Sisypuss: Memoirs of a Vagabond Cat

by Patricia Halloff

  Well, maybe you don’t know where Mama’s going, Sisypuss, but Mama does. In her hard life she’s met many a cat adopted from a shelter only to wind up on the street again, thrown out because it clawed the furniture or scratched some kid for pulling its tail or got pregnant. Many times Mama’s heard what shelters do with the old and sick and unadoptable—all of which apply to her. So being a tough-minded cat who wasn’t born yesterday and never had reason to believe in miracles, having heard Linda’s death sentence, Mama knows her number’s up, that’s that. And that being so, in what little time she has left she proceeds to prep you for your life on a planet overburdened with unwanted cats.

  “Listen,” she begins. “I have to go away. You heard her, right?” “No, Mama! Don’t!” Alice cries. “What about us?” Simon growls. “Where, Mama? Why?” Asks Bob. “For how long? When’ll you be back?” Is what you want to know, Sisypuss. But Mama won’t say. You’re just getting used to life. Would a loving mama add to what it’s dumped on you so far the staggering fact of death and its inevitability, how more often than not it comes with pain and fear? So, “Enough with the questions,” Mama says. She kisses Bob and Alice, gives Simon a gentle pat on the head, lovingly nibbles your ear. She says not to worry about where she’s going, everything’ll be OK. “Enough questions,” Mama repeats and now there’s a whistling in her chest. Her words come in fits and starts interspersed by hoarse gasps. “Just be happy—it’s warm now. You could get a home.” She pauses to draw a wheezy breath. “You’re a beauty,” she tells little Alice. “Cover cat calibur. Not like Mama—not that my looks stopped your old man—whoever he was.” And though she personally has seen no signs of it, if there’s any justice in the world, Mama croaks in breathy phrases, that pretty face’ll get little Alice adopted and fixed so the toms out there won’t be a problem to her.

  “But say (Almighty Cat forbid)—you wind up unfixed—on the street?” Here Mama’s message picks up a little steam in tone if not in pace. You’re gonna feel—funny one day—you’ll wanna roll—around on the ground—call out. No, Ally! Run! Hide!” Urgency cracks Mama’s voice. “Listen! Down with your—tail—or you’ll end—up broken down like Mama! Down and hide—till it’s over!” Little Alice looks puzzled. “What’s over? Don’t go away, Mama!” But Mama answers that Alice should remember what she just said, that’s all, and some day she’ll understand. Poor Mama. She’s worn to a shadow; all the talking puts her under terrible strain. She’s coughing again, a cough which leaves her momentarily shaken and breathless, forced to rest once more . . . .

  Then: “Bobby,” she huffs. “Such a good—boy. Smart. May Supreme—Cat if he—exists (Mama chooses to believe He may despite all evidence to the contrary) watch over—you, keep you and—Fairbanks together. Take—care of—him. A risk taker—that one. Leaps—then looks. You’ll think ahead. Patience, Bobby—love him always.”

  Mama’s too sick and worn-out to spend much time on Simon. The sand’s almost through the hourglass, her time’s running out quickly. Plus when she advises him to take a leaf from Fairbanks’ book; i.e., charm, not attack to get what he wants, he sneers openly. “I’m not—talking silent—meow,” Mama pants anyway. Talent—can’t be learned. No clawing or—biting, I’m saying. Purr—sidle. Charm. Be a—cat.” “But how’ll we eat if you go?” growls Simon. “Good—Cat Almighty!” rasps Mama, giving up on him. “You’ll—eat, you’ll—eat.”

  Mama’s becoming so short of breath, coughing so much more. And you worry, Sisypuss, about why she’s telling you all these things. How long does she think she’ll be gone? Her wheeze and cough worry you, and there’s a smell of—fear. Your heart’s pounding away and you’ve got the shivers even though it’s so warm in there. Mama’s worn to a frazzle, her body jerks and twitches when she coughs. What you feel is dread, Sisypuss, and it isn’t lessened by her attempt to smile as she praises your perky ears, your long legs and tail, your sweeping whiskers and elegant suit. “My boy—cover cat!” She calls you, her words broken up by phlegm, her eyes momentarily drooping shut. “An aristocat, Fairbanks. Swashbuckler—strutter—all swank— and prance. . . . And that silent—meow! Use it, it—works.” With difficulty, swallowing coughs which want to break free, Mama cautions you to look before leaping, be patient, pay attention to Bob.

