The Cabal
Angela Townsend
There are He-Man heads on a hundred windowsills. There are swords to slice the veil of space and time. There is a cabal that threatens our known world.
There is a man in central New Jersey with a garage full of hammers. He can swing them with his left arm or his right. Were that not the case, one bicep would dwarf the other. Imbalance is the price blacksmiths have paid since the first forge. Early skeletons show mismatched arms, the body’s love offering to a village in need of sharp points.
But the ambidextrous blacksmith can blend into suburbia. You would not know him in the grocery store, just another black pocket T-shirt choosing his marmalade. His ponytail curls like a knowing smile, and he can’t stop saying “hello” to strangers, but otherwise, he appears ordinary.
Stu is not ordinary, nor does he accept the concept. He tells me this as he shimmies into the cat shelter, his evenly sized arms hoisting one end of the “big giant check.”
“I know we didn’t need to make a big giant check,” he explains. His wife is graceful, lofting on the other side over a gawking cat. Animals recognize grandeur. Lulu’s sweatshirt features a stern panda under the words, “Kindness Matters.” This is serious business.
“But it will make The Cabal feel good.” Stu nestles the check between two cat trees and steps back. “It’s only 500 dollars, I know that’s not—”
“—it’s a life-saving donation.” I interrupt when I am happy. I interrupt when I am overcome. I interrupt when I am praying, which is always, especially when I am in the presence of grandeur. “It’s going to nurture so many cats.”
“That’s what we want,” Lulu says, stooping to stroke a cat who requires a surgeon general’s warning.
“Oh, you shouldn’t—”
“—she’s fine,” Lulu says, and she is. This marks the first time I have seen Buttermuffin elect not to bite a stranger or a friend.
“We love that you take the tough ones.” Stu gestures like a man on stage. His default move is a spreading of the arms, an urgent “voila!” of which I do not think he is aware. “You take the broken buddies.” He picks up a paraplegic cat in a polka-dot diaper. “I mean, look at this. This is punk rock. This is a finger in the eye—” he jabs his fingers in mean, unseen eyes. He doesn’t name them. He doesn’t need to.
“Remind me how The Cabal made this happen,” I say. Stu and Lulu have emailed me with rising exuberance over three months. Meeting them makes it clear email is limited.
Stu is bouncing Dwight, the cat, like an incontinent child sultan. “Well, Ralph died.”
“Ralph.” Lulu breathes deeply.
“You gotta understand, Ralph was our soulmate.” Stu grieves directly into my eyes. “We love every animal we have, and we’ve had a lot, but Ralph …”
“Ralph was the light of the world.” Lulu is not overstating the case.
“And everyone knew Ralph!” Stu puts Dwight down and gestures “voila!” “We shared pictures of him constantly. So, the whole world was heartbroken. Our world.”
“The Cabal?”
“The Cabal.” Stu takes Lulu’s hand. “Vintage toy enthusiasts. I know that sounds silly, but—”
“—this world needs more toy enthusiasts.”
“Our group is mostly focused on the Masters of the Universe.” If Stu were telling me about particle physics or his dissertation on Eusebius of Caesarea, it would not be more solemn. It would be considerably less profound. “He-Man, Skeletor, you know.”
“She-Ra, Princess of Power!”
Stu and Lulu both burst into smiles I can hear. “You’re familiar?” Stu asks.
“You’re our age!” Lulu has just realized this.
“I wanted to be She-Ra.” I continue speaking even as I see my boss peeping out of his office. “I still want to be She-Ra.”
Stu’s “voila” rises to a sun salutation. “Ms. Barlow—”
“—oh, gosh, please call me Daisy—”
“—you are She-Ra!”
“I am a 42-year-old fundraiser for a cat shelter. I am scared of my own basement.”
“You are friggin’ She-Ra! You save cats!”
I’m laughing, and Lulu is nodding, and Stu assaults us in a group hug that is necessary.
