Dewey: the Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World Read online

  I thought, “If we can fatten Dewey up on human food, why not? Isn’t that better than a pill?”

  I bought him braunschweiger, a cold loaf of sliced liver sausage many people around here consider a delicacy. Braunschweiger is about 80 percent pure fat. If anything would fatten Dewey up, it was braunschweiger. He wouldn’t touch it.

  What Dewey really wanted, we discovered accidentally, was Arby’s Beef ’n Cheddar sandwiches. He gobbled them down. Inhaled them. He didn’t even chew the beef; he just sucked it in. I don’t know what was in those sandwiches, but once he started on Arby’s Beef ’n Cheddar, Dewey’s digestion improved. His constipation decreased dramatically. He started eating two cans of cat food a day, and because the fast food was so salty, he was slurping down a full dish of water as well. He even started using the litter box on his own.

  But Dewey didn’t have a couple owners, he had hundreds, and most of them couldn’t see the improvements. All they saw was the cat they loved getting thinner and thinner. Dewey never hesitated to play up his condition. He would sit on the circulation desk and whenever someone approached to pet him, he would whine. They always fell for it.

  “What’s the matter, Dewey?”

  He led them to the entrance to the staff area, where they could see his food dish. He’d look forlornly at the food, then back at them, and with his big eyes full of sorrow, drop his head.

  “Vicki! Dewey’s hungry!”

  “He has a can of food in the bowl.”

  “But he doesn’t like it.”

  “That’s his second flavor this morning. I threw the first can away an hour ago.”

  “But he’s crying. Look at him. He just flopped down on the floor.”

  “We can’t just give him cans of food all day.”

  “What about something else?”

  “He ate an Arby’s sandwich this morning.”

  “Look at him. He’s so thin. You guys have to be feed him more.”

  “We’re taking good care of him.”

  “But he’s so thin. Can’t you give him something for me?”

  I could, except Dewey did the same thing yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. In fact, you’re the fifth person he’s hit with the starving-cat routine today.

  Now, how was I going to tell a patron that? I always gave in, which of course just encouraged more bad behavior. I think Dewey enjoyed the taste of food more when he knew I didn’t want to give it to him. Let’s call it the taste of victory.

  Chapter 25

  The Meeting

  As Dewey entered old age, the kindness of Spencer Public Library patrons really began to show. Friends and visitors alike were gentler around him. They talked to him more and were attentive to his needs, much as you would be to an older relative at a family reunion. Occasionally someone would comment that he looked weak, or thin, or dirty, but I knew their concern was a manifestation of their love.

  “What’s wrong with his fur?” was probably the most common question.

  “Nothing,” I told them. “He’s just old.”

  It’s true, Dewey’s fur had lost much of its luster. It was no longer radiant orange, but a dull copper. It was also increasingly matted, so much so I couldn’t keep up with a simple brushing. I took Dewey to Dr. Franck, who explained that as cats aged, the barbs on their tongues wore down. Even if they licked themselves regularly, they couldn’t do an efficient job grooming because there was nothing to separate the fur. Tangles and mats were just another symptom of old age.

  “As for these,” Dr. Franck said, studying Dewey’s clumped back end, “drastic measures are required. I think we better shave.”

  When she was done, poor Dewey was fuzzy on one end, bare on the other. He looked like he was wearing a big mink coat and no pants. A few members of the staff laughed when they saw him, because it was a hilarious sight, but they didn’t laugh long. The humiliation on Dewey’s face stopped that. He hated it. Just hated it. He walked away very fast for a few steps, then sat down and tried to hide his rear end. Then he got up, walked quickly away, and sat down again. Start, stop. Start, stop. He finally made it back to his bed, buried his head in his paws, and curled up beneath his favorite toy, Marty Mouse. For days, we found him with his top half sticking out into an aisle and his back end hidden in a bookshelf.

