Every bookstore worth its salt has a cat. The bookstore cat, aloof and superior, holds court from atop a favored cushion located somewhere within the shop. The cushion (or throne, as is more likely the case) generally adorns a once-comfy-but-never-fashionable 20th century chair or sofa punctuated by claw marks on both arms. In a pinch, a hard, wooden stool will do. Throughout the day, customers come and go, paying homage to the indifferent feline's magnificence as they browse from room to room. Be forewarned: bookstore cats can be capricious when showered with overt affection. Too much rubbing will almost certainly result in a peremptory hiss or perhaps even a quick nip from sharp, tiny teeth.

The bookstore cat is royalty and demands to be treated as such: it has never missed a meal during any of its nine lives but cleverly conceals its generous bulk beneath a lush fur coat that continually scatters behind this majestic creature as it slinks from one place of repose to another. Very often, there will be a coterie of younger, skittish handmaidens of lesser pedigree darting to-and-fro throughout the shop keeping well away from their superior as they undulate about the ankles of itinerant book lovers. The preferred terrain of these subordinate beauties may be found in the snug nooks and crannies afforded by vacated shelf spaces formerly occupied by some customer's prized purchase. 

In my many, many years of frequenting these establishments, I have never encountered a cat-in-residence at a single Barnes & Noble (although I have encountered a plethora of tweens and adolescents lolling in the floor, oblivious to everything but their iPhones). It is the independent shops that are the traditional domain of bookstore cats. My favorite of all--if it hasn't used up its lives (it's been a few years)--is pictured at the top of this post and is/was the cat-in-residence at E. Shaver, Bookseller, located at 326 Bull Street, directly behind the DeSoto Hotel in Savannah's historic district. The 1842 building was constructed by local real estate magnate, Eliza Jewett, as her primary residence; after she died, her funeral was held here but I'm not sure how that figures into Savannah's much-vaunted, haunted history or if it even does. But whether you're an avid reader like me or just need somewhere to get out of the steamy, southern heat, come to E. Shaver's and admire the cat (s). 

Another favorite was the late, lamented Dusty, who, for years, wandered the aisles of the fabulously disheveled Commonwealth Books, located in an alley in downtown Boston. When our elderly friend, Dave, was alive and making his seasonal pilgrimage from Broward County to the Boston 'burbs, we visited him regularly at his funky mid-century split-level in Braintree. Each visit to Dave's house demanded a trip to Commonwealth Books so we could pay our respects to Dusty while scanning the fur-covered shelves for treasures we never knew we needed. Commonwealth Books is celebrated for its enormous selection of rare and used books covering any and all subjects, with some tomes dating back to the 19th Century, maybe earlier. Since both Dave and Dusty have moved on to greener pastures, we haven't been back to the Boston area, but I suspect that one of the several "ladies-in-waiting" has assumed Dusty's mantle. 

The storied City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco's North Beach is home to the adored Cedric, while The Boulder Bookstore in Colorado, features--at least--a couple of cats that have inspired an entire series of bookstore mysteries by Alex Erickson.  Closer to us is the old-school Old Florida Book Shop in Dania Beach that is the domain of yet another beloved feline named Peter. 

Bookstores are my happy place, and when they are populated by cats, it feels like home to me. Which is surprising since my mother had a morbid fear of the beasts; as a child she'd been told that cats sneak into the cradles of infants and suck the life out of them. In mom's opinion, cats were craven murderers. (And yet--somehow--our mom was fine with my sister's white rat, whose residency came to an abrupt end after it ate my mother's house shoes.) Mom's dad--my movie-mad cowboy grandfather--was convinced that Chinese restaurants included cats in the Chow Mein so I suspect this conviction contributed to his daughter's ailurophobia. 

I was, roughly, 28 before I got my first cat, Chloe, whose torrid relationship with my dachshund, Elliot, came as a surprise to one and all. Sadly, Elliot bit the dancing plumber who came to repair the washing machine, and promptly up and died (Elliot not the plumber). I'd warned the plumber not to try and pet Elliot but he ignored my advice, so I wasn't all that sympathetic, especially when I saw that all his carrying-on was much ado about not much. Did the dancing plumber have cyanide in his blood? What else could explain poor Elliot's quick demise? Soon afterwards, Chloe disappeared into the night when my careless roommate left the back door ajar. I always suspected that the back door was left open on purpose since my roommate never liked cats anyway. (To add insult to injury, his carelessness resulted in our being burgled several times). 

When I met C some 22 years later, he was the parent--or maybe the servant--of a 30 lb. ball of orange fire named Aesop, who immediately made it clear that I was trespassing on his territory. For instance, when I got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I'd invariably find him perched in the doorway hissing, daring me to try and cross the threshold. Consequently, I had to use the guest bathroom down the hall to relieve myself. Large and in charge, Aesop was disinclined to play nice with someone encroaching on his hallowed space. Aesop and I steered clear of one another until, one day, two or three years later, I was sitting on the couch and felt something rub against me. Since I was home alone, I thought that it might be our mysterious unseen houseguest whose antics I will address in a later post. But, in fact, this entity's affection could not have shocked me any more than the sight of Aesop snuggling up to my side. From that point on, Aesop and I maintained a congenial living arrangement that lasted until his death at 17. 

As of this writing, Aesop was the last of my feline roommates, although C and I have friends with delightful companions that we frequently visit. Which is not to say that a future pet adoption of our own is out of the question. It's just that we currently have very serious shit going on (aside from the country's catastrophic political situation), and now is not the time. However, with all the shelves of books and movies we have, a cat would feel perfectly at home with us. 

And now I'll leave you with a few lines from a longer poem called The Ad-dressing of Cats from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot. Yes, I know some of you will have seen--and despised--the long-running Broadway musical based on this work, and some others may even have borne witness to the much-hated movie version. To you I dedicate these words:

With cats, some say, one rule is true:

Don't speak until you are spoken to.

Myself, I do not hold with that--

I say, you should ad-dress a cat.

But always keep in mind that he

Resents familiarity.

I bow, and taking off my hat,

Ad-dress him in this form: O Cat!