“Sleeping up to twenty of every twenty-four hours, cats reconstruct and inhabit the primitive night-world. The cat is telepathic – or at least thinks that it is. Many people are unnerved by its cool stare. Compared to dogs, slavishly eager to please, cats are autocrats of naked self-interest. They are both amoral and immoral, consciously breaking rules. Their ‘evil’ look at such times is no human projection: the cat may be the only animal who savors the perverse or reflects upon it.”
— Camille Paglia
As the only family left in town, I went to visit my Uncle Mel, worried he had finally lost his mind. Mel was always an odd sort, aloof and inner-directed, but he had become more of a shut-in as he grew older. His career as a relatively successful, yet largely unknown, novelist had afforded him a solitary lifestyle of ease. Other than his cat, Horatio, he lived alone.
Mel would occasionally entertain friends and family as guests – as well as regular visits from his maid and the local Catholic priest – but like most homebodies, he was severely skeptical of other people and society’s latest trends, especially on the technological front. He didn’t have a computer, television, or online connection. He spent most of his time reading very old books very few people would know, let alone read. The only “tech” Uncle Mel was known to use was an old flip phone from the early aughts that somehow still worked just enough for him to text family and friends.
Indeed, it was a peculiar text from Uncle Mel that spurred my visit.
“Horatio has started laughing at me,” he had texted the night before, “but no one believes me, as I can’t get him to laugh in front of anyone else.”
“What do you mean?” I texted back, “Horatio is a cat. Cats don’t laugh.”
“This cat does. All the time now. But only for me.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just come over tomorrow. Maybe, he’ll laugh for you given that you’re family.”
Upon entering Uncle Mel’s home, Horatio greeted me at the door with a leg rub and a gentle chirp. He was a long-haired tuxedo cat with almost perfectly proportioned markings, always exquisitely self-groomed. As far as cats go, we had always gotten along, but in all my visits, I had never heard him laugh.
After finding a seat on the living room couch, Horatio hopped in my lap and started purring, flipping his tail to-and-fro as I stroked him gently down his back.
“So, what’s all this nonsense about the cat laughing?” I asked.
“It’s not nonsense,” my uncle says, “in fact, he was just laughing at me right before you got here.”
I looked down at Horatio. He peered back at me over his shoulder, continuing to purr, then turned his head back to my uncle.
“He definitely seemed to find it funny when I stubbed my toe this morning,” my uncle continues, “but he often laughs when I read to him, especially histories of war and classic literary tragedies.”
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!” I say directly to the cat.
As expected, no laughter, just a subtle sideways glance and more purring.
“Oh, he’s laughed at that line before,” my uncle says. “I’ve read Hamlet to him a few times, and he seems to find the entire tragedy quite funny in the most inappropriate way. For some reason, he laughs hardest when the characters die, like he’s mocking them and me and all of humanity all at the same time.”
“Do you know how crazy you sound right now?” I asked.
“Yes,” Uncle Mel says, “but I’m not lying and I’m not crazy. I suspect Horatio just finds glee in gaslighting me in front of others. The priest tried a knock-knock joke on him yesterday to no avail. The maid even tried slapstick last week, cleverly staging a slip-and-fall with her mop and bucket. I laughed at that myself, but Horatio just blinked and walked away like a normal, non-laughing cat. I even went out and bought a secret surveillance system to try and catch him in a candid—"
“—Wait, I thought you hated technology?”
“I do! I was desperate! Anyway, it didn’t work, as he just hunted down the hidden cameras and microphones like they were birds and mice, only to start laughing after he had disabled the system. I think he enjoys making me look foolish. You know, like that old singing frog cartoon.”
“I think you need to get out more,” I say, Horatio still purring in my lap, “at least to update your pop culture references.”
“Forget it,” my uncle says, rising to his feet and walking out to his apartment balcony, “Maybe I am crazy. Come on out and tell me what’s new with the world.”
I followed him outside and proceeded to fill him in on the latest – the wars raging half a world away, the worsening inflation he hadn’t even noticed, the burgeoning AI technology space, the renewed private space race, all the latest cultural controversies and media wars as well as how crime is rising right under his nose in the neighborhood. Through it all, Uncle Mel just nodded, shrugged, and smoked his cigarette.
I then started discussing the candidates for the upcoming presidential election in November and how close the race was in a starkly divided nation. I asked him if he had registered to vote. He shook his head “no” without so much as a thought.
“You know, they’re saying this is the most important election of our lifetimes,” I tell him, “that democracy itself is on the ballot, that voting in the wrong person could very well mean World War III. You should at least partici—”
Suddenly, I heard it, as though it was coming up like steam through cracks in the ground, the most shimmeringly beautiful yet withering, mocking, and cruel laugh I had ever heard.
I turned around.
There on the floor, lying on his back and slapping his white fluffy belly with violent glee, was Horatio the cat laughing at me.
I looked at my Uncle Mel, and all we could do was join in – even though we seemed to be laughing at our own expense.
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances as well as any feedback, please email joeyclarklive@gmail.com. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819news.com.
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