  But Dewey’s health was no laughing matter. The staff didn’t talk about it, but I knew they were worried. They were afraid they would come in one morning and find Dewey dead on the floor. It wasn’t his death that worried some of them, I realized, but the thought of having to deal with it themselves. Or even worse, having to make a decision in a health crisis. Between my own health issues and my trips to Des Moines on state library business, I was frequently out of the library. Dewey was my cat, and everyone knew it. The last thing they wanted was to have the life of my cat in their hands.

  “Don’t worry,” I told them. “Just do what you think is best for Dewey. You can’t do anything wrong.”

  I couldn’t promise the staff nothing would happen while I was away, but I told them, “I know this cat. I know when he is healthy, a little sick, and really sick. If he’s really sick, trust me, he’s going to the vet. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Besides, Dewey wasn’t sick. He still jumped up and down from the circulation desk, so I knew his arthritis wasn’t too bad. His digestion was better than ever. And he still loved the company of patrons. But it took patience to care for an elderly cat, and frankly, some of the staff didn’t think that was their job. Slowly, as Dewey aged, his support peeled away: first those in town with different agendas; then some of the fence-sitters; then a few patrons who wanted only an attractive, active cat; and finally the staff members who didn’t want the burden of geriatric care.

  That doesn’t mean I wasn’t blindsided by the October 2006 library board meeting. I was expecting a typical discussion of the state of the library, but the meeting soon turned into a referendum on Dewey. A patron had mentioned he wasn’t looking well. Perhaps, the board suggested, we should get him some medical help?

  “At his recent checkup,” I told them, “Dr. Franck discovered hyperthyroidism. It’s just another symptom of age, like his arthritis, his dry skin, and the black age spots on his lips and gums. Dr. Franck prescribed a medication that, thank goodness, doesn’t have to be taken orally. I rub it in his ear. Dewey has really perked up. And don’t worry,” I reminded them, “we’re paying for the medicine with donations and my own money. Not a single penny of city money is ever spent on Dewey’s care.”

  “Is hyperthyroidism serious?”

  “Yes, but it’s treatable.”

  “Will this medicine help his fur?”

  “Dullness isn’t a disease, it’s a function of age, like gray hair on a human.” They should understand. There wasn’t a head in the room without a few gray hairs.

  “What about his weight?”

  I explained his diet in detail, from the obsessiveness with which Donna and I changed his cat food to the Arby’s Beef ’n Cheddar sandwiches.

  “But he doesn’t look good.”

  They kept coming back to that. Dewey didn’t look good. Dewey was hurting the image of the library. I knew they meant well, that they were interested in finding the best solution for everyone, but I couldn’t understand their thinking. It was true, Dewey didn’t look as appealing. Everybody ages. Eighty-year-olds don’t look like twenty-year-olds, and they shouldn’t. We live in a throwaway culture that stashes older people away and tries not to look at them. They have wrinkles. They have age spots. They don’t walk well and their hands shake. Their eyes are watery, or they drool when they eat, or they “burp in their pants” too much (Jodi’s phrase from when she was two years old). We don’t want to see that. Even the accomplished elderly, even the people who gave their whole lives, we want them out of sight and out of mind. But maybe older people, and old cats, have something to teach us, if not about the world, then about ourselves.

  “Why don’t you take
Dewey home to live with you? I know he visits you on holidays.”

  I had thought of that but dismissed it long ago. Dewey could never be happy living at my house. I was gone too much, between work and meetings. He hated to be alone. He was a public cat. He needed people around him, he needed the library around him, to be happy.

  “We’ve had complaints, Vicki, don’t you understand? Our job is to speak for the citizens of this town.”

  The board seemed ready to say the town didn’t want Dewey anymore. I knew that was ridiculous because I saw the community’s love for Dewey every day. I had no doubt the board had received a few complaints, but there had always been complaints. Now, with Dewey not looking his best, the voices were louder. But that didn’t mean the town had turned on Dewey. One thing I’d learned over the years was that the people who loved Dewey, who really wanted and needed him, weren’t the ones with the loudest voices. They were often the ones with no voices at all.

  If this had been the board twenty years ago, I realized, we would never have been able to adopt Dewey. “Thank God,” I thought to myself. “Thank you, God, for past boards.”

