Fox Meows

The cat would not stop meowing. Day, night, food aplenty, fresh litter, half an apartment floor’s worth of toys, it didn’t matter. Constant, sustained meows.

There wasn’t much that could be done. The cat was unimpeachable, permanent in their lives for the rest of its life. It was her grandfather’s cat you see long before they’d met and slowly became entrenched in each other’s lives and moved in together, she’d made a promise to her grandfather: when the time came, she’d take care of the cat. The time had come and the cat was now hers. Theirs.

At first she chalked up the meowing to the trauma of relocating. ‘He’s still getting used to our place,’ she’d say. Then it became, ‘He just misses my grandfather.’ What could he say? Cats don’t give shit who feeds them and shovels their turds from the litter box? It was her last connection to her longest surviving grandparent. It’ll end, he told himself, some day.

What perplexed him almost as much as how the cat’s meowing-chords hadn’t snapped was how she didn’t seem bothered by the incessant meowing at all. She slept through it and escaped to work most of the day, free from the offense. (Couldn’t a cat become hoarse?)

Finally her goto excuse became, ‘It’s sweet. He’s saying he loves us.’ But he knew better. In the recent weeks the cat had been finding new favorite spots to sleep and clean itself. They were his spots: his side of the bed, his chair in the TV room. The cat wasn’t pleased to simply meow him crazy, it wanted to take over his place in the apartment.

They watched TV with the volume so loud now. He remembered that so had her grandfather, though he thought it had to do with hearing loss. Now he reconsidered.

One evening as they watched TV, them on the couch, the cat in his chair meowing, she mistakenly flipped to FoxNews, just for a second but long enough for him to notice. ‘Wait. Go back,’ he said.

‘What?’ She leaned closer to hear him.

‘Put it back on Fox News,’ he said de-libe-rate-ly.

‘Eww. Why?’

‘Just put it on, please.’ She obliged. He sat up and lifted his arms halfway, the way someone who thought they heard a faraway cry would. ‘Do you hear it?’ he asked.

‘Ugh. They always say crap like that. They’re terrible,’ she replied.

‘No, no. Not the TV. The cat. It stopped meowing.’ They looked at the cat in his chair. It stared dead-straight at the screen of the television. He whispered right next to her ear, ‘Change the channel.’ She went up one station to CNN.

‘Meeeeooooowwwwww. Meeeeeoooooowwwwww.’

‘Change it back.’

‘LIBERALS WANT TO TAKE AWA ------’

‘Again.’

‘NEXT ON AC360----’

‘Meeeooooowwww.’

‘Back.’

‘Coming up on the Ingraham-----’ The cat stared silently.

‘What the---?’ He was stunned. She was astonished.

‘Grandpa watched basically nothing but FoxNews, like 24/7.’

‘Did he condition the cat to it?’

‘What?’

‘Try lowering the volume.’ She lowered the volume to a normal level. The cat remained quiet and rapt. ‘Amazing.’

They left the TV on that night and he got his first good night’s sleep in a month. The following day he did some experimenting. Reverse mortgage commercials on FoxNews, silent cat. Rheumatoid arthritis medication commercial on CNN, meows. He was baffled. He also learned that if FoxNews were playing he could sit in his chair with the cat on his lap peacefully. Previously, if he even tried to pet the cat it would strike a paw, nails out, at him.

So he watched a lot of FoxNews and grew very fond of the cat. ‘Wow,’ she exclaimed one day. ‘I think he likes you more than he likes me.’

‘You’re goddam right he does. He knows you’re giving money to those baby killers at Planned Parenthood.’

‘What?! We’ve been giving money to Planned Parenthood for years.’ The cat looked at him. Then he looked at her.

‘Well, I suppose it’s time we reconsider that decision.’

She cocked an eye. ‘Have you just been sitting there watching FoxNews all day?’

‘No! I had to get up to feed this little freeloader here and I can’t stand that Pinko Chris Wallace. I go check Breitbart in the bedroom during his show.’

Her face grew concerned. ‘Maybe we should try a different channel. The cat hasn’t been meowing much lately.’

‘Fine. Whatever.’ And he trailed off muttering about snowflakes.

One night the following week she came home to find him in front of the TV in the dark. The cat was nowhere to be seen even after she flicked the lights on. ‘Where’s the cat?’ He grumbled not knowing. ‘Are you wearing a cardigan?...and slippers? Where did those come from?’

More grumbling, ‘I found them in the attic.’

‘And where’s the cat?’

‘He wanted to stay in the attic.’ She didn’t bother following up, instead she made for the attic.

She found the cat sleeping on top of a box labeled ‘Grandpa’s clothes.’ She stroked the cat and thought, he’s wearing my grandfather’s clothes.

She collected the cat and returned to the TV room. Hannity was railing against an eight-year-old who dressed as AOC for Halloween. ‘...You didn’t earn that candy, little girl!...’

‘Are you wearing my grandfather’s clothes?’

‘I am. He was really onto something.’ He emphasized his satisfaction with the clothes with some tugs and strokes. He stayed in the clothes for a week, which he and the cat also spent much of in the chair in front of the TV, tuned to FoxNews.

They stopped having sex. No only did he express no desire but neither could she get in the mood while he dressed like her grandpa. She also noticed the cat filling out. She never saw him refill the cat’s food dish but it was always full.

One evening she arrived home and found a big container of treats placed by the unused cat food. The container was open and though she didn’t know what the huge container looked like full it seemed to her noticeably unfull.

‘How many treats are you giving the cat?’ she asked walking into the TV room. ‘How many?’ she repeated.

‘I don’t know. A few I suppose. He likes them.’ the cat eyed her from its roost on his lap. Was she crazy or was the cat giving her the evil eye, she wondered. But then reckoned that cats always looked like that. She returned to the kitchen with the treats, took a marker from the junk drawer and made a subtle mark indicating the current level of treats in the container.

