The Cat Man, R.I.P.

that's him, on the right. click to enlarge.

Note: he died yesterday. I wrote this eulogy a few weeks ago. Here's his funeral notice.

THE CAT MAN


Huck was dying. They finally put him in a nursing home, which made me sad, because I knew that he’d be stripped not only of his dignity, but also his weed. There was no chance of getting him any “medical marijuana” – not at his age and condition, although colon cancer was a pretty good reason. Huck had been smoking since the 1940s, before anyone smoked weed. He didn’t even like alcohol. Forget rock’n’roll. He was a purist. A beatnik from the get-go, with a pierced ear “before even fags had them,” someone at the Gaelic once told me, leading Ruby to nickname him “Queer-San” when she first met him, mistaking him for one. He didn’t mind, because he loved nicknames: “Professor Humbert” was what he gave the local newspaper when they photographed him with his 1940s Packard and they never got the joke. His real nickname, though, was the one that belied his true profession: The Cat Man.

It even landed him the cover of “Detective World,” because of his technique: scaling up buildings, stealth as a cat. One story has it that when the police came knocking, he answered the door in a maroon velvet smoking jacket, cigarette in holder, earring in place, with a quizzical, “Yes?” Another escapade involved a safe and a convertible, in which our hero tossed said safe in the back seat and drove off. “No one noticed,” he said.

What landed him in the Federal Pen was a roll of stamps. Planning to rob a country abortionist back when it was illegal, one of Huck’s gang picked up a roll of stamps off the Doctor’s desk on the way out. The Doctor was also the town postmaster. They all went to Leavenworth for robbing a federal post office.

Huck’s real dream was to be a movie star. He never made it, but he came close: a Dunkin’ Donuts ad with Tom Brady. He was a star to us, and once, after toking in the back alley behind the old Gaelic on Gorham Street, we danced to Billie Holliday on the jukebox. He was wearing a blue seersucker suit and a straw boater. “You do your father proud,” he told me. It was one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten.


This wasn't his issue - I hope someday to find it.



© Donna Lethal 2009