Another I loved and lost, Manya—-a saint, but lucky for me and Bob (or as it turned out not so lucky, except we had no way of knowing that then), not an infallible oracle. For Elizabeth never found us a good (i.e., good enough) home. No surprise of course, considering her requirements and the fact that maimed kittens aren’t in great demand. With one exception the handful who answered her ads never went beyond their telephone inquiry. Once she clued them in on vivisection, seizures, required medication, imperfections, and the absolute that Rocky and Fred go as a pair—like shoes, one was no good without the other, she told them—most inquirers hung up. Replacing the receiver, “Yeah, right,” she’d mutter, butt between gritted teeth, about the few who said they’d be back to her. “When pigs fly.”
There was one, for example, who’d actually agreed a pair of epileptic kittens would be fine, she and her husband loved cats to death, but who hung up upon hearing positively no outdoors unsupervised and no barbaric declawing, that Elizabeth didn’t want to hear and really didn’t give a shit about how valuable the person thought her furniture was, so please spare her. And there was the guy who—even after hearing the statistics she reeled forth re animal overpopulation, the homeless, the millions of annual euthanasias—still maintained neutering was unnatural–-that one really got it from her. Lighting up with a shaky hand, “Jerk! Creep! Asshole!” she’d snort following those phone calls. But to our dismay just as the ad was about to expire, a woman called who agreed to all stipulations and made an appointment to come and meet us. “Well, boys,” Elizabeth sighed, “whatever is, needs be. It’s for the best.”
Like hell! For the best to leave her and Bubby and FDR and Sean and Manya? In a pig’s eye! Leaving was what Bob and I—anarchists to the core, members of a willful species unhampered by conscience which does whatever it takes to further self-interest—decided we’d never do without a fight. So we hatched a plan. Yeah, it was sneaky—that word ailurophobes use to knock one of the many feline qualities enabling our survival over millennia. For who, knowing how we’ve not only outlasted the many species driven into extinction by humans, but in times past have been worshiped as gods, would argue that cunning hasn’t paid off for cats?
Put down the drum, Fairbanks. Get to the point.
Right. What we had to do, we decided, the moment Elizabeth’s prospect set a foot in the door was flatten our ears, growl and cringe as if the bare-fanged slavering Hound of the Baskervilles had bounded into the room. Elizabeth would then assume we sensed danger and do the rest. And if despite our display of panic, the person tried to sweet talk or touch us, we’d let out all stops, howl like demons confronting an exorcist. “It’ll be duck soup,” we crowed. A simple plan, but often simple is best, and it worked like a charm, absolutely like a charm.
“Oh!” The woman gasped. The hand reaching toward us withdrew to her chest. “You didn’t say they were—. They don’t seem to like me.” And exactly as planned, Elizabeth who’d gotten only purrs, head butts, sidles from both of us and silent meows from me, who’d not seen our dark side since the day we’d understandably fought her and Paula on Dr. Cohen’s table, quickly agreed. “Sure, they’re hostile. I thought you’d’ve assumed that considering the circumstances. No! Don’t creep up on them that way! That’s not going to work! Listen to them! Look, we better get you out of here.” She couldn’t do it fast enough. Face a shade less than the red of her wig, she clutched the multi religion symbols hanging from a chain around her neck to protect her from evil, and wasted no time getting the woman out the door, while struggling to keep straight faces, we cowered and howled good riddance. But oh, how we purred when Sean, a big grin on his muzzle, crawled out from under the sofa where he’d dashed at the sound of the buzzer and praised our acting and purred and purred when Bubby and FDR told us how much they would’ve missed us. And how we grinned when a rattled Elizabeth later told Manya she hadn’t even asked for credentials since from the way we’d acted up the woman was obviously up to no good, probably a buncher, and they’d’ve been fake anyway. “But she put up a good act, that one, I’ll say that for her. From the looks of her, you’d swear butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.” “Oh my god, oh my god,” wailed Manya. “They’re everywhere. You’ve got to be so careful!”
Well, as the foregoing shows cats have good reason to thank Cat Almighty or whoever for creating them without the burden of conscience. Because judging from the hangdog expressions, the tail between the legs, the haunches scraping the ground and incontinence in the aftermath of committing violations however minor, dogs suffer a major impediment to a carefree life. Show me the dog that would’ve watched Elizabeth eject that woman and be warmed by the relief of reprieve, the joy of accomplishment, the sense of achievement and satisfaction we felt.
