If you follow this reasoning to its logical end, you find yourself at the proposition that life is inherently intelligent. Nor does this intelligence require brain, because most living things do not have brains. Yet they respond appropriately to the world about them; otherwise they would not exist. The sugar maple, as good an example as any from the plant kingdom, alters its physiology for the onset of extreme cold, which would otherwise kill its cells. It sheds its leaves so the snow does not weigh down its branches and break them off, and it enters the winter prepared for the forces. Taking this notion to its ultimate conclusion, life is not merely intelligent: Life is intelligence.
As I peered down at my ankle with Darwin attached, I gazed upon the native intelligence of life and it spoke to me. It spoke the intuitive language of posture and gesture that lies beneath self-conscious intellect, and its voice was clear and unequivocal. Its message was profound. It comprehended all. The sense lay in the image, and this is how the logic went:
Darwin wasn't begging me to desist, as a dog would. He was telling me; with his teeth pressing into my flesh he held all the power. Clearly he was restraining himself and he was doing so in expectation of my next move. He was negotiating! Having no time to fabricate a conscious thought, I knew in this flash of awareness that he had pulled a coup d'état and turned the peck order upside down. Now he was dominant.
In the same instantaneous flash, my instincts weighed the terms that Darwin was offering: My ankle for a few idle laughs and a trip to the emergency room. A no-brainer, literally. A root could figure it out.
"Niiiiiicce Daaarwin! Gooooooooood boy!!!!!" I whined. I bent down ever so slowly, holding out my hand ever so submissively. So very gingerly, so very delicately, I extended my hand to pet him, watching his eyes for the slightest sign of agitation, and finally, sensing permission granted, I so, so, very, very gently touched his head and ran my hand slowly, slowly down his neck and back, understanding for the first time in my life the thrill of disabling a bomb.
***
We had arrived at a new level in our relationship. I could have invoked my humanity, put on boots, and continued to tease him. I could have insisted on dominance and smashed him down. But that would have ruined a friendship based on the equality of souls; to force him down would have crippled the love between me and this small creature.
From this attempt to tease Darwin, I learned that respect is a tool for dealing with the harsh realities not only of the animal peck order but of the human hierarchy as well. When you respect another being, you are restraining your self. You curb the urge to put him down, force him onto a lower rung of the dominance ladder. Showing respect, you defer voluntarily, thus accepting the other as an equal on the same rung. Nor does the object of your respect have to be a human being; it can be any being.
I saw, too, that respect exists in two forms or levels. The first is based on the fear of retribution, as Darwin illustrated with his fangs, and is therefore forced on others from without. This is the respect found among animals in their social interactions. It is found widely in human societies in the enforcement of law and among nations in the prominent display of military arms. It is the respect that parents have demanded during five thousand years of civilization in the rearing of children and, until recently, was taught over a parent's knee. The good parent pointed out that this humiliating position could be avoided if the child respected others, respected property, respected the law, respected God, and proceeded down the list of civilized restraints.
The second level of respect is relatively sublime because it comes from within. It is not imposed through the threat of reprisal. You enjoy the act of deferring to others because you have learned that like begets like, and as you treat others with respect, so they respect you. When the day comes that you realize this humble fact—that is the day you become an adult. This too, I learned from Darwin.
9. Hospice Care
THE WEEKS PASSED. Our bond deepened, grew more subtle. Things were good. One afternoon at the beginning of March, I was sitting at my desk, writing and pondering, when Darwin came down the hall to my office. He walked slowly, tentatively, as if he weren't sure where he wanted to go, and while his movement appeared normal at first glance, something was not right. The sort of thing you don't recognize at the time but notice with shock later, in retrospection. He walked into my office and meowed softly, a sigh of weariness and melancholy. He wandered over to the window behind my chair and crouched to jump onto the sill, where he liked to stretch out and gaze down on the neighbor's garden through half-closed eyes. He tried to jump, but he could not get off the ground and fell back feebly.
He tried again, pawing weakly at the sill, his white booties soft against the surface of the wall. Then he sank slowly to the floor, his footpads leaving eight parallel smudges in long streaks on the flat whiteness of the wall as his paws slid slowly downward.
Such a small, quiet act. The mind's cold blue eye observed, taking notes. Whatever was happening to Darwin bore no resemblance to the gradual loss of weight and spirit that the feline leukemia virus was supposed to cause. I had prepared myself for that, primed myself to watch for the slow incursions on life, but this display did not match the medical prognosis. Electrified with panic, I ran down the stairs to the storeroom, pulled the transport box from the shelf, strode back up the stairs, and picked Darwin up. He offered himself limply, without spirit, and I placed him gently in the dark interior of the box. I knew then that whatever the matter was, it was serious.
***
Dr. Mader lifted Darwin up, laid him on the stainless steel examining slab, looked in his mouth.
"His gums are pale—not getting enough oxygen. Let's keep him overnight." With one needle he took a blood sample. With another he gave a shot of tetracycline. Then a young technician picked Darwin up and carried him into the inner sanctum of the medical room. Somewhere within, a cat mewled and a small dog yapped inside their cubicles of stainless steel.
