Cat Tales by George H. Scithers Page B

Big Time and The Wanderer (which features a memorable cat-woman alien). An entire volume of his cat fiction, Gummitch and Friends, was published by Donald M. Grant in 1992. This includes the Hugo-winning novella, “Ship of Shadows.” Leiber ultimately collected just about every award the field has ever had to offer.

NON-EXISTENT CATS
    by Tony Richards
    T HIS, AS THE TITLE already tells you, is all about cats that aren’t there. And by ‘cats,’ I mean the small domestic kind, not big lions and other stuff, or cool, jazz-type people.
    Are you with me so far? Good.
    Anyway, it started like this: The phone went, about nine in the morning. I was half way into my pants, the store opening at ten, and had to hop over to answer it. And when I pick it up I hear like, “Lenn-iieee!”
    My name’s Leonard Melnic, by the way. Just Len to my friends. My girlfriend’s the only person that I let call me ‘Lenny’ since, like what, I’m still going to have people call me Lenny when I’m one hundred years old or something? I’m twenty four, and am into comic books and garage music and all kind of films, except sub-titled ones. I have this party trick where I play bongos and eat a whole Big Mac at the same time — you try it. Not so easy, huh? And I work at that big alternative bookstore on Union, Rolling Paper.
    My girlfriend’s Megan, and she’s only — erm — eighteen, and a Goth. Which means she has long, very straight dark hair with purple streaks in it, and is into S&M clothes and imagery, though not the reality. We tried a spanking session once, at her insistence, and she didn’t speak to me for practically a whole week.
    So anyway, “Lenn-iieee!”
    And it’s Megan, which surprises me since she only works at the beauty parlour in the afternoon and is usually right out of it until at least ten thirty.
    â€œHey, what’s up?”
    â€œGet over here, please!”
    â€œAre you all right?”
    â€œOf course not! There’s been a cat in my room! I got up to pee, and there were scratches on the furniture!”
    So I look at my watch. Megan’s is ten minutes away. The store? Twenty, in the other direction.
    â€œIs it still there?”
    â€œThat’s what I want you to find out!”
    And then she starts making this whimpering noise that simply breaks my heart.
    The strange thing about Megan, see, is that even though she’s a Goth and into all kinds of witchy stuff like candles and amulets and Tolkein posters, she just can’t stand cats. In the first place, they give her the creeps. And in the second, she’s allergic to them.
    I don’t like them either. They’re all sniffy, like some fox who won’t give you the time of day. And they have this thing where they jump in your lap and you try to get them off, and they don’t want to move and dig their claws in. Yow! But I’m not scared of them the way Megan is. So I get over there.
    I go up the staircase to her third floor walk-up, and when I knock on the door I hear this thump, like someone jumping around. And the door comes open a few seconds later, and there’s Megan standing there, looking cute in just her scanties, but looking pretty wideeyed and scared with it.
    â€œWhat was that noise?” I ask her.
    â€œI was standing on the bed.”
    â€œI thought that was for mice? What, like a cat can’t climb up on a bed?”
    â€œOh, shut up, stupid! Just get in here!” And she yanks me inside, strong despite the fact she’s pretty tiny. “Look for the damn thing!”
    So I begin The Great Cat Hunt. Megan hops back on the bed, teetering around and looking foxier than ever. And she keeps trying to direct me, going, “over there, look behind that,” and such-like. But who’s doing the work here, me or her?
    All I find of interest, in the end, is a pile of old teen romance mags in the bottom of a closet, and