Most of my friends are not writers. In some ways, this is good because it grounds me. I’m prone to worst-case scenario thinking and hypothetical situations. In other ways, it’s not good because it leads to many situations in which I offer a theory about some incident and my friends treat me as though I’m a house cat who has just used the litter box for the first time. They look at me condescendingly and say things like, “That’s a good idea, but maybe that’s NOT what happened.” This leads to a very serious problem: me feeling like I’m alone in the world.
So I was incredibly heartened to watch an episode of “Castle” and realize that I am not alone. The premise of “Castle” is that a mystery writer (Richard Castle, played by the endlessly charming Nathan Fillion) is paired with a female member of the NYPD while he conducts research for his books. He, being a writer, is prone to wild theories about the motives and circumstances surrounding the murder of the week. She, being more grounded in reality, often rolls her eyes at him suggesting that a hamster could come up with more realistic theories. The role of the police officer could be played convincingly by many of my friends, who are also given to rolling their eyes and sighing in a manner that lets me know they are tired of my shenanigans.
Writers tend to write characters they know, even if they are exaggerations. So I have to believe that the writer behind the Richard Castle character also behaves in this way or knows someone who does. This means that I am not alone. And my friends can stop their stupid eye rolling.
Some of you may also feel completely alone in the world. So, for you I share this story in which I behave like a writer (and not like an irrational human being, as has been suggested). That the situation could have wound up with me on the nasty end of a restraining order is of no importance.
It started, as all good stories do, with a cat.
This was not the cat in the hallway, but he's pretty cute, no?
It was early one morning. A cat was meowing in the hallway of my apartment building. I got up, determined to find the person who belonged to the cat. So I began knocking on doors. My neighbour answered his door and said something that haunts me to this day.
“It’s not my cat,” he said. “But that cat has been on my balcony. I think it lives with the guy next door to me [on the other side of his apartment].”
I went to the manager’s office and asked if I could get the phone number of the man in the apartment (we’ll call him Frank). I’m certain she violated countless privacy laws, but she gave me his number. I called him and left a message and also slipped a note under his door. In case the cat wasn’t his, I slipped notes under the doors of other people on my floor and posted notes in the elevator and the lobby to the building.
Minutes turned into hours. I didn’t hear back from Frank. It was Friday and I couldn’t keep the cat–I had multiple cats and this cat had thrown up on my floor, leaving me to worry that she had a terminal, contagious disease. So I called the SPCA to pick her up. I waited until the last minute, hoping Frank would get back to me. But he didn’t. I tried calling him again. No answer.
That night I walked past his apartment and saw that the note under the door hadn’t been picked up. A theory formed.
At some point the night before or early in the morning, someone broke into Frank’s apartment and murdered him. As the murderer left, the cat escaped into the hallway. She, wanting desperately to alert us to her now-dead human, walked up and down the hall crying for attention. She was the only clue that someone was murdered.
Because I’m a rational person, I set out to determine if there was a dead body in the apartment. I needed more proof, after all. An irrational person would have phoned the police.
Armed with a flashlight and a misguided belief in my sleuthing skills (I had read countless Nancy Drew novels, and if she could solve “The Secret of the Old Clock” as a teen, then I could solve “The Case of the Unclaimed Cat” as an adult) I went to my friend’s apartment, which was on the other side of Frank’s apartment. She wasn’t convinced by my theory, but she played along.
That is how I wound up leaning over the edge of my friend’s balcony, shining a flashlight into a stranger’s bedroom in the middle of the night (for some writers, this is an ordinary night).
There was no dead body.
The next day, I discovered that Frank was alive, thanks to my super detective abilities and the fact that I bumped into him in the elevator. He did not mention the cat to me, nor did he return my phone calls.
I think it’s important that we writers embrace our love of wild theories and crazy ideas. This is how great books are born. Without that creative spark, we don’t have fantastic tales to tell. So, the next time someone rolls his eyes at you and accuses you of being too dramatic or too creative, just smile sweetly and say, “It’s the writer in me, and you should be glad I have these theories because it makes life more interesting.”
In the meantime, one of my cats has taken to occasionally not putting weight on a hind leg. I’m convinced he ingested a toxin that attacked his central nervous system, rendering him incapable of controlling his back leg. Or maybe the leg is just sore.
