Blood On The Snow

for an unknown cat

It was another vague, grey afternoon, with a dirty overcast sky and a large amount of dingy snow on the ground. At least it gets a tad warmer when it's like this; the humidity comes up a little, there is hardly any breeze, and the snow seems to smoke a little as it sublimates up into the ethereal regions.

I sat at my computer doodling around, accomplishing nothing but an advanced case of boredom, and noticed Cider and Malcolm at the patio doors, yowling and with hackles raised, as they faced off a big tabby male on the other side of the glass.

He seemed little concerned by the two inside; he turned and sniffed at a hewn branch left over from the fall's prunings, and when I walked over to get a little closer look, seemed not to see me at all. So I leaned in, a little closer, just to observe him with our two indoor cats, who now looked as though they might square off against each other and forget all about the intruder, the outside man.

But I leaned a little too far, of course really hoping that he would notice me, since I was interested in seeing what he would do. He glanced up, then, and I got an instant reaction, that of a cat who was no real friend to humans. He looked somewhat feral in other ways, too, well-groomed, but with somewhat muddy feet (the hind paws and shanks were white) and the full jowls of the classic unneutered Tom. I was sure, as he leapt off the patio and then sauntered off, picking his way casually through the snow, that I'd seen him a couple times before, but these glimpses of cats round the neighborhood from my back yard are fleeting and sketchy at best. I never really knew this cat at all.

And good riddance, Malcolm and Cider seemed to say, as they rubbed protectively against the cuffs of my jeans. I could see that in all probability this was the reaction this cat usually got from animals and humans alike.

I stood there, a long minute or two, watching as he ambled along to the path Seuss and Teresa have worn through the snow that runs diagonally to the corner of the foot of the yard and on to the sidewalk. And he was simply walking down the middle of the sidewalk one happy moment, master of all he surveyed, until Reggie happened.

Reggie is a Keyshond who lives in the next house south of us who loves nothing better than running full tilt up to the fence where it runs along the sidewalk and then barking his fool head off. Everyone that lives near here gets used to it; you have to. I nearly fell off my bike one time as I was pedalling past and he surprised me, bursting as he does from under the thick blue spruce that he uses as cover for his ambushes. Apparently having known him since he was a puppy didn't give me a free pass; this troll under the bridge simply had to be endured.

This big burly cat, however, arched his back and electrified his tail, hissing, I imagine, as he ran backwards across the mound from the snow plows and out onto the street. I gazed horrified as I saw the SEATS bus coming along at a fair clip, not ten feet from where I last saw the big Tom before he disappeared behind the snow bank. I was out in the back yard in a flash, but not before a lady driving a schoolbus had stopped at the scene, which the SEATS driver had failed to do.

She was bending over towards the cat, who, confused and stricken, was humping jerkily along the sidewalk toward the lilac bush in the corner of our yard.

"Is it yours?" she asked.

"No, but I think he belongs somewhere around the neighborhood."

She left saying she hoped he was all right; I was at a much closer angle and already could hold out little hope.

Thank God I had had the presence of mind to dig my gloves from the sleeve of my coat before I went out. I bent over and tried to grab the cat, which wasn't hard, but then he turned on me and began to shred the tough canvas outer shell of the gloves, while hemorrhaging freely over them as well. He didn't want any help, apparently, from me.

It was time to call for reinforcements. I called Teresa and she contacted the Animal Control officer, Willa, and called me right back. I was able even in the state I was in to describe the whole incident very clearly with little embroidery, because it had all happened so fast, faster than any nightmare or horror story. Besides, the cat was coughing and hemorrhaging his insides out as I stood there and talked, and there was nothing I or anyone else could have done.

The cat crept off through the snow, hemorrhaging now great gouts of blood, and was lying by the compost box, which stopped his progress along the fence. Reggie had begun to bark and nose around, as close as he dared, and I yelled,
"Reggie, get back! You've already done enough!"

