Catsby: A Novel

Chapter 24

Six false starts later, Catsby finally relented to stop telling stories and start telling the truth. He hadn't been freed by a gun-wielding veterinarian, nor adopted by a band of drug-using rogues masquerading as a family.

The real story was much more exciting.

Catsby took me on a ride, back through the years to when he walked out of PetCo and hitchhiked across the country to meet Sir Catrick Stewart. His story was as epic in scope as Lord of the Rings, but with fewer lords and rings. I won't bore you with a play-by-play recap here, but suffice to say it was The Greatest Story Ever Told. Maybe if I were as talented an author as Nicholas Sparks, I could do it justice. A few of the highlights include his battle with the sasquatch in the foothills of South Dakota; the heated political debates in Missouri with the Republicans of Unusual Size (ROUS); being left for dead by the side of the road by a gang of Meow-Nazis in a botched bank robbery in Bisbee, Arizona; etc. You get the idea.

I listened intently to his story as he acted all of this out. I didn't dare get up from my seat, even though my bladder was close to bursting for hours upon end. To break from his tale would be to break the spell. I was in this until the end. Finally, the fluids were too much for my body to handle. I simply let go.

Catsby glared at me. I could see at once that I'd erred. There was horror in his eyes, as if I'd just wet myself. Which, admittedly, I had.

"Continue," I said.

"I'll skip ahead to the end," he said, irritated. "I know it's late."

Catsby flashed forward to the iron gates of Paramount Studios in Burbank, California. The napping security guard paid this him no attention as he strolled through the gate.

The lot was a gritty, desolate wasteland, a post-apocalyptic concrete jungle populated by boxy warehouses, forklifts, and a few palm trees here and there that couldn't possibly be real. Even the usually sunny sky seemed to take on a gray pallor. He didn't see how they could film TV shows and movies here. It just didn't seem possible. Maybe the "magic" of television was literally magic—wouldn't that be something?

The roar of a great motor startled Catsby, and he leapt off the road just as a yellow 1922 Rolls Royce zoomed past. He had to be more careful. The irony of being hit by a car right at the end of a road trip was not lost on him, but that wasn't how he wanted his story to end. Car accidents are cheap narrative tricks, deus ex machinas pulled by authors too lazy to craft logical conclusions.

He didn't know what he was looking for. The Enterprise? Surely it had to be parked somewhere on the lot, perhaps in one of the warehouses doubling as a hangar. He hadn't been able to peek inside any of them, which meant this was a fool's errand—

Catsby stopped, his gaze fixed on the holy grail. No, it wasn't the starship, if there even was one. Maybe it was all a set. Who cared? This was even better. A row of ten trailers decorated with the Star Trek logo, presumably one for each of the lead and supporting actors. Nine of them were unremarkable, with names affixed to the doors he didn't recognize. The last trailer, however, made his heart race fast and furious: the captain's quarters.

But there was no one around. So what would Catsby do, he wondered? Hang out underneath the trailer until the star showed up? Who knew how long that would be, though. At the time, Catsby had no idea why filming was shut down for the day, nor how long it would be before it resumed again. Perhaps they were in between seasons. Perhaps (gasp) the series had been canceled. He would have read about that on one of the industry websites, wouldn't he? Well, yes, but remember that Catsby was a nomad back then, and didn't get onto the Internet that much. And when he did, he usually just clicked around at this or that, reading the headlines of the day. Catsby mulled over his options and decided to stay the night, and see what morning brought. Just as he was ducking under the trailer to hide out, a door flung open behind. He turned to see Sir Catrick Stewart, dressed in his red-and-black leotard, exiting a portable litterbox.

Stewart jumped at the sight of Catsby.

"Sorry," Catsby said. "This isn't what it looks like."

"It's not?" Stewart said after catching his breath. "Because it looks like you're trying to climb underneath my trailer."

"I...lost a ball under there?"

"You're a terrible liar. You're not the one who's been sending those weird, thirty-page handwritten letters, are you?"

"Letters? No, I've never written you before. I can't even hold a pen. Honest." Catsby held up his front paws.

"Damn. They were quite well written letters. Anyway, I get furries like you coming around all the time. You're not the first and you won't be the last. If you want an autographed headshot, though, give me your address and I'll have my agent mail you one."

Catsby lowered his head. "I don't have an address."

Stewart looked him over. "You're declawed and living on the streets? That's no easy task, I'll give you that. Are you hungry?"

Catsby nodded.

"Follow me," Stewart said, opening his trailer door. "We'll get you some tuna in you."

Inside, Catsby inhaled one can of tuna after another. When he wasn't chewing at a breakneck pace, he related his story to the actor. Unsolicited, of course, but the actor didn't interrupt. Instead, he nodded along, as if trying to absorb every detail.

"I need your help," Catsby said at the end of his tale. "You're one of the most respected actors working today, and you've done it while wearing a fursuit. When people look at you, they see a cat. When they look at me, I don't know what they see. Probably just a sad man in a costume."

"You're not bad, as far as furries go," Stewart said, removing his headpiece. Underneath, he was an old, bald man. Still handsome, but old and weary.

"People talk about furry space," Catsby said, "where they lose themselves in their fursona and forget they're a human being."

The teakettle on the stove let out a loud, long whistle. Stewart rose from his chair. "I'm familiar with the concept."

"Then tell me how to get there. No matter how long I wear this damned fursuit, no matter how long I crawl on all fours or go without speaking a word of English, I never seem to reach that plateau. I never become Jay Z. Catsby. I'm still—"

"Would you like some earl grey?"

Catsby shook his head.

Stewart poured the hot water over a tea bag and sat back down at the table in the middle of the trailer. "Do I look like someone who has disappeared completely into my fursona?" he asked, dipping the teabag. "What makes you think I'm not just a well-trained actor who occasionally wears a costume for film and television projects?"

"There's no filming going on today, and yet you're living in your trailer and using a litterbox. You can't fool me. This guise—the tea-drinking British actor—isn't who you are, not in your heart."

"You presume to know me."

"You can't hide your true self," Catsby said. "It's written all over your face."

Stewart laughed. His voice was as rich and as deep as advertised, and the trailer nearly shook with his laughter. "So it is. You want to know how I do it—how I wear the fursuit like a second skin," Stewart said. He ceased fiddling with the tea bag, and looked up and to the left, as if he was peering into the distant past. "You may not believe this, but I used to be a cat."