  “The dog may—have his—day,” Mama says, “but—the cat will—mew. If—Cat Almighty—forbid, you‘re on—the street, be tough—brave. If you’ve— got—to fight—be fierce.” In a hoarse whisper she tells you to walk with tails high and ears to the ground for rumbles that aren’t moles. She tells you to run from men running after you, for if they catch you they’ll hurt you or sell you to places that hurt animals.

  Her voice barely audible above the forlorn yelps, the frightened whines and mews, the furious barks of the abandoned, Mama gives her last bit of advice: Forget sex, the reason for battered males and kitten machines. “Boys, never—mind the siren calls— rolling—around business. More—unwanted cats the world—doesn’t need.” Mama’s swallowing spasmodically, her voice strangled. “And Ally, remember—never mind—you want to, don’t—let a tom—near you. Run—-hide.” Then she whispers brokenly that time’s up, they’re coming, she’s got to go, and one by one kisses you goodbye.

  Ah Sisypuss, your world’s come apart. “Don’t go, Mama!” you and Bob wail in unison. “Why d’you have to?” Little Alice mews forlornly, Simon sulks. But the cage door opens, Mama is taken by the scruff of her neck. She doesn’t hiss or spit this time. You hear her last hoarse cry of love, footsteps walking away, Janet’s cracked voice. “It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright.” You don’t see Mama’s eyes wide with terror, or her sides suck in and out as she struggles to breathe. “It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright,” says Janet on a rising note. Then, with a jolt of fear you hear all the cats caged along the passageway to the back room begin to wail.

  3

  You wait for Mama. Not knowing when she’ll return is the worst part—worse than cold or hunger. And Bob expresses your worst fear by saying it could be a long time—the way she talked; and Simon adds to it by grumbling maybe she’ll never come back, maybe she’ll just let you all starve. No! You love and trust Mama, that won’t happen! With a hard swat to his nose to show you mean business, “Shut up!” you spit. “Enough, Fairbanks,” sighs Bob. “Don’t start with him.”

  His broad good-natured face grim with existential angst, Bob asks you: “Is this what it is to be alive? This going from one lousy thing to something worse? Does life always stink?” And, Sisypuss, you’ve all you can do to pay attention to Bob and not give Simon another belt on the snout for how he answers that one. “What about them Siamese in the room with the fire? Not for them, it don’t.” “Shut up, jerk!” you tell him instead. “Mama’ll be back alright, she’s just looking things over like she did at the dentist’s.” And “C‘mon!” you tell Bob, “Life can’t always be bad! When Mama comes back, everything’ll be ducky.”

  But when the cage door opens it’s not Mama squirming, scratching, hissing, hurling herself against it as it closes. “Oh, oh, oh, what’s this?” cries the stranger backing into a corner. “Who’re you? Why’m I here? Where’re my babies? You ain’t them!” Wild-eyed, she stares at the four of you huddled together, frightened as she is, heads turned in the direction of her heartsick mews. Over and over: “What’ve they done with my babies? They ain’t my babies, they ain’t my babies!”

  It’s you who save the day, Sisypuss, by opening your mouth just wide enough to mouth a silent meow. For: “Oh, oh, oh, what? What?” she cries. “What’s the matter? Where’s your mama?” Then Bob’s choked voice tells how they carried Mama away, Alice starts to cry, Simon growls he’s hungry. “Oh, oh, oh, their mama ain’t here no more, they’re hungry!”

  And she’s there beside you, curling herself around you like Mama did. Her milk fills your mouth with a creamy sweetness: For the first time in your short life you can drink enough to fill your belly. Even Simon’s content to suckle without t
rying to push the rest of you away so he can get it all for himself. The Calico, who’s purring now, has enough even for him. Drink, drink, she purrs, she purrs you should drink all you want, she’ll give what your mama can’t, you’ll have what her own babies didn’t have.

  Not a bad arrangement for orphans, Sisypuss— except The Calico doesn’t fill the ache in your heart for Mama the way she fills your belly. You don’t know what to make of her. She smells different from Mama. She’s not gentle like Mama. And under her hard-boiled exterior there’s a disturbing jitteriness, so that with her milk you imbibe an anxiousness which’ll affect you forever.

