Cop Talk 15: Felix the Cat

Every police officer should start his or her career walking a beat. It puts you in direct contact with everyone and everything in your precinct. Mix in smells and sounds and you become part of the street. You can actually feel it breath. As a young officer, I was paired with a good partner and we always hit our beat ready for action.  One day, as we patrolled down Woodward Avenue, we saw a Siamese kitten scamper across the road. Kittens were not rare on our beat, but a Siamese cat was. You quickly learn not to touch people or animals unless you absolutely have to because they carry way too many passengers. Cuteness took precedent and my partner picked up the kitten. It purred and climbed up his jacket, perching on his shoulder. It rolled under his chin, caressing his face with its tail. My partner was in love. He told me he was keeping it. I asked what we were going to do with a kitten.

He tucked it inside his coat and said we could walk back to the base. He would call his girlfriend and she would come and pick it up.  It sounded okay to me as we still had five hours of walking left. It might help burn up some time. We had only gone a few steps when a local prostitute began yelling at us and came running across the street. She stumbled several times, and a swerving car just missed her.  She put the evil eye on us, and asked where we were going with the cat. Felix (he had been named after the famous cat, moments earlier) peeked through my partner’s zipped jacket.

My partner told her, he was going to give the kitten a home.

Our girl said, “You can’t do that.”

I then asked her, “Why?”

She said, “I saw you take that cat from the momma cat.”

“No, we told her, we found it.”

“No you didn’t. I saw you take her from the momma cat.” She screamed. She began circling us, and flapping her arms, angrily accusing us of breaking up a family. Her loud screeching increased as we pleaded our innocence.

“These officers took that baby from the momma cat,” she trumpeted.

“No we didn’t,” was our response.

This battle of accusations and innocence went on for several minutes.  A small crowd had formed, and traffic began slowing. Suddenly and at the same moment, me and my partner looked at each other and realized what in the hell are we doing. We are police officers for crying out loud. We were trying to do a good deed. We quickly turned from the small crowd and our accuser and stomped off. I glanced over my shoulder to confirm we weren’t being followed. I could see her standing there, still pointing a finger at us, and yelling at everyone who could hear, “There they go, There they go right there. They done took that baby cat from the momma cat.”  Done took that poor baby from her momma. Lord have mercy.”

We made it back to the base, and my partner’s girlfriend met us. She took Felix home and my partner kept that cat for 15 years. Felix outlasted the girlfriend by ten years. In the end I never felt so bad about doing something so good.


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