  And even if what the board thought was true, even if the majority of the town had turned its back on Dewey, didn’t we nonetheless have the duty to stand by him? Even if five people cared, wasn’t that enough? Even if nobody cared, the fact remained that Dewey loved the town of Spencer. He would always love Spencer. He needed us. We couldn’t just toss him out because looking at him, older and weaker, no longer made us proud.

  There was another message from the board, too, and it came through loud and clear: Dewey is not your cat. He’s the town’s cat. We speak for the town, so it’s our decision. We know what’s best.

  I won’t argue one fact. Dewey was Spencer’s cat. Nothing has ever been truer. But he was also my cat. And finally, in the end, Dewey was a cat. At that meeting, I realized that in many people’s minds, Dewey had gone from being a flesh-and-blood animal with thoughts and feelings, to being a symbol, a metaphor, an object that could be owned. Library board members loved Dewey as a cat—Kathy Greiner, the president, always carried treats in her pocket for Dewey—but they still couldn’t separate the animal from the legacy.

  And I have to admit, there was another thought going through my mind. “I’m getting older, too. My health isn’t the best. Are these people going to throw me out on my ear, too?”

  “I know I am close to Dewey,” I told the board. “I know I’ve been through a hard year with the death of my mother and with my health, and that you’re trying to protect me. But I don’t need protecting.” I stopped. That wasn’t what I was trying to say at all.

  “Maybe you think I love Dewey too much,” I told them. “Maybe you think my love clouds my judgment. But trust me. I’ll know when it’s time. I’ve had animals all my life. I’ve put them down. It’s hard, but I can do it. The very last thing I want, the very last thing, is for Dewey to suffer.”

  A board meeting can be a freight train, and this one pushed me off to the side like a cow on the tracks. Someone suggested a committee to make decisions about Dewey’s future. I knew the people on that committee would mean well. I knew they would take their duty seriously and do what they thought best. But I couldn’t let that happen. I just couldn’t.

  The board was discussing how many people should be on this Dewey Death Watch Committee when one member, Sue Hitchcock, spoke up. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “I can’t believe we’re even discussing this. Vicki has been at the library for twenty-five years. She’s been with Dewey for nineteen years. She knows what she’s doing. We should all trust Vicki’s judgment.”

  Thank God for Sue Hitchcock. As soon as she spoke, the train jumped the tracks and the board backed off. “Yes, yes,” they muttered, “you’re right . . . too soon, too much . . . if his condition worsens . . .”

  I was devastated. It stung me to the heart that these people had even suggested taking Dewey away from me. And they could have done it. They had the power. But they didn’t. Somehow, we had won a victory: for Dewey, for the library, for the town. For me.

  Chapter 26

  Dewey’s Love

  I’ll always remember Christmas 2005, the year before that horrible meeting, when Dewey was eighteen. Jodi and Scott stayed at my house. They had twins now, Nathan and Hannah, a year and a half old. Mom was still alive, and she put on her best lounging outfit to watch the twins open presents. Dewey sprawled on the sofa, pressed against Jodi’s hip. It was the end of one thing, the beginning of the next. But for that week, we were all together.

  Dewey’s love for Jodi had never diminished. She was still his great romantic affair. Whenever he got a chance that Christmas, Dewey stuck by her side. But with so many people around, especially the children, and with so much going on, he was more content than ever to just watch. He got along well with Scott, not a hint of jealousy. And he loved the twins. I replaced my glass coffee table with a cushioned ottoman when my grandchildren were born, and Dewey spent most of Christmas week sitting on that ottoman. Hannah and Nathan would toddle up and pet him all over. Dewey was cautious around toddlers now. In the library, he slunk away when they tried to approach him. But he sat with the twins, even when they petted him the wrong way and messed up his fur. Hannah kissed him a hundred times a day; Nathan accidentally knocked him on the head. One afternoon, Hannah poked Dewey in the face while trying to pet him. Dewey didn’t even react. This was my grandchild, Jodi’s child. Dewey loved us, so he loved Hannah, too.