I returned home to a lonely space. Darwin's water bowl sat on the kitchen floor and his food bowl rested clean and shiny on the kitchen counter. Everywhere I looked I saw his limp, listless body in the assistant's arms, the stainless steel door shutting behind them. The cold mind, the rational one, then rose from my body to observe my writhing emotions. Why do these images of Darwin come up, asked the blue intellect? Why does the brain produce clear images of Darwin when he is not here? Why does the brain produce such pain on the absence of a mere cat? The questions were now posted. Subsequent observations, subsequent cogitations might produce the answers.
At nine the next morning the telephone rang. The doctor's voice cut straight to Darwin's diagnosis. His blood had tested positive for a new disease, feline infectious anemia, commonly called by its initials, F.I.A. Feline infectious anemia was caused by a rickettsial bacterium, Haemobartonella felis, which attaches itself to red blood cells, inducing the cat's immune system to mistake its own cells for bacterial cells and destroy them, causing acute anemia. That is why Darwin's gums were pale. Feline infectious anemia frequently appears in cats already infected with the feline leukemia virus and it moves fast. If not treated aggressively, it kills in a matter of days. Darwin would have to remain hospitalized until treatment was effective.
The next day I could not stop worrying. All attempts at work produced nothing but lost time, and finally it occurred to me that maybe I could visit Darwin in the hospital. Why did it take so long to think of this obvious notion? Were veterinary patients any different from the human kind, to be shut away in the hospital without visitors until cured and sent home?
Dr. Mader and I had liked each other from the beginning; he respected my knowledge of biology and I respected his experience in medicine, so I called and asked if I could visit Darwin. By all means, he replied. More people ought to visit their pets in the hospital.
***
Darwin had a private room on the third level of holding cages, most of which were occupied. In some there was nothing to be seen but a motionl
ess lump curled up along the back wall. In others, a dog, a cat, a rabbit, or some other creature stood behind the bars, waiting with great expectations for its owner.
Darwin lay curled in his litter box, submerged so deeply in sleep that he appeared comatose. His tail and hindquarters lay in urine that had collected around the edges where the litter had not been scattered. A catheter ran from his penis, and an IV needle was taped to his right foreleg. His breathing was so shallow that I had to peer closely to detect any motion. I opened the door and softly called his name. His ears moved ever so slightly, but his eyes remained closed. Tears welled up behind my eyes and in my throat, and I swallowed hard to force them back. Tears are so naked, so vulnerable. An instinct to suppress them.
I bent over and spoke his name again. His eyes opened just a sliver, but signaled recognition, and I ran my hand over his head and down his neck and back as gently as I could, just skimming the fur. I bent lower so my ear was a few inches from his head and stroked him ever so gently again and again. Then, so quiet that it seemed far, far away, I heard a familiar sound. Darwin was purring. Joy swelled in my chest and squeezed more tears from my eyes because Darwin recognized that I was there. With wet cheeks I stroked and stroked his matted, soiled hair, oblivious to time, reveling in the faint and distant sound of the cat's soul.
I don't know how long I stood there, absorbed in his misery, but this was a working hospital, and life and death went on around us. While I attended Darwin, a large, gray-black cat with bold white markings and light yellow eyes had arrived, following a collision with a car. He was a sweet, gentle creature and he made no attempt to bite or scratch or otherwise resist examination. Abducted to an alien world, he submitted patiently to the pokings and squeezings of a strange man, who said in a flat voice that the cat's left foreleg was broken. The owner then telephoned, and Dr. Mader took the call on a cordless phone. The owner wanted the cat euthanized. She did not want to spend the money for medical care.
Dr. Mader did not cajole or beg her to reconsider. He simply said that the cat would recover fully if treated; he asked if she was sure of her decision; without hesitation the owner said yes. Thus was the cat's fate decided. Dr. Mader then turned to one of his assistants and said matter-of-factly that the owner wanted the cat put down. The assistant, a thin, sensitive young man, nodded and set about preparing the equipment. The other assistant, a quiet young woman, held the cat in her lap while the young man shaved a small area on the inside of its right foreleg. Both assistants bowed their heads in a silent, dignified gesture to this lovely creature who was about to die, as if to say "We love you. There is no other way." Then the young man administered a hypodermic injection. The cat lay there, calm, as the young woman held him in her arms and stroked his head and back. Gradually he grew drowsy. His muscles relaxed, almost imperceptibly. His eyelids began to droop, then his head sank slowly onto the young woman's lap and lay there motionless, with his eyes half open ... and lay, and lay ... until there came an instant when you somehow knew his soul had slipped silently, invisibly, into eternity. No raging against the dying of the light. A simple passing into the light.
***
This big, beautiful, vigorous, healthy cat, and the owner had elected to end its life because treatment cost money, and here was my Darwin, his body curled in mortal combat against his own immune system. Tears had irritated my nose and made breathing difficult, and the hopelessness of it all pressed down with an aching, suffocating weight. The blue intellect hovered above, pointing out that health is like wealth: you cannot take it with you. But unlike wealth, you cannot give it away. I would have paid any price to buy the health of that poor, unwanted cat and give it to my friend.
