Bullshit

Our cat Spartacus passed away this weekend. he was 18 and had a variety of health issues, so this wasn’t surprising, though we wept like children through the whole thing. Following is an article that appeared in my zine The Inner Swine back in 2008, shortly after we acquired him.

I AM SPARTACUS

An Apology for My Fourth Cat

by Jeff Somers

FRIENDS, as some lucky few of you may know, I am not the sort of rough-and-tumble writer who would have been played by Richard Burton or another of those hard-drinking, skirt-chasing British Shakespearean actors back in the day—oh, I drink the part, but in bar fights I am generally the guy under a table trying to salvage his bourbon and when drunk I don’t write much or fight much, I tend to sit there with a slightly dimwitted smile on my face, simply pleased to, well, be drinking.

And then, of course, there are all the cats.

Sure, Hemingway had cats (he probably killed them, too, once in a while, since he tended to kill just about anything else that crossed his path, and with unseemly enthusiasm), but Hemingway also won a Nobel Prize, and shot himself in the face with a shotgun, thus proving his balls. Who am I? A nerdy writer with four cats, that’s who. And putting a shotgun in my mouth and pulling the trigger would require a barrel of whisky, some serious mental trauma, and most probably some help since I don’t know anything about shotguns. And a shotgun, since I don’t have one. The point is, even if I did, putting it in my mouth would simply make me cry unmanfully and that would be that. And who would feed my four cats?

Yes, four cats. Those of you with far too much unhealthy interest in my personal life may already know that, until very recently, I had three of the critters. Three is plenty for a childless couple struggling for dignity, I think, and we took enough flak for having three. Plus, I was pretty sure three was my limit as far as sanity and time and energy went; cats are, contrary to popular opinion, huge time-sucks. They are playful, aggressive beasts who will sit on your head and bat your ears with their paws until you pay them proper attention. I used to get a lot of work done at home, but since we started acquiring cats, it’s all gone downhill.

For those who haven’t been following along from home, here’s the run down of the three we already had:

Pierre: Acquired in 2004, Pierre is a fat, gentle tuxedo cat who had so many worms in his gut when we got him he lost half his weight when we treated him. Pierre is roughly the size of Peter Falk and runs the household with an iron paw.

Guenther: Named after an obscure in-law form my wife’s family, Guenther is a sleek bicolor cat who knows he’s pretty and acts accordingly.

Oliver: Guenther’s smaller brother, Ollie was named after Oliver Twist due to his enthusiasm for second and third servings at dinner. He is easily frightened and spends much of his time under our bed.

Okay, so there’s the playing field. I didn’t exactly want a pet in 2004 when my wife brought the subject up. She wanted a dog and I’d never had a dog, and I kind of liked having no responsibilities beyond keeping myself alive and my wife pleased—both of which require 110% of my attention every day, trust me. The Duchess is an imposing force in the world, though, and my one minor victory was forcing her to get a cat instead of a dog. This seemed more desirable because cats don’t require walking, are largely self-cleaning, and in adulthood sleep about 18 hours a day. I figured after navigating their kittenhood I’d have a sleepy ball of dough on my hands I could move about the room like a living paperweight. In fact, this was exactly what my childhood cat was like.

Pierre duly arrived and confounded these expectations, being a ball of manic energy that demanded more attention than I thought healthy. Even as his waistline expanded, he continued to bumble about forcing me to pay attention to him. The Duchess immediately began campaigning for another cat to keep Pierre company, and when we went to a local petstore to pick one of two strays that had been caught in an alleyway, the two were so terrified, clinging to each other for brotherly support, I knew I could not separate them and thus Ollie and Guenther made their way to The Somers Cat House.

And all was well, for a while.

In December 2007 The Duchess and I traveled back to her ancient homeland, Texas. Actually, a tiny town in Texas where I think they got electricity in 1991 and still don’t acknowledge the existence of the Democratic Party. We rented these small cabins just outside town, without phones or Internet connections, in order to have a peaceful retreat from your typical Catholic family madness at the holidays.

The first night there, we were wandering the dark trails trying to find our cabin, when three tiny cats suddenly burst from the shadows and began circling us excitedly, chirping. We were bemused—they were small, just a few months old, and displayed no fear of us or hesitancy. When we got to our cabin and opened the door, they preceded us inside as if they were the guests and we were carrying their luggage.

