The Second Cat Megapack: Frisky Feline Tales, Old and New

by Pamela Sargent

  “—think of a name for him yet?” The vet’s question startled her. Arlene pressed her hands against the kitten’s pathetic hips, and said, “Haven’t given it much thought…nothing much suggests itself, does it?”

  Across the white examining table, Dr. Hraber suggested, “Duke? He looks like a Duke’s mixture—”

  “No, my Don liked John Wayne. The name would make me think of him too much.” (Arlene let the doctor assume that she didn’t want to think of Don because the memory was painful—as it was, she missed the Duke more than she ever missed Don.)

  “Hummm…well, we have to put a name on the vaccination certificate—”

  “Silky? His fur is so soft—”

  “Sounds good to me. That good with you, huh, Mister?” The vet opened Silky’s mouth, and ran a dark-rimmed finger along his gum line. Silky endured the intruding digit patiently. As Arlene watched, she remembered that she had meant to ask the doctor something else about the kitten, but couldn’t remember it now. Instead, she asked, “What kind of cat do you suppose he is? He’s different-looking—”

  “What kind?” The doctor waited a beat, then, as she cupped her fingers under Silky’s chin, said, “Ugly. No, seriously, it looks like there’s either Siamese or Oriental Shorthair in there, but I’ve never seen a cat like him before. I guess something bred with something different and it looked like this. I wish I could’ve seen his parents. Sometimes different breeds don’t cross very well, do they, Silky?”

  Silky looked gravely at Dr. Hraber, as if to say, Please don’t make fun of me. Arlene wasn’t the only one to notice that expression, for Dr. Hraber dropped her bantering manner and said, “The stool test should be done in an hour or so. Do you care to wait around or call later?”

  Tucking Silky’s wedge of a head under her chin, Arlene walked out of the examining room and into the waiting room, saying over her shoulder, “I’d rather call later, if you don’t mind.”

  Outside, after she had paid for the shots, Arlene nuzzled Silky’s head and murmured into the cat’s sweet-smelling short fur, “Nasty lady said my little boy’s ugly…we just won’t listen to her, will we? We won’t pay the least bit of attention, none at all.”

  But all the way home, Dr. Hraber’s remark niggled at Arlene.

  * * * *

  The CAT BREEDS OF THE WORLD book was written on a junior high level (which is where the book had come from, a discard from the middle school library), but the pictures in it were excellent, so Arlene suffered through the namby-pamby text:

  …the Oriental Shorthair is a very long, lean cat, with strong muscles. The body is shaped a little like a tube, with extra long hind legs. Some people think its legs look a little bit like a race horse’s legs.

  The Oriental Shorthair’s fur can be many different colors, as well as colored in points like its relative the Siamese (see page 59). The fur of this Oriental breed is very short, and fine-textured, like silk.

  (Arlene looked down at the cat curled in her lap and said, “At least your name fits, baby.”)

  Oriental Shorthairs have big green eyes, and even bigger ears. Their faces are triangular and.…

  Arlene looked at the picture on the facing page, but there was only a slight similarity between the dark gray cat pictured and the purring kitten on her lap. The Shorthair’s whiskers were too long (Silky’s were an inch and a half and less), and there was at least an inch or more of space between the ears themselves. Silky’s ears all but met in the middle of his head; there wasn’t room enough on top for Arlene’s little finger to rest. A little over a quarter of an inch at the most. And the Oriental’s eyes were huge, luminous and take-your-breath-away green. Her kitten’s eyes were a little bigger than the fingernails on her forefingers, ovals of less than half an inch at the widest point. Much less.

  The bodies of the two cats were closer, but there were still differences. Silky’s hind legs, while longer than the front ones, weren’t racehorse-high. And now that she looked at his front paws, Arlene realized what was wrong with them, what had hovered at the back of her mind since the night before. Silky had no claws. He had mottled pink and black pads, and the little fleshy dew-pad on the sides, but no claws.

