Part Three: Fuzzy Rears His Stripe-ed Head; or Hey! It’s Hard to Tell a Story in 400 Words or Less!

I sip carefully at my gin and tonic. 

Drinking with a cat is no small matter.  The last time I failed to take this into consideration I found myself singing karaoke at the Vegas in a pair of yoga pants and a bikini top.

I don’t own a bikini.

Liza Bean Bitey, of the Minneapolis Biteys, a small tiger-ish puddy with a conceal-and-carry license, holds up a paw.  “What do you think?  I’m ready for another one if you are.”

Surprisingly, my drink appears to be gone.

Now how did that happen?

Nikki returns with the drinks and a bowl of peanuts from the bar.  “On the house,” she says.

Liza Bean presses a five into her hand.  "A server among servers,” the cat says.  She turns back to me, a lime already in paw.  “Now where was I?”

“You’ere unna – “ I start again.  “You were gunna …” I frown in concentration.

“Tsk, tsk,” the cat laughs.  “That low-carb diet leaves precious room for error, doesn’t it?”  She deftly squeezes two limes at once into her drink.  “One goes out, one partakes, of course.  No worries, old bean.”

Liza has been reading P.G. Wodehouse lately.

I blink, smiling, carefully envision the words before I say them.  “You were going to tell me about Fuzzy.”

Liza Bean licks a spot on her back as if to discover, suddenly, that it is dirty.  “Ahh.”  The subject of Fuzzwald T. Stripersson is a sore one with her.  Many inebriated nights were spent discussing him and his sudden defection from her to a much younger cat.  Their last night as a couple included a fight in which the tensile strength of a bottle of gin was tested against Fuzzy’s head and her drunken discovery, upon awakening, that her paws had been duct-taped to the bar at Jimmy’s – ostensibly to keep her from hurting herself should she fall off her stool.

The last time they saw each other – the night Squeak Toy played at the Casket Arts Building? – he bilked her out of a substantial amount of money.

Fuzzy:  He’s handsome, he’s charming, and he’s utterly unreliable.

“So what was the business opportunity?”

“What?”  The cat looks up as if from out of a dream. 

“You said there was mention of a business opportunity.”

“Oh, there’s nothing like that. That’s just something I like to say.”

I sigh.  “Just as well,” I say.  “That SOB owes you $400.”

The cat bends toward her drink.  Her tiny black lips curl around the straw.  “Hmmm,” she murmurs. 

Is there more?  Of course there is!  Tomorrow, baby!  Tomorrow!