Properly hugged, I can hear the rest of the story. “So The Cabal, we’re all collecting these vintage pieces. A lot of He-Man heads.”
“Heads?”
Stu shows me a picture. They are He-Man heads, ranging in size from key lime to grapefruit. “There are bigger ones, too, but they start getting expensive. Anyway, The Cabal wondered if maybe we could do something in Ralph’s memory. A raffle, the best stuff we could find, and all the proceeds go to a cat place.”
“That’s amazing.” I scold myself for understatement.
“But not just any cat place.” Lulu knows this part is essential. “Most shelters are …”
“They’re doing the best they can.” I mean it.
“Sure. But you guys take cats no one else will take.” Lulu is petting Buttermuffin, and I can see an entire bench of seraphs gaping at earth’s meanest creature practicing beatitude.
“We do. That’s our thing.”
Voila. “We’re the cats no one else will take!” Stu has waited his entire life to say this.
“You’re friggin’ He-Man,” I correct.
“Precisely.” Stu is even more correct.
Cat Haven’s Founder and Executive Director, Neil Solomon, can no longer resist. My boss and co-conspirator emerges.
“You’re Neil!” Stu has studied the website. He shakes Neil’s hands with his matching arms.
“I understand you’re He-Man.”
“Can we get a picture?” Lulu is preparing her phone. “Stu and Neil and Daisy—”
“—you have to be in it.” I cross my arms.
“Oh, that’s OK, I’m just—”
“—Maureen!” I call out to our most dignified volunteer, Maureen from County Cork. Maureen hand-addresses letters to our donors, in cursive fit for illuminated Celtic manuscripts. Maureen wears rubber gloves. Maureen has never been seen, not even by God, without a cardigan and brooch. Maureen recently began wearing Skechers, which “changed her life forever,” although she sounds ashamed when she tells me this.
“Maureen, will you take our picture?”
Maureen takes in the scene, the blacksmith and the kindness and the big giant check and Neil’s rare, virulent smile.
“Of course, Daisy.”
She takes a dozen, and around the tenth, Stu wraps his arms around all three of us. “For cats and The Cabal!”
“For cats and The Cabal!” Maureen raises her arms overhead. In 70 years across two continents, Maureen has never done this.
“So, what do you do when you’re not selling disembodied heads?” Neil cannot handle pudding without cayenne.
“Voila.” Stu swings an invisible hammer. Buttermuffin has installed a meditative labyrinth under his legs and is tracing infinity signs around his ankles.
“I’m a blacksmith.”
“Ah, for the horse farms?” Neil believes he knows everything. He has the misfortune of a track record so good, he gets to indulge this belief. He has also founded a sanctuary for shattered cats, with 4,000 living souls to his credit. It is in the world’s interest for Neil to believe in himself.
“A reasonable guess!” Stu has never started a sentence with the word “no.” “I specialize in historically accurate medieval swords.”
Maureen is transfixed.
“People buy them for War,” Stu explains. He realizes that we do not know his world quite as well as it feels, although he would like to remedy this. “It’s an annual reenactment. We choose a different battle every year. Always lots of swords and trebuchets. Sometimes historic, sometimes something like The Lord of the Rings, especially The Two Towers, sometimes—”
“—nobody gets hurt,” Lulu confirms, which is not necessary.
I see the jokes jostling behind Neil’s forehead. I hear the sharp words. I have a few scars from his bayonet on my belly. But over 4,000 cats, Neil has become grander. He says, simply, “They must be a work of art.” He hesitates. He cannot completely tame himself. “But can you make a living that way?” Buttermuffin bites his calf.
“Not at all!” Stu laughs, and Lulu laughs. “I also work at a bank!”
I picture the teller window lined with He-Man heads. I see harried people pressing cash into palms that swing hammers and carry home one-eyed kittens. I want to buy an iridescent cape on the way home. I want everyone to know. There is guerrilla kindness in this world. Voila, voila, voila.
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