  Sick at heart, thinking that some clod had had Silky declawed then dumped him to fend for himself, Arlene gently flexed one of his paws and turned it around, looking for the telltale sunken incision lines of a declawed cat. Her Beanie, many years ago, had been declawed when her neighbors gave the cat to Arlene before they moved to the Cities. That calico’s feet had felt limp around the tips of the toes, where the first joint had been removed along with the nail. And there had been those sunken ugly scars…but Silky’s feet were almost perfect. There were the right number of metacarpals under the skin, with no empty places under the skin and fur. He just didn’t have front claws. His hind ones were there, needing trimming in fact, but the front paws were free of crescent-shaped nails. Holding the cat’s paws dose to her bifocals, Arlene saw that there weren’t even any holes where the claws could come out.

  Letting go of Silky’s feet, Arlene said, “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. I won’t let that mean old doctor make fun of you, call you a freak. She’d probably call you a mutant, or worse.”

  But as she sat on the lowered lid in the bathroom, listening to her other pets mill around in the hallway beyond the closed bathroom door, Arlene hugged Silky close as she wondered, What else might be wrong with him…inside?

  * * * *

  Once Silky was free of the roundworms the doctor found in his stool sample, and Arlene was satisfied that he carried no fleas, she let him have the run of her small home. Initially there was a lot of hissing, barking, pissing, and scratching, but within a week Silky had settled in beautifully. Within two weeks the older cats were fighting over whose turn it was to wash his cavernous ears, while the dogs took turns chasing an old wiffle ball around the floor with him.

  Silky learned to wait with the others for breakfast, while Arlene combed the streets and alleys, looking for cans and whatever else was there waiting to be found, taken home, and utilized. Once she even found a rubber jingle ball (along with a couple of almost perfect Ekco pizza pans). And July turned into August, which turned into September (which felt like October; Arlene blamed all those space shuttles NASA sent up to foul up the jet stream and ozone layer), and Silky was now one of the family…albeit a slightly lonely member of the family.

  The dogs were all over seven years old, and tired quickly, while the next-youngest cat was Guy-Pie, at five years old. At first he had been Silky’s “best buddy,” but then Arlene noticed how Guy-Pie had trouble swallowing, and even more trouble breathing. Respiratory infection, she told herself, and tried to take his temperature, but the tortoise-shell cat bucked and kicked like a bronco horse when she tried to do that, so she gave him amoxicillin drops that looked like watered-down Pepto-Bismal and smelled like cherries. (She always kept a bottle of dry amoxicillin powder on hand.)

  Guy-Pie took the amoxi without complaint, but he didn’t get any better. Putting her ear to his ribcage, Arlene heard a strange hooting and whistling, and said to herself, Pneumonia…or perhaps pyothorax. They’re always fighting over some little thing, nipping ears and tails…maybe someone bit Guy-Pie in the chest and I didn’t notice. Guy-Pie has never been a complainer.…

  It wasn’t pneumonia, and it wasn’t pyothorax. The cat’s temperature was normal, but his X-ray wasn’t. The other veterinarian, Dr. Mertz, was as gentle with Arlene as if the old woman was his own mother.

  “It’s a tumor in his upper chest. It’s pressing against his heart and thorax. I don’t think he’s in pain, but I can give him cortisone pills for the duration. Now there’s a slight, and I do mean very slight chance that it might be an abscess, although I can’t find any healed scars on his chest wall. I have this medication, clindamycin hydrochloride—”

  Guy-Pie fought this clear, bitter-smelling new medicine, but he didn’t cry or complain after Arlene squirted it down his thro
at twice a day. Once, he did jerk his head, and a drop of the liquid touched Arlene’s lips. It was vile, the way paint thinner or ammonia probably tasted. Making herself lick her bitter lips clean, Arlene cried, “Oh, Guy-Pie, I’m so sorry…but I have to give it the old college try, don’t I? Don’t we?” and hugged the trim dark cat with the little upturned nose and big frightened green eyes close to her flannel shirt. And as she cried into Guy-Pie’s smooth tan stippled black coat, Silky watched her from where he sat on the counter, small eyes solemn.

  And for a month, then two, Guy-Pie ate, still lost weight, kept on taking his pale orange pills, yet never complained, while Arlene forsook her daily Dumpster dives, telling herself that the recycling truck only came every other week anyhow, and that she didn’t need to gather as many cans.