True, joy diminished by what happened after she shut the door. The hand holding a match to her cigarette trembling worse than ever, “Boy, a close call, huh guys?” she croaked. And then she was coughing again, struggling like Mama to breathe, collapsing into a chair. “Oh God,” she gasped, wig cockeyed, a few white hairs straggling out on her bent neck. While we watched, helpless, wanting so much to help—but, how?
Still, the episode ended her search. She quit trying to place us. “Nobody’s good enough for you guys. Anyway, it’s too risky with those effing animal dealers all over the place,” she told us, and we settled into an existence of our heart’s desire, one where commotion and disorder (thanks mainly to Manya) were routine, a life made for cats who thrive on adventure and excitement (which explains our getting lost in blind alleys, trapped in tight spots, falling into kettles of fish).
A few times a month Manya would show up on her daily visit with a cat or two she’d trapped and had spayed or neutered, so they could convalesce at our house, before—homes being scarce as hens’ teeth for feral cats—she’d unwillingly return them to where she’d found them. Those cats hadn’t a clue as to why they’d been taken from their turf, what had happened to them, why they were sore under the tail or on the belly. All they knew was they didn’t like it. They’d never heard the conversations we did between Elizabeth and Manya and others about animal overpopulation, homelessness and starvation, the misery of feral females exhausted by bearing. But then, they didn’t have to—they lived the life—most from birth like their parents and their parents’ parents.
The healthy young ones, cooped up for the first time, scowled and bitched about their lost freedom, the call of the wild, survival of the fittest. They turned up their noses at Elizabeth’s stew, purred ad nauseam about the thrill of the hunt, the mouth-watering pungency and full-bodied deliciousness of fresh-kills. They raved about balmy nights when the moon drifted like a big white balloon across black vastness; they went on and on over darkness’s aura of mystery and scent of prey and amore known only to those free to serenade and make out under the moon. They went particularly ape over the heat of lust and the ecstasy of its satisfaction. Every dog, they said, may have its day, but nights belong to cats.
As for us who’d never tasted freedom—or for that matter even FDR who had, and Sean who’d heard it all again and again from convalescents—we listened with bated breath. In imagination I prowled the night’s fragrant fields and woods. Blinded by moonlight, I yowled to Luna. Happy as I was I even asked myself if I’d missed out on a life even better than the one I had. But no I hadn’t, those no longer young or healthy made clear. They called the young ones birdbrains. “Wait, wait, till you’re our age,” they told them, “if you make it to four, that is.” So, listening to them, the memory of Mama whose parting words dovetailed with what they were saying returned full force, for the life they hated and feared was the life she’d lived. “Try hunting when you’re old and sick and weak,” they sneered. “Try crossing a street, forget about highways, without becoming roadkill, if you’re slowed down by age and sick,” they said. “And when you’re famished,” they went on, “try jumping up into a dumpster with arthritis brought on by sleeping out in the open, or even—if you’re lu
cky—in culverts or abandoned buildings—that is, if exposure hadn’t done you in before you lived long enough to get arthritis. Yeah! When you’re gimpy or on your last legs, sports, try getting away from the devil worshipers who want to sacrifice you on their altars or the kiddies who want to hang you for kicks.” “And you sex kittens,” muttered a middle-aged female, “oughta think about having litter after litter you can’t even nurse because your milk’s too thin; think about seeing your babies die of starvation or cold or heat.” Right! put in a grungy tom. Plus, the hotshots hot to trot ought to take a good look at him: How’d they think his left eye got tore out? his right ear ripped half off? Battles over hot females is how. And what about dogs? Don’t forget them! cut in someone with a pelt a patchwork of furless scars. “Look at the job them sons of bitches done on me!”
