitting on my couch and eating the rice and meat dish and looking at me in that giddy, expectedly way she does, and I’m suddenly deflated. I’m struggling to get the words out, to express what I want to express. She takes a spoonful of rice and meat in her mouth and chews it, her eyes are tall and wide.
I’m just being dumb and this isn’t a real problem.
My bowl of rice and meat is sitting on the table getting cold — a tower of sticky rice topples over with a gentle plop.
Then a moment between Keisha and me passes, and it’s gone. Sorry, can’t do it.
I grab my bowl and sit next to her. The tension in her body releases and she rests her head on my shoulders.
Boy, you’re a real piece of work. Alright, let’s try this again. You made the rice and meat dish because she likes how perfectly you make the rice. The trick, you see, is to use a little bit more water than it calls for, then to check it a minute or two before the timer goes off.
Keisha is heaping giant spoonfuls of the stuff into her mouth and she mumbles something that sounds like, “Schow, waahts, uppph?”
You were pacing in front of the table, dreading the conversation.
But then you looked into her face and saw her eyes gleaming back. You monster. You were going to let her go, weren’t you?
“Okay, so you know… The Cat, right?” of course she knows, but you needed to break the ice somehow.
You’re straight up shaking right now.
Keisha, the perfect angle she is, sets the dinner bowl on the table and stands up. She crosses around the table and approaches you, her arms extended. She cups your cheek in her hand and says, “Sweetie… bean”
It is nice having her around isn’t it?
You began to ramble.
“This is silly, it’s silly! It’s just a cat, but it’s always there! Every morning, staring at me! I swear I’ve been up and down the street a dozen times and it’s nowhere.” (“I know, I know” she says in the most gentle tone) “I’ve even tried running downstairs immediately instead of looking out the window and…NOTHING!”
You’re in her arms now and she’s patting the back of your head.
“What’s it doing out there, huh? What kind of cat does that?”
You keep rambling.
“It shouldn’t be bothering me, but like — what’s its deal? I read something online the other day that it means I have cancer? That cats can smell cancer,” (“Cat’s can’t smell cancer.” Keisha reassures you) “or, they know when people die? Am I going to die?”
Keisha gripped Robert by the shoulders and held him out at arm’s length. By now, his eyes are puffy.
“Bean, you know what I think?”
Robert sniffled and made some kind of sound.
“You’re missing a piece of this puzzle. When isn’t the cat there?”
He begins rubbing his eyes.
Keisha knows she’s cracked it.
“I’ve never seen it. Why is that? Because it’s never there when I’m there. Whatever the cat is doing, it hates me more than anything! So tell me what the solution is.”
Robert sniffled some more.
Keisha smiled and saw the brick of truth hit Robert square in his chest.
—
Sweat beaded on the back of Keisha’s neck as she carefully dumped the last of her moving boxes in the corner of Robert’s cramped living room. The sum total of stuff accumulated by two grown adults created a lot of clutter and that gave Keisha anxiety. But whatever, he finally came to his senses.
She saw him surveying the process with nervous eyes.
“You doing okay over there?” she asked, wiping the sweat off with a paper towel.
Keisha saw him give his best I’m Surviving I Guess expression, which she knew well.
She saw him untense his shoulders and say, “I’m not having second thoughts, if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s a big change and I’m bad at… all of this.”
He vaguely gestured at all of this.
Keisha smiled. “How about we get a pizza, or Chinese, or some other garbage to put inside ourselves?”
Robert wasn’t listening, she saw, instead he noticed and began poking around in a box labeled “Secret Stuff,” which she had decided was an apt description at the time. She perked up with unbridled giddy for what was about to happen.
He paused, and as if he had been caught with his hand in a cookie jar, he snapped his head toward Keisha. Her giddy smile vanished at the sight of the mask of death he wore.
Robert lifted his hand from the box and gripped tightly in his hand was a small red cat collar. A small red cat collar with a small gold yarn pendant hanging off the side. Keisha picked it out specifically because of the yarn pendant.
Keisha, typically cool and collected, was none of that now.
“It’s a surprise!” she burped out, scrambling to get a word in first.
“A surprise?!” he responded, and threw the collar across the room. He kicked the box for good measure.
“I visited a shelter this morning and found a really pretty old man and decided to go for it! They say nobody adopts the older cats and dogs so I wanted to do something good. Your cat dreams seemed to scream ‘I want a cat!’”
Keisha had never seen the face Robert made.
“My… cat… dreams?”
He stormed out the front door, slamming it shut.
—
That’s a cynical way to look at it, to be honest. He was mad, yeah. But “stormed out the front door, slamming it shut?” He shut it with some force.
Of course, we made up and things are fine now. I’m fully moved in and things are great! We have a cat now! He’s such a pretty old man, super fluffy with cool streaks of white and gray down his back. And he looks like a cool dude with his red collar. He’s like a Regal King, the way he sits on the window sill, looking at the world — his domain. We named him Duke! Well, I named him.
Robert will come around, I’m sure of it. Duke definitely loves him, I can say that at least. He sleeps on his side of the bed every night, nestled at Robert’s feet, and it’s insanely cute.
I’m just glad we’re past all of this nonsense.