Вики Майрон - Dewey - The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched The World

The first stage of remodeling was painting the bare concrete walls. We decided to leave the nine-foot bookshelves bolted to the walls, so Tony Joy, our painter and the husband of staff member Sharon Joy, simply had to throw on some drop cloths and lean his ladder against the shelves. But as soon as he did, Dewey climbed up.

“All right, Dewey, down we go.”

Dewey wasn’t paying attention. He’d been in the library more than a year, but he’d never seen it from nine feet up. It was a revelation. Dewey stepped off the ladder and onto the top of the wall shelf. With a few steps, he was out of reach.

Tony moved the ladder. Dewey moved again. Tony climbed to the top, propped his elbow on the bookshelf, and looked at this stubborn cat.

“This is a bad idea, Dewey. I’m going to paint this wall, then you’re going to rub against it. Vicki’s going to see a blue cat, and then you know what’s going to happen? I’m going to get fired.” Dewey just stared down at the library. “You don’t care, do you? Well, I warned you. Vicki!”

“Right here.”

“You’ve been watching?”

“It’s a fair warning. I won’t hold you responsible.”

I wasn’t worried about Dewey. He was the most conscientious cat I’d ever known. He raced down bookshelves without a misstep. He intentionally brushed displays with his side, as cats do, without knocking them over. I knew he could not only walk a shelf without touching wet paint, but also tiptoe up a ladder without knocking off the can of paint at the top. I was more worried about Tony. It’s not easy sharing a ladder with the king of the library.

“I’m fine with the arrangement if you are,” I called up to him.

“I’ll take my chances,” Tony joked.

Within a few days, Tony and Dewey were fast friends. Or maybe I should say Tony and Dewkster, because that’s what Tony always called him. Tony felt Dewey was too soft a name for such a macho cat. He worried the local alley cats were congregating outside the children’s library window at night to make fun of his name. So Tony decided his real name wasn’t Dewey, it was the Duke, like John Wayne. “Only his close friends call him Dewkster,” Tony explained. He always called me Madame President.

“What do you think of this shade of red, Madame President?” he would ask when he saw me crossing the library.

“I don’t know. It looks pink to me.”

But pink paint wasn’t our biggest worry. Suddenly we couldn’t keep our polite, well-behaved cat off the top of the wall shelves. One day Tony looked across the library and saw Dewey on top of the wall shelves at the opposite end of the building. That was when things changed for Dewey, when he realized he could climb to the top of the wall shelves whenever he wanted. He had the run of the library up there, and some days he never wanted to come down.

“Where’s Dewey?” each member of the genealogy club would ask as they settled in for their regular meeting on the first Saturday of the month. Like all the clubs that met in the library—our Round Room was the largest free meeting space in town, and it was usually booked—the club members were used to the Dewey treatment. This started with Dewey jumping into the center of the table at the beginning of every meeting. He would survey the meeting participants, then walk around to each person at the table, sniffing her hand or looking into his face. When he had made a full circuit, he chose one person and settled into his lap. It didn’t matter what was going on in the meeting, Dewey never rushed or varied his routine. The only way to break his rhythm was to toss him out and close the door.

The Dewey treatment was met with resistance at first, especially by the business and political groups that often met in the Round Room, but after a few months even the salesmen treated it as a highlight. The genealogy club treated it almost like a game, since every month Dewey picked someone different to spend the meeting with. They would laugh and try to coax him into their laps, almost like the children at Story Hour.

“Dewey’s distracted these days,” I told them. “Ever since Tony started painting the library, he’s been off his routine. But I’m sure once he realizes you’re here . . .”

And as if on cue, Dewey walked in the door, jumped on the table, and started his rounds.

“Let us know if you need anything,” I told them, turning back to the main part of the library. Nobody said anything; they were too busy focusing on Dewey. “No fair, Esther,” I heard as the sound of the meeting faded into the distance, “you must have tuna in your pocket.”

When Tony finished the painting three weeks later, Dewey was a changed cat. Maybe he thought he really was Duke, because suddenly he wasn’t content with just naps and laps. He wanted to explore. And climb. And most important, explore new places to climb. We called this Dewey’s Edmund Hillary phase, after the famous mountain climber. Dewey didn’t want to stop climbing until he’d reached the top of his personal Mount Everest, which he managed to do not more than a month later.

“Any sign of Dewey this morning?” I asked Audrey Wheeler, who was working at the circulation desk. “He didn’t come for breakfast.”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Let me know if you do. I want to make sure he’s not sick.”

Five minutes later I heard Audrey utter what around here was a surprising profanity: “Oh, my goodness!”

She was standing in the middle of the library, looking straight up. And there, on top of the lights, looking straight down, was Dewey.

When he saw us looking, Dewey pulled his head back. He was instantly invisible. As we watched, Dewey’s head reappeared a few feet down the light. Then it disappeared again, only to appear a few feet farther on. The lights run in hundred-foot strips, and he had clearly been up there for hours, watching us.

“How are we going to get him down?”

“Maybe we should call the city,” someone suggested. “They’ll send someone with a ladder.”

“Let’s just wait him out,” I said. “He’s not doing any harm up there, and he’ll have to come down for food eventually.”

An hour later Dewey trotted into my office, licking his lips from a late breakfast, and jumped into my lap for a pet. He was clearly keyed up about this new game, but didn’t want to overplay his hand. I knew he was dying to ask, What do you think of that?

“I’m not even going to mention it, Dewey.”

He cocked his head at me.

“I’m serious.”

Okay then, I’ll nap. Exciting morning, you know.

I asked around, but nobody had seen him come down. It took us a few weeks of constant surveillance to figure out his method of getting up. First Dewey jumped on the empty computer desk. Then he jumped on a filing cabinet, which gave him a long jump to the top of the temporary wall around the staff area, where he could hide behind a huge quilt of Spencer history. From there, it was only four feet to the light.

Sure, we could have rearranged the furniture, but once he became ceiling fixated we knew there wasn’t much, except old age and creaky bones, that could stop Dewey from walking the lights. When cats don’t know something exists, it’s easy to keep them away. If they can’t get to something and it’s something they’ve made up their minds they want, it’s almost impossible. Cats aren’t lazy; they’ll put in the work to thwart even the best-laid plans.

Besides, Dewey loved being up on the lights. He loved walking back and forth from end to end until he found an interesting spot. Then he would lie down, drape his head over the side, and watch. The patrons loved it, too. Sometimes when Dewey was pacing you could see them craning up at the ceiling, their heads going back and forth like the pendulum on a clock. They talked to him. When Dewey was pointed out to the children, his head just peaking over the edge of the lights, they screamed with excitement. They had so many questions.