At this his owner came out, acting, like all dog owners, including me, as if it was some problem that was going on near the dog but that really had nothing to do with the actions of their precious pet. I explained very briefly what had happened and the owner said, somewhat sourly,

"I'll take him inside then," and walked away, as if he was sorry his dog would miss all the fun.

The cat lay very still, not visibly breathing, with the bright red blood still dripping from his open mouth. There was something about his fluffy tabby form stretched on the snow and the bright pool of blood that had collected beneath him that caused any hope of his recovery to die within me, at that moment. A passersby strolled past and noticed me, and then the cat I was standing over, and heard all about it. He walked on and wished me a nice day.

Officer Willa showed up with a carrier and a large fluffy towel, wrapped him in it, the cat showing no resistance or sign of life, and she was gone. And so was another cat that nobody ever really knew.

A Christmas Night

A conversation with an elderly cat after the pubs closed.

I am a regimental cat, and have always been. My name, as nearly as I can put in your talk, is Maou-wow.

Now, the stars shine very brightly. It is very cold, and a persistent breeze blows through the trees, and along the declivities in what was the ground, all the hollows are bathed and drifted now in sparkling snow.

But some years ago, there was another Christmas, and a great storm which rose, they tell me, strong enough to shatter the tree-tops.

Nevertheless, on that Christmas Eve, the officers around the big house, and all their cats and dogs, revelled in their holiday mood, because theirs had been a great administration of color, pomp, and circumstance. The Empire was safe, at last, and everyone was home. The cadre had their best garments on, and all the swords and scabbards were polished to a degree which, in the moonlight, lent to them an otherworldly gleam. One might've been watching Arthur's court, on the very eve of battle.

Daddy, whose name was Maouwoo, had gone up to the highest oak to branch a twig of mistletoe, Mommy had brought out her best pies and biscuits. As a matter of fact, the oven had been burning bright for days, and it's very hard for some one like me to describe it all, seeing how I am only another cat.

But I do see it all, and just about the time the Missus takes the cover off the pan, there is a big, "Hurrah!"

And there it is. The family, the regiment, and all of their friends, the officers in all their glittering fineness, sitting at dinner, the roast and the turkey steaming, smelling incredibly, the puddings and salads waiting, all glowing and standing as if they were Lords and Ladies of the Court—

Then there was a persistent racket.

Mao-wow!

All of them, in the midst of the great ritual, heard it.

Mao-wowoo!!

And they stopped, even the orchestra, and began, in the great state room, to search around. Surely with so many officers and ladies of the Scottish Fusiliers we would find the source of such distress!

Mao-waowoo!

Under the floor boards of an old porch, which was shut up from inside traffic and no longer used, a subaltern named Regg found the source of the cry: a beautiful female cat with six kittens. She heard the tromping and lightfooting (You understand, I am joking) around on the floor above, and began to speak to all of those assembled, in such voice as she could, and they ended up saving her, and her bonnie bairns, my ancestors.

Why sir, she became a kind of mascot, as did all her sons and daughters. These brave lads carried her into the Crimean War, and the Fusiliers always won every battle. They knew if the enemy shot them all dead, or blew them up, Mollie and her sons and daughters would fight for them, and settle the score.

I believe Mollie, my grandmere, died several years ago, and, if I walked over there, in that yard of all our deaths cumulated over the years, I could still find her tomb. Her babies and their progeny are still roaming about the grounds; we are a very "cat-loving" regiment.

I believe I hear one of her sons, a cousin of mine, that big ginger Tom, over there by the colonel's grave:

Mao-wooo!

The monster storm

The wind is howling now round the corners of the house, and the snow falls steadily, erasing the last traces of autumn from the earth. I keep a late watch, after having slept through the early evening, troubled by dreams of the homeless and destitute in a faraway corner of the country where there was no mercy.