  To tell her story, she uses language Mama never used. There’s a bewildered nervousness about her when she hisses that the fucking assholes she lived with took her for a ride and dumped her in the boonies because she got knocked-up. “How’d I wind-up in this stinking toilet where you can’t hear yourself think? What with them fucking dogs and all? Well, Kitties-O, not right away by a long shot, because I hid in the woods until I got so hungry I went back to the road where someone picked me up and brought me here.” Then, as if just remembering them again, she starts in all over: “My babies! What did they do with my babies?”

  Of course, none of you can answer that, so she turns nasty, as if you know but won’t tell her. She cuffs you and shoves you away. And nothing calms her: neither your heartfelt silent meows, Simon’s outraged hisses, Alice’s poignant mews, nor Bob’s attempt to restore peace by gently pointing out that since you weren’t there, how could you know? Day in, day out, the unhappy sequence repeats itself. You never know whether you’ll be accepted with purrs or rejected with spits and hisses. The only thing reliable about her is her edgy confusion. In later life, remembering The Calico, you ask yourself if her craziness exacerbated the excitability and impatience you inherited from whichever tom it was who fathered you. You ask yourself whether you’d be a calmer, more patient cat if you hadn’t lost your Mama.

  But now it’s time for you to open your eyes and take over.

  4

  Right. Thanks PH, for telling of those first days when blind as a bat, helpless as a worm, I was in no position to see for myself what was going on. But now I’ll open a vein and take over the reins—with literary flair. Memory will lead me to where I was and what I was doing before Booley took me in, and where memory can’t go, imagination (which has sometimes led me to unproductive behavior) will. What the hell else do I have to do? Wouldn’t you think that considering what I’ve been through, considering the shape I’m in, considering Booley’s given me the life of ease I’d always wanted, that Inner Cat would sit back on his haunches with a relieved sigh? But, no: I’m bored stiff. There’s something to be said, grumbles Inner Cat, for living on the edge. After a swat or two the toys Booley brings make me yawn. Cats need more.

  I’m tired all the time in these somber days of waiting for full-fledged feline AIDS to kick in, lower the final curtain, and raise me up to the Great Cat In the Sky. Before today when I decided to embark on this project of magnitude, all I did was yawn and yawn on my comfy window bed and watch birds and planes and clouds and sun and rain until Booley came home from whichever clinical trial he’d sign up for, spaced-out or sick from whatever toxic substance they’ve fed him. What a poet does for money. “Work? Me? Ridiculous!” he tells his girlfriends. “Besides, sometimes I get the placebos.”

  Go know. Well better him than me I say, remembering what they did to me for the good of mankind. . . . But I won’t get into that yet. Later.

  What can I say about the day I opened my eyes to a world I never made and saw for the first time what was around me? Except how strange it was I accepted with no sense of wonder what I’d only smelled and touched and heard till then. As if I’d always had seen them, I saw Bob at my side, Little Alice beside him, Simon on my other side. There in all her tri-colored glory was the lunatic Calico who blemished my infant’s soft pink psyche by bitching nonstop about lost babies and vindictively withdrawing milk every time she worked herself into a lather of grief. “Ah, at last, Fairbanks! How’s it look to you?” said Bob. And that’s all there was to that particular blip in a life which went on routinely except for an adjunct not always appreciated.

  Not that it wasn’t good to see Bob’s amiable puss and stocky ginger body, or pretty Little Alice, silver with white trim, fluffy as a duckling. But . . . who’d say it enriched life to eye the source of the vile smell fouling our cage; i.e., the litterbox of slimy turds deposited by the demented Calico? Who’d want to witness Linda commit her sin against the eyeless kitten opposite who’d mewed pitifully for a day and a night? Watch in horror as, clutching her frizzy hair, the bitch hissed “Enough already!,” snatched it up and stomped to the back room? Who couldn’t do without looking upon Simon’s ratface and meeting his baleful eye?