They roamed the cabin happily, meowing and purring, happily accepting petting and calmly letting us pick them up and pet them—or, a few minutes later after a sobering interval, be picked up and examined carefully for fleas, ringworm, and Ick.

Suckers to the end, The Duchess and I broke out a bottle of milk from the fridge and put a bowl down for them, and they happily ate. Suckers doesn’t actually cover our failings, actually, as we then drove down to the nearest gas station and bought some catfood to feed them, and then let them sleep in the cabin that night with us. WE CAN’T HELP IT. We have a disease, I swear. I named the leader Sparky—he was the tiniest, but was always in the vanguard, shouting Charge! as they accosted our breakfast pastries, our luggage, our bed. Sparky was tabby in color and of indeterminate, slightly longhaired breed, with a fierce face and an improbably puffy tail.

That night we didn’t get much sleep. The kittens purred incessantly, curled up and warm, and every time Sparky led a foray from the loft to have a bite to eat or step outside to go to the bathroom he meowed continuously as if to alert us of his presence constantly.

The next morning we hardened our hearts and put the three amigos outside with a final bowl of food and went our way into familial holiday suffering. I was saddened to think these three delightful creatures would likely suffer a hard life on their own, but there are, after all, millions of strays in this world and we already had 3 cats, not to mention being 3,000 miles away from home. We did our thing—eating too much, drinking more than was advisable, pretending to remember people we met last year and hadn’t thought of since—and when we trudged back to the cabin that night we wondered if the three cats would make a return. I thought it likely, since cats invariably recall where they’ve been fed, but when we got there—nothing. I was, to be honest, sad that they’d moved on, and with a little shame I went outside and shook the food box, hoping to lure them back. Still nothing, and inexplicably sad I went back inside and started to tell myself that it was for the best, that perhaps a millionaire cat lover had picked them up and was even now plotting to make them stars of cat food commercials.

And then, like a stupid Disney movie, here comes Sparky, bounding from across the compound, chirping and very obviously excited to see me. He was alone this time, making us worry over the other two, but I can’t begin to explain or justify how pleased we were to see little Sparky. We took him in and he repeated his performance, leaping about happily, absorbing food at a terrible rate, and purring nonstop as we picked him up and rubbed him down.

Sparky spent another night curled up with us, and we awoke the next morning suddenly thinking it wasn’t insane to take a stray cat back with us on the plane for New Jersey. Everyone we confessed this to corrected us harshly—yes, of course it’s insane.

We did it anyway. We tried to find a shelter or friendly home for Sparky, but dammit if Texans don’t regard stray kittens as mildly annoying rodents that ought to be exterminated, not saved—we were, in fact, told point blank by one shelter that cats aren’t kept as pets at all in Texas, which seemed dubious, but hey, they also seem to regard a cowboy hat, high-waisted jeans, cowboy boots, and a florid button-down shirt as high fashion down there, so who knows. Anyway, at this point I’d already invented a little mental voice for Sparky (based primarily on Chip and Dale, the old cartoon chipmunks, overusing the word indubitably without shame) and the fact that he would sit purring in my hand any time I chose to pick him up sealed the deal. I am, when it’s all said an done, an idiot, and all idiots love animals. At least the ones that don’t need to be walked, are self-cleaning, and are too small to eat you.¹

The Duchess decided that Sparky was too gonzo a name for our home, so she lobbied for a renaming. I was staunch. Sparky was Sparky, man, this was serious, and the fact that I can write that without embarrassment shows how far I’ve come as a person. Finally she compromised and decided that Spartacus was a good name, and close enough to allow the use of Sparky. And thus a brave rebel was born.

Getting Sparky home wasn’t easy, or particularly cheap. Considering the endless resource of stray cats the world produces, paying any money for a cat seems crazy. I mean, walk outside in Hoboken with some fish in your pockets and you can have a fresh new cat within minutes. But we were determined. Sparky was so attached to us I wondered if he was some friend or relative (or, in a mind-bending Philip K. Dick twist, me from the future) reincarnated as a cat.²

First, we have to get him checked by a vet and get some paperwork proving he was a) not filled with drug condoms or explosives, b) that he didn’t have any terrible diseases that might mutate and kill everyone in the world except a wry, sad Will Smith, and c) (I assume) prove that insane people were willing to spend money on him and take responsibility for him.