Our cats lie huddled in chairs and cramped in cozy scrums, sleeping, after having watched all day long as a torrential rain washed through the streets and saturated the yards. They certainly keep better track of what's going on outside than any number of weather experts in their computer labs: cats watch the skies, the movements of the animals out there in the wild, and sometimes, perhaps, they ponder what their own fates would be if they were to be forced out into the hostile world once again.

This monstrous storm turned around, pivoting on what is called a dry slot, a short period of time when the youngest of coed show-offs were parading around one last time in shorts and Daisy Dukes. Then the storm drenched us, and finally dumped its mother lode of snow and whistling gales upon us, just as it had planned to, all along.



The cats always know what to do, and anyway, if they're ever caught short, and are forced to make a decision, it doesn't take them long to realize that the best course of action is to take no action at all, and sleep. So while I fret and pace and worry about the ever-increasing velocity of the wind, and wonder about the immensity of the storm, they are each individual anchors of peace and calm, with much more wisdom and equanimity in dealing with these anomalies than I could ever muster, with my poor human brain, my gigantic ego, my conviction that if I only go on thinking about a thing long enough I'll somehow solve it.



This storm will pass, and it will likely be only the first of many. So often in my life I would be stuck around this time of year, having gone to the old Cistercian monastery near Dubuque, to study with the monks and to celebrate a kind of resurgence and reawakening in my life which had occurred around Advent Sunday. Invariably, during the week after Thanksgiving, the really foul weather would hit, and I'd find myself facing the long drive home through sub-zero temperatures, icy roads, and swirling sleet. Nevertheless it was a progress I made on a yearly basis, because some things are simply best in the observance, and grow better as we continue to observe them, regardless of the hardships or the consequences.



Nowadays I keep close to home with my cats and my wonderful spouse, Teresa. I may be sleepy, grumpy, housebound, and altogether not really good company at times, but as I grow restless or seem to be despairing, I look to Teresa cooking in the kitchen or reading a book, and to my cats, sleeping or quietly watching at the windows, and realize that life could hardly be better than it is right here, at little expense to me, and it certainly could be much, much worse.

As always, there is something to be said for the fact that one finds himself alive, on any occasion, but how much better to realize that one is truly blessed, and lives amongst the blessed, in a charmed sphere such as is our home.

So, sleep on, my babies, through the storm. The Kitty Daddy will be here when you wake.



Pictured above: James, PeeWee, and Sylvester on Kitty Mommy's quilt and chair; Jolie napping on her favorite bed; Wolfie asleep at the end of the big bed downstairs; Spike looking both fluffy and somewhat gaunt and elegant in his splendid black fur; Jolie, on the verge of waking, in another favorite space

Bunny

This time of year, we put our traps away, concentrate on keeping our house warm and secure, and venture out only for the necessities of work and walking our wonderful dog, Seuss. Mind you, in the days when Mouse haunted my heels, he rarely missed a chance to scoot outside and try to nibble at some frozen grass stems or lurk beneath the truck, waiting for me to coax him out. But now that he's gone, my excursions out into the frozen void are solo, with only the unblinking stars and a bare maple to ponder.



Our kittens (the four trapped beneath the University Motor Pool facility) have all been shipped out, through the good services of the local animal shelter, to foster homes. We are lucky, in a way, that we had them only long enough to note their beautiful traits and their absolutely bonny natures. That is, we didn't get all hung up on them, waiting for some prospective adopter to call, until we couldn't possibly make a decision anymore because we had fallen so in love with them. I am sure Boo and Ash, Jimi and Alvin will find wonderful homes, and be a joy to whatever households they come to inhabit.



At this moment, I hear their imputed mother, who was trapped along with two of the kits, crying in the downstairs bath we now use for a kitty quarantine. When one enters she in always up in the little window, in a flash, and rarely comes down into the little loft I have built. Such is her fortitude and determination that I saw her shaking with the cold, leaning up against the window, freezing, while she leant her head into my caressing hand and let me stroke her flanks. She will be a wonderful kitty to have around any one's house, but right now the main project is getting her to accept people and come down out of that window.