  The older cats and dogs took turns sleeping next to Guy-Pie; washing his head and ears, purring for him when he could no longer purr for himself. The tumor grew; his chest swelled in either direction. Silky tried to wash his friend into activity, until he realized what was up (or so Arlene let herself believe) and merely slept next to his cobby-bodied friend, waiting.

  And when Guy-Pie ate no longer, even after Arlene rubbed the soft smelly food on his ever-paler gums, she wrapped him in a blanket which she held against one shoulder, while she carried the old black gym bag she’d found near the middle school in her free hand.

  She couldn’t bear to let people see her carrying a dead cat through town on the way home.

  * * * *

  November wind, sharp and silvery pure as a freshly honed blade, whistled through the little gaps where Arlene’s scarf and thin gray hair met. She was walking along the curved spur of tracks near the depot, past the place where Dean Avenue curved out in the opposite direction to the west, scanning the rusted tracks for the right stones. Guy-Pie was a good cat, a beautiful cat. He deserved the finest stones to cover the flattened round of disturbed earth in the backyard. Her pea-coat pockets were heavy and hung low with the rocks she’d already found. Grays, pink-grays, and jagged bits studded with shimmers of mica. (The shine of those stones reminded Arlene of the liquid green light in the back of Guy-Pie’s eyes, just before the injection—)

  Not worried that a train would run over her (the Soo Line had been sold years before, and the buying company cut out the Ewerton runs), Arlene followed the gentle curve to the west, walking stiff-legged down the middle of the boards, her feet moving in a strange gait as her feet sought out each nearest plank. Tracks aren’t made for walking, a calm part of her mind thought, as an old image came back to her. Guy-Pie as a kitten, dignified even in his hunger and footsore condition, as he stood on her front porch. Such a pretty kitten, not long and scrawny like most adolescent cats, but perfectly formed and solemn. And how the other kitties had taken to him, with none of that nose-out-of-joint tomfoolery.

  (“—he’s had five good years, Mrs. Campbell, that’s the most anyone could’ve done for him. And remember, he had a recessed testicle when you found him, and if that had remained inside him, he would’ve been dead in a year from cancer. You gave him years he wouldn’t have had. And he was good to your other cats, and that new kitten of yours too—”)

  And he’d even sat quiet while she plucked off all the fleas that survived his shampoo. Guy-Pie was the best kitty she’d ever had, until Silky came along, at least. And while Silky wasn’t like Guy-Pie, not in a lot of ways, he was good in his own way.

  It had almost done her in when she brought Guy-Pie home, and placed him on the floor, then dragged the other animals over to see him. She had read once that that was important, making sure that the other animals in a household knew that one of their friends was gone. The dogs howled and took off after seeing him, and most of the cats did likewise, except for Silky. He had reached out one white paw to touch Guy-Pie’s flank, and when his friend didn’t respond, Silky let his head hang down but didn’t leave Guy-Pie’s side.

  Pausing to dry her leaking eyes (it’s the wind, cuts like a razor it does), Arlene realized that she’d walked well past Dean Avenue, all the way up to the depot. The old rust and cream painted building was abandoned now, with the warped boards showing through fine-grained and silvery in the pale sunlight. On the side facing her were all the old wrought-iron benches bolted to the concrete platform, and above the benches was a multicolored flutter of paper; all sizes, shapes, and shades, attached with thumbtacks, tape, and staples.

  After the Soo buyout, people began to treat the old depot like the world’s largest message board, putting up layer after layer of paper which grew rust-runneled after a good rain. Shoving her chapped hands into her already full pockets, Arlene stepped across the rusted rail and made her way toward the gravel and stone studded dead grass which lay between the rails and the depot.

  Some of the posters were weeks, months old, and wind-worn, while others (written on lined notebook paper, or on patterned recipe cards) were obviously, painfully new:

  “Cloths made to order. Any size, any fabick.

  You suply the pattern.

  Call 555-8743 p.m.”

  “4-Sail: One (1) used trailor top, like new.

  Also almost-new RV, and new child-size RV.…”

  “To Give to GOOD Home; two Persian kitties,

  litter-traned and gentile—”

  Arlene had to laugh at the part about the kittens being Christian, even as she mourned the ignorance of the person who wrote the message. There was an address as well as a phone number on the piece of lilac notebook paper, on 7th Avenue East, less than a two—block walk from the depot. For a few seconds, Arlene wavered, torn by her inner misgivings.

