Read Online Cat Tales by George H. Scithers - Free Book Online

a big purple vibrator that I’ve never seen before. And Megan jumps off the bed and snatches it out of my hand and puts it away at that point, so she’s obviously calmed down a little.
    â€œThere’s nothing here,” I tell her, still smirking a bit about the vibrator and the way she’s looking flushed. “It probably went out through the window.”
    â€œThat’s the crazy thing!” she wails now. “There weren’t any windows open! How could the thing get in or out?”
    So I ask her to show me the scratches. And there they are, clear as day, on two of the legs of her rickety dining table and one of the chairs. I bend down and inspect them carefully. And finally, I purse my lips.
    â€œHmm, it looks like a cat.” I hope that my tone sounds impressive. “Do you think it could be Mr. Paws?”
    But Megan sounds less than overwhelmed by my brilliant deduction.
    Fortunately for her, there are no cats in her building since pets aren’t allowed. But if you look out her kitchen window into the space out back, you can usually see a big fat tabby sitting on the first floor window ledge of the building behind this one. He belongs to an old lady, and is the laziest cat you’ve ever seen, only ever moving himself at meal-times. We looked out the window now, and there he was, a rotund ball offur.
    Mr. Paws couldn’t climb onto a cinderblock, let alone up here.
    So we’re both pretty puzzled. I do my best to calm her down, which involves kidding her a lot and tickling her. And the fact that she’s still in her underwear starts to get to both of us.
    But I’m already late at the store. I swear it, man, this Protestant Work Ethic shit? It’s gonna be the death of me.
    N INE-THIRTY the next morning, the phone goes again.
    â€œLenn-iiee!”
    And I think, oh fuck.
    â€œMy curtains are shredded! I think it’s still hiding in here!”
    But I know perfectly well it isn’t. Megan’s place isn’t that big, and I searched every square inch of it. I remind her of that, getting rather annoyed while I do so.
    â€œIf I come round there, I’m going to be late again, and Chan’ll have my guts!”
    â€œYou’re a mean son-of-a-bitch!” she tells me. And then she hangs up.
    I didn’t see or hear from her the whole day.
    The next morning at nine-thirty?
    Yep, you guessed it.
    â€œPleeease!”
    So I get round there. Megan’s pretty shaken-up, all trembly, by this time. And yes, her curtains are shredded up pretty badly. So I try to think this through.
    â€œCats usually leave a smell,” I tell her. “But there isn’t one. Can you find any fur?”
    We looked, and didn’t.
    â€œYou could try, like, sprinkling talcum powder on the floor, seeing if it leaves any paw marks?”
    But she’s too freaked to get her head round anything sensible right now, and she keeps clinging on to me, and this time we do end up making out, at ten-fifteen in the morning. Just call that striking a blow for the ordinary working man.
    Some time mid-afternoon, Megan shows up in the store and says, “I want some books on ghosts.”
    â€œSay what?”
    â€œIt’s a ghost-cat. It’s the only thing it can be. And I want a book on exorcisms too.”
    â€œDon’t priests do that?”
    â€œGod, Lenny. You know I’m not religious.”
    So she ends up buying three volumes, using my discount. And when she’s gone, Chan Park, the store’s joint-owner, comes sauntering across to me with the usual supercilious look on his face.
    Now, Chan’s a pretty stylish-looking dude, always dressed in leather, with a little moustache and goatee beard that I have to admit look pretty cool on a Korean. And he’s very smart, and reads a lot of heavy non-fiction stuff. But he does have airs and graces. Yeah right, like he thinks nobody knows he drops so many E’s at the weekend he’d end