To which old and young alike cried Amen. To a cat, they hated dogs. Talking to them about dogs what like talking to fire hydrants about dogs, I found out when I protested they should wait a minute, that not all dogs were bad, that I personally knew two good ones, Sean right here for one. They hissed me down. They bristled. They hooted when Sean, hurt by the “sons of bitches” they nastily kept throwing into the debate regardless of my heated objections, slunk from the room with a little whimper. They catcalled specieist slurs after him, singsonged “gimp, gimp, gimp.” A rough bunch, those ferals. They lived by the law of the jungle and took no prisoners. It goes without saying, moonlight and amore aside, we permanents wouldn’t have changed places with them. Maybe because we’d been through vivisection and had come out impaired, the pleasures the young ones beat the drum for aroused only a fleeting desire to taste them. How we lived—safe, loved, cared for—was how we wanted to live. Who needed foraging for food and shelter? We loved comfort. Snuggled against Sean’s belly, cozy and warm no matter how rain slammed the windows or snow piled up outside, we talked about how lucky we were not to be homeless, and how lucky the ferals no longer fit for that life were that Elizabeth (after phone-call marathons) always managed to find them homes. Ah, those were the days, my friend—the happy days we thought would never end.
We were a family. Tiny Bubby I loved like a sister and FDR and I became very close. Maybe because of my outgoing nature and readiness to put a positive spin on everything, once when the others had dozed off, he’d snapped out of his depressed silence enough to confide. “Shit, Rocky, what good am I to myself or anyone else? I can’t shit or pee by myself. Liz has to press my bladder and pull out my crap. Why didn’t I just die before they saved me? Saved me for what, Rock? I don’t even try to haul myself around anymore. It just dirties the sleeve.” “Listen,” I’d answered, my heart going out to him. “You never know. Miracles happen. Aren’t we living proof?” Though personally an agnostic, I’d platudinized: “Maybe if you pray to Almighty Cat— ” “Bullshit, Rock!” he growled. “I look stupid to you?”
Well, that woke Sean up. On days he wasn’t sick as a dog—driven by pain into grim reticence—like most dogs he had something to say about everything. Irish Setter on his mama’s side, on his good days he’d spice up his speech with an Irish brogue. “What’s this I’m hearin? Almighty Dog love yehs, sure and it’s Him I be praying to,” he told FDR. “I’m tellin yeh ‘tis Himself I thanks for me own survival.”
And because we all loved that dog, not even Bob challenged the merits of prayer to an Almighty Dog we knew couldn’t coexist with a presumptive Almighty Cat. Live and let live. Besides, considering his panic attacks, considering how he’d described the crawly sensations inside his hacked and scarred chest, the awful pains he suffered because of his “surgeries,” considering the sleepless nights his terrified screams gave us, who knew whether he was serious or horsing around? I for one always thought it unlikely that a dog of his intelligence would seriously pray to a Supreme Dog who let what happened to him happen, a Force so indifferent to suffering and prayer, an Almighty better named Dog of Sorrows.
May he rest in peace, our Sean. Mainly with a big grin on his muzzle despite his troubles, to the end he displayed the same optimism I’d admired so much in Shep—a quality dogs as a whole possess in abundance and cats as a whole lack. Most cats, like Bob and Mama, are cynics who snort at the notion of clouds having silver linings. Clouds, they’ll point out to the few like me who believe that crap, commit suicide. After they rain cats and dogs for a while that’s the end of them. So, I’m the odd ball, atypical, not your average cat. Why else do I believe even now at the end of the ninth there’s a chance Dr. Cohen’ll materialize to lay on healing hands?
Listen, hope’s as cheap as despair, Fairbanks. So what can it cost you?
And that’s the key, isn’t it, that whether you hope or despair affects nothing? At Elizabeth’s, Bob’s mantra was This is Too Good to be True, This is Too Good to be True, in contrast to my assumption our happy present would last. After all, didn’t we deserve lasting happiness because of what we’d been through from day one? For that matter didn’t every cat deserve it just for being a cat? And finally our lives were coming up roses which would bloom, I thought, until the last petal fell in some far-off future when I was ready to ascend (speaking figuratively) to the hypothetical kingdom of Cat Almighty.
So, brother, who was right?
Every night when Elizabeth returned from feeding strays her stew, that offal delight on which the five of us thrived, with a flourish and relieved sigh she’d tear off her flaming wig, light up, and eventually shower. Then, thin gray hair charged with static electricity, she’d collapse on the sofa to watch TV—Sean and FDR at her feet, either Bob, Bubby, or I on her lap, the other two at her sides. If I won the coveted spot, luxuriating in her scent of soap and talc and tobacco overlaid by the always-present aroma of stew, I’d knead her robe, purr in operatic crescendos, butt her cheek, and beam up silent meows. She’d smoke and cough and drink coffee and eat popcorn. She’d rub our ears, rake Sean and FDR with her toes. But more and more she began nodding off right away, sometimes with a lit cigarette, causing us to jump up and mew in alarm until she woke with a start. “Jesus, what’s the matter with me?”
