Homer's Odyssey

by Gwen Cooper

  I had referred to Homer as an “accident.” What I believed in my heart, however, was that Homer had been a surprise. An accident was something you would go out of your way to avoid if you had the chance to do things over. A surprise was something you hadn’t even known you’d wanted until you got it.

  I clearly wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

  “Sorry.” I picked up the front section of the Sunday paper. “You and Dad will just have to find your own cat.”

  My mother grimaced. “As if that would ever happen.”

  11 • A One-Bedroom of One’s Own

  It rests with heaven to decide who shall be chief among us, but you shall be master in your own house and over your own possessions.

  —HOMER, The Odyssey

  THE DOT-COM REVOLUTION CAME EVENTUALLY TO MIAMI—ALBEIT SEVERAL years later than it had arrived in cities like New York and San Francisco—and with it a sudden surge in job opportunities. Start-up companies set up shop in the aging Deco office buildings of South Beach, with apparently limitless budgets and a need to staff up as quickly as possible. Because most of these companies couldn’t fill positions as rapidly as their needs were growing, they required employees who were, in the parlance, able to “wear a lot of different hats.”

  One company, for example, needed someone to be their director of event marketing, able to produce large-scale corporate events, cocktail parties, and trade shows. Since they didn’t have a press representative yet, it would be great if that same person also had a working knowledge of the city’s press contacts and how to mobilize them. As they also hadn’t yet found a full-time copywriter, it would be helpful if this new hire had a degree in English or creative writing and could pinch-hit with copywriting responsibilities as necessary. And because the mission of this particular company was to produce a local, online directory replete with information about community activities and volunteer efforts, it would be ideal if they found someone with strong connections in Miami’s nonprofit orbit.

  “They know they’re asking for a lot,” the friend who tipped me off to this position told me. “So they’re willing to pay a pretty high salary for the right person.”

  My hands trembled over my computer’s keyboard that night as I updated my résumé, so nervous was I that I might submit it too late, or that they might not want me for the position. But I didn’t, and they did.

  It was just under two years since I had moved back into my parents’ house. Finally, after so much time spent in what had often felt like a fruitless struggle, I had attained a job and a salary that would more than cover the bills I already had—plus a place of my own.

  EVERY SECOND WHEN I wasn’t working over the next couple of months, I devoted to reading real estate listings. I eyed them with the close, loving attention to detail that a shut-in lavishes on reading pornography.

  I had never lived in an apartment of my own. After college, I’d moved in with Jorge. After Jorge, I’d lived with Melissa, and then with my parents. So each four-line description in the apartment listings was a window into a glittering, glamorous new life. I could be the fashionable young tenant of a sleek new high-rise on Brickell Avenue, with ocean views, doormen, and concierge service. A converted guesthouse on one of the sprawling older estates on Pine Tree Drive, with palazzo floors and a spiral staircase, would be my entrée to ramshackle bohemia. I could be part of the trendy, cutting-edge set with a garden apartment in Miami’s burgeoning Design District. If what I wanted was SoBe cachet, a charming duplex in a restored Art Deco building was the way to go.

  I had a price range in mind, but I didn’t want to spend all the way to the top of it. One never knew what the future held, but what I knew for certain was that I never wanted to be forced again, for financial reasons, to live with my parents.

  There were other considerations as well. Anything on the ground floor—like the Design District garden apartment—struck me as unsafe for a woman living alone. And if Homer were to inadvertently scurry his way out the front door, I didn’t want him in a position to run straight out into the street. The gaps between the metal steps in the spiral staircase of that converted guesthouse were dangerous for a small blind cat who could easily, in a fit of playfulness, slip between them and plummet to the ground floor. The balcony of the Brickell Avenue high-rise was a death trap. Homer had no idea that solid ground could end suddenly, and with the speed at which he moved he could be out a balcony door, onto the balcony itself, and over the side in a matter of seconds.