  Dewey was so calm that year. That was the biggest difference in old man Dewey. He knew how to avoid trouble. He still attended meetings, but he knew how far to push and which lap to choose. In September 2006, just a few weeks before the board meeting, a program at the library brought in almost a hundred people. I figured Dewey would hide in the staff area, but there he was, mingling as always. He was like a shadow moving among the guests, often unnoticed but somehow there at the end of a patron’s hand each time someone reached to pet him. There was a rhythm to his interactions that seemed the most natural and beautiful thing in the world.

  After the program, Dewey climbed into his bed above Kay’s desk, clearly exhausted. Kay came over and gave him a gentle scratch on the chin. I knew that touch, that quiet look. It was a thank-you, the one you give an old friend or a spouse after you’ve watched them across a crowded room and realized how wonderful they are, and how lucky you are to have them in your life. I half expected her to say, “That’ll do, cat, that’ll do,” like the farmer in the movie Babe, but this time Kay left all the words unsaid.

  Two months later, in early November, Dewey’s gait became a bit unsteady. He started peeing excessively, sometimes on the paper outside his litter box, which he had never done before. But he wasn’t hiding. He was still jumping up and down from the circulation desk. He still interacted with patrons. He didn’t seem to be in pain. I called Dr. Franck, and she advised me not to bring him in but to watch him closely.

  One morning near the end of the month, Dewey wasn’t waving. All those years, and I could count on one hand the number of times Dewey wasn’t waving when I arrived in the morning. Instead he was standing at the front door, just waiting for me. I ushered him to the litter box and gave him his can of cat food. He ate a few bites, then walked with me on our morning rounds. I was busy preparing for a trip to Florida—my brother Mike’s daughter Natalie was getting married and the whole family was going to be there—so I left Dewey with the staff for the rest of the morning. As always, he came in while I was working to sniff my office vent and make sure I was safe. The older he got, the more he protected the ones he loved.

  At nine thirty I went out for Dewey’s breakfast of the moment, a Hardee’s bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit. When I returned, Dewey didn’t come running. I figured the deaf old boy didn’t hear the door. I found him sleeping on a chair by the circulation desk, so I swung the bag a few times, floating the smell of eggs his way. He flew out of that chair into my office. I put the egg-an
d-cheese mush on a paper plate, and he ate three or four bites before curling up on my lap.

  At ten thirty, Dewey attended Story Hour. As usual, he greeted every child. An eight-year-old girl was sitting on the floor with her legs crossed, in the position we used to call Indian-style. Dewey curled up on her legs and went to sleep. She petted him, the other children took turns petting him, everyone was happy. After Story Hour, Dewey crawled into his fur-lined bed in front of the heater, which was running full blast, and that’s where he was when I left the library at noon. I was going home for lunch, then picking up Dad and driving to Omaha to catch a flight the next morning.

  Ten minutes after I got home, the phone rang. It was Jann, one of our clerks. “Dewey’s acting funny.”

  “What do you mean funny?”

  “He’s crying and walking funny. And he’s trying to hide in the cupboards.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  Dewey was hiding under a chair. I picked him up, and he was shaking like the morning I found him. His eyes were big, and I could tell he was in pain. I called the veterinary office. Dr. Franck was out, but her husband, Dr. Beall, was in. He said, “Come right down.” I wrapped Dewey in his towel. It was a cold day, end of November. Dewey snuggled against me immediately.

  By the time we arrived at the vet’s office, Dewey was down on the floor of my car by the heater, shaking with fear. I cradled him in my arms and held him against my chest. That’s when I noticed poop sticking out of his behind.

  What a relief! It wasn’t serious. It was constipation.

  I told Dr. Beall the problem. He took Dewey into the back room to clean out his colon and intestines. He also washed his back end, so Dewey came back wet and cold. He crawled from Dr. Beall’s arms into mine and looked up at me with pleading eyes. Help me. I could tell something still wasn’t right.

  Dr. Beall said, “I can feel a mass. It’s not feces.”

  “What is it?”