Jonathan G. Catt

“JONATHAN G. PROFESSIONAL T.”

Dedicated to Greg Harrington, the visionary. Jam on.

Working amongst people like those at Hull Plastics, you wouldn’t think there was anything odd about their boss.

“Mr Catt keeps to himself really,” I was told by Mo, an elderly Asian man, on my first day at my new job. “His work is different from ours. If anybody has a problem or anything, they go to head office. Mr Catt is kinda like a redundant middleman, but nobody told him, so he hangs around.”

The first hours slipped by as I was introduced to my workstation and a cohort of co-workers, a bunch I instantly clicked with. There was a welcome cake and people stopped by to talk or help me arrange my desk. I even met a nice girl named Ellie who I think I got on well with. As I shifted stationary and binder after binder of paper and dividers I found myself occasionally glancing towards the frosted glass door of “Jonathan G. Catt.” Behind the curiously luxurious door a figure moved nimbly around the room, his head tucked into his neck, supporting what must’ve been a phone.

“Something caught your eye, lad?” A thick Scottish accent crept up behind me, placing his hand on my shoulder. Before I responded to the figure I had time to realise that there was definitely something…discomforting about the way Mr. Catt went about his business beyond the distortion of the frosted glass. His movements were too enthusiastic, too deliberate for an office manager. Remembering myself, I span around to find Jeff.

“I’m Jeff.” Jeff said, extending a weathered hand, “And it’s nice to meet you.”

I rose to introduce myself but he interrupted.

“So you’ve met our ordained boss, Mr. Catt, I suppose? Hmm?” He said, casually digging his hands deep into his pockets. I moved to reply but: “Aye, you might have met the man, and that’s bad enough, but I’ll wager you haven’t actually ‘met’ the man, if you know what I’m saying.”

“I don’t follow.” I managed.

“And never you will, God willing.” Jeff said. I began to challenge him on this, but found he was already turning away and retreating briskly. There was a slam behind me and I turned to find Jonathan G. Catt had emerged from his office. He was wearing a mask.

“Jeff,” He called after the evasive scot, clicking his fingers and pointing at his waist. “Give me your belt.”

Dressed in a loud red suit with two biro pens tucked into the chest pocket Catt strode over to my desk. His accent was hard to trace and embodied an almost whiny quality. “Suave royalty”, Jeff later called it. As he talked I noticed the mask contort with his facial features.

So, a rubber mask? I asked myself. Behind me I heard Jeff stop dead and turn around, exhaling exasperatedly.

“What for, John?” He asked, lifting his arms then letting them flap back to his sides, “Why do you suddenly need my belt.”

“I want to see if my shredder can shred leather.” The tall, authoritative Catt responded, idly picking at his teeth with what appear to be paws. For a split second the revelation was underwhelming, but with each curl of those fat ginger mitts the feline tendencies of my new boss became increasingly undeniable.

To my surprise Jeff sighed, tugged the leather strap out of its buckle and wrenched it from his waist, tossing it to Catt with the liquid fluidity of a man who’s done the same thing countless times. Catt failed to grasp the belt, flailing and bending over to pick it up, during which time I noticed with a quiet resignation the ginger tail protruding from his trousers. He regained his posture and, nodding silently, turned and began back towards the sanctity of his office.

“Was he joking?” I queried, thumbing over my shoulder towards the departed boss, “What does he need your belt for? Why is he wearing a cat suit?”

“He wants the belt for precisely what he said, lad.” Jeff replied, “As for the cat suit, well, maybe we should go and get a drink?”

*

In a small kitchen alcove designed for making tea and storing biscuits me and Jeff sat at a small plastic table, drinks in hand. The fluorescent lights hummed above us, saturating the room in sterile white.

“Before you arrived we had two kids – a guy and a girl – apprenticing with us. They stayed for about a month; he stayed a little longer.” Jeff took a swig of black coffee, “They worked hard enough – it’s hardly a demanding job, is it?”

I shrugged and puffed out my mouth.

“On the day the guy left we really talked for the first time, much like this.” Jeff motioned to nothing, “I asked him what he thought of the place, he told me it was great. I asked him what he thought of Mr. Catt and he shook his head.”

“Shook his head, huh?” I sipped the cinnamon tea I’d brought from home.

“He told me: ‘John G. over there, he’s a boss first, a cat second, and a human being last.’” Jeff nodded, shifting in his seat, “He, by some freak of nature or something, is a cat man. An anthropomorphic mess. Ironic justice I call it.”