  I finally settled on an eleventh-floor, one-bedroom apartment—light-filled and spacious—in a gargantuan complex on South Beach’s West Avenue. It didn’t convey much in the way of personality or lifestyle, but it was sensibly priced in the middle of my range. The apartment featured walk-in closets, an enormous bathroom that could discreetly accommodate a litter box, and a large balcony with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.

  I had been deeply conflicted at first, wanting that apartment but also worried about Homer and the balcony. But South Florida living was all about taking advantage of our balmy climate, and just about anything that wasn’t ground-floor had some sort of balcony or adjoining patio. At least this apartment featured a screen door behind the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. A sliding door was in itself a great safety measure, taking longer to open than a hinged door, which meant I had additional seconds to stop a death-defiant Homer from worming his way past me outside. Even if Homer did manage to slip by, there would be a screen behind the door—one he couldn’t squeeze through unless I unlocked it.

  The apartment was unfurnished, and I was starting from scratch since I owned nothing beyond my clothes, my books, a small television, and the CDs that had been gathering dust in boxes; I hadn’t wanted to revert to my teenage habit of playing loud music in my room and annoying my parents. Here too, though, in selecting the things that would convert my apartment from anonymous rental unit to comfortable home, were countless hours of joy.

  I was as mindful of the cats in selecting furniture as I had been in selecting an apartment. They were all good about using scratching posts, but since Homer didn’t so much leap to the top of tall furniture as climb it, his claws inevitably found their way into things. A leather sofa was out of the question—too many snags, not enough options for covering them. But a cloth sofa made from too delicate a material was equally impractical. I ended up with a neighbor’s red velvet sofa and love seat, which were both appealingly risqué—appropriate, I thought, for the first apartment of my own that I would eventually bring “boys” over to—and made of a fabric surprisingly strong and snag-proof.

  A friend suggested declawing Homer, since I was so concerned about the impact of his claws on household furnishings. It was something I couldn’t even bring myself to consider. Not only was I opposed to declawing any of my cats, but Homer’s claws were too much a part of his sense of confidence. He was so comfortable climbing and leaping in part because, even if he couldn’t see that he was about to slide down or tumble backward off something, the quick deployment of his claws would save him from a fall like a mountain climber’s grappling hooks.

  “I’m going to miss him,” my mother said when our moving day finally arrived. Her eyes were suspiciously bright. “I’ve really come to love that stupid little cat.”

  “Hey!” I protested, but I smiled. “Who are you calling ‘stupid’?”

  “Casey and Brandi aren’t going to like it,” my father glumly predicted.

  I couldn’t resist teasing him. “Do you think maybe they’ll offer to take care of Homer if, God forbid, something happens to me?”

  Leaving this time felt different than it had when I’d first left for college. Back then, I’d known I would return for school breaks and summer vacations. There had never been a single, definitive moment of rupture or leave-taking. This time was different, though. This time, we all knew I wasn’t coming back.

  Returning to live in my parents’ home had s
eemed, at times, like a demoralizing descent back into childhood. All that was already receding, however. Now it struck me that circumstances had brought me closer to my parents, had allowed me to get to know them as an adult in ways I never would have otherwise.

  The cats struggled frantically in their carriers as I loaded them into the car. As far as they were concerned, nothing good was ever on the other end of a trip in the carrier. It always meant either a vet visit (bad) or a new home to get used to (even worse).

  “This time we’re going to a better place,” I whispered to them. “You’ll love our new home. I promise.”

  “Call us when you get there,” my mother said. She pulled me into a hug. “Maybe we’ll bring over bagels or something tomorrow morning, so you don’t have to worry about food while you’re getting settled.”

  “That sounds great,” I told her, returning the hug.

  The last thing I heard, as I shut the car doors behind the cats and prepared to drive away, was the sound of Casey howling from inside the house.

  12 • Pet Sounds

  A servant presently led in the famous bard Demodocus, whom the muse had dearly loved, but to whom she had given both good and evil, for though she had endowed him with a divine gift of song, she had robbed him of his eyesight.