Second, we had to make arrangements to take him on the plane. This is actually kind of easy. You can either take him into the cabin with you in a carrier that will fit beneath the seat, or you can check him as cargo. We wanted to take him into the cabin so we could keep an eye on him, and got a mild sedative from the vet and an appropriately sized carrier in order to do so, but our flight had its limit of pets in cabin and we couldn’t change flights, so we were stuck doing cargo. We had to buy yet another carrier for that as they need to be pretty strong and sturdy, not to mention pay freight costs. We were a little worried about the poor guy all alone in cargo, but this was really the only way to get him home, so we bit the bullet, force-fed him a sedative, and filled out the paperwork.³

As it turns out, Continental Airlines is slightly better at transporting frightened kittens than actual, living people, and Sparky made it home without a hitch, arriving in Newark as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever. The other cats weren’t pleased to see him, of course, fearing his jaunty stride and musky odors; there have been some real tear-ups and even some bloodletting, and for time being we’re keeping everyone separated as much as possible in hopes that the unifying, healing love of the cosmos will make them all best friends. Then, it’s a simple matter of teaching them to speak English and manipulate useful objects like beer taps and bottle openers, and we’re set! Forget the damn Helper Monkeys, who are expensive, drunken, and have a tendency to fling feces—we’re going to build a Kitten Army! Think about it: They’re like Ninjas, silent, able to climb into just about any location undetected. Properly trained, a Kitten Army would make me almost unstoppable⁴.

If not, you, as a subscriber to TIS, may be contacted in the near future to see if you’ll accept a sweet stray kitten that has already been left on your front step.

Originally appeared in The Current, a former supplement to a former local newspaper in Hoboken, NJ, long ago in a more civilized age.

When you live in Hoboken, you either live there in spite of the ubiquitous bars, or you live there because of the bars. And there are a lot of bars, that’s for sure—wherever you live in Hoboken, you are within three blocks of a tavern of some sort. So you’re either sitting up late at nights with a shotgun across your knees, gritting your teeth in rage because of all the noisy drunkards screaming in the street, or you’re one of the screaming drunkards. Or, like me, you once were one of the screaming drunkards and look back on that time fondly, vomit and all.

Living here, therefore, you learn pretty quickly how to navigate the bars. It’s a survival skill. And the first thing you learn is that there are, fundamentally, two types of bars. There may be infinite sub-categories within, but every bar can be boiled down to one of these: Old Man Bars, and everything else.

The Old Man Bar is a phenomenon that crosses borders, cultures, and, apparently, time. Sometimes referred to with the misleading term ‘neighborhood bar’, the Old Man Bar is a simple concept: It’s that bar you walk into and stop three steps in because staring back at you, blank-faced with disdain, are men uniformly over the age of fifty (with a couple of possible exceptions). Instantly, you know you’re not supposed to be in this bar, and you get the heck out of it as quickly as you possibly can.

Of course, there are plenty of men over fifty who don’t spend their days in Old Man Bars, and plenty of people over fifty who quite happily hang out at bars you wouldn’t term “Old Man Bars”.? It’s not that all old men go to Old Man Bars, it’s that, invariably, Old Man Bars are peopled exclusively by old men. There’s nothing wrong with this, either, of course—live and let live, I say—but the fact is that if you aren’t already spending your time in an Old Man Bar, I know two things about you without having met you: One, you don’t want to be in an Old Man Bar, and two, the old men don’t want you in their bar either.

Aside from the unfriendly glares from the old men, you can tell an Old Man Bar from the uncannily consistent features it will sport:

1. It will be populated, but never crowded. There will be plenty of elbow room, and a sprinkling of patrons, most men over fifty—however, there may be one or two women, also over fifty, and even one or two of those old-before-their time younger men who have decided to get it over with and begin the serious business of drinking.

2. There will be a single pool table, much abused.

3. The jukebox will be playing something from 1973 when you walk in, and there won’t be an album more recent than 1980 on it.