Bunny, Teresa calls her. That's fine with me. Bunny is a rather bunny-colored (or hare-colored, if you're British) girl of very slim and petite size, with that ticked and tawny coat that allows one to hide very well in tall grass, the better to sneak up on mice and voles. She also has beautiful gold-green eyes, a soft, plushy coat, and very soft paws for a supposedly "feral" cat. Now that she has overcome her fear,and purrs and leans her head into my hand when I pet her, and calls through the door when she feels neglected, I begin to doubt that she was ever in any way feral--at least, we wouldn't blame a human for acting as she has done to support a litter of kittens in a hostile and friendless world.




So this, it seems, is to be my great gift this Christmas: another lost soul brought back from the gates of certain death to live in relative comfort and security. And someone to lick my hand in thanks, to purr, to nod and wink on my comings and goings, another one who trusts me, and who will live with me, who was written off for no good ages ago. So we continue, on into the Christmas season, here at the big white house on the corner, a cargo of ballast, condemned souls all, feeling our way towards some better life.

Intrepid Kitty Trappers

For several years now we and a wonderful lady named Mary Blount have been involved with the trapping of cats in our area, some of which activity I have reported here before. Lately, Teresa had word of what could be two litters of kittens, and several adults, living in the wild area between the University Motor Pool and the Iowa River, and bedding down beneath the trailers which have housed the Motor Pool offices since the tornado which destroyed so much of Iowa City. For two nights Teresa trapped a total of two kittens,and a recent tabby mother. Although reports indicated as many as two litters of six, four had already been captured by a Motor Pool employee, Carolyn, and we have the happy office of housing two of these, Boo and Ash, until the local shelter has tested them and they are old enough to be adopted.

We also have the two kittens Teresa trapped, and the mother, although we are unable to determine at this point if she is the mother of any of the kittens we currently are fostering. As the weather is changing now, quite dramatically, it must be incredibly hard for those cats who have been forced out of someone's home and who must seek shelter where they can. As Thanksgiving draws near, and the joyous holiday season brings thoughts of home and our loved ones to mind, our thoughts will also turn to those who are so much less fortunate, who shiver and struggle in the cold of what is still, even in this season, a very cruel world.

Meanwhile, the latest stupid video from Kitty Daddy productions, which features a tumbling act provided ad lib by Boo and Ash, our smallest and most merry charges.

The Death Of A King

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings...


One muggy night in July, I ran over Mouse. I can't dress up that fact, after mourning and brooding over it for a good four months, to make it look like anything other than what it really was.

This blog was dead since then. I could not write, and had a hard time even thinking about anything more than my normal daily maintenance, because Mouse had a habit of following me round the house, going out with me into the yard, sleeping at my feet wherever I slept. Many times I let him outside with me, because he was such a good companion, never straying towards the busy street, always content to quietly chew grass or jump on voles hidden in the turf, while I sweated and did my work. But always, Mouse returned and barrelled his big glossy head into my leg, or rolled over for a belly rub, expecting me to reach down and stroke him, something that could be a risky endeavour, if he was in a certain mood.

For although Mouse was a kind of prince, or an angel of light, he also had a very bad habit of biting down very hard on people, from time to time. When you consider that a bite from a cat the size of Mouse entails deep penetration of the upper and lower canines that equals about one and a quarter inches, and that he liked to raise hell from time to time amongst lesser kitties, and that he would brook very little human interference when he was in one of his many moods, you begin to form a picture of a beast that was almost beyond our capabilities of domestication.

Mouse, in himself, was the very reason for the housecat's specialty, and the reason why bobcats still run wild. Any larger animal with his kind of genetic wiring would be simply unmanageable. Mouse had also begun to engage in a pissing contest with James, since we had adopted him, because, apparently, the idea of a cat that had only been lately neutered as an adult and came into the house smelling like that was some kind of unforgiveable threat. Thus, we spent a portion of our days cleaning up with Zero spray and paper towels. So we got to know how it feels to work as a lavatory attendant.