“He’s a cat?” I tried to comprehend.

“A cat man. Aye, and he’s our boss to boot. He mostly does as he pleases, and gets paid for it. He’s not well liked, but that’s no excuse for what he does to some people.”

*

While I was getting acquainted with my efficiently organised desk Mr. Catt emerged again. This time he seemed to wander aimlessly from desk to desk with his cup of coffee, holding brief conversations with each occupant and then moving on. With interest and apprehension I watched as he wove his way through each row, slowly making his way towards me. I noticed how he tended to walk on his tiptoes, his tail flicking the edges of desks, knocking off stray articles as he went. Trying to assort some papers splayed out in front of me I didn’t realise that John G. had reached me until I heard his voice.

“And what about you?” I turned to find him poised over me, his whiskers catching the glare of the ceiling light, “Do you see everyone working hard enough?”

“Excuse me?” I stalled.

“I’m thinking-“ He stopped, licked the back of his right paw and brushed a tuft of his cheek fur off to the side, “I mean I think I’ve seen Jeff wandering a lot lately…what do you think?”

“No.” I said, “I d- I haven’t seen him wandering, um, particularly.”

For a moment Jonathan G. Catt just stared back at me, his brow bent in thought. His back arched, and a guttural rattle emitted from him. A purr.

“Who are you?” He asked, his head dipping over my desk, scrutinising my files, “You don’t work here.”

“Sorry,” I smiled and sat up in my chair and offered my hand, “I just started today. I was referred from Sheffield Plastics. My name’s-“

“Alright, alright.” He interjected, grasping my hand between the calloused padding of his paws and shaking violently. “Welcome and all. I’m sure you’ll find this a great place to work, so on and so forth. I-”

His gaze fell on my feet and seemed to hang there with the intensity of, well, a cat. For a moment too long silence lingered in the air, punctuated only by a ringing phone and fingers tapping on keyboards. He licked coffee from his lips and then seemed to snap back to life.

“And I must say, those are very nice shoes.” He bellowed, catching the ears of a few nearby workers who turned in his direction, “Leather right? Real leather? How much did those set you back?”

Instantly I understood that he was seeking an audience. After talking with Jeff I suspected I even understood why, but giving my new boss the benefit of the doubt I remained motionless, that wary smiling still hanging from my face. Sure enough, the pained expression of a nearby colleague distracted me for the duration it took Catt to upturn his cup, emptying its contents over my left knee and both shoes. Instinctively I kicked back in the chair, wheeling it away from the stream of hot drink that continued to fall from the large mug. The liquid crept through my trousers and I cried out in shock more than pain. The aroma of coffee beans filled my nose as somewhere someone gasped.

“Whoops!” Catt said, his tail swinging in exclamation. He paced over to where I was still sat and began to slap the wet stain on my knee with unnecessary force. I leapt from the chair, thrusting it back into a filing cabinet and causing it to resound with a ‘clang’.

“Just, keep away! Stay back!” I yelled, “Why the hell did you do that?”

“Watch yourself.” Catt pointed an accusatory paw at me, “Remember who you’re talking to.”

Once again silence hung heavy in the office, this time the clattering keyboards were replaced with the expectant gaze of over fifteen pairs of eyes.

“It was an accident. My arm cramped.” Catt extended his hands in a sympathetic gesture, looking to his employees for approval. But I maintained my position and the silence persisted.

“Come on, your first day. What else do you have but my word?”

I remained firm beside the filing cabinet, arms fixed stoically at my sides. Still facing me, he began back towards his office and by the time he had reached the door the sound of busy keyboards had resumed.

*

With less than an hour to go on my first day I found myself stepping inside Jonathan G. Catt’s office. I flicked a few strands of my well groomed hair out of my eyes and entered the modest sized room, with only a desk, mini disc player and a small, empty fish tank filling the space. The walls were plastered with posters for movies, bands, productions for the Arch, an amateur dramatics theatre near the city centre. “Last Christmas” emanated quietly from the mini disc player and Jonathan G. sat silently over a binder, pen in hand. He noticed me.

“Oh, you showed up.” He said, slamming the binder shut, “Thanks for coming.”

I nodded and took up the stool sat in front of Catt’s desk.

“No computer?” I motioned towards the sparse desk. He responded by raising his two large paws.

“You find a keyboard big enough and just maybe.” He smirked and drops his pen on the desk. “I wanted to apologise, first and foremost. I understand that you might not have the most respectable first impression of your boss.”

“Oh, it’s alright.” I replied.

