“Once I knew of a cat with two heads,” our grandfather told us. “One on each end.”
This was after our mother had sent us to bed. Our grandfather had come in for goodnights and - as was our custom at the time - we asked him to stay. We wanted a story.
“Of course,” he went on, “the one at the back end wasn’t suited for any sort of serious thinking, you know. It only thought on the very simplest of things. Mostly it was a sort of look-out head. It would tell the other head - the front head - if something was trying to sneak up on it.
“Whenever anything would come toward that cat from the rear that back head would meow and meow and meow. It would go on until the front head realized something was amiss and then the whole cat would leap around in a circle trying to run away. This usually took a few tries because each head would think it was pointed in the best direction for running.”
Only the youngest of us believed any of this, of course, but our grandfather swore it was all true.
“Yep that was some cat. He used to sit at my feet and lick my toes. One head for each foot. He’d sit there licking and purring until he’d given each toe a good going over, then he’d flip around the opposite way so each head could try out the foot the other had just finished. It was a real lesson in taking turns and sharing.”
Our grandfather smiled, remembering. He slapped a knotted, calloused hand on his knee and continued.
“They say two heads are better than one, and, though I’m not sure I’d say they’re always better, I can tell you that when it comes to cats two heads are certainly very interesting.”
We agreed that it did sound very interesting.
“Did you ever see a cat chase a butterfly?” he asked us, and we said no.
“Well you’ve missed something. A cat will leap around after that butterfly and turn and twist and end up in a knot, and all the while the butterfly will just be minding his own merry way. He won’t even know anything special is happening.”
We asked if it was like a cat chasing a laser pointer.
“Oh, well, I can’t say. I don’t know about that,” he said. “But I can tell you how the two-headed cat chased butterflies if you’d like to hear about it.” And we said we would like to hear about it.
“Well, first thing you should know is that it was only the front head that seemed to have any interest in chasing butterflies, and in the event that he saw one, things didn’t start out too different from one of your standard one-headed cats. That butterfly would be perched someplace - on a log, maybe - and when that front head got sight of it the whole cat would crouch down and then he’d LEAP into the air and try to catch it. The only difference was the back head didn’t know what was going on and was apt to get a right-hard bump from the log - or whatever it was the butterfly had been resting on when the front-head gave the order to leap. That bump would cause the back head to bite his tongue or at least give him a good jarring and he’d meow so loud and make an awful fuss. Well, the front head would hear that and think something was sneaking up on it and the whole cat would start its spinning trying to figure out which direction to run, and forget all about the butterfly. It was a sight, to be sure.”
We laughed at that and our grandfather laughed along with us. He had a small laugh. A coarse, quiet laugh. A laugh that sounded as though it hadn’t been used very much and had gone somewhat stale on a shelf. But it was a good laugh and we still talk about it to this day.
All the noise roused our mother and she yelled from down the hall. We needed to get to sleep, she yelled. She followed that by yelling that if our grandfather was in there he should leave.
Our grandfather put his finger to his lips and we all became very quiet. Then he asked, “Did I ever tell you about the dog that ate my father’s old truck?”
“It did? For real?” we asked softly.
“No, you didn’t tell us,” we whispered.
“Will you tell us?” We all wanted to know.
“Yes, it really did. Ate it clean up in one sitting. From grill to gate.” our grandfather said. “And, yes, I’ll tell you all about it sometime.”
With that he stood and walked to the door. “Maybe I’ll come by tomorrow night and tell you all about it then. How’s that sound?”
We said it sounded fine.
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