4. There will be, at most, two beers on tap. It’s possible one of the taps won’t even work.

The best thing to do when you arrive inadvertently at an Old Man Bars to just back out silently and never return. Any instinct to be polite will not be appreciated, and will be uniformly painful for both sides. Besides, the bartenders in Old Man bars are usually bartenders by avocation, and any cocktail more complex than a Boilermaker will require a quick glance through a bartender’s handbook, not to mention a disdainfully raised eyebrow, so any request for a Cosmopolitan or a Dirty Martini will probably go unanswered.

No one knows, I don’t think, why this phenomenon is so common. Certainly a time comes when you’re too old for the crowded, loud, singles-oriented scene that most of Hoboken’s bars offer, but maybe you still want to meet friends for a drink once in a while, or every day, or just spend your time sopping up as much alcohol as possible before cirrhosis takes its toll We all probably have an Old Man Bar in our future at some point, when the music gets too loud, the air too smoky, and the crowd too young. We’ll wander onto the dimly-lit side streets of Hoboken, croaking out our mating call, eventually hearing an old song from our youth on the warm air. And when we trace it to its source, we’ll find the Old Man Bar of our future, sparsely populated by people who know the same trivia as we do, and there’ll be plenty of room at the bar, and no screaming kids ordering sweet mixed drinks, and the occasional entertainment of watching a group of youngsters stumble in, stop dead, and quietly back out with wide eyes and trembling lips.

Yea, verily, the tradition continues: A new novel shall be posted at this wee blog, one chapter a week, until we’re done! (Likely some time in October, as I have few novels with 50+ chapters).

The 2025 Free Somers Novel is …

The Bouncer

This is a relatively recent one; first draft was finished in 2020 and a light revision done in 2022. Had some discussion with the late, great agent about it but we never got organized to go out on it, and now I’m not sure it would be the right project to lead with, but I also don’t know if it ever will be, so let’s post it here!

Here’s the basics:

Mads Renick is struggling to get back to Zero — to the starting line. Working as a bouncer at a dive bar in Bergen City whose owner is affiliated with the fading Spillaine organized crime family, he’s just trying to survive along with his best friend, Jill “Pill” Pilowsky. He blames his life’s downturn on his parents, brilliant, evil Mats and brilliant, chaotic Liùsaidh, but they’re both dead.

Or so he thinks until the young son of Abban Spillaine shows up to tell him that his parents aren’t dead, after all — they ripped off every loan shark in town and faked their demise, abandoning their son and buying their way into the retirement village for criminals known as Paradise. While they’re dues-paying members of Paradise society, they can’t be touched — but now it’s on Mads to track them down and make it right, or lose everything he loves, and any chance he has of a normal life.

Same deal as ever: Each week, one chapter will pop up here, starting on Monday, January 6th, 2025. I’ll post eBook files for each chapter as well. When the whole book is finished, I’ll post a complete eBook as well. You’re free to read along each week, or just wait until the complete book drops.

Thanks for reading! I look forward to your comments, insults, and joyous snark when you notice a mistake or plot hole. You bastards.

For most of us, your first concert is a fond memory. It’s a stop along the way to adulthood, an early moment when you expressed taste and made a decision for yourself. And it’s also often (though not universally) a key moment of independence when you head off without supervision. Years later, you can get all wistful and talk about the first show you ever went to and all the crazy adventures you had.

That’s all well and good if your first concert was something cool. My first concert? The first live music show I attended without any parents or adult chaperones? Meatloaf.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that — Meatloaf had a lot of fans and sold a lot of records, and was undeniably a talented singer (and even actor!). But it does not have the cool factor, does it? Heading into Manhattan in 1989 to see Meatloaf is not exactly like catching The Ramones at CBGB in 1974. I wasn’t even really into Meatloaf, honestly. I was vaguely familiar with the big hits like Bat Out of Hell, sure, but I didn’t sit around listening to Meatloaf tracks in my spare time.

A friend of mine from High School, who wasn’t a serious person, loved Meatloaf, however, and it was his idea to go. I thought, what the heck, let’s have an adventure. I should have asked myself why he couldn’t get anyone else to go with him.

.o0o.

