A Mostly Retired Assassin — Behind the Story
This is the tale of two cats.
The first is named “Indy” (but he goes by “Blue”), and the other is “Patches.”
These two cats could not be more dissimilar.
Blue, the fur-child of my brother and his wife, is a Norwegian forest cat, much as described in this story, complete with a white bib. Blue is fluffy to the max, and my brother spends considerable time rewriting 80s pop lyrics to include the word “fluffy.” How would it sound if Pat Benatar re-recorded one of her hits to be “All Fluffed Up”? Or Bon Jovi to release “It’s My Fluff”? And yes, Blue does find ways of squeezing into open boxes much smaller than you would imagine. Blue is a gentle cat who likes snacks, attention, and his carpeted three-tiered stand in a patch of sunlight.
Patches is my sister-in-law’s cat, a small calico rescue with a cloudy eye; they saved her from the road in front of their house and certain disaster with an unforgiving tractor-trailer. By personality, if not training, Patches is a ninja, hissing and threatening to shred anyone who gets too close. I have experienced harrowing confrontations with Patches in the middle of the night when I needed to use the facilities in the hallway. Patches stood on two legs and reared back to swipe at me, hissing “You shall not pass,” like a feline version of a deranged Gandalf (minus the wizard’s hat). When I finally went back to bed that night, my writer-brain was full of the plot possibilities of an assassin cat.
As I said, Blue and Patches are nothing alike. And yet, as you by now have no doubt read, I combined them to create the character of Livee.
For at least a month, I had Livee sketched out. But the problem is, just because you have a character (or even a scene) doesn’t mean you have a story. After an embarrassingly long time, I abandoned my original premise (there was meant to be a household intruder) and the entire story fell into my lap, Sean Connery and all. (Rush to my laptop, peck at keys, peck at keys, and hope the house doesn’t catch on fire because I just might not notice.)
Once I figured out the story’s heart, I realized it owed something to one of my kids’ favorite childhood animated movies: 2005’s Hoodwinked! They can recite line after line. Examples:
“Never trust a bunny!”
“Grandma’s had a little work done.”
“I don’t drink coffee. Maybe a chai tea latte!”
“Are we just going to sit around here talking about how big I’m getting?”
“Little Red … yeah, yeah. It’s coming back to me now. Sweet gal. Not like that Bo Peep.”
“We don’t arrest people for being creepy.”
That’s plenty of quotes for now. The point is, it’s a terrific movie with the vocal talents of Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, and Jim Belushi (among others). It’s a retelling of the classic Little Red Riding Hood folktale, but from different characters’ perspectives. But here’s a hint (not even a spoiler for the movie): don’t take your eyes off Granny Puckett.
As always, thanks for reading!