When the stars align and the cats cooperate, humble human hamlets end up with exactly the right names.
(Yes. Cats are in control of everything. The sooner we accept this, the better.)
As it happens, Tabby’s Place exists in a translucent town with no fewer than two names.
Ringoes.
Peculiar.
Yes; speaking strictly of flat facts (which is rarely advisable), Tabby’s Place is located in Ringoes, New Jersey. We are occupied exclusively with Ringoings-on. Every single cat, volunteer, and employee is a verifiable Ringoer. Stick around this hundred-cat, two-deli, zero-stop-light town long enough, and you’ll soon have Ringone ’round the bend.
But ring the bell for this rural rut, for it sings louder than any megalopolis.
This is not simply because it contains one hundred cats, although this was a grave concern of the planning board when Jonathan first proposed his grand idea. I am told, by people who tell no lies, that concerned councilpersons asked, “what would happen if all one hundred cats began purring at once?”
Presumably:
1) The noise ordinance would be vibrantly violated;
2) The earth would split open and dinosaurs would come out; and,
3) The world would finally know peace. (The frequency of a domestic cat’s purr is precisely the number of Hertz that heals broken bones. There are no coincidences.)
But that has never happened, because one hundred cats operate on one hundred schedules of one hundred independent minds. In fact, there might be only one thing all these ego-flowers agree upon: if cats were a Beatle, every single one would be Ringo.
Ringo, the rowdiest Beatle.
Ringo, the ring-tailed lemur of a loon among the poet and the peacemaker and the Paul.
Ringo, radiant with joy.
Ringo, the one who’s not supposed to be your favorite Beatle, because he’s too playful, too childlike, too fun, too feral, too feline.
Ringo, every cat’s favorite Beatle.
I first learned this from CAT, whilst watching him pretend that a Chewy box was a yellow submarine. Accompanied by CAT and CAT, CAT explained that the entire point of a yellow submarine is that we ALL live there. Together.
CAT2 then volunteered to research planting an “octopus’s garden,” which he was quite confident involved vast quantities of calamari, and CAT3 reminded him that even if this was false, he would get by with a little help from his friends.
CAT4 spoke for all the Ringos in Ringoes when he remarked that cats, unlike McCartneys and other charmers, are duty-bound to act naturally at all times. He then proceeded to perform the “No No No” song, except instead of rejecting cocaine, he repudiated vegan cheese.
CAT5 just started prattling on about peace and love, man, and the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of an all-Starr band of drummers determined to make me laugh.
Frankly, we do a lot of laughing here in Ringoes.
We also do a lot of laughing at ourselves, which is why we’re petitioning to purchase a second title for our location. We have made an offer to acquire, from Missouri, the town name of “Peculiar.”
I’m sure there are oddballs and odd ducks and odd cats in Peculiar, MO. But I’m just as sure that our Ringos run rings around them.
Surely we deserve “Peculiar,” when we alone have CAT, shrieking Celine Dion’s greatest hits every day at 3:59 pm. Delay the delicacies ’til 4:09, and you will get to hear far more experimental music.
Surely we deserve “Peculiar,” when we alone have CAT, chasing his tail like it’s the town scoundrel until he is exhausted and exhilarated. Offer a more reasonable plaything, and he will pontificate upon what it means to be at war and peace with oneself.
Surely we deserve “Peculiar,” when we alone have CAT, drumming and thrumming with so much life, it would take ten thousand towns to hold him.
Surely we deserve “Peculiar,” when our most prominent citizens are our paraplegics. I mean, think about this for a minute. The cats everyone is most excited to see; the cats of the hour, every hour; the drumline of deepest devotion; the band that makes all the teens dream and scream, happens to be our most objectively “broken” octet, scooting and waddling and trailblazing through town.
Peculiar business: people drive hours just to gaze upon Olive, to venerate Valerie, to ogle Anka, to shnoogle Boobalah, while our more straightforward cats settle for modest fan clubs. (As I type these words, CAT, our closest cat to John Lennon, has begun to softly sing “Jealous Guy,” but in a gnarly nasal voice that reassures me he is every inch a Ringo.)
This is nuts. This is scandalous. This is the arena where the rock stars are the most ragged, the last are first, and the weak are strong. This is Tabby’s Place. This is peculiar.
Surely we deserve “Peculiar,” when we alone have you, and me, and a whole tie-dyed love-tribe, twisting our lives into love letters for the lowliest and littlest and loudest and loopiest.
Sometimes we need to step back and remember what we’re doing: we are building a community of love from cornerstones shaped like sorrow. We are rewriting a rhythm for the cats who’ve lost the beat, hugging the hopeless to our chests until they remember that the heart of the universe is mercy.
Sometimes we remember, too.
We are learning to hug each other home. We are making music that makes no economic sense. We are the garden of the gawky, the field of the wildest flowers. The entrance fee is extreme need, empty hands, honest hunger. You have to be stark raving sane enough to see past the scratches and dents, or, more accurately, to see them with the clarity of compassion.
Not everyone understands. Talk of Tabby’s Place at your next garden party, and faces will scrunch, eyebrows will rise, and all the respectable Beatles will beat it to a more reasonable topic.
But you, being a Ringoer, being a Peculiarite, will keep beating the drum for the desperate and the dreamers.
And the beat goes on.