From
the Journal of Professor Tot
As
I begin to scribble words into my red ledger, trying to describe the things I
have learned in recent years, one of the things I find which gives me the most
difficulty is describing my first encounter with Mr. Cat. There is a dreamlike
haze that lingers over the memory, displacing it. If I were to venture to
guess, I would say this might be due to the unique ways in which Mr. Cat
sometimes communicates. Very often I could swear we have had quite intense
lengthy conversations when in fact barely a spoken word has passed between
us. However it is important that I
remember this correctly, especially for the ledger.
It
was late in the year. I had recently celebrated a small Thanksgiving, thanks
mostly due to being a new hire at Fire Creek, so invitations to celebrations
were obligatory. However rumors of the scandal at the University had followed
me south, and so my presence was more often something which chilled
celebrations rather than warmed them. Because of this I paid courtesy visits to
those it was important to keep good relations with, and kept my visits politely
early and short, so as to not intrude on the dinner festivities of others. For
my part, when I arrived home I enjoyed a fine soup, a good cigar, and several
pages of Hobbes’ Leviathan. I am uncertain
(due to the years between that moment and now,) exactly how many days after
this I met Mr. Cat, but it could not have been many, and I am almost certain it
was before December set upon us.
He
was in the parlor pub of the only hotel our small mining town possessed, and he
was attempting to interview people with little success. There were a variety of
reasons for this. Partially it was due to his manner of dress. He wore a nicely
fitted, but oddly styled black suit which by itself made many assume he was
some wandering Methodist evangelical. This alone made him seem off-putting in
this little company town. There was also an odd appearance to the man himself.
His derby removed revealed a quite bald head while his goatee was styled in a
manner would seem much more in the style of Hakodate Harbor rather than
Bostonian. His appearance suggested European heritage, but also had features
akin to the peoples indigenous to the Americas. This seemed most evident in his
eyes. His generally soft speaking voice contained hints of different accents,
but none seemed to find a home there.
He
was pointed out to me and I to him because, I was told, he was doing research
on the local area and had some questions pertaining to geology. Naturally this
sparked my employer’s suspicions that a speculator was surveying in the region
to set up a competing mining interest. Such towns and operations were springing
up all up and down the New River at that time, as fast as veins of ore were
discovered and rail lines needed laid for moving it. However as soon as I spoke
with Mr. Cat, there was something to his manner which assured me his interests
did not lay in the realm of business and profit, but was instead more academic
in nature. He informed me he was
doing research for a company who was writing an Encyclopedia and wanted to get
as much information as he could about both the history of the region and about
coal mining in general. It did not take long before our conversation led to
mechanical talk of locomotives and the machinery we used in our operations. I
remember being impressed with his depth of mechanical knowledge, and at the
same time a bit confused by his odd exuberance to learn as much as he could
about the local flora and fauna, all of which he gave the impression of being
wildly ignorant of at the time.
I
recall he only stayed in town a few weeks, and was gone by Christmas. During
that time he was reported to have spent some time with a few of the trappers
and hunter folk who live up in the hills. Most considered him a carpetbagger of
some ill repute, but a few kind souls apparently took him in occasionally as he
traveled the region. All I spoke with gave the same report of the man, that he
was an odd stranger who seemed to care little for the cold but had a fondness
for information. I met one trapper who swore that Mr. Cat was in fact a
dangerous pistoleer he had known in his youth, but seemed confused as to how it
was possible Mr. Cat was not now old and feeble. I suggested that the man we
knew might be a descendant, but the trapper insisted they were in fact the same
person. Had I known then what I do now, I might have put more faith in the old
trapper’s tales.
And
that is, in fact, the first memories I have of Mr. Cat. Nothing terribly
remarkable or noteworthy, which is amusing to me given the conversations he and
I would later have. At the time I first met the man, I was impressed with him,
but put off as well. For a long time I could not place my finger on what it was
that made me seem to want to initially distrust him. In fact the reason for my
unconscious discomfort did not occur to me until many years later on a visit to
Washington D.C. I was there for business, but had the time to take in an
enjoyable evening of Opera. That
night I had the honor of meeting the famous tenor Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin,
after being invited backstage. While speaking with the artist I noticed the
unique cut to his suit. His swallowtail coat, worn open of course while he
sang, had his double breasted vest sewn directly into the opening of the coat.
They were not two separate garments but one costume, which imparted the
illusion of a matched suit. This was done, Feodor said, so that he could take
full advantage of his expansive lungs and diaphragm while singing, which made
perfect sense.
What
struck me was that I had seen a similarly tailored costume before. It was
almost exactly like the odd little black ‘suit’ worn by Mr. Cat that day I
first met him.
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Author'sNote: FictFiles are works of Fiction. The FictFiles posts here in this blog are one of my ways of both sharing these stories with a wider audience, and collecting them in a easy to locate place.