  “Oh, oh, oh,” wailed The Calico, kneeing me to pay attention. “Now that you suckers can see, glim this here dump, this cage full of shit, at least in the woods I could bury it. Lookit the crap they gimme to eat, wait’ll you get teeth, you should live that long, you’ll know. Lookit the shit and piss and vomit you only smelled before, Kitty-O’s, here they come with their pail slopping poison over the floor. Like they care they kill us with fumes?” Then a blood-curdling MYOWRRR: “Piss off, get away from me, bloodsuckers! You had enough. Leave me the fuck alone.” Mewing pitiably, she kicked us away and leapt to her paws. “You ain’t my babies. I want my own babies.”

  So Simon slunk to a back corner from where he hexed her with malevolent eye, while Bob, Little Alice, and I went to the front of the cage for our first look at where all the noise and awful smells came from.

  What can I say but that my heart shrank from the sight of all those cages holding cats of all colors, sizes, ages, and conditions, their eyes widened by fear or closed by hopelessness? Some on hind legs clawed their cage doors yowling fury. Others hunched up in deathly silence, heads hanging, eyes slitted. Horrible. The place was horrible. Cat does not live by provender alone.

  And to add to my dismay came the notion that poor Mama had to be in one of those cages. Where else would they’ve put her? “Mama Mama Mama!” I called. “Mama Mama Mama!” Bob and Little Alice joined in. “Mama Mama Mama!” we wailed over and over, The Calico spitting and squalling we should shut the fuck up already, how stupid could we get, until Bob put an end to it. “Enough,” he said. “Mama’s not there. Get real: If she was she’d’ve let us know before today.” He was right, of course. But, “Never mind. She’s somewhere in here. She’ll come back. Mama wouldn’t leave us,” I said, being from the beginning a banker on rescues, a true believer that things turn out OK in the end. “Sure Mama’s coming back,” Little Alice echoed. Bob looked worried. “Dream on,” whined sourpuss Simon who had to have been a product of an experiment in transpecies crossing–a cat implanted with the genes of a mosquito.

  Go chase your rat’s tail, I told him, but unfortunately he’d called it right: My faith that everything’ll be alright except the last thing wasn’t justified that time. And despite the fact that I thought of Mama constantly and my hopes for her return never died all the time we were there, with every passing day her picture in my head grew more shadowy. Her features faded into a past where we were frozen and hungry but loved, where the crazy Calico didn’t kick us, where the cries of the abandoned, the rejected, the sick, the maimed, didn’t fill my ears morning noon and night.

  Good Cat Almighty, how I hated that place! The relentless howls and growls, whines and whimper of the caged dogs sickened my soul. The forlorn mews and caterwauls of the cats tore me up. The crazy Calico’s moans and wails and hisses drove me crazy. Plus I never got used to the stink of urine and feces and rotten cat food or the throat-grabbing smell of disinfectant. I was nauseous all the time. I was on Death Row under undisclosed sentence, not knowing when my time would be up, when the needle in the back room was for me, and the suspense was killing (joke, ha ha).

  Even dogs, normally an adaptable easygoing lot, co
uldn’t take the place—as their vocalizing made clear. But cats suffered more. For a species valuing independence, solitude, cleanliness, it was one of Hell’s worst circles. True, I’m a risk taker, living on the edge’s no problem for me—but even a real pussycat’s better off taking its chances outside a place where, if nobody adopts you soon, you’re walked down the last mile. All over.

  Every time Booley and I watch a jail movie, the frenzied rattling of bars by the raging caged, it all comes back, it all comes back. I smell it, I hear it, I remember, I remember.

  Anyway, besides Bob and Alice and even Nutcase Calico who (say what you will) kept us alive, Janet was the only other light in that tunnel. Mornings, grumbling it should be done more often, but there just wasn’t time, it was Janet who emptied the litter box of the Calico’s foul deposits. Middle-aged face Booley’d call a map of Ireland beaming, she’d stroke The Calico first, whispering, “How’s Mommy today? You being a good Mommy to these kids?” “Eck!” The Calico would grunt. “Eck!” Then, one at a time she’d pick us up, even Sourpuss Simon, hug us to her flat chest, tickle the pleasure spot under our chins. Tingling with love, I’d look into her eyes, my throbbing purr of adoration so loud she’d laugh and tell me to turn down the volume or Linda’d be over to tell her to Move it, Jan. Which was my cue to give a silent meow so’s to get myself nuzzled behind each ear. The glow she left behind would last until afternoon when they opened the doors to pet shoppers.