And too often just as we were settling down, her daughter would call, sending us flying in all directions when she got up to answer the phone. “Shit!” she’d mutter. “Why can’t she call earlier?” Then she’d be tapping her foot, massaging her temples, rolling her eyes. She’d hold the receiver away from her ear—usually Cyn’d be complaining about something— and grunt, smoke, endure. Only rarely, like the time Cyn announced her intention to augment her breasts—did Elizabeth’s simmer reach the boiling point and spur her into participation. She objected on grounds of risk, she said fifty-two was too old for such craziness, she went so far as to suggest that considering the business Cyn gave him, she should put the surgeon on retainer. Well, needless to say the fur flew until Elizabeth gave up. “Enough already, no more! Right, I should mind my own business. Right, it’s your money, your boobs. True, I spend a fortune myself on damned animals and cancer sticks! Right, Cyn—I’m a fine one to talk about extravagance. Look, let’s not fight, I—. Shit, can you believe it? She hung up!”
What I couldn’t understand was why they persisted in a relationship no cat would’ve stood for. Cats seldom tolerate the slightest hint of an insult, let alone the crap Cyn dished out nightly and on Sunday visits during which she modeled new clothes in which her augmented bosom strained, her armpits puckered, her cramped zaftig hips and thighs made sitting a challenge. “Size six, Ma! How about that?” “Wonderful, Cyn. Nice. Such a pretty color.” “Designer, Ma.” “Ahhh, classy!” On those visits she presented skinny bouquets of dried flowers or wilting potted plants, the care of which Elizabeth needed like a hole in the head. Occasionally she presented a cake phony as she was. “Don’t be afraid, Ma. No-cal sweetener, no sat fats.” “So, who’s afraid? I could use a few pounds anyway. Who worries about such things?”
Those visits. Because we knew she hated us as much as we hated her, as soon as we heard her bellow at the door
we scooted into the bedroom and stayed there, knowing that after her offerings and garments had been duly praised, she’d start bitching that the house smelled like a zoo, that she couldn’t sit anywhere without fur! fur! fur! ruining her things, that the mess cooking on the stove made the house stink like a slaughterhouse. And when Elizabeth sought solace in one cigarette too many, an assault of a different order would be launched. “You’re suicidal, Ma. Listen to that cough. You look like hell. But do you even try to cut down, forget quit? No, not you, Ma. That junk you wear around your neck will keep you safe, right? And have you ever thought those stupid animals could be partly to blame for that cough? People become allergic, you know.” Raking her streaked and straightened hair, glaring from her mascaraed eyes, tugging her skirt, she would stand, wafting a cloud of heavy perfume that made Elizabeth cough harder and snatch up her bag. “I don’t know why I bother. You don’t care about me, about yourself, about anything but those damned flea bags in there.” Invariably she left in a huff. And we left the bedroom to rally round a glum Elizabeth.
That bitch should only get what’s coming to her.
12
Well, Cyn may’ve been a heartless bitch, but she had it right about the smoking. Elizabeth’s cough got worse and worse. By spring it kept her up most of the night. Hearing her hack away for hours worried all of us, but knowing what happened to Mama, Bob and I worried the most.
She looked terrible. Like Mama she became ever thinner than she’d been, and as sleeplessness took its toll, the splotches under her eyes grew ever darker. She became increasingly nervous, jumping a mile high whenever Sean screamed or the phone rang or the doorbell buzzed. She told Manya to forget about the doorbell and just come in. She began turning off the phone after Cyn’s nightly call because, she told Manya, “It makes me too nervous and it’s never good news. I need a break from the horror stories they call to tell me. Let ‘em tell me during the day. For Christ’s sake, I’m seventy-five years old, I need a little peace. I—.” But the coughing and gasping for breath, worse than I’d ever heard it, interrupted, scaring us cats into a huddle, causing Sean to whimper and pace. While poor Manya bit her lips and hugged Elizabeth’s heaving shoulders until the attack at long last ended.
Sisypuss: Memoirs of a Vagabond Cat Page 8