Introducing, Alfonso Tupelo

Hello. I am, how should I say this? Beautiful, right? Puffy, certainly. Furry. I've been told I'm statuesque. Rubenesque. Romanesque. And when people say these things to me, the words are not, I've been assured, euphemisms for fat.

My name, if you didn't read the title, is Alfonso Tupelo, but usually I go by Alfie, and that's what you can call me, unless you are devoted to formalities, in which case I salute you, dearest lover-of-the-past. I enjoy titles myself. Sir Alfonso, esquire. Duke Tupelo. Mr. Alferson Shmalfie Tupac.

And I enjoy classic fiction. Wuthering Heights is, in my humblest opinion, the best novel ever written. Will you let me be your Heathcliff?

But why am I here, you ask?

I ask myself the selfsame question every morning I wake to a dog sniffing me, snuffling and poking at me, hoping for what? That I burst open, cat-pinata, gore covering the terrazzo and MR huffing and puffing to clean it all up? Bah. Dogs.

People do not say "whoresome dog" or "filthy dog" for no reason. They say these things because dogs are whoresome and filthy and all manner of unpleasant adjectives I won't go into because, frankly? I'm becoming bored of the whole dog-topic. Dogs: intrinsically boring as cat kibble: perfectly delicious.

So why, oh why, oh why am I here?

Let's just say I needed a place to stay. I won't go into specifics. You know how... limiting... specifics can be, don't you?

Although, hm, this is a topic MR complains about. She says she always has to attempt to convince creative writing students that it is in the specific the universal can be seen. She uses as an example hearing about starving kids or needy animals - how that's sad, sure, but we're not, apparently, moved to donate money or however it is we alleviate feelings of guilt until we see said suffering creatures actually suffering. We see their skinny legs and drowning eyes and then rush, run, winter-wind to the cellphone or telephone or fax machine (which is a what now?) and dial into the charitable void.

Specifically then? Because I don't want to rumple MR's feathers. Because it's with those feathers she pours the cat kibble.

I lived on a ship sailing the Atlantic. Their good luck cat, if you've heard of such a thing (or if you haven't). And oh, she was sea worthy, she was - the ship I mean. And we sailed all over this blessed, hellish earth. And I grew fat on rats and mice until one day I pissed off the captain because his delicious tuna sandwich jumped into my mouth and he threw me overboard and I had to swim to shore which is where I found MR, bending over to scoop shells into a net; she saw me and scooped me too and I ate all of the invisible shrimp she hadn't even known were swimming and jumping and turning in the water.

Or I was a gangster and I was a king pin at that; mansions and several million dollars worth of expensive things (like cat kibble, tuna fish, balls of twine, open windows and window openers, lizards). Constantly and with consistency I balled hard. My nemesis, another crime gangster animal named Mr. Porky, tried to take me down because I stole all her kittens' mittens.

I mean, I committed white collar crime. See my beautiful fur? How white and shining my collar is? And also I look too good to be free, is what the cops said to me, just too fine to be walking the streets alone.

Rather a neat parallel (neat as in clean and tidy, not as in cool or nice) to misogyny, I think, although I am not a woman, I am a cat, and I am not a female, I am a male. A better word might be, what? Arrhenphobia? Caligynephobia? Ailurophobia? Why is there no word for fear-of-beautiful-boy-cats?

I worked out a mathematical proof that substantiates my theorem regarding the likelihood of an entire new dimension. Scientists swarmed my house like E.T. They dragged me from my lab, burned all my notebooks; I had to watch my life's work flame into ash.

Or I'm nobility from a distant planet. I hold in my hungry heart the cure for all woe, all suffering; a simple nod from me and all your pain vanishes. The CDC heard about me and came calling. This is my hideout.

I'm sure one of these explanations satisfies you. And I'm certain you know I speak the truth when I say one of these is without a doubt the reason I moved in here. Most certainly.

 Or perhaps it's just I had no other place to go. 

Fremlin Writes Poetry

Rare the day I speak to another cat. And this house, prison, animal processing plant, whatever, is full of them. Brimming with felines.

They avoid me.

their opprobrium

heavy as rotten mangoes

ferments in the sun

Opprobrium, yes, but over what? Why and wherefore their judgement? Luco says I am cranky; I say look you in the mirror, Lu. Mingus tells me I am clingy, and yet he noodles all day in MR's bed, rolling supine so she may scratch his belly. The new cat, Mr. Not As Of Yet Mentioned, Alfonso Tupelo?  He is, perhaps, the worst, probably because of his good natured doggishness. He gives me long looks and then swats at my face, bellowing in his deep cat laugh voice something about my being too uptight.

Me? Uptight?

And even if so, okay, fine, I guess I can see that to a certain extent. But this opprobrium? I tell you, reader, it is palatable - I knead at it upon waking, chew it with my kibble, rub the side of my face against it as I fall asleep.

their opprobrium

as light as dust particles 

vertiginous, soft

it is everywhere floating
in afternoon radiance

and we breathe in, in
these microorganisms
in these faults like smoke

Is it my age? My many infirmities? My sorrow sans Luco's drollery (I jest, friends) - is that it? Is it these or something else that quickens in them such reproach, such disgust, such repulsion, aversion, nausea, loathing?

Or is it something else? Have I committed some crime of which I am unaware? Perhaps I ingested the very last bits of cat nip or slept too long on the carpet. Maybe I scratched my nails too often and too hard on the scratching post. Is it that they read my thoughts and mine from them my secret contempt?

Is it that they somehow see past my smile?

the taste of feathers

and still those warm hands find me

I am not alone

every animal

startled upon waking up

is something wild

their opprobrium

evaporates into clouds

and will rain on them

Mingus, my lover,

who does not know he is mine

and yet still is mine

I've found poetry a comfort, if you can't tell. Luco says it's masturbatory, but, I mean, come on, he has this whole blog thing. Tell me, which of us the bigger braggart, show off, solipsistic fool? 

Ah, but I don't count him a fool. I'm angry, I suppose. And hurt. Some nights I step two, three paces outside the Tubby Kat Door and stare into the kitchen just waiting for someone to come to me. To press a kind hand against my forehead. To murmur sweet anything into my ears. To cradle and cuddle and coddle. Just a little.

I know I'm an old lady, but I'm a bit of  a romantic. I've always been this way.

And I've always been alone.