First, I had to get an ID. I was seventeen, and the venue was 16 and older but you had to have ID, or so the official line went. I hadn’t yet gotten my driver’s license, so I had to go to a place downtown and show my birth certificate and sit for a photo and wait for the ID to be made. This was an early sign that I am a Rule Follower, because of course when I got to the show no one gave two shits about an ID — all it meant was that I didn’t get an adult wristband, so I couldn’t order alcohol. Joke was on them, I had three bucks in my pocket so I couldn’t afford alcohol. But I still got the ID, because Jeff is always terrified of being caught not following the rules. It’s a real problem.

The place was half full, and I remember feeling a little sorry for Mr. Loaf, who sweated impressively on stage and seemed on the verge of collapse at all times, but sounded pretty good. My Unserious Friend was ecstatic, and kept grabbing me to shout enthusiasms in my ear, but I was just slightly bored. I knew two songs, there were — at most — two dozen other people there, and I couldn’t even drink recklessly, already one of my favorite hobbies.

.o0o.

I’ve carried unspoken resentment toward my Unserious Friend for decades because of this. This is exacerbated by the fact that my next concert was The Who (followed rapidly by The Rolling Stones), much cooler bands that would have been a decent choice for first concert ever.

Of course, when I saw The Who and The Stones I imagined they were on the cusp of retirement. They were so old, so absolutely ancient, I felt like I was running out of time to see them. Meanwhile 80-year old Mick Jagger is out there making me look bad. So what do I know about cool? Apparently nothing.

HERE in my little burg folks get really into the holiday lights thing. Starting in early October, people begin setting up some pretty lavish displays – inflatables, music and sound effects, and, of course, lights, lights, and more lights. The Duchess adores this part of the year, and always wants to walk around town to see the displays, exclaiming in adorable childlike wonder at every moving tentacle, singing Santa, and elegant arrangement of plastic skeletons. One house, for example, always has about a dozen skeletons dressed in tie-dye shirts, with a sign proclaiming them to be the Grateful Dead. The Duchess loves it!

Me, not so much.

Anyone who is surprised that I’m a bit of a cranky killjoy has obviously never spent a Saturday night with me, but I’m not a complete Grinch – I love the holidays for non-religious reasons (i.e., excuses to drink and eat until I’m half dead) just as much as the next agnostic asshole. What I object to is the length of time we celebrate them, which seems to get longer every year.

I like my holidays tight and concentrated. If you start celebrating Halloween in late September, by the time the day actually comes, I’m exhausted, and much more likely to shut the door, turn off the lights, and sip bourbon in the dark while the kids shout outside, threatening to burn my house down if I don’t toss out some candy immediately (this is New Jersey, after all; my father used to sit outside the house with a baseball bat on Mischief Night). Same thing with Xmas – if I had my way we’d just go about our normal business until about December 23rd, spend a week or so getting jolly, and then spend January nursing hangovers. This 3-month holiday season bullshit is wearying.

This isn’t really about grinchiness, though. It’s about the dilution of experience. We all have a tendency to stretch pleasurable activities out until they’re so thin we can see through them, and trying to keep up the ol’ holiday spirit for three months is a grind. For me, at least. By December 1st I’m usually already sick of holiday songs, and a I definitely have no interest in the lights any more. If we all just waited a few beats it would just be more special, I think.

.o0o.

Here at the house, we do put up some decorations and lights, because we’re living in a society here and no one needs to know just how weirdly bitter I am about existing. We put up precisely the same three pieces of decoration every year, along with some random lights strung up randomly (currently the front of the house is festooned with purple and orange for Halloween and those will remain up through Xmas so purple and orange are now Xmas colors and I will hear no arguments on the matter).

Strangely, this is comforting. Every holiday I put the same three things up – they’re like friends. We have Plastic Target Skeleton, Mangy, Ragged Black Cat, and Partially Torn Open Pumpkin Light. We have Plastic Wreath From Previous Century, Odd Amish Santa Statue, and Bent and Abused Tiny Plastic Tree. Something about the continuity of it is a balm to me. They’re old, substandard, and not that attractive (in fact, they probably depress Halloween attendance and Xmas party invites from neighbors), but they’re constants in a world that lacks them, so I lean in to that.

Plus, if we didn’t at least string some lights and hang a wreath on the door, The Duchess would knee me in the groin.

Happy Holidays, I suppose is what I’m saying here. The Somers Way is to complain about everything but react in horror to any kind of change, so despite my complaints know that if the house caught fire I would walk through the flames to rescue Odd Amish Santa.