A Tale of Two Cats
Sep. 9th, 2024 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraI’ve had seemingly Lost-Forever Cats return before.
The Meezer & Rutger both went on extended walkabouts when I left Ithaca & moved to Long Island for a year.
In fact, the Meezer decamped the very same night I arrived!
This was the trip that convinced me never again to subject myself to driving in NYC city traffic. I took the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey, then navigated through Manhattan to catch the Throgs Neck Bridge into Queens (technically the western most edge of Long Island), refusing to go faster than 60 mph in the pounding rain; as a result, I got honked at & passed dangerously with two-inch clearance by hordes of NYC drivers who raised their fists menacingly & screamed curses at me from behind their closed windows. Fuck this shit 4-EVAH! I decided.
It had been a long day, in other words, & the cats in their carriers had kept up a running aria throughout.
Ti odiamo, they sang. Quando ci farai uscire dalle nostre gabbie, miserabile essere umano?
Sometimes they yowled in two-part harmony.
When I finally arrived & unpacked the cats, the Meezer made her displeasure known by almost immediately scooting out the front door, open so I could haul the rest of my meager belongings into the space I would be occupying for the next however many months.
My hosts were aghast.
But I was fatalistic.
I’d known the Meezer since she’d been a tiny kitten, brutally abused by the neighbor boy next door. (I suspected the neighbor boy himself was being abused.) I’d adopted her after the neighbors dumped her when they hastily moved out after I watched her scrounging in the trash cans for a couple of days.
The Meezer was always fierce about her own autonomy.
Two weeks later, I was driving with some friends from a concert at the beach when out the window, I espied a convocation of cats. They were chilling convivially enough together like Brooklyn stoop kids, and one of the cats had fluffy fur…
“Stop the car!” I screamed and leaped out.
Sure enough, it was the Meezer!
She was pleased to see me.
The Meezer was a stalking cat. One of my few entertainments in Ithaca had been bivouacking along streams looking for beaver dams & beaver lodges with Milo the dog. Milo & I hiked miles and miles, and very often, I sensed a shadowy presence following us who, when it finally revealed itself, turned out to be the Meezer.
So when I jumped out of the car, I walked the mile or so home, knowing the Meezer would follow me.
And she did.
A week or so later, Rutger ran off.
Rutger & the Meezer had both been indoor/outdoor cats in Ithaca, so I saw no reason why they should not continue to be indoor/outdoor cats on Long Island.
So, Rutger went out one afternoon.
And then, he didn’t come back.
Unlike with the Meezer, I was heartbroken when Rutger vanished. He was such a little doofus; I had no confidence whatsoever that he could take care of himself.
The area I was staying in was very suburban, comfortable-sized houses, big backyards. I knocked on every neighbor’s door, put up flyers, even made a visit to the Nassau County Humane Society, a truly horrifying place that did not deserve its adjective, resembling as it did the lunatic asylum in Marat/Sade only with cats instead of Charlotte Corday. I drove the streets looking for his little orange corpse in the gutter. I looked at every tree for a glimpse of orange fur.
I raged against the Universe. What kind of world was this where an innocent, friendly, goofy little guy like Rutger could attract harm?
About a month later, one of my housemates said, You know, there’s an orange cat sitting in the front yard.
I raced outside.
The cat was orange. The cat was cute. The cat was friendly. But it was not Rutger.
I turned around to go back inside—and the cat followed me into the house. It seemed to know the way up the stairs into my room.
But this is not Rutger, I told myself.
Even though it looked like Rutger & even acted a bit like Rutger.
Of course, it was Rutger.
One month gone but no worse for wear!
I liked to imagine that Rutger had been snatched by some mad cat lady who used the fact that he didn’t wear a collar (he wouldn’t tolerate a collar) to justify kidnapping him. He’d obviously been well fed and didn’t seem particularly traumatized.
But, of course, since Rutger didn’t speak English, I’d never know.