Breathing deeply, I managed to reinstate my composure and regain sight through the liquid blur. Then I noticed a large red tag on Darwin's cage. "FeLV POSITIVE," a warning to regard him as highly infectious, a carrier of the plague, a pariah.
***
When I called the hospital the next day, Dr. Mader informed me that Darwin's spirits had lifted noticeably after my visit. He was still in critical condition, however, and I visited him again that afternoon. This time he recognized me as soon as I spoke and leaned into my hand, lingering and savoring my touch.
The visits became a daily ritual. Each afternoon I spent an hour by Darwin's side, stroking, talking, but mostly spending the time quietly, giving thanks, relishing the time we had together. Despite his illness, he still lived, and for the first time in my life I began to comprehend the miracle of each living moment, to feel the complexity of a living organism. My knowledge of biology slowly emerged from years past and I began to remember the incredible physiology of the blood, the nervous system, the kidneys, the liver, the spleen, the heart. I savored the warmth from Darwin's body and recalled the basics of temperature regulation and water balance, and then, of course, the immune system and physiological defense. Words could not do justice. What was Darwin but a universe in a skin?
Recovery proceeded slowly. Darwin's temperature remained high. The IV remained in his foreleg, bleeding tetracycline directly into the bloodstream to combat the Haemobartonella microbe. As one day led to another and another, the costs added up, although I didn't know what they were and made a point not to ask. I was going to give Darwin the best care possible—that was not negotiable with my rational self—and I would simply have to deal with the cost later, as a separate crisis.
The emotional costs were also accumulating, probably more for Darwin than for me, huddled as he was in his stainless steel sanctuary. Strange hands opened the door several time each day, often to slip needles under his skin for various injections, now and then to draw blood from the carotid artery in his neck. The intravenous needle was repositioned from time to time and the catheter removed for relief. Alien animals occupied the cages above him and on both sides, emitting alien sounds and alien odors, and occasionally shuffling about in search of a comfortable position. What does a creature feel on entering the hospital, knowing only blind, instinctive terror and incapable of conceiving the reasons for his internment? The enormity cannot be imagined. That it saves his life means nothing when he cannot conceive of death.
***
As for me, I wanted to deny the undeniable. The lower, more primitive depths of the mind cannot face the notion of death because the spirit of DNA rises up from the neurons of the brain, coalescing into the genie of the human mind. "Thou Shalt Survive" is the First Commandment of DNA, and each cell obeys it blindly and mechanically, as does the genie. Yet that same mind holds the capacity to comprehend death. It knows that we will die someday. And suddenly we find ourselves staring into the existential dilemma—that nuclear furnace of paradox—where the deepest essence of life, the will to survive, comes face to face with the truth of reality, and the conflict is too intense to face. It is the curse of biological intellect.
The upshot? Why gods, of course, gods created in our image and projected back upon the world. Very large, very powerful mamas and papas who understand our needs and look out for our interests, assuring us that the soul lives beyond the body, and giving us dominion over the beasts and fish and fowl. These self-serving projections comfort us as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death and hold us back as we peer over the edge into the abyss.
The gods were small consolation, however, since those of the West have little time for the plight of animals. The only answer was hope, which arises from ashes. Hope is closely allied with augury, an attempt to project the future, and medical science is rife with augury in the guise of data and statistical projections. Body temperature is an excellent example of how this works.
The normal cat maintains a body temperature between 100.4°F and 102.5°F, and although body heat, like breathing, is something we take for granted, it requires a miraculously strong, healthy physiology in order to maintain a steady level. A normal body temperature is therefore an encouraging omen, and each day my first act on arriving at the hospital was to check Darwin's chart for the lates
t temperature reading.
On the first day it read 103°F, and even though he was nearly comatose, this was essentially a normal reading, a good omen indeed. On the second day it jumped to 105°F, but that was easy to explain. A fever was to be expected in the seriously ill. On the third day the temperature dropped to 102°F, and I walked several inches off the ground on pure euphoria. To hell with the calculating side of the mind, which urged caution in its usual sour way. On the fourth day the calculating side proved right as Darwin's temperature jumped to 104°F and my spirits dropped. No pagan ever stood by his fire, examining guts in the sand, with more trepidation than I stood before Darwin's data attempting to twist the prognosis in our favor.
The same emotions heaved and pitched according to Darwin's weight. Overall he was gaining weight, and hope clutched this as a major sign of improvement. It helped me minimize the forlorn image of Darwin harnessed to medical technology, reminding me of Edward Abbey's immortal description of patients in the terminal ward with "rubber tubes stuck up ... nose, prick, asshole, with blood transfusions and intravenous feeding ... the whole nasty routine to which most dying men, in our time, are condemned."
***
So it went, temperature up one day, normal the next, weight returning to its original point, then dropping below, with hope pulling each observation, each reading, toward a positive interpretation. Finally, after ten days, Dr. Mader released Darwin to my care, accompanied by a bill for several hundred dollars, which still represented a significant discount. Had the animal hospital charged for each cotton swab, each cotton ball, each grain of cat litter, in the spirit of a human hospital, the bill would have been considerably higher.
A Cat Named Darwin Page 9