I walked in on Smokey reading on his iPad.
"Hey Smo--Ender, whatcha reading?"
In my head, he'd always be Smokey but I had stopped calling him that after much protest from him. He was very adamant about the name being "stupid." I tried to argue that it was ironic and funny but Smokey isn't very good at arguing. Or rather, he's very good at arguing because he always wins easily with a simple, blank stare. He insisted that I start calling him Ender, after the main character of his favourite book. He was lying on his side on the kitchen counter with the iPad propped up on its cover. He roused himself into his trademark sitting position to address me.
"I'm reading War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy," he said.
"I know who it's by."
"Do you?" That stare again.
In the two years since Smokey had uttered his first words, he had become remarkably intelligent. But also...quite arrogant. Well, maybe he was always arrogant but the intelligence probably made it worse.
"Yes, I do. Isn't War and Peace really boring?" I asked.
"Not at all. I feel that, like life, it has no beginning, no end. It's life itself in its eternal movement. Beautiful."
"How do you know it has no end?" I challenged.
"It's my second time through."
It felt like he had set me up just so he could say that, as he often did. I watched him as he went back to reading, pawing at the iPad to flip pages. He had shown interest in reading after seeing me with a book shortly after he began speaking. A few clawed up books later, I thought an iPad might work better and bought him one. It was still surreal to watch a little animal tap a screen, clearly absorbing the information on it.
"Why don't you read something more modern? I got you Cryptonomicon since I know you like long books. Read that," I suggested.
He looked at me with disdain. I wasn't sure if it was because of the suggestion or because I was interrupting his precious reading. Maybe both.
"I tried reading that but it's shit. Oh which reminds me -- have you cleaned my litter box yet?"
Yeah, probably both.
"Yeah like an hour ago," I told him.
"Oh, yeah, you need to get in there again posthaste."
"Listen cat, you need to learn how to use the toilet. I've seen YouTube videos of cats far far dumber than you doing it. You have an IQ of like 800, I know you could do it too."
"182 actually."
"What?"
"My IQ, it's 182. Of course, IQ alone is a poor gauge of intelligence. You have to factor in the Emotional Quotient and Spiritual--"
I cut him off. "Ok ok, whatever. Can you just start using the toilet? Please?"
"Nah. I really like the way the sand feels on my paws. It just feels...right."
I was going to press on but realized it was probably futile. But I remembered a lesser "favour" he might be open to. "Oh yeah about that. Could you at least wipe your paws after using the litter box? That's what I put that mat there for."
"I'll think about it." In other words, no chance.
Smokey's attitude was starting to piss me off so I decided to use the one weapon I had against him. As smart as he was, he still had regular cat instincts he couldn't shake. He still loved to hunt and play with cat toys but it was as if he wasn't in control of himself while doing it. Once, he chased a fly around my apartment, caught it, ate it and immediately said "Eww WHY did I just do that?!" I still laugh about it to this day.
"Start wiping your paws or I'll get the feather toy out," I threatened.
"Oh you mean the feather humiliation device?" he quipped back.
"It's only humiliating if I record you playing with it all nimbly-bimbly, looking like a 'buffoon' (as you put it) and upload it to YouTube."
"You wouldn't."
I got out my phone.
"Ok, ok! I'll wipe my damn paws."
I only felt triumph briefly since victories like these were always tenuous. Smokey could use my bed as his litter box whenever he wanted to and he had done so before. It never made sense to me -- playing with a toy was too undignified but dropping a deuce on my pillow was fine.
I still hadn't told anyone about Smokey. Whenever I had people over, he would just act like a regular cat, completely speechless. I expected this since he had told me beforehand he wouldn't talk for anyone else. I think "I won't perform like a dirty monkey for your friends" was the way he put it. I told him he was being cliché since there had been countless movies, TV episodes and cartoons about talking animals that would only talk for one person. Like that singing frog in Looney Tunes. He then went on a long diatribe against the word "cliché" that I couldn't really follow. Of course, it also occurred to me that Smokey really can't talk and I've just lost my mind. I realized though that even if I am crazy, it's a pretty harmless and amusing kind of crazy so I shouldn't worry about it too much. I think?
