When the night of the actual ball finally came around, I realized that I was considerably more nervous than I'd expected to be. And it wasn't just because I was going to be opening the ball with Victoria, or that I planned on appearing as another cat and was desperately hoping that no one besides Tugger and Victoria would know it was actually Quaxo behind the Mr. Mistoffelees guise. It was something ethereal, something…elusive. Something strange was in the air tonight, something that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and gave me butterflies in my stomach. Sitting in my designated spot in the junk around the amphitheater, I racked my brain, trying to make sense of the supernatural thoughts and feelings I was picking up. Eventually, I tracked my thoughts down to Cassie and Deuteronomy, and what they'd each said to me. What was it? Oh yeah…Cassie had said, "She is more important than you know...she alone can change the future, and if she is slain, then the Jellicles will be destroyed," and Deuteronomy, "You have saved the Jellicles."

I shuddered. The thought of the Jellicles being lost at all was chilling, and a shock. I hadn't even known they were in danger of being lost. But apparently, somehow, I had saved them. And Victoria…why was she so important? Except for myself, no other cat really seemed to care too much about her. It was a conundrum.

But before I could begin to try to sort it out, Demeter and Munkustrap suddenly appeared from different sides of the amphitheater, and the Jellicle Ball had officially begun. After the first traditional song was over, Victoria made her way out into center stage and began to dance. It was a slow and graceful ballet, with liquid movements and perfect execution. Watching Victoria, I almost lost myself in it, and nearly missed my cue to join her. Scrambling, I left my spot and ran over to her, and as she stood up, I spoke the words that had become a part of legend. "Jellicle Cats, come out tonight, Jellicle Cats, come one, come all, The Jellicle Moon is shining bright, Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball!"i

At those words, suddenly, I wasn't an outsider anymore. I felt a change wash through me. At those few magical words, I felt all the differences between me and all the other cats in the Junkyard that night melt away, all the grudges I'd held against them for so long, even those I'd never admitted to myself – a grudge against Tugger for attracting all the young queens, even Victoria, a grudge against Munkustrap for commanding such respect and admiration from every cat around him – disappearing entirely into the dark realm of my past. I was no longer Quaxo, the Queer, but rather, Quaxo, the Jellicle. One quick glance at Victoria's dazed face told me that she had felt a similar change. For no reason other than that, I smiled and fell back to let Munkustrap explain the Ball to all of us who had never been to one before.

From that point on, the rest of the Ball went much as it was planned, although I managed to make a royal fool of myself once or twice. Also, something that was clearly unplanned occurred, more than once. An old, worn-out queen named Grizabella made random disruptive appearances. Having never seen her before, I was wholly eager to embrace her as a Jellicle, but before I could, suddenly, older Jellicles around me began to sneer and hiss at her. Tugger himself turned up his nose at her, and Bombalurina even went up and hissed in her face. Then, Alonzo moved as if to make peace, offering his paw for her to touch. But as she reached out for him, he suddenly struck her paw with extended claws, and took off as she clutched her injured paw to her body, hissing in pain.

I, of course, was perfectly confused. The change that had overcome me before was non-discriminatory, and I was ready to include this queen as one of us. But all the older cats around me were rejecting her. This contradiction caused such a discord in my mind that I had to stagger over to the bumper of a nearby car and sit on it to gather my thoughts again. A few of the younger queens, like Victoria and Etcetera, reached out to her, went up to her, as willing as ever to accept her, despite the actions of the cats around them. But even as they reached out to her, they were stopped, caught, or pulled away by older cats. Grizabella remained untouched, and when she finally left, heartbroken, the Ball continued.

Most of the rest of the ball was unremarkable, save for the basic fact that it was all new and fascinating to me. Two particular events stand out in my mind, though, even to today. The first began with Victoria getting caught up in the energy of the night and breaking away from the rest of us to dance alone again. As she did so, the night air slowly began to cool and settle around us, and each cat began to match up with a cat of the opposite sex and settle to the ground with them. After a few moments, it clicked in my mind what the tribe was planning on doing, and I immediately turned to Victoria, to be with her. But to my astonishment, she was not looking back at me. She was instead getting increasingly intimate with Plato!