“You’re enjoying your first day here?”

“Well, a job’s a job.” I offered.

For a moment we sat there. “You’ve got a lot of posters in here.”

“Do you like Stephen Segal films?” He chimed in with such enthusiasm that his tail brushed the blinds on the window behind him. I shook my head.

“I don’t really watch a lot of films.”

“Oh, well.” Catt motioned towards a poster on the wall, “’Under Siege’? Ever heard of it? Segal’s finest two hours.”

“Is that the one with Sean Connery…you know…with the cable car and-“

“That’s ‘The Rock’.”

“Oh.”

“You’ve seen ‘The Rock’?”

“Only a bit of it.”

“Ah.”

Silence resumed. Outside the office someone slapped the door jarringly and laughed as they passed by. Catt’s large, unreadable eyes followed the noise.

“So I guess you’ve noticed I’m a cat?” Catt offered absently. His right ear twitched twice. “Let me throw you in at the deep end and ask: How do you think this happened? How do you think I ended up this way, half cat and half man?”

“I…um…”I tried to keep the obvious thoughts of bestiality from my mind. Instead I shook my head.

“Shall I tell you how?” He turned up his bottom lip and shrugged, “Hmm?”

I nodded, noticing with each dip of my head the stain on my left knee.

“No reason.” He said bluntly. “No reason at all. My parents were human. My grandparents were human. I wasn’t brought up in Chernobyl or anything like that. So what would you call it? An act of God?”

He beckoned towards a couple of photo frames behind the door – items I missed when I walked in. The first frame held a picture of an attractive girl in her early teen years. She wore a pair of thick rimmed glasses but these didn’t disguise her classical beauty. The second showed the same girl and John G. outside a small cottage. The girl is much younger in this photo, grasping a cuddly toy dog.

“My daughter.” Catt said. I turned for a second look and noticed a paper shredder leaning against the office wall.

“Mr. Catt,” I started, victim to the first pangs of an inevitably gargantuan headache, “It’s been a long day and…lots of new things to take in, you understand? I hate to push, but can I ask why you called me in here?”

“Of course you can.” Catt lifted his legs onto the table. He stretched his arms and for a moment small claws protruded from the end of each paw, “You’re fired.”

*

“If I’d told you this was going to happen, you might have stood even less of a chance.” Jeff told me as he helped me assemble my various items between three cardboard boxes, “But for what it’s worth, we all thought you might be the one to stay.”

“He’s done this before, then?” I asked.

“Everyone he’s employed since three months ago he’s let go on their first day. Like he’s looking for somebody in particular.”

“And nobody complains about this?”

“To most it’s just John G. and his sad little world. The people who leave wouldn’t care to stay, and those who stay aren’t ready to go.” Hearing it from Jeff made it a perfectly rational argument, “A job’s a job, and nobody here wants to upset that. Ask me why he does it, though, and I couldn’t tell you. I’ve walked into the man’s office to find him batting the light bulb for God’s sake.”

Outside rain began to fall; a sunny day punctuated with an overcast sunset and heavy showers.

“Oh Christ, not rain.” Jeff said, “Trust me; if Mr. Catt’s pleasures disgust you, then you’d best avoid hearing his pains and leave now.”

I began my way down to my car with Jeff helping me carry my stuff. By the time we got outside the rain was already falling heavier. I shook hands with Jeff and jogged over to my car with the boxes. As I thumbed open the boot and dropped my possessions inside I began to hear Catt, tinny through the falling rain. Three storeys up, silhouetted against his office window, he stood, head thrown back emitting a ghastly yowl into the darkness of the evening. I dipped into the driver seat, switched on the ignition and calmly pulled out of the Hull Plastics car park.

*

Although the day’s experience was exhausting, I didn’t dwell on it too much until that night, lying in bed, with my pet Terrier, Chelsea, at my feet. Even then, my thoughts were not drawn to the coffee incident or Jeff’s comments, as much as they were to that sickening meow Catt had expelled from his office.

I could imagine this cat man, maybe divorced from his curious wife and estranged from his fluke daughter. Projecting his misery on his co-workers by day and then later, sat at home alone in front of a TV, watching his Segal movies, while in their respective houses his colleagues threw parties and snuggled in bed with their partners.

My last thought before I drifted off to sleep that night was Jonathan G. Catt, adjusting his cuffs, tie and whiskers. He picks up his briefcase – imitation leather – and steps out the door, content in the knowledge that each new day is a fresh start.

By Joe Tonks