We’re trying to buy a house. If all goes well, we will close on a duplex on June 9th. Let me tell you… there’s a lot of grown up stuff that goes into this.
And I don’t understand most of it.
Here’s what I do understand… We wanted to find a house with a fenced in backyard. Actually we had a long list of things we wanted. And the duplex we found has most of them. Whatever, it’s a place to put our stuff and raise the kids.
Back to the fence… this house has a small fenced in backyard. The girls (my wife included) want a dog.
I, however, do not. I accept that I have been outvoted on the dog issue but I’m not happy about it. Pets are smelly, they require attention and… sigh.
Dammit I want my own pet.
I used to have Steve-the-Cat. Steve-the-Cat was the best cat anyone could ever ask for. I had to put Steve-the-Cat to sleep last year. It was very hard because I had Steve for 13 years. Steve hated everyone but me. Steve loved me. Steve grew to tolerate the existence of a few other people on this planet but generally speaking he despised everyone. He treated the world around him like I would were it not for legal statutes and relatively large doses of anti-depressants. He said what I was always thinking.
What else could you ask for? Well… if you’re a step parent, you could ask for a lot more… like a pet that doesn’t try to maim the children at every opportunity.
Steve was the last hold-out on my former life. I consider my former life to be all that was before I was a parent, a husband and a grown up. Steve represents my bachelorhood. Let me tell you about Steve-The-Cat. Some of you have met Steve, but none of you know Steve.
At the end of my junior year of college it was determined that a select number of seniors would be permitted to live off campus. This was largely due to the fact that there was an influx of applications to the school and no more closets in which to cram students. Upcoming seniors were given a random number. The administration would begin to call numbers in order and if your number was called you had the option of living off campus and taking a roommate with you. They did this until they had basically let enough of us evict ourselves that they could admit new students without committing some kind of human rights violation. The goal was 100. So the lower your number, the sooner you were called and the better chance you had to live off campus.
I was number 11. Sweet. I chose my best friend as my roommate though he had actually knocked up his girlfriend and they made… other living arrangements. Therefore, my first apartment was without a roommate (which was also pretty sweet).
I got a tiny little apartment that didn’t allow pets. So naturally, I wanted a pet. And coming from a childhood home that once held as many as 7 cats (as well as an iguana), I wanted a cat. I started searching the paper for ads for free kittens. By the way, I know Craigslist was a thing back then (it was 2003) but I wasn’t the technological super genius I am today (#iknowwhatahashtagisnow). I found an ad, called the number and spoke to what I felt was the sweetest old lady on Earth.
“Hello?”
“Hi, I’m calling about the ad in the paper about the kittens.”
“Oh wonderful! Yes, there’s a lot of them and I want them to have a good home. How many do you want sweetie?”
“Just one ma’am.”
“Well that will be fine too.” I could hear in her voice that she had at least two pies on a windowsill.
She gave me her address and I headed out. Her farm was a bit of a trek from my apartment. When I got there I had to drive over one of those farm gate thingies that’s basically a big hole with metal bars over it. I always see those at dairy farms. My assumption is that cows won’t walk over that because they’re afraid their hooves would get stuck?
Who the hell discovered that? Is that what scientists worked on before subatomic particles?
“Ok Dr. Cowenstein, let’s see what happens when we make the cow walk across these metal bars.”
“Of course Dr. Metalbarsenburg. Eureka! Just as we thought! The cow doesn’t want to break it’s legs!”
Why can’t cows just be more careful? Why can’t you hunt cows? Isn’t that the biggest game you could hunt in this country outside of buffalo? Wouldn’t that save money on African Safari trips? What about zoos? Why can’t we hunt the animals in the zoo? Not in the cages, that’s sick. But like, maybe out back in the parking lot or something.
Ooo… that’s in poor taste. R.I.P. giant gorilla at that zoo who got shot for dragging a little kid around. Let’s pass a law, now that I’m thinking about it. Zoos should have rodeo clowns to protect people who fall into the enclosures because screw you clown, that’s the only acceptable position for your kind.
