Ellen Datlow - Tails of Wonder and Imagination

For some time, Shannon and I had been practically living together, shuttling back and forth between our houses, but she preferred my place because Benjamin lived there. Benny Boy, as she called him. If he’d been a man, I would’ve been insanely jealous. To say they hit it off is to say Juliet was sort of into Romeo. He was equally passionate about her.

This was all good. She loved me too, Benny Boy’s lifelong companion and confidante, the cleaner of the cat box, the keeper of the can opener, not to mention healer extraordinaire. But then she started asking questions. “Isn’t he due for a checkup? Shots or something?”

I made the mistake of just putting her off, and then she saw a little reminder card from one of Benny Boy’s many vets in my mail, this one saying he was at least eight years overdue on just about everything. So she called and made an appointment. That’s kind of how Shannon was, which was one of the many things I liked about her, except insofar as it pertained to Benjamin, because I’d always figured that sooner or later reality was going to catch up with me. It was like I made a deal all those years ago that I couldn’t handle my cat dying right then, but Some Day there’d be no choice, and it would hurt even worse when it finally came. But somehow, if I could just keep his death and persistent life a secret, nothing had to change.

“How old is he?” Shannon asked when they met. About four, I said, never anticipating I’d be caught in my convenient lie. So how could he be eight years behind in his shots? I feared every step I took down this road with Shannon meant Some Day was coming soon. But I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t stop her. Benjamin, closed up in his carrier, in his stoic, dignified way, neither stopped nor started, but was carried along by the tide of events—and by his carrier of course—to the vet.

Ben enjoyed crowded veterinary waiting rooms, the more crowded the better. He delighted in the spectacle. This day, there was a special treat, a harlequin Great Dane lurching about out of control, his suited keeper helpless to stop him from sticking his great nose in the random crotch, body-blocking anyone coming in the door, terrifying every animal in the place—and I’m including humans as animals—except Ben who watched from inside his carrier, purring, purring, the deep rumbling purr I know as laughter. Ben enjoyed watching foolishness. He saw a lot of it at his age.

“He’s so calm,” Shannon marveled, peering inside his carrier, stroking his untroubled brow with her finger, keeping a wary eye on the Dane. “Is he always this calm?”

“Oh yes,” I reassured her, and then we were next, and she wanted to go in too, and how could I refuse?

After a lengthy examination, the vet, a kind, fatherly gentleman, maybe a decade older than Ben chronologically, but a mere child in cat years, broached the subject cautiously. He looked over the end of his reading glasses, up from Ben’s near-empty record of perfect health. “According to our records, I last examined Benjamin 12 years ago?”

I couldn’t lie, not with Shannon beside us scratching Ben’s head with both hands the way he likes, waiting for my answer. “Yes.”

“Which makes Ben”—he looked back at the record—“19?” He couldn’t quite keep the incredulity out of his gentlemanly voice. Shannon’s hands froze on Ben’s noble head. All eyes were on me. Even Ben’s.

Ben and I had liked this guy, so we stuck with him for three years. The math checked out. He was the last. Ben was 35, ready to do without vets—the shots and the thermometer up his ass anyway. He found the rest interesting. At least I wasn’t dealing with Ben’s first vet. No bluff possible there. “That’s right,” I said.

“Would—Would you mind leaving Ben for a few tests? An hour or so? No charge, of course.”

Ben gave me an unmistakable look. No fucking way is a precise translation. “I’m afraid not,” I said.

“Why not?” Shannon asked. She’d done a little math of her own. In her reality, Ben was six, tops, and of course, he looked four, as always.

“Nothing’s wrong with him, right?” I asked the vet.

He shook his head no. “Quite the opposite. He’s the healthiest cat I’ll see this year. This is the same cat?”

I considered lying, but couldn’t imagine explaining the lie to Shannon in some way that wouldn’t sound sick or pathetic. “Yes. Same cat.”

“He’s the healthiest 19-year-old cat I’ve ever seen—and we don’t see that many. There aren’t even any tartar deposits on his teeth.” He bared Ben’s teeth, pointing with a ball point pen at the gleaming fangs, an indignity Ben graciously endured.

“I know. I think he’s had enough for one day.” Ben chimed in with a low moan, that if you know anything about cats means his patience is spent, and you’re in immediate peril from the aforementioned fangs and the hooked razors that sprout from each paw on demand, the envy of every badass who ever lived. The vet got the message immediately, putting him back in the carrier with a fistful of treats.

I wasn’t looking forward to the ride home. No well-timed moan was going to get me out of this one.

There was a moment, when Shannon was already in the car and I was about to put Ben in the backseat, when we were alone. I put his carrier on the roof of the car and pretended I was having trouble finding my keys, though I didn’t think Shannon was paying any attention to us. She was staring out the windshield with a determined look on her face. Ben and I spoke in low tones through the bars of his carrier door, our faces inches apart. The traffic flowed by behind me, ignoring me and my cat.

“What do I do?” I asked. “She’ll never believe you’re 19.”

“Tell her my real age,” he said.

“You think?”

“I know.”

“But I can’t prove you’re 47. She’ll never believe me.”

“Proof doesn’t matter. You’ll see. She senses I’m no ordinary cat. We have a special bond.”

“Oh please. Does she sense you’re a manipulative little eunuch?”

“For a cat, I’m not so little.” He laughed at his own joke. Cat humor, very sly.

I put him in the middle of the backseat, so he could see out the front like he likes, got in, immediately started the car, and put it in gear.

“How can Ben be 19 ?” Shannon asked.

We were parallel parked, my eyes glued to the side mirror, waiting for a break in the traffic. Following Ben’s advice—I’d never known him to be wrong—I told her. “He’s not,” I began, “he’s 47.” I pulled into traffic.

There were certain advantages to telling the tale while driving. I wasn’t expected to make eye contact; a brisk, even telegraphic style was perfectly acceptable; and she wasn’t inclined to interrupt, argue, or question while I was waiting to make a tricky left turn across a steady torrent of oncoming traffic. The downside was I didn’t have a clue how she was taking it until we were back at my place, and I turned off the engine and looked over at her. You might think she would’ve refused to believe me, end of story, but Shannon wasn’t like that. Neither was she some wacko flake who believed any madness I spouted just because she loved me.

“Okay,” she said. “I want to figure this thing out.” She turned to Ben and looked at him through the bars. Has Benny Boy been keeping secrets from his Shannon? He looked right back. Hell. What did I know? Maybe they did have a special bond.

It was early yet, and Shannon had me dig out Ben’s vet records, and while I was making breakfast, she called every vet he’d ever been to. The second one was dead and gone, the third seemed to have left town. She made appointments with the rest, booking Ben solid for the day. I wondered if he figured on this when he told me to tell her the truth. I certainly hadn’t. I checked my credit card balance, and we were off.