But all these negatives do not, and never could, explain Mouse. For one thing, he was, very steadily, without fail, the best cat-in-residence to care for any of our foster kitten litters, happy to spend hours washing and cleaning them, fighting and playing with them, strengthening them and teaching them. Some of our older cats have given up this task, and simply ignore kittens on the premises, or hiss at them if they come too close. But I never once saw Mouse offer anything but a generous wash and a good going over to any little tyke that sidled up to him. He was just that way.




Then there was his beautiful voice. Mouse could speak his version of Feline-English better than any cat I ever knew. Miles, my first great cat, was an excellent communicator, and had an operatic voice. He would stand at the door and say, very clearly, "Mow? Out?" If you had seen him working his jaws around those inflections and broad vowels, you would not laugh, you would believe he was trying to say exactly what you had just heard him say.

But Mouse would give you the exact address where he was determined to go, and a brief explanatory note indicating what he was planning to do. This was not done out of subservience; to Mouse, it was a matter of common courtesy. I have heard many cats before and since then that vocalize in ways extraordinarily expressive. Our latest crop, the litter of White Tips, speak several languages, most of which I don't understand, and one that I always do. Yet Mouse was more direct than this. He spoke your language. And if you didn't get it, he'd bite your damned hand off. This is really practical communication, worthy of diplomats.

One afternoon, when my heart problem forced me to lie down and pull the covers up to wait for death, Mouse was there. He rooted the covers away from my chest, and began to dig and claw at my bare chest, underneath which my heart was jumping around like a scared rabbit in a fast and sickening atrial fibrillation. Finally, he started to bite at my sternum, even though he was having a hard time with the very thick, tough skin there. I very quickly reprimanded him, and he decided it was probably impolitic to start eating me before I actually died. Unfortunately, for Mouse, I had to scruff him and pull him away. He told me afterwards, in sign language, out in the yard, that he thought that he heard a vole scuttling under the turf of my chest. I survived.


Mouse was a giant, and looked bigger because of his glorious, white, silky, flowing hair, noble, gigantic head, and huge bushy tail. He was really a tabby-and-white, though, and had ear tags of black tabby, two spots on his back, and a raccoon tail that could frizz out to about four inches in diameter when he was excited. His two paws easily covered my palms, when he stood up on them, and he was a very full bundle to carry, as I did so often, when he sneaked out behind me into the garage or out into the backyard.

His last night, I suppose I went out to smoke a cigar, and came back inside. Since we have so many cats, and since Mouse rarely jumped into my lap, but would always stay several feet from me, curled up on a rug or a chair, I didn't realize, this time, that he had slipped out. When I pulled out of the garage later that night I returned to find him lying in the garage, obviously in the process of dying from a broken back and internal bleeding. I will spare you the details.

I had saved this cat Mouse from certain death, and now I had killed him. What a man of woe I am! I remember now the night I rushed to the local animal shelter. Teresa volunteered there that afternoon, and had called to say they were euthanizing Mouse because he had bitten a volunteer. I unscrewed the hinges of his padlocked cage because the director couldn't find the key, and I carried him out in my arms. Shortly after we got home, of course, he tore half my lower lip off after I tried to keep him out of a fight with Malcolm, and I had to go the hospital to stitch it up again, but I knew I had a new friend. All my best friendships started out this way.

You have to understand that I speak as one already condemned, about another condemned brother I thought I'd saved, only to kill, in the end. I suppose I will write more on this, as time goes on, and my memories heal, but as for now, I must echo Teresa, and many of our cats:

"I miss Mouse!"

Ah! Sunflower

Ah! sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done;

Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves and aspire;
Where my sunflower wishes to go.

William Blake (1757-1827)