I smiled. It was hard to imagine Kingman going in a litter box.“Maybe he does his business outside.” The General Store does have a small patch of green behind the store. It even has a tree, something all cats like—at least one thing we have in common with dogs. Though dogs like trees for the purpose of raising their hind leg against. We like it to keep our claws in shipshape condition.
And that’s when we heard it. Some kind of ruckus coming from inside the store. And since curiosity is our middle name—not really, but you get my drift—we quickly ventured inside to see what was going on.
“Maybe the store is being held up!” said Dooley. “And we’ll have to call 911!”
“We can’t call 911, Dooley,” I reminded my friend. For one thing, cats don’t own phones. And for another, say we manage to dial the required number, how are we going to make ourselves understood? Not many people speak our language, after all.
It took us a while to understand the scene that was playing out before us. Wilbur Vickery stood next to the big fridge that contains all manner of alcohol, in front of him on the floor sat Kingman, staring up at the man and growling—actually growling! And on the floor between them a can of cold beer lay on its side, like a fallen soldier, with the liquid spilling from the can.
“Are you crazy!” Wilbur was shouting. “What has gotten into you, Kingman!”
“I’m a member of FuSSy, you fool,” said Kingman. “Touch that can of poison one more time—I dare you!”
But of course poor Wilbur had no idea what his cat was saying. So he bent over and picked up that can. He checked it closely—possibly for cooties—and was about to put it to his lips when Kingman performed a perfectly executed standing jump, raised his right paw high, and slapped that can out of his human’s hand!
The can of brewski performed a nice arc through the air, and landed amid a selection of fine brown eggs, not exactly the kind of company eggs are in the habit of keeping, they being of the strict teetotaler persuasion.
“Kingman!” Wilbur yelled, as he clutched his head. “What did you just do!”
I could have told him, and so could Kingman himself, and actually he did, but it was no use, for Wilbur kept muttering to himself and complaining about weirdo cats, and going off to get a mop so he could clean up the beer from the floor.
“Why did Wilbur ask what Kingman did when he saw what he did?” asked Dooley.
“I guess he just couldn’t believe his own eyes, Dooley,” I said. “This not being the kind of behavior he’s used to from Kingman.”
Kingman now came waggling in our direction, but not before taking a disdainful sniff at the alcohol and wrinkling up his nose in abject disgust.“I never realized before how filthy this stuff is,” he said. “There should be a law against it.”
“There used to be,” I said. “It was called Prohibition, and it had some very interesting side effects.”
“It’s frustrating, you know,” said Kingman. “Having to keep an eye on him all the time. Last night when I got home from cat choir, he was on the couch, watching some late-night television, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath when he pulled me close for a cuddle. It’s tough having to be my human’s keeper all the time. He will try and sneak some liquor into his daily diet. Like now.”
“The problem is temptation,” said Dooley. “Your human has a shop full of alcohol, Kingman. All he has to do is reach out and take some of it. Other people have to go and buy it, but he doesn’t even have to leave the house.”
Dooley was right. Especially since Wilbur lives above his shop, and so whenever he runs out of something, all he has to do is walk down a flight of stairs and grab whatever he needs, whether it be bourbon or Scotch or a light beer.
“Maybe we should get rid of the stuff,” said Kingman musingly. “The problem is how?”
“I think the problem is that if you get rid of the stuff, Wilbur will get rid of you!” I said.
But Kingman raised his head high and got a sort of defiant expression in his eyes.“I don’t care. I’m willing to sacrifice my own comfort just to save my human from this self-inflicted destruction.”
“Is he in the AA?” asked Dooley.
“No, he’s not. But he should be.”
“So does he drink a lot?”
“Any drink is a drink too many,” said Kingman, quickly turning into a temperance evangelist, just like Shanille.
As far as I could tell, Wilbur wasn’t exactly a raging drunk. If he was, people would have started avoiding the store, but that simply wasn’t the case. The store always did great business, and Wilbur wasn’t slurring his words or staggering about and losing his balance—all obvious signs of alcohol intoxication. Then again, many alcoholics are what they call functioning alcoholics, and you can’t even see from their behavior that they have a problem. Was it possible that Wilbur was one of those? It hardly seemed likely. We would have smelled it.