The Cat That Danced for the King of Siam

This one goes from the strange to the bizarre but in a way it’s a very New York story. Notice I didn’t include the word “city” to that locale. To New Yorkers, especially those born there, New York is the city and nothing more need be said. As a former boss of mine once said, “If you’re outside the city you’re camping out,” a view held by many.

For a while back in the seventies I created a Public Relations firm and truth be told it did rather well. Having been on TV for many years didn’t hurt and I knew something of the way the city worked, connections and “what can you do for me,” that sort of thing.

Anyway among my better clients was the Sergeants’ Benevolent Association of the City of New York Police Department. Because of the incredible size of the police department there were more than 3,500 Sergeants and they wielded a lot of clout for they frequently spoke for the Lieutenants and Captains as well. I was their “p.r.” man and thought of interesting and publicity-generating concepts.

For instance I thought it would be a hell of an idea of the SBA did a series of TV public service spots telling people how to avoid trouble, how to secure their homes and persons. The damned things ran for years and they made my boss, Harold Melnick, quite well known. As a reward for my efforts Melnick agreed that I should have an SBA license tag. Sure enough I was SBA 16 and it was tough getting arrested with a plate like that.

My love life was practically on hold although I was sorta dating a rather well known actress who lived on lower Fifth Avenue, about five blocks north of the Washington Square Arch. Let’s call her Erin, and she was an Irish beauty and more than a little neurotic. In candor I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t at least half nuts and that was the way of things if you lived in Greenwich Village. One day I got a frantic phone call. Erin would have to move in with me for a bit, seems she had a rather extensive fire in her top floor apartment. I was instantly very wary about this moving in bit. There is an adage in the Village, “Now that I’ve got you out of my heart, how do I get you out of my apartment?”

Back to the story. Lamentably one of the two hundred pound firemen had dropped eight feet through a skylight landing squarely on one of her Siamese Cats, Fou Fou, flattening said critter but causing very little distress in my lady friend. I was puzzled as I walked the six blocks to her house, New York is a walking city, and proceeded up the stairs. The place was a mess with large areas of frozen water since we were having an unusually bitter January. Sure enough there lay Fou Fou as flat as a mackerel and frozen stiff. You could have beaten a rug with the carcass if you swung it by the tail. I’m always coming up with alternate uses for things.

Anyhow, I asked Erin why she wasn’t grieving more and she explained that Fou Fou had entered another life cycle and was now dancing before the King of Siam. I digested this information very slowly because there had been a dearth of lady friends that year, and simply nodded my head. Dancing before the royal court of Siam or not, the corpus not so delictus had to be moved for obvious reasons. I got a large Bloomingdale’s bag and slid Fou Fou inside, tied the handles together and we started putting Erin’s stuff together for a cab ride to my place.

I subsequently put Fou Fou into the trunk of my car which was parked in a non-heated garage and forgot all about her for a couple of weeks. Erin asked one day what I had done with her remains and improvising I said I had given the cat a wonderful ceremony and launched her on the river which would bring her remains to Southeast

Asia eventually. Erin nodded and said, “I knew you would come up with something fitting. I knew you would understand.” I looked sensitive and wondered what the hell I was really gonna’ do with Fou Fou when the answer occurred to me. Why not give her a watery send off; hell I only lived four blocks from the river.

Next morning, a Sunday as I remember, I got my car and took it down to the docks where I had worked while going to college. It was still colder than hell and there were jagged and filthy ice flows around the pilings. I parked my car with the SBA plates, opened the trunk and grabbed the “Bloomies” bag with the cat still as stiff as a board. Looking around carefully, and what have must have seemed furtively, I grabbed the handles, swung the cat around a few times and launched her into the Hudson where she slalomed off a couple of ice flows and eventually into the frigid waters. I thought hell, maybe she’ll float into the Atlantic, head south around Cape Horn and end up in Siam after all. Such is the mental process after two many years of consuming large quantities of cheap Scotch.

It was a comforting thought. I felt it was the end of the typical Greenwich Village story until I went back to the Corner Bistro that afternoon and thought self-congratulatory thoughts. I noticed a green and white 6th precinct radio car park by a fire plug with Sergeant Johnny Brendan, a very fine cop and the representative of the SBA in that precinct. Johnny took off his hat, put on a raincoat and entered the saloon. I welcomed him for we were friends but was rather puzzled by his appearance. He looked perplexed and stared at me for a minute. Finally he said, “Tom, I know you’re a fine fellow and have the association’s best interest at heart, but I’ve got to ask you a strange question.”

Puzzled myself at the quasi official tone of the remark I said, “Fire away. “ He nodded then said, “Were you down at the piers this morning?” Surprised I answered in the affirmative. He frowned then said, “God damn it, I was hoping someone had borrowed your car.” More perplexed that ever I asked, “What the hell is going on?” And Johnny looked me in the eye and said, “We got a call that someone had thrown a baby into the river and the woman had taken your tag number. When the Desk officer got the call he immediately called me. What the hell is going on?” I was stunned, started to laugh, thought better of it and told him the entire story of the fire, of Fou Fou’s s expiration, Erin’s conviction that the cat was dancing before the King of Siam and the subsequent, and poignant, I thought, burial service.

Johnny Brennan was a smart guy, was going for his Master’s degree in Criminal Justice and he just stared at me. But he was a Sergeant in the whackey 6th Precinct and he began to see the story from a Village perspective which had nothing to do with NYPD rules and regulations. Finally, when I finished he nodded and said, “I don’t drink as a rule and never drink on duty, but today I’m going to make an exception.” He nodded at Harold the bartender who filled a glass with Scotch and Johnny sipped it as we both looked out the window at the wonderful world of Greenwich Village.

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