  On one hand, she had vowed not to take in cats that someone else might want, yet on the other hand, Silky was lonely, and needed a young cat—or cats—to run with.…

  Thinking that no one would mind, Arlene tore the piece of paper off the depot wall, and stuffed it in her pockets along with Guy-Pie’s rocks.

  * * * *

  “I said will you shut them kids up already?” The young man pushed his long limp blond hair out of his colorless eyes (and past a whey-colored expanse of forehead) as he yelled at his wife in the other room. The shapeless young woman in the thin cotton maternity top only shrugged in reply and shut the door connecting the living room to the sunken back bedroom. The din of the six (seven? surely the young woman had to have been babysitting some of them) children was muffled by the door as the sweatshirted young man went on, “That sign’s been on the depot for two weeks now. I was almost set to…you know…the kittens.” The pale man made a two-handed gesture indicative of something being drowned, forcibly. Arlene nodded dully.

  “I told my wife that she’s gotta be careful who Mr. Clean mates with, but my wife lets her out into the yard any old time—”

  “I take it Mr. Clean is a queen?”

  “Huh?”

  “A female cat,” Arlene said succinctly, thinking, And he claims he’s breeding cats? while the young man bent at the waist to scoop Mr. Clean up as the plush red cat sauntered by.

  “The kids named her ’fore we sexed her. Name stuck. But she’s pure, I got papers somewhere,” the man lied glibly, not knowing that no cat is ever issued papers unless it has been sexed.

  Arlene let his faux pas go. She couldn’t wait to pick up the kittens, be they pure Persian or not, and get out of this tiny house that smelled like old French fries and stale beer.

  Rocking in place on the littered carpet, Arlene asked, “Are the kittens in the house? All my cats live indoors, period.”

  Nonplussed by her pointed remark, the man pushed a stingy lock of hair behind his ear and said, “They’re in the garage. Play in among the old engines and stuff. Course we got rid of the good ones, sold the last of ’em this week. These two aren’t for breeding. They’re objectionable, y’know. If that makes a difference, I mean.”

  It was Arlene’s turn to be confused. “‘Objectionable’? As in—”

  The young man led her through the sunken kitchen, out a
back door which connected directly to the garage, saying, “Their coloring. It’s red, but not the right red. They got tiger stripes on their heads, but no tiger markings on their body. Their Ma, she’s pure red. Most of the kittens were, ’cept these guys.” The man scooped up two wiggling balls of fluff crawling near an engine on blocks, and handed them to Arlene.

  She let out a soft “Ooooh,” and cuddled the kittens under her chin. They were gorgeous, pure Persian as far as she could tell (although one little tail did look a tad too long), with orange eyes and pale orange pug noses. Not quite Peke-faced, but with adorable dips in their noses, and wide flexible white whiskers. They reminded her of those little Troll dolls popular in the l960s, those pug-ugly dolls with the long manes of odd-colored hair and flat round eyes, only Troll dolls were never this adorable.

  “What do I owe you?” she asked as a formality, remembering that she had left her wallet at home. Luckily for her, the man shrugged and said, “Aw, let it go. Saves me the trouble of having to kill ’em. You will have ’em fixed, won’t you?”

  “Certainly. I believe in prevention,” she added, realizing that the jibe would go over his head, but feeling the better for having said it.

  After fitting the kittens into her pea coat (her breasts had shrunken from age and disuse), Arlene hurried away from the sorry prefab on 7th Avenue, toward her home to the south. The rocks in her pockets beat against her hips with every step, but it was a good ache.

  * * * *

  As she expected, Silky and the new kittens (both males, whom she dubbed Puff and Fluff) got along famously—after a few “I-was-here-first” hisses on Silky’s part. And as she patted the stones into a rough heart shape over Guy-Pie’s grave, she reflected that maybe things just worked out for the best, no matter how painful they seemed initially. One cat died, she went to look for stones for him, and she saved two kittens from death. A minus, but followed by two pluses. She still hurt, but she would heal.