The following evening the mark was well above an inch higher than the level of treats. A quick guestimate put the number of treats given that day over a hundred. He’s going to kill the cat, she worried.

She confronted him with her concern and he denied her claim. ‘I didn’t give the cat a hundred treats today, don’t be silly. Besides, did you see how small they are? He can handle it.’

‘Look how fat he’s getting.’ She went to lift the cat from his lap but the cat hissed at her.

‘That’s right little guy. Don’t take any of her nonsense.’ And he petted the cat. She stood and watched. The cat seemed to be intentionally not looking at her. And he, well he became so engrossed with the cat she wasn’t sure that he realized she was still there.

Soon there was an odor in the TV room. One she had associated with old people. He was looking older, not physically, no wrinkles or droopy ears, but in expression and mannerisms. He now fell asleep in front of the TV most nights, usually before ten.

‘I think you’ve developed some really unhealthy habits.’ She told him.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You watch a lot of TV and hardly leave the TV room, let alone the apartment.’

‘I’m looking after the cat. He doesn’t like to be alone.’

‘He does not care. He’s a cat.’

‘Oh, come on. You’re being hysterical.’ He looked down at her crouch as if he could tell if she was menstrual.

‘Fuck you!’ She stormed off.

The next day she went to her parents. She told him before she left but he didn’t respond and it wasn’t totally clear to her that he’d heard her.

‘...and it’s like he only cares about the cat. Like I don’t exist.’ She brought her parents up to speed.

‘Sounds familiar,’ her father said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your grandmother said similar things not long after they first got the cat.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. She complained that just after the arrival of the cat your grandfather stopped wanting to do their usual activities. They didn’t go to bridge club or Rotary. Eventually your grandfather stopped going to church.’

‘Grandpa went to church?’

‘He did. Before the cat.’

‘Wait. When did they get the cat?’

‘Well, let’s see. Grandma passed six years ago and it was a year before that.’

‘Wow. I hardly remember that, them getting the cat. I must’ve been at college.’

‘We barely visited once they got the cat. Until she got sick of course.’

She remembered when her grandmother got sick and how quickly things deteriorated. She remembered visiting her at the hospital and that her grandfather was never there. ‘Did grandpa spend a lot of time with grandma at the hospital?’

Her father thought about it. ‘You know I don’t remember being there with him except for the first time, when she’d just gone in. But we scheduled it so that some one would be there every day.’

‘You alternated days to visit?’

‘Yeah, that’s right. I remember your grandmother lost it so quickly she always asked when your grandfather was coming and I’d always say, “he’ll be here tomorrow.”’

‘So you never saw him there?’

‘Oh I’m sure I did. I must have.’ She remained skeptical.

The next day she asked where her grandparents had gotten the cat. Her father didn’t remember. Her mother recalled that it just showed up one day. ‘As I recall, it just showed up one day. Your grandparents tried to see if anyone had lost a cat. I remember making photocopies for them at the office.’

‘And they were at the house on the Cape by that point?’ she asked.

‘Yes, they were.’

It was probably nothing but she noticed a certain unease growing in her mind about the cat. After dinner and helping with the dishes she did some Googling. Searches like ‘Cape Cod cat,’ ‘weird cat story Cape Cod,’ and so forth. Searching for anything cat proved almost pointless. All cat searches resulted in thousands of memes, videos, cute anecdotes and adoption sites. It was almost impossible to wade through all the nonsense and find anything substantive. Until she tried a news search. This filtered out most of the memes and videos but it was still a deluge of stories of heroic cats, adoption drives and reviews of charity events. She added a time filter for anything older than seven years. That’s when she found it.

The story itself wasn’t about a cat per se, but a cat was mentioned. As were some eerily familiar details. A man, recently a widower, was found dead in his house. The house was a mess of cat shit, food cans, bags of cat treats, but the thing that really stood out to her was that the neighbors initially called the authorities because the TV volume was so high they could hear it. And the article said that when the police entered the premises, the TV was on FoxNews. She checked the date, October 27. That was just over seven years ago.

‘Mom, do you remember when you made those photocopies?’ She asked walking into the kitchen. Her mother lowered her magazine.

‘Just after the cat showed up.’

‘Right, but what time of year, what month?’

Her mother thought. ‘It must have been early November. Someone asked about the cat and something to do with Halloween.’

‘November. Seven years ago. You’re sure?’

‘Well, yes honey. Why does it matter?’

‘I’ve got to go home.’ She was out the door and in the car in a blur.

‘Is this because of the cat?’ her mother yelled at the car from the front porch.

She busted through the front door. It reeked and trash was strewn about everywhere. She ran to the TV room. There he was, in the chair, the TV on FowNews, stiff and cold. His face frozen in a gruesome expression. He smelled of shit and circus peanuts. She called the police then looked for the cat. It was gone.

She designed the missing cat sign to look like a regular missed cat sign, though a wanted poster seemed more appropriate. But how would that go over? ‘Wanted. Medium sized tuxedo cat. If seen do not approach. Dangerous. Suspect in multiple deaths. No reward. Answers to no one.’ It would merely bring plenty of unwanted attention and unanswerable questions.

His official cause of death, according to the death certificate, was suffocation. No obstruction or restraint was ever found. The medical examiner said it was like he just stopped breathing. She knew the truth: the cat had killed him and it would kill again.

She checked the shelters regularly for six months and reposted the signs every two weeks, expanding the radius of the search each time. Nothing ever came from it. She had done what she could but figured it was time to move on. She found a place and moved out of her parents’ house. She got lonely but wasn’t ready to date. Instead she got a dog.