Anyways, I get over the cow murderer and past the barn and in the distance, I see the house and the old lady is already on the porch. This is a weathered old lady. She’s a little hunched over, it seems every step is causing her pain. The drive leads to a small patch of gravel between the barn and house. She slowly makes her way to my truck as I get out to meet her.
“Hello ma’am.”
“You must be the young man about the kittens. Well they’re right in there.” She points to the barn.
It’s an old barn. It’s fallen into disrepair. And while it once may have protected the equipment of a thriving farm, it’s now a simple withered relic… a reminder of days long gone. The small, barely-beaten path leading to it is outlined in rusted milk cans, abandoned appliances and paint cans.
I remember being overwhelmed by a sense of longing for a life I’d never lived. I remember feeling safe and warm. It was sunny that day. And while there were no pies in eyesight, I could have sworn that the comfort of every grandmother ever was alive in the overgrown wheat and weeds of this time-forgotten oasis of nostalgia.
And I remember that feeling so well because of the instant and sharp contrast that washed over me when that sweet old lady opened the door of her barn to reveal the torture-porn movie set of what was now clearly an evil witch temporarily caught in a flattering light by a guy craving pie and a kitten’s love.
You ever see The Evil Dead? If you haven’t, go find it. It’s the quintessential “bunch of teenagers in a cabin in the woods that get massacre by evil stuff” film. There’s a scene where the group arrives to the creepy cabin and when they open the door, the shot moves to the darkness inside revealed by light as the sun pushes through the opening door. Plus there’s this really creepy squeaky old door sound happening. You actually see the dust in the air, reflecting off the sun. The whole scene screams, “GO TO THE HOLIDAY INN YOU IDIOTS BECAUSE YOU’RE GOING TO GET ALL THE POSSESSED AND EATEN IN THIS JOINT”
Oh you think I’m being over dramatic? Who the hell do you think you are? I was there and this place was evil.
Only instead of a (visable) copy of the Book of the Dead (bound in human flesh and inked in human blood), there was a necropolis of feral creatures and their survivors. The first thing I noticed was the smell. My dad used to hunt. He was especially good at killing squirrels and rabbits (delicious by the way). I remember him cleaning the game and that unmistakable odor.
Death.
The light reached into the barn and grabbed at the stale, rancid air. It illuminated an emotion I’d not felt in a long time… genuine fear. Suddenly believing the free kitten advertisement was a ploy to lure unsuspecting victims to sacrifice, I turned, considering fleeing. But she was there, blocking the doorway.
The light was eclipsed by her haggard form. To flee would mean confronting the witch in her chamber of death. I’d have a better chance at salvation in a church, though by no coincidence, there was no church near this barn.
“They’re in the back, sweetie. Be careful.” I would have sworn she was grinning had it not been for the blinding light surrounding her blackened figure.
“Alright. Thank you.” I accepted my fate. A fool’s punishment for foolish trust. Walking through the barn, I looked to the right. Hanging from the rafter was a series of ancient rusted tools. Whatever had once been harvested in earnest was likely far from the last thing these decaying blades had sliced. I found myself deciding which item I found the least offensive to carve me open.
To the left was the first sound beyond my thundering heartbeat to come from the interior of this prison of destruction. A buzz. Another buzz. Many buzzes.
Flies. Lots of them. Swarming over a pile of hay. Any other day I would assume there was animal waste beneath the hay. Today I assumed far worse. And actually, I wasn’t that far off. In the hay was a collection of bones. I wish I were making that up. Some could have been chicken bones, some could have been other small birds. At least one was a cat’s skull. Seriously. A friggin’ skull.
I remember picturing a starving cat being pecked to death by a flock of dying birds, fed up with watching their kin be picked off to feed the starving pack of wild cats.
Oh and there were starving cats. Lots of them. Ahead of me, as promised, were cats. Lots of them. The large ones were only large in length. Their bones were nearly as visible as the pile beside me. As I approached them, I smelled their musk and decay growing stronger. The simple waft that had hit me when the door first opened was simply the weaker smell fleeing the powerful.
There was more sound now. Scurrying. Maybe cats, maybe mice, maybe rats. There were a number of snake skins on the ground. This barn was an enclosed food chain and it seemed everything was eating well and starving at the same time.
