Andover's Plight

Andover Phee hated cats. But it wasn’t until the summer of 1908 that he openly expressed it.

As like most other emotions of notable passion, Andover’s hatred of cats started with small, petty annoyances. His reclusive neighbor had many of them and would let the cats roam around her property, and Andover’s as well. At first he didn’t mind, in fact, he was quite amused by them. But that sentiment didn’t last long. Sometimes at night he would be awoken by the sound of a terrible crash outside his bedroom, as if someone had broken his windows. He would then rush down the stairs with rifle in hand to see what the cause of the noise was, only to come upon refuge that had spilled out of their overturned bins and scattered across his yard. He would then spend the rest of the night cleaning and cursing the first wild beast (or beasts) he thought could have done this, not once considering his neighbor’s cats as a likely possibility. It was not until about a week later when Andover awoke to the most shrill of sounds that the culprit was revealed to him. For when he heard this he shot from his bed and ran to his bedroom window to see three of his neighbor’s cats diving in amongst his refuge bins, yowling all the while. At this he reacted by throwing open the window shutters and screaming back, shaking fists and shouting curses in their direction. This frightened them so that they shot out of the bin and through the gate of the fence that lined Andover’s yard, spilling the bins’ contents in the process.

The next morning Andover ventured over to his neighbor’s home to address the issue. He knocked on the door and waited. A couple minutes went by and then he knocked again. He listened. Nothing inside stirred. He knocked once more, louder and more forceful than before, then listened. Still nothing. He tried to open the door but it was locked and wouldn’t budge. He walked around the house and peered into the windows, but it did no good. They had been rendered useless for such a purpose from years of neglect. He then looked for a back door or some other entry, but came up with nothing. Frustrated, he marched back home.

“I have nothing to do today,” he thought. “I’ll sit and wait. She’s gotta come home sometime.”

So that’s what he did.

Hours went by and Andover grew tired as he sat on his porch and waited for his eccentric neighbor to show. But she never did, at least not to Andover’s knowledge, as he eventually drifted off to sleep. Hours went by and he stirred not a bit from where he slumped down on that chair. It was night when he woke amongst a fit of sneezing that nearly knocked him from his roost. When his sneezing finally ceased, he rubbed the tears from his eyes, blew the snot from his nose and adjusted his senses to the world around him. He stood up, grabbed the lantern that hung on a nail on the post and lit it. As he looked down at the sleeve of his shirt, he noticed a layer of loose hair that seemed to cover the fabric on his arm. It went up onto his collar and then on down his chest, to his thighs, and even to his feet. To his disgust he found that he was covered in cat hair.

And it smelled awful. It carried about it a musty odor that caused his nose to recoil at its repugnance. He looked at the chair, which was also covered in like hair.

As Andover investigated, he noticed it was trailing along the porch, forming a path of loose hairs that shot free of the wood that had ensnared them as air rushed from beneath Andover’s every step. The trail led into the house. Inside the house, it led up the stairs. From the stairs it led up to his room. And in his room there they were; cats, several dozen of them at least. Maybe all of his neighbor’s. He didn’t know. There were too many to count, too many for one person to keep track of. But here they were, sitting on his bed, on his blankets, purring, yawning, sleeping, and shedding. In a surge of anger Andover grabbed a loose piece of wood near the threshold and swung as he shouted.

“You goddamned things! Come into my house while I be sleepin’ and shed all abouts! I’ll teach you!”

The cats, in a panic, sprung from atop and under his bed and shot for the door, yowling and hissing as he caught a couple in his swings. A few jumped back with claws piercing their barricade of flesh and bone. And when the last cat had vacated his chamber, Andover threw down his weapon and stood there, panting, his face twitching in desperate anger, his right arm bleeding from hairline lacerations and pinhole punctures. When Andover’s breathing came back to normal, he look at his bed, which was now covered in a layer of hair, and walked over to it. He grabbed the bedding by their ends and dragged them out onto the porch where he proceeded to shake off the hair the best he could. When he felt they were in a sufficient state, he took them back upstairs and threw them onto his bed. He then grabbed a broom and swept the remaining hair from his home and out into the night. Tired from the swinging and cleaning, Andover went off to bed, but slept very little as even the few remaining hairs on his bedding managed to crawl inside his nose and throat, causing him to sneeze and cough the whole night through.

The next morning Andover got up earlier and marched more angrily than before to his neighbor’s house. He tried to summon her, but with the same result as last. With the exception of petty vandalism, which was a very dangerous crime in those days, he had to either wait, or take measures to secure his property on his own. And that’s what he did. Later that day, he made a visit to the hardware shop and gathered all sorts of provisions for securing his property from his feline intruders. He secured his fence, patching it up so that not a fly could crawl through. He added barbed wire across the top and even sharpened tree branches he had found strewn across his yard. By the end of the day, when he was too tired to even move his fingers, Andover lay down on the porch and looked at the fortress his home had now become. Satisfied, he smiled and dozed off right where he lay.