You may or may not remember our block cat, Batman.  We don't see all that much of him in the summertime—he's off fighting crime, I suspect.  (He doesn't have any testicles, so that gives him a lot of time for fighting crime.  I find testicles incredibly distracting, myself.  They're like two little engines of distraction just churning away down there.  A great hindrance to getting things done in general.  You must have realized by now that superheroes are all  eunuchs.  Or they may as well be with all those steroids they're obviously on.  There's definitely a reason they don't make superhero outfits with zipper flies.)

Anyway, once it gets chilly, Batman comes in off the streets, and although his official residence is the house opposite, he seems to spend a good deal of the winter at our place.  We are, of course, honored by his choosing our humble abode of all those on the block at his disposal.  He adds just the right touch to that elusive superhero flophouse ambiance we've worked so hard to achieve.  But there are times when his presence causes some consternation among his fellow Super Friends here at the Somerville Chapter of The Justice League of America.

The weather lately has not been very feline-friendly.  Batman showed up sometime early on Thursday and despite having ventured out since, has not made it much further than the edge of our front porch.  No one has ever seen him relieve himself and until Saturday no one here had fed him.  In addition to being a superhero, he may be the reincarnation of the Buddha. 

There are times when he clearly wants out, but you know how cats are. The minute ol' Jack Frost nips at that little pink nose, he recoils, darts up the stairs, and disappears into one of the bedrooms.  Not mine, I can assure you.  I don't care if he is a Buddha.  I'm a bigger Buddha.  At any rate, he is only allowed in the Jungle Room under the strictest supervision, and then only in his leather harness.  Can you guess what his safe-word is?  So original.

I'm not necessarily a cat person.  I'm not not a cat person, mind you.  But the thing about cats is, it's all about them.  You know, it's like that book, Your Cat's Just Not That Into You.  I mean, who needs it?  If they didn't have fur they'd be lizards.  If they didn't have fur and legs, they'd be snakes.  As it is, who needs someone around that's pawing you to scratch its ass one minute and smacking you upside the head for doing it the next?  If I wanted a relationship like that I'd go out and get myself a girlfriend.

Still, if not an animal liberationist, I am an animal libertarian.  Do your thing, I'll do mine.  We don't need to get all up in each other's grills, and we don't need to get sentimental about it.  But the fact is, there are times when our furry little friends can't fend for themselves, poor, evil, decadent little monsters.  Snow emergencies fall into this category. But apparently we've been warned by his people not to feed him under any circumstances. 

Even when he's locked out of his place across the street for days at a time in extreme weather? Shouldn't we bend the rules for him then?

"No, no," I've been told.  "We got in big trouble for feeding him before."

Well, if there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who can find the time to bitch at other people about feeding their pets, but can't bother themselves to make sure the animal gets fed.  I mean, where were his peeps during this Nor'easter?  I guess they assume he'll come home when he's hungry. 

Not if he can't get someone to carry him, he won't. 

So it was that Saturday, a couple of my housemates bundled up and took the beast across the street and delivered him to his people.  He was back at our place within the hour. 

He sat out the storm with us.  By Monday morning he had cabin fever.  2 a.m., he's scratching and mewling at my door, for some reason.  What we've got here is a failure to communicate.  He knows that during the day, if he needs out, he can come up to the parapet, announce himself, and I'll see him out.  I'm like Albert, the butler.  I really don't mind.  It's the least I can do. 

But I don't open my door to anyone at 2 a.m. unless he phones ahead, begs me properly, brings a sausage-pepperoni pizza (fresh, not frozen) and a six-pack (import, not domestic), and has his own condoms (and, yes, I do check the expiration date on them).

So Batman was still around Monday morning, and mewling and making a ruckus, but didn't want out.  If he wants out he doesn't waste time with niceties.  Once you open the door, he shoots right down the stairs.  He's like: "Forget you losers!  Get me out of this shit-heap!"  Which is fine.  My ego is not on the line here.  And if you expect gratitude from a cat, it's your problem.  They are not, by nature, gracious creatures. 

At any rate, he didn't want out Monday morning.  I gathered he wanted fed.  I mean, what else is there: "Can I borrow a pen?" "Do these socks match my trousers?" "Can I have my Morrissey CD back?"  (Cats totally dig Morrissey.)  As fascinated as some people seem to be by them, cats aren't all that unpredictable. 

Batman clearly wanted food.  He was practically begging for it, with the most pitiful mewl in his arsenal.  I don't believe that in this day and age, in this land of plenty, anyone should have to beg for food.  I blustered through the house, advocating for Batman, demanding he be fed. 

The resounding reaction of the House:  "Dude, he's totally manipulating you!"

Well, of course he is.  Communication is a form of manipulation, after all.  And cats are already Machiavellian creatures.  The question is not whether he's manipulating me, but for what?  And what are the stakes, should I give in to his machinations?  Will I become House Trilby to his Svengali?

"What are you bloviating about?" Asked Futilicia. "It won't do you any good."

"Well, I am The Bloviator," I reminded her. "If one has a super-power one is obligated to use it occasionally, if only to keep in practice for when you might really need it."

"Why bother?" she said.

I ran into Technoboy on the second floor.

"Where's the cat food, Technoboy?"

"He's playing you like Itzhak Perlman on a Stradivarius," Technoboy told me, shaking his head in disgust, and disappearing into the bathroom.

Eventually I found the emergency cat food stash, and poured out a stingy little portion, just to show Batman that if he was manipulating me, it was only a little bit.  He padded over, gave me a look, sniffed around in the little bowl, turned up his nose and padded off upstairs again.

I'm not above going to the Legion of Doom with this.