Shut up, it’s my memory and everything was well fed and starving at the same time in the scary barn owned by the creepy old bag. Jeez.
I found the source of some of the scurrying in the back corner of the barn. It was my prize. Nestled in hay, empty feed bags and old bottles was a pile of kittens. At first sight it was a beautiful relief from the horror movie I’d traversed to find. Upon closer inspection, it was obvious that some of these kittens were malnourished and likely doomed to die. At the very top of the pile were the smallest, youngest kittens… some with eyes still closed. At the bottom were the ones that weren’t adults yet, but certainly not new kittens.
It was a mass of snuggling brown and grey fur. I imagine at the base of that pile was a very tired mother cat with very stressed out nipples. It was a sight to behold. A soft pyramid of cuddle doomed to die in the Auschwitz around them, clinging to each other in desperation, hope and the comfort-seeking resolve of the condemned.
And that’s when I saw him. From the bottom of that pile crawled an orange and white adolescent male cat. He wasn’t fully grown. He was a kitten… sorta… one of the older ones. He was the only cat there with any brilliance to his coat. At first I thought of him as the favored among the pack… the one warrior they had chosen to seek out their salvation and rescue their tribe.
Days later I would discover he was the healthiest and best kept because he was the asshole hogging all the milk while his family died around him.
He didn’t look back, he walked right up to my foot, sunk his tiny claws into my pants leg and stretched. That’s when he looked up and I could see his golden eyes peering into mine. He pulled harder on my pants and eventually was climbing my leg, past my knee and past my hip. I curled my hand under him as he walked up my chest and pushed his head into my neck and settled in.
Clearly he had chosen the human he wanted.
I looked down at the pile in front of me. The sight still haunts me to this day. I couldn’t save them. I could only save this one. There was nothing I could do for them.
I turned my back to their plight and walked straight to the old woman.
“I’ll take this one.”
“Oh wonderful,” she said. “Are you sure you only want one?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Well thank you for coming by, sweetie.” And with that, she moved to the side and the sun hit me and my cat, burning off the stench of death and guilt. As we passed the old woman, the cat growled as if in defiance of her abuse.
When I got in my truck, the cat moved to my lap and we left that terrible place together. He looked like a Steve. And so I came to call him Steve. Steve-the-Cat.
And while I could have called animal control and ended that woman’s reign of terror on the animals in her grip, I decided I really didn’t care that much about a bunch of raggedy old animals that were probably going to die anyway of some horrible cat disease or starvation or something. Screw ’em. I had my cat. What am I, the SPCA?
Circle of life, all of that.
Our first adventure together was far from our most challenging and wouldn’t be the first time when one of us would rescue the other. Steve was 13(ish) when he died. And for 12 of those years (would have been 13 if I would have had the brass nuts to take him to Massachusetts with me for that year), he was the best friend I’d ever had.
He tolerated some of my friends, in that he allowed them into our home from time to time. He literally fed on one of my friends while he slept, bleeding from the foot, the direct result of an ice-sledding accident caused by the faulty brake systems of the cardboard box we thought would be awesome one afternoon when we were hammered out of our minds.
He begrudgingly tolerated the various women I let into my life. That sounds way more awesome than it really was. There weren’t that many women. But generally speaking he hated them all, despite how many of them swore he grew to like them.
His level of abuse was so severe that not being mauled by him was equated to love by the women in my life. Isn’t that awesome? Do you know how many women were trained by Steve to stay on their side of the bed? Do you know how much I miss that?
Steve would force his way between me and my lady friends (again that sounds way more awesome than it is) and they would eventually learn to stay the hell on their side.
That went on for years. It was Steve and I, and then everybody else.
Then he got very sick. He crawled into a corner and shrieked. It was the sharpest yowl I had ever heard. He was in pain. Terrible pain. I needed to take him to the vet but it was late and his “regular” vet was closed… not that they would have seen him anyway, considering the path of destruction and injury he left on his one and only trip there. No lie, he tore up a vet assistant and had to be gassed under a Rubbermaid tub because the 6 people working that day couldn’t restrain him to give him his shots.
