Kitties in the Midst

      Kitties in the Midst

   Deborah Klein

Friends and family who know me also know I will be a lone, old woman surrounded by cats, or at least a cat, until I die.  If the nursing home won’t allow them, my daughter will smuggle one in in a Little Debbie cookie box.

I love all the creatures, (except poisonous   snakes, spiders, and other really ugly, terrifying things that breathe.)   But I respect every creature’s right to be here.  I’m certainly not worthy of having dominion over them, that’s for damned sure. That was one of God’s stupid ideas, putting us in charge. Lot’s wife was another stupid decision.  So was menopause and cramps.

I mean, make up your friggin mind already!  Do you want the meek to inherit the earth?  Or do you want people, who, last I checked, aren’t the meekest shlobs around the place, to have dominion over it?  I’m here to tell ya, humans are about as ugly and mean as life forms can get if you want my opinion.  But you didn’t ask for my opinion. You just went ahead and issued thou shalts and shall nots even though you waffle like crazy on what we should and shouldn’t do from chapter to chapter.  Who was your editor?  Jeezus.

I talk to toads, lizards, butterflies, you name it. But I can’t usually find two words to string together at the office or social gatherings.  I don’t care if anyone hears me admonishing toads for venturing in to the parking garage, or telling a lizard he should send a card to his Mom once in a while. Would it kill him?    

So it’s no surprise that my driveway resembles the African Veldt. I come home at night to the neighborhood cats in repose, lounging like little lions across the landscape.  They wait for treats and minor conversation.

 I know each of their distinct personalities.  I observe them, in the wild, from my kitchen window. I know their lineage and characteristics, just like Fossey knew her gorillas.  If Dian Fossey had not been murdered, I believe she would’ve become an old woman with cats, living in a little village near her gorillas. 

When people come to visit, they often point at one of the felines and ask if it’s mine.

I launch into a long explanation about the life of the outside cats until the visitor’s eyes fog-over and a smile freezes on his face. 

I explain that you don’t own cats, they own you.  I tell him the cats outside are feral, because it’s just wrong to allow a domestic to venture into the wild.

“Silver” is a feral Tabby with green eyes the color of Super Fly’s polyester bellbottoms.   She is elegant yet also very hot.  She’s one of the more popular cats among her peers. She’s about 7 years old now and still has that “it” factor.  [Insert Cougar joke here.]

 But ever since we captured her and had her spayed she’s put on a little in the mid-section.  I totally get it, although I, myself, have not been fixed.  

She had three litters that I’m aware of since I moved into my house.  It’s actually her house. At least the outside is.  She was here before me.   Her kittens were all adorable and she was an extremely attentive mother.  I have friends who popped out kids like Silver did, and they raised them perfectly as well.  But people don’t have to worry much about their kids being carried away by hawks or other animals. It’s a very tough world out there for cats.

Silver wasn’t a slut by any means.  She’s only loved one cat, until my Lester came along. Her baby daddy is a benevolent old tom with more scars than Joe Frasier’s opponents.   He’s skinny and crooked.  I saw one ear dangling from his head a few years ago. It didn’t fall off, but healed a little lower than the other. He shows up now and then, about every four or five months, and she cleans him and finds a good sunbeam in the grass for his old bones to lie in.  He’s afraid of people, but he’s always been kind to the kittens, allowing them to crawl all over him. He’s more a lover than a fighter, which probably explains his battered condition.  I’m always amazed that he’s still alive. 

Silver has one remaining kitten who is probably three years old now.  We had him fixed too.  I don’t think we really needed to bother because he’s a total Momma’s Boy.  He’s also gay. I call him Little Bear. There used to be another pitch-black cat, a younger one, who made love to him frequently in my garden.  My friend Nancy thought I exaggerated about their relationship until she brought me home one night, and the headlights of her truck caught them in the act.  We sat and watched as though we’d rented porn.  They didn’t even stop.  The black cat groomed Little Bear when they were done.  When Little Bear runs, he throws his front feet out to the side like a male dancer running down the sidewalk towards Starbucks on his way to a try-out.

He’s not terribly good at climbing.   Silver can climb anything as though she had wings.  He sits beneath her and cries.  He’ll let me pick him up now, after years of gaining his trust, during our morning breakfast ritual.  He likes to be held for a little while until Silver becomes agitated and I have to put him down.  He looks up at me and winks, we’ll do it again tomorrow.

Lola moved in to my carport two years ago.  I thought she was a mean tom cat because she sprays on everything and fights.    Imagine my surprise when a little boy rolled up on his skateboard one Saturday afternoon to see her.

“Is that your cat?” I asked him.

“Ya, this is Lola.  She’s thirteen.    She was our only pet until we got a puppy.  She didn’t like it so she ran away.”

“How did she get out?”

“We let her out every day. She just never came back after we got the dog.”

Great, I thought.  Another family that thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to let their domestic cat out.  People don’t let dogs out to wander all day.  Why cats?  I didn’t blame Lola for feeling betrayed.  Her boy walks up every weekend to check on her.  She won’t go home.  He’s tried to coax her. So she stays and sprays.

She’s mean as hell too.  She’s the alpha on the Veldt.  She beats up Silver every chance she gets and hisses at my boy Lester through the screens.  I’ve had to replace two because of the holes she’s torn trying to get to him. She’ll chase any cat who wanders up to the house.  She sprays on everything to make it her own, including me on one occasion.    But she’s old.  I feel bad for her.  So I make sure she has clean towels and a bowl of food and water.  I feed her separately from the others.  They’ve figured out what time of day she’s not around. They hang out on the patio during Lola-free hours.

Silver loves Lester.  She’s like a thirteen-year-old with Justin Bieber. Or whatever the hell his name is. She sits on the other side of the screen and makes squeaking noises until he notices.  He lumbers over and she rubs against him through the screen,   then she shows him her ass.  Lester is half her age.  Plus, he’s a typical guy and doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing.  He usually yawns and walks away while she’s in the throes of courting.   I’ve never seen her react to any other cat that way, except for her baby daddy.  But Lester does not have social skills where women are concerned.   I’ve gone so far as to carry him outside for her.  She comes up and rubs his face.  He maintains a stupid, dazed look in his eyes.  He’s just not that in to her.

See?  I’ve gone on about cats for almost three full sheets of paper. Lester and the new kitten, Colette, are snoozing on the kitchen table as I write this.  They’re exhausted from prying the cupboards open and dragging the pans and Brillo pads out. The toilet paper in the bathroom was tedious work as well.  Colette is an apprentice, but she learns fast.  She’s gifted.  I keep her away from Silver.  I don’t want her to get any ideas.  They’ll sleep for a few hours, then clock back in to create havoc and take multiple dumps in the litter box.

 This is life in the neighborhood wildlife preserve.  

My apologies to God.   But he pisses me off sometimes. 

Hey God, tell Dian I said hey.  The animals need more people like her down here.

 

Deborah Klein teaches a funny writing class at the Safety Harbour Museum on Wednesdays. You can find her at stufffromthelaundrychute.blogspot.com . You can find the Safety Harbour Writers and Poets on facebook.

*This story will appear in the March 2013 issue of Authored By Schrödinger's Cat*