I feel like I could just post about the cats for hours and hours. I’ve been thinking a lot about my past cats.
My first cat was a shelter cat: Jasmine. She was half siamese and she picked me out. She screamed bloody murder the whole drive home in a box she peed in, but once home, she was always my cat. She slept under my covers with me and tucked mostly dead mice in my dresser drawers so that I’d have enough to eat. My stepdad threw her out of my room once and down the basement stairs once. She eventually ran away one day when she was probably around 15 or 16, to die, I was told. Or else she was out roaming and something killed her. In any case she left home and never returned.
My next cat, Franklin, was a gift from my aunt. He was a silver-point half-siamese–half barn cat and half show cat. A few years later, my aunt gave me Allie, a tiny siamese with several flaws that made her “worthless”–she was too small, had little cloven paws, like “live long and prosper” and an overbite (called a parrot mouth). Plus her farts could peel paint. She and Frankie were mine through college. Allie got out and ended up having two kittens. We found a home for one and kept the other, Esmerelda. When my ex-husband and I were planning to leave PDX for New Orleans, we re-homed gassy Allie, with a printmaker who said he also had deadly farts. Then one day Frankie disappeared. I called all the shelters, but no luck. He was gone. He loved riding in cars, and would often try to slip in the car with us, so I imagine he hopped in someone else’s car and away he went. We took Esmerelda to New Orleans and then to Santa Fe, and when my husband and I broke up, he took the cat (and dog, by then).
I was catless for awhile. After my husband, I lived for a time with a man who said no pets. It was an interesting rule for him to lay down, since I paid for everything, but laid it was. As soon as I asked him to leave, I accepted two brothers from a coworker, named Simon (after LeBon) and PJ (originally after Harvey, cause when he was tiny, we thought he a she). I had PJ and Simon when I moved to Texas, when I bought my house, and when I was laid off and had to move back in with my folks. They were not pleased about the cats (and later told me that if I got a dog, the dog and I would not be welcome to stay there–so I never got a dog, because ever since that layoff, I have not ever been confident that I might not be homeless in a year), but they put up with them. When I got into grad school, I had to find them homes, as I was told it would be tough to find an apartment that would allow them. Since then, I have again been catless, but for the fleeting cats that have lived where I stayed.
I was thinking today of the two cats in Central NY. I don’t remember their names now, but they were old. One was over eighteen, I was told, and the other over sixteen. They were the remnants of a past marriage. When I finally scheduled the moving truck to enable my escape from that lying, manipulative, abusive man, he borrowed the neighbors shotgun and shot those cats in the woods as punishment. He used three shells, because with the older cat, he said, he missed on the first try. The neighbors waited to come by until he’d left on business the next day. “We thought the third might have been you,” they laughed, nearly convincingly.
My past cats have all been between friendly and sociable. These two are different. Terrified and anxious, both. I’m hoping they continue to warm up and feel safe. Today is already better than yesterday. I’ve missed having cats.