Epic. More so when I couldn’t produce paperwork to prove he’d had a rabies shot (he hadn’t, I totally lied). Whatever, that’s what they get for not being me.
Anyway, Steve was sick. He hate the pet carrier and fought every time he had to get into it… except that time. I opened it in front of him and he pulled himself by his front paws into it. I was already in tears. The vet hospital was 40 minutes away. I made it in 25, tears streaming down my face as his yowls grew louder and faster… then softer and slower. When I reached the exit we needed, he had gone silent and I just knew he died on the way. I had been sobbing, I was now nearly blinded by tears. My best friend may well have been a corpse beside me.
It cost $50 just for the vet to look at him. After an hour they told me he might die during the night but it might be possible to save him with a procedure to remove a blockage in his urinary tract. I was told very specifically, “It’s an expensive procedure and the follow up is just as expensive. We could put him to sleep. He wouldn’t be in any pain.”
“Just make him well again.”
That was the first night I ever drove straight to a bar, depressed out of my mind, and drank myself into a stupor. Thank you Josh for driving me home that night.
Nearly 3 days and $800 later, Steve was returned to me… good as new.
And our adventures continued, but with a greater sense of togetherness.
Then I met Rebekah and the girls… and Steve hated all of them. He especially hated the little one.
I remember the first time Chili Dawg came into my apartment. She was 2 at the time. She looked at Steve and exclaimed, “Look mommy!!! It’s a MEOW!!!!” She came running up to Steve (who was already in a bad mood because his heart was beating) with all the excitement and innocence a 2 year old could muster . Steve arched his back and swatted at her just as Rebekah grabbed up Chili Dawg (rescuing her from certain doom).
“Kitty high-five!” Rebekah nervously exclaims… trying to convince the kid that she hadn’t almost died.
Chili Dawg had never looked so confused in her life. They never learned to appreciate each other. In fact, it got to a point that Steve would let out an irritated sigh and walk into the bedroom whenever Rebekah brought the children over.
Once when he wandered out to see if they had gone, Chili Dawg (still 2) looked at him and said, “No Meow! You’re a bad meow! Go room!” Steve actually muttered something under his breath. I’m not making that up. His mouth moved. I could have sworn he said, “god dammit…” and then turned and curled up on the bed again.
And then Rebekah and I got married and the rules changed for Steve. I wasn’t going to get rid of him. He was my best friend… but I couldn’t have him near the children because he’d eat them.
We’re currently (for another month anyway) living in the same townhouse we had when we were married. My mother in law lived in the basement apartment attached to it.
She took him in… reluctantly. I would visit him from time to time, sitting on the steps separating our living space from his. He would crawl on me like he had all his life, and then I would leave him again and spend time with my family.
My mother in law tells me that they eventually grew to an understanding and could tolerate each other’s existence. I saw him less and less, despite him being a few feet from me. I was a parent and husband. I couldn’t be a bachelor with a demon cat for a best friend anymore.
I missed him. There was no question… but we couldn’t have life the way we had had it before. I changed the rules on him. And as my life expanded, it forced him out. I’ve never forgiven myself for that, but at the same time, I don’t think I would have changed it.
Even when he got sick again. Same kind of sick as before. Only he wasn’t as lucky that time and no amount of money or sobbing over a glass of whiskey would bring him from death’s door. I let them put him to sleep. I held him in my arms as he slowly died… growling all the way.
I hid in my office for the rest of the day, hating myself for letting Steve die in my new life, rather than our life… the way he deserved, choking on the blood of a stranger. He lived a drunken warrior’s disturbed life… born in filth and poverty and raised in sarcasm and casual violence.
But he died as we all die… on a veterinarian’s table while some guy holds onto us as we growl until the light leaves our eyes and our tails stop moving.
Or something like that.
Whatever. He died in a way with no glory. So I wrote him a new death as an announcement to my friends who all feared and respected him. And afterwards, he got the funeral he deserved. More on that another day.
I miss my cat. I don’t think I’ll ever have a pet like him again. No other animal since then has meant so much, and I doubt one ever will.
But if we are to have a dog in our new home… maybe it can love all of my family… and still hate everyone else.
I can always hope… I can always hope.
