The Cat Who Had 14 Tales

Paul started toward the scene of the accident and abruptly returned. “Come away,” he said, leading me in the opposite direction. “Don’t look.”

That was sixty years ago, and I’ve never forgotten.

It’s a sad story.

Yes, my dear, a very sad story. But there is an epilogue.

I married my young architect, and do you know what he gave me for a wedding present? Two kittens. One was gray, and one was white and fluffy. I named them Romeo and Juliet.

Tipsy and the Board of Health

(The following interview with Mr. C. W. was taped at the Old Sailors’ Home in November 1985, for the Oral History Project of Gattville Community College.)

Sure, I’m old enough to remember the Depression. Herbert Hoover, Prohibition, bread lines, soup kitchens, FDR, Repeal. I remember all that. If you wanna know, things was tough then, boy. I washed dishes, did street sweepin’—whatever I could get. Worked on the boats when I could. That was before they tore down the waterfront and built them fancy skyscrapers with fountains and trees and stuff like that.

What was the waterfront like in the thirties?

On Front Street it was all docks and warehouses. Behind that was tenements, meat markets, candy stores, a coupla beaneries, two churches, a school. Blind pigs, too, but that was before Repeal. It was a nice neighborhood. Everybody knowed everybody. The school had one of them fire-escape chutes from the second floor. Looked like a big tin sewer pipe. That’s all gone now.

Fella come to see me last week. Used to be a butcher at Nick’s Market on the waterfront. “Porky” is what we called him. He’s still fat as a pig and smokin’ them stinko cigars. We talked about the old days. Hamburger, thirteen cents a pound. Trolley cars, a nickel a ride. Porky says to me: “Betcha you don’t remember Tipsy and the Board of Health.”

I says: “Betcha two bits I do. I told my grandkids about Tipsy. They’ll be talkin’ about her long after you and me cash in our chips.”

What did you tell your grandchildren?

Tell ‘em? How Tipsy made us laugh when there wasn’t much to laugh about. No jobs. No unemployment insurance. Couldn’t pay the rent. Some folks would starve before they’d go on welfare in them days. That was what the Depression was like, boy. But Tipsy made us laugh.

Who was Tipsy?

Funniest cat you ever laid eyes on! She hung around Nick’s Market, huntin’ for mice. They didn’t have fancy pet foods then, I don’t think. Folks had a hard time feedin’ themselves. Cats and dogs, they had to rustle up their own grub.

How was Tipsy involved with the Board of Health?

Well, now, that’s a tale! I was there when the inspector first seen Tipsy. I went over to Nick’s Market to get a chaw on credit and shoot the breeze with Porky. Mrs. Nick was behind the cash register, scowlin’ like a bulldog. Nick, he was still in the hoosegow doin’ time for boot-leggin’. And Tipsy, she was in the front window, smack between the carrots and cabbages, givin’ herself a bath. Cleanest thing in the whole store, if you wanna know.

So, in walked this fella in a brown suit and white shirt and tie, lookin’ like City Hall. Carried a big thick book with black covers. He stuck his nose in the meat cooler, sniffed in the backroom, and wrote somethin’ in his book. He gave Tipsy a sour look, but she gave him no mind—just scratched her ear.

Then the man says to Mrs. Nick: “Two weeks to clean up the store and dispose of the animal.”

Mrs. Nick give him a fierce look. “Animal? You tell me what about animal?” Her English wasn’t so good.

“Get rid of the cat!” the inspector says loud and clear. “The cat! The cat in the window!”

Mrs. Nick stands there with her arms folded, like a reg’lar battle-ax. “I not get rid of no cat.”

The man says: “City ordinance, ma’am. No cats allowed in food stores.”

Mrs. Nick says: “Hah! The city, it like mice better in food store?”

“Set traps! Set traps!” he says. “If the animal is still here in two weeks, you can expect a ten-dollar fine.”

She bangs on the cash register and waves a ten-spot. “I pay now. I keep the cat.”

“I don’t want your money,” he says. “I just told you what the law requires. Get—rid—of—the—cat!”

“I make it twenty,” and she waves a tenner in each hand.

So then Porky comes out from behind the meat counter, jabbin’ his cigar at Mrs. Nick. She was his mother-in-law. He says to her: “See? What’d I tell you? You gotta dump that smelly cat.”

“She smell better than you,” she says.

Porky tries to explain to the inspector. “She’s from the Old Country. I keep tellin’ her you can’t have no cat sittin’ on the vegetables. It ain’t sanitary.”

“Hah!” Mrs. Nick says to Porky. “You go make some sanitary hamburger, and this time no cigar butt in it.”