  —HOMER, The Odyssey

  HOMER HAD A MILE-LONG TO-DO LIST AS WE SETTLED INTO OUR NEW home. There was a whole new floor plan to memorize, and I ensured that Homer would learn it in relation to his litter box by placing him there first when I released the cats from their carriers. After an hour of hugging the walls as he ran from room to room, he had the layout down cold. There were also new hiding places to be discovered and claimed, new furniture to be climbed and categorized. The apartment was filled with moving boxes, and Homer personally inspected each and every one. He excitedly shredded and tossed paper wrappings, plastic bubble wrap, and Styrofoam popcorn, until the air around him resembled the chum you see in the water after a piranha attack.

  Homer loved to climb into the boxes and leap out from them unexpectedly. He had never been as successful at hide-and-seek as he now was with the boxes to provide well-concealed hiding places. He would hunker all the way down, making sure the flap of the box was closed over his head, and spring out like a Jack-in-the-box when Scarlett or Vashti or I walked past. I don’t know if he connected the actual invisibility of hiding in a box with his previous failed attempts at “sneaking” up on the three of us in plain sight. But there was now a satisfaction in the game he’d never found before, and I wound up keeping a few boxes around for weeks after they’d been emptied, unwilling to deprive him of such an easy source of happiness.

  Homer also made it his business to greet all deliverymen or phone and cable technicians who passed through our front door. Scarlett and Vashti would hide—Scarlett not caring to meet new people, and Vashti perfectly happy to meet new people but terrified by the noise these men made bumping into things with heavy crates, or rattling metal tools around in a toolbox.

  Homer was fascinated by these visitors for the exact reasons, and to the exact degree, that Scarlett and Vashti avoided them. They were new and they made interesting sounds! Where Scarlett and Vashti flew from any noise that was too loud or too unusual, Homer was invariably drawn toward it like a compass needle spinning north.

  You would think that a blind cat would be more, not less, intimidated by sharp or sudden sounds, that they would be less comprehensible to him than to other cats. But in a world where no sound was expected—where you couldn’t see the book about to thud on the floor tumbling from the bookshelf, or the vacuum cleaner that would soon begin its wail being pulled from the closet—then no sound was unexpected, either. Sound, in fact, was the thing that explained most of Homer’s world to him. An unanticipated noise, perceived as a potential threat by Vashti and Scarlett, was for Homer one more puzzle piece that made his unseen universe comprehensible. He found comfort in the rhythm and pulse of sound, no matter how jarring or abrasive, the way my other two cats did in silence.

  It was Homer’s habit to trot closely behind the men who arrived with a clanging metal bed frame or several feet of television cable that dragged noisily on the floor. Frequently, I had to keep Homer—who was eager to poke his nose and ears into whatever mysterious things they were doing—at heel, so he wouldn’t interfere with their work. Most of them would regard him in a friendly enough manner, although the inevitable question always came up after a moment or two of puzzled scrutiny.

  “Something happen to your cat’s face?”

  “He’s blind,” I’d answer shortly.

  “Aw, poor little guy.” Homer, knowing that this sympathetic tone was directed at him, would leave my side to climb up their legs or jump into their laps. He often dragged along his stuffed worm (whose recovery from the moving boxes he’d been very anxious about), hoping to engage one of these strangers in a game of fetch.

  It was a momentous day when I was able to squeeze enough from my paycheck to purchase a stereo system, and the man who delivered and installed it was the deliveryman who had the greatest long-term impact on Homer’s life. Homer hadn’t been exposed much to music. Once my CDs came out of their boxes and found their way into the new CD player, a further audio vista opened before him. I learned that music had a tremendous impact on Homer’s moods. Anything with a hard, driving tempo—rock or clubby dance music, for instance—sent him into a tizzy. Hole’s Live Through This made him hyper almost beyond the telling of it. He’d tear around the living room, leaping manically on and off the couch or flinging himself to the top of his six-foot cat tower, while uttering a low whine as if his body held so much energy, the containment of it was painful.