My mouth fell open for a moment as I tried to make sense of the impossible situation in front of me. Plato? Victoria? Together? Victoria! My Victoria! When I finally came to my senses and closed my mouth, I was crestfallen. How could she do this to me? How could she? After all we'd been through together, all I had thought we meant to each other, for naught! My eyes burning with unshed tears, I turned away and quickly searched for an unoccupied queen. Even if Victoria wasn't the type to resort to vengeance, I was. I found Electra unaccompanied, and immediately reached out to her. She gratefully took my paw and joined me, and as we lay down together, I sneered inwardly. This would teach Victoria for throwing away all that we had had at the glance of a handsome and brazen young tom who had until then ignored her just as everyone else had. This would teach her for taking my heart, already fragile and fearful, pretending that it was important to her, and then crushing it in the grip of a sudden passion!

But even so, as I lay with Electra, I simply could not keep the tears from making their way to the corners of my eyes, although I managed to keep them from falling anywhere visible, though I suspected that Electra probably would not have noticed, might not have even cared. When it was all over, I was extremely grateful for the sudden interruption of the festivities by yet another appearance by the only outcast of the tribe. She didn't get far this time; she appeared at the top of a mountain of refuse and Alonzo ran up and scared her off again. And just as before, once she was gone, we continued the Ball as though nothing unusual had occurred.


Another interesting thing that happened and effectively changed my entire view of life and what it means to be happy came about when Jellylorum led a very elderly tom out of the junk to perch on an overturned paint can. Though I had no idea who he was, he seemed to radiate a sense of calm and serenity about him that pervaded the entire area of the amphitheater. All was suddenly right with the world again, and I even found myself unable to continue fueling the excruciating hatred that had only just been ignited by Victoria's betrayal, and the burning fury slowly ebbed away until it left simply a sorrowful ache deep in my heart that would never be healed.

After a few moments, Deuteronomy found himself a perch upon an old tire and began to sing a quiet song about happiness and life. It was confusing and mystic, a terrible and wonderful puzzle that defied comprehension.

"The moments of happiness . . .
We had the experience but missed the meaning
And approach to the meaning restores the experience
In a different form, beyond any meaning
We can assign to happiness . . ."
ii

Though my ears heard clearly every word he sang, my mind simply could not make them all fit together in a way that would put any meaning to the befuddling poetry. Frustrated, I gritted my teeth as I struggled to make sense of it all. I felt the allusions of significance and comfort soothing my angry heart, but this only served to worsen the hopelessness of my mind. I felt almost ready to cry.

But suddenly, I was surprised to see Jemima slowly stand up, gently resting her paw on Tantomile's, who had her own paw gently grasping Coricopat's, who was lying almost prostrate on the ground. As she stood, her face a picture of subconscious understanding, every cat's ears pricked towards her, though no one actually turned to face her as she began to sing herself, uttering lyrics that made infinitely more sense than Deuteronomy's had.

"Moonlight, turn your face to the moonlight
Let your memory lead you
Open up, enter in
If you find there the meaning of what happiness is
Then a new life will begin…"
iii

And suddenly, with those few lines, the entire song suddenly made sense. The happiness…the happiness we experienced, was sometimes so fleeting that we managed to miss the meaning, the significance. And if we couldn't recognize what it meant to be happy, then what purpose had there been to our life? We couldn't possibly die if we couldn't honestly say we knew that we knew what happiness was. That was the only way you could get to the Heaviside Layer, and that was exactly what the cat seated on the paint can was here to prove.

We listened to his story – his name was Gus, the Theatre Cat, a retired actor of great renown – and what could we do but simply agree that if any cat had experienced the sort of happiness that would admit him into the Heaviside Layer, Gus was that cat. As he slowly shuffled away, my heart was once again changed by the experiences of that night.


i "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" ©Andrew Lloyd Webber

ii "The Moments of Happiness" ©Andrew Lloyd Webber

iii ibid.