The Meezer & Rutger both went on extended walkabouts when I left Ithaca & moved to Long Island for a year.
In fact, the Meezer decamped the very same night I arrived!
This was the trip that convinced me never again to subject myself to driving in NYC city traffic. I took the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey, then navigated through Manhattan to catch the Throgs Neck Bridge into Queens (technically the western most edge of Long Island), refusing to go faster than 60 mph in the pounding rain; as a result, I got honked at & passed dangerously with two-inch clearance by hordes of NYC drivers who raised their fists menacingly & screamed curses at me from behind their closed windows. Fuck this shit 4-EVAH! I decided.
It had been a long day, in other words, & the cats in their carriers had kept up a running aria throughout.
Ti odiamo, they sang. Quando ci farai uscire dalle nostre gabbie, miserabile essere umano?
Sometimes they yowled in two-part harmony.
When I finally arrived & unpacked the cats, the Meezer made her displeasure known by almost immediately scooting out the front door, open so I could haul the rest of my meager belongings into the space I would be occupying for the next however many months.
My hosts were aghast.
But I was fatalistic.
I’d known the Meezer since she’d been a tiny kitten, brutally abused by the neighbor boy next door. (I suspected the neighbor boy himself was being abused.) I’d adopted her after the neighbors dumped her when they hastily moved out after I watched her scrounging in the trash cans for a couple of days.
The Meezer was always fierce about her own autonomy.
Two weeks later, I was driving with some friends from a concert at the beach when out the window, I espied a convocation of cats. They were chilling convivially enough together like Brooklyn stoop kids, and one of the cats had fluffy fur…
“Stop the car!” I screamed and leaped out.
Sure enough, it was the Meezer!
She was pleased to see me.
The Meezer was a stalking cat. One of my few entertainments in Ithaca had been bivouacking along streams looking for beaver dams & beaver lodges with Milo the dog. Milo & I hiked miles and miles, and very often, I sensed a shadowy presence following us who, when it finally revealed itself, turned out to be the Meezer.
So when I jumped out of the car, I walked the mile or so home, knowing the Meezer would follow me.
And she did.
A week or so later, Rutger ran off.
Rutger & the Meezer had both been indoor/outdoor cats in Ithaca, so I saw no reason why they should not continue to be indoor/outdoor cats on Long Island.
So, Rutger went out one afternoon.
And then, he didn’t come back.
Unlike with the Meezer, I was heartbroken when Rutger vanished. He was such a little doofus; I had no confidence whatsoever that he could take care of himself.
The area I was staying in was very suburban, comfortable-sized houses, big backyards. I knocked on every neighbor’s door, put up flyers, even made a visit to the Nassau County Humane Society, a truly horrifying place that did not deserve its adjective, resembling as it did the lunatic asylum in Marat/Sade only with cats instead of Charlotte Corday. I drove the streets looking for his little orange corpse in the gutter. I looked at every tree for a glimpse of orange fur.
I raged against the Universe. What kind of world was this where an innocent, friendly, goofy little guy like Rutger could attract harm?
About a month later, one of my housemates said, You know, there’s an orange cat sitting in the front yard.
I raced outside.
The cat was orange. The cat was cute. The cat was friendly. But it was not Rutger.
I turned around to go back inside—and the cat followed me into the house. It seemed to know the way up the stairs into my room.
But this is not Rutger, I told myself.
Even though it looked like Rutger & even acted a bit like Rutger.
Of course, it was Rutger.
One month gone but no worse for wear!
I liked to imagine that Rutger had been snatched by some mad cat lady who used the fact that he didn’t wear a collar (he wouldn’t tolerate a collar) to justify kidnapping him. He’d obviously been well fed and didn’t seem particularly traumatized.
But, of course, since Rutger didn’t speak English, I’d never know.
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Date: 2024-09-10 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-10 02:54 pm (UTC)