  The first time I played the Brandenburg Concertos, however, Homer fell into a deep sleep right in the middle of chasing a paper ball around. It happened as swiftly as if he’d been shot in the neck with a tranquilizer dart.

  My friend Felix was visiting that day. “Guess Homer doesn’t like your taste in music,” he said.

  I shrugged. “Everyone’s a critic.”

  HOMER WASN’T A creature who was moved simply by the sounds he heard around him. He was equally concerned with the sounds he himself produced. It was important to Homer to feel that he and I were in constant communication with each other, and he was never content—as my other two cats were—to incorporate silent gestures or postures into our vernacular. Scarlett, for example, would sit pointedly in front of the litter box when she thought it was time for me to clean it, and Vashti had a bizarre, ritualistic dance that she did in circles around her food bowl whenever she was hungry.

  But Homer—who, of course, had no understanding that he was visible generally or visible to me specifically—eschewed such imprecise methods of getting his point across. At three years of age, he had developed a full, incessant range of meows and yelps that bordered on the human in its nuance and complexity.

  Homer was still convinced that as long as he made no sound, I couldn’t “see” him, and he never tired of trying to get away with things right under my nose that he knew he shouldn’t. As a kitten, he had accepted my command of “No!” with nothing beyond a look of confusion. How can she always know what I’m doing?! These days, he argued with me—with a long, high-pitched meeeeeeh I thought of as his way of saying, Awwwww … c’mon, Ma …

  He had a very specific meow that meant, Where’s my worm? I can’t find my worm! and another, slightly more prolonged meow that meant, Okay, I found my worm, now I need you to throw it. Then there was a low, guttural, drawn-out kind of cry that I heard if I was thoroughly engrossed in something—watching a movie, say—and hadn’t paid attention to him in a couple of hours. It was a meow that very clearly said, I’m boooooooored, and it would only be discontinued if I hauled out something for him to play with.

  There were happy, half-swallowed little yips that greeted me whenever I came through the front door. Yay, you’re home! A tiny, plaintive mew? that went up at the end, like a sentence punctuated
by a question mark, meant Homer had fallen asleep in a room I was no longer in and, now that he was awake, wanted to know where I was.

  A piercing, persistent kind of mew that I rarely heard strummed a fearful twang in my stomach, because it meant Homer had gotten himself stuck in or on top of something and didn’t know how to get back down. “Where are you, Homer-Bear?” I’d say, following the sound of his cries through the apartment until I located him. The one that drove me to distraction was a repetitive, atonal mrow, mrow, mrow, mrow, which Homer produced if I’d been talking on the phone for a while. It was like a small child’s relentless chanting of Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, until, exasperated, I’d put one hand over the receiver and say, “Homer, can’t you see I’m on the phone right now?”

  Hey—most people forgot Homer was blind once they’d spent enough time with him. I occasionally forgot, too.

  ONE OF THE luxuries I now indulged in was a subscription to the newspaper—the first I’d ever had in my own name. The leisurely perusal of the paper over a light breakfast was a treasured and essential component of my morning routine.

  Delivery of the newspaper soon became a highlight in Homer’s schedule as well. This was not because he’d developed a sudden, passionate interest in current affairs. It was because the good people at the newspaper production plant saw fit to churn out and deliver the paper to my door every morning-wrapped in a rubber band.

  Homer had never been interested in rubber bands, even though most cats love them. Generally, what they like to do is eat them—a dangerous, and sometimes fatal, habit. If I happened to lose track of one and it made its way into Scarlett’s or Vashti’s paws, she’d bat it around and munch on it happily until I saw it and took it away. Homer would sit nearby, straining his ears for some clue as to what, exactly, made this game so interesting. I don’t get it, you guys. What’s the big deal?