How the hell...
Did our bar get taken over by Buster the cat.
Having found ourselves responsible for urinals, in a business we little understood, the last thing we wanted while trying to learn how to cook, clean, change beer barrels, and deal with customers, was also to be responsible for a pet. Thankfully, Buster was not a pet.
Yes, he was a fully fledged tomcat complete with ginger coat and swinging gonads, and admittedly he would curl up all cutesy and purr when content, but if the definition of a pet is ‘something that likes to be petted’, anbody who attempted this would instantly find out that there was no way in hell Buster could be labelled as such.
So, in an industry where conviviality is something of a necessity, why did we take on a cat devoid of any such traits? The short answer is… we didn’t. Buster took up residence one morning while Joy and I were doing the morning prep. I was in the kitchen beating five bells out of a box of chicken breasts with a metal meat tenderiser, while Joy was inflicting a daily dose of napalm into all the cracks and crevices where cockroaches were having a lie-in.
The bar doors were only slightly ajar, primarily to air the bar area but still dissuade the public from entering while we were fumigating (invariably, they would still saunter in regardless). Anyway, Joy and I watched in silence as a cat the size of a bull terrier barged open the door, leapt onto a cushioned bench and began licking its balls, all the while keeping a beady eye on Joy, who was closest.
She tried to shoo it out with a can of Raid, but the ginger lump continued its hygiene ritual completely unperturbed. Joy then tried to pick up said lump. It took less than half a second to realise this was a mistake. Claws hooked onto her wrist while teeth bit into her palm. To be fair, it didn’t draw blood, this was a mere warning, and after a short Mexican standoff, the cat let go and returned to the task in hand.
We left it alone for the rest of the morning, assuming it would leave when it was ready, but that point never came, and Buster (named after Buster Gonad, a character in Viz comic) became the official bar cat.
His notoriety as a dog in cat’s clothing soon got round and he became as big a draw as some of the artistes that were performing. Nobody could fail to be impressed by his sheer fearlessness and determination. This determination also had its downside. For much of the afternoon Buster would lay comatose on his back, snoring at full stretch whilst brazenly displaying his cat-hood and occupying the whole bench seat at table five. No amount of cajoling could persuade him to vacate the bench or make room for customers. The price for waking him from one of his deep slumbers was paid in blood. The only way to make him move was to carefully unzip the padded cushion, carry him outside like a pampered emperor and unceremoniously dump him onto the warm tiles.
Extract from my book, More Ketchup than Salsa
Thankfully, Buster was aware that, like us all, he would have to pull his weight, and so he became a self-appointed doorman for all things non-human. No stray animals dared come near the bar - a common problem for British bars where pet-loving holidaymakers would entice them with food - and all dogs were chased away, no matter their size or temperament.
In return, Buster insisted on riding shotgun whenever one of us drove to the cash-and-carry or on some other errand. If we weren’t discreet enough sneaking out of the bar to get in the car, he would run after us, leap on the bonnet and glare through the windscreen until we let him in. Sometimes, he’d quite happily hop out after a lap around the car park, but if he didn’t have his daily drive, he was not a happy ginger tom.
Buster also managed to solve our mouse problem, which had been costing us a small fortune in unsaleable bags of Quavers that had been perforated with rodent teethmarks.
The only place where we and Buster metaphorically butted heads was the kitchen. Where the terracotta tiles of the public area and the white floor tiles of the kitchen joined, a line was drawn, and a water pistol used to deter illegally crossings. Eventually, Buster complied, sitting with paws right at the edge, waiting for any tidbits to be thrown his way.
Peace remained until a surprise health and hygiene inspection led to borders having to be redrawn, at which point war erupted again, and this time Buster was not for backing down.