The Perfect Cat

One cold, autumn evening many years ago, my highschool boyfriend and I were tooling around in his car outside the gates of our highschool campus. There was a football game going on, something we cared very little about. It was an excuse to get out of the house, get in the car, and drive, drive, drive. To nowhere really. It was the getting there that mattered.

As we were cruising back through one of the residential neighborhoods, we saw a very tiny creature crouching beneath the bushes at the side of the street. My boyfriend slowed the car down enough so I could hop out. What was it? It was a very tiny silver tabby kitten! I scooped it up in my hand, smiling and showing it off to my boyfriend who was squinting through the haze of the front windshield. I brought the cat out of the chilly air into the waiting warmth of the front seat.

The cat had on a tiny pink collar, studded with rhinestones. I took it off. In my young mind, a kitten so small should not be out on her own on such a cold and dark night. All alone. Wasn't right. Certainly, the poor little thing would've been run over by a car or picked up by a homicidal maniac. I decided to save her.

"We'll take her to my house. I can keep her." I was convincing myself as much as my boyfriend. "Are you sure? Dana, you're allergic to cats. Your dad is gonna freak!"He was right, but I was certain. I would take that cat home and keep her. Protect her from the dangers outside.

We cuddled the cat in the car. Petted her and loved her. Treated her like our baby. It made us feel close to one another, bonding as parents. We both loved this cat, and therefore, in some way, didn't we then love each other? Yes. I blushed when my boyfriend looked at me and smiled. We made out in the front seat of that car with the cat crawling all over us, another warm cozy body adding to the heat.

When we arrived at my house much later that evening, my mother was there to greet us.

"What is THAT?" she scoffed. She was trying to feign irritation, and it wasn't working. "Mom, we found this little kitten out in the cold with nowhere to go." I made sad puppy-dog eyes at her. "Well, it must belong to someone. Wasn't it wearing a collar?" she asked. "No." I lied, fingering the pink collar tucked deeply into my pocket. "I guess it's okay to keep it here tonight, but it's got to go tomorrow. Your father is going to have a fit."

I knew my mother did not mean what she was saying, did not believe it, not for one moment. I was a gentle soul, but my mother was gentler. The cat would stay with us, we both knew, but getting past my father would be a very difficult and painful process. My mother turned her back to us as I kissed my boyfriend goodnight, the tiny kitten tucked under my chin. He kissed the kitten, too.

I brushed my teeth and put on my pajamas, the kitten held snugly to my chest all the while, her gentle purring reminding me I had done the right thing. I had done the right thing. Hadn't I? Although I wasn't sure of that, I was sure that this kitten would be loved and have a good home. Then wouldn't I be loved and have a good home, too? We slept soundly, our breathing in sync, our bodies a mass of flannel and fur.

The next morning, I could hear my father ranting to my mother in the kitchen, "...can't keep it...allergies...dirty animal...who'll take care of it? Not me!!" My stomache dropped. I was afraid to go downstairs, afraid he would take the kitten to the pound, afraid I would lose my warm friend, afraid of many things. He came to me instead.

"Dana, you cannot keep this cat. Your mother told me what happened, but this is not the place for a housecat. For one, you have very severe allergies. You take allergy shots, for chrissakes! You need to get rid of it." He stormed out of the room, which was his usual response to any adverse situation. Don't talk about it, just leave. I did the same.

As time passed, my father's inquisitions became fewer and farther between. He gave up. I stopped worrying. That tiny kitten with the pink rhinestone collar grew and grew into a hefty tomcat. All boy. No bullshit. He ruled the neighborhood with tooth and claw and had the ragged ears and nasty disposition to prove it. I secretly wondered if I had made him that way, taking him away from his home, maybe away from his momma when he was so tiny. No! The people who had put him in the pink collar had not even known him well enough to know he was a boy. I had saved him, had brought him to a better place. Sometimes though, no matter how bad home can be, it's still home. I could understand that.

Because of his seemingly insatiable appetite for squirrels (or anything small and defenseless), my mother named him Hunter. We called him Meow because he wouldn't shut up and he was loud. He would sit in a chair at the railing that led down into the sunken living room and swat at you as you dared to walk past. His claws were sharp and he wasn't playing. He could take an eye out if you weren't careful.

If Hunter happened to crawl into your lap, you certainly did not protest or shoo him away, and you were pretty much stuck in that exact position until he decided to get up and leave of his own accord. It didn't matter if your nose itched, you had to pee, or the house was on fire, you had to remain perfectly still or you risked losing a limb.

He did not want to be petted, either. He would look up at you with his beautiful, menacing eyes, thinking, "I dare you. I dare you to touch me and then I will seriously fuck you up." We did not dare to touch him, but we loved him just the same.

One day, as my mother was washing dishes, she looked out into the commotion in the yard through the window over the sink. There, way up in the tree, was Hunter, balancing precariously atop a bird's nest, and momma bird had come home. She was dive-bombing the poor cat and pecking away. We started screaming through the window. I did not know who we were trying to protect: the cat or the bird. Hunter fell out of the nest just as we ran outside.

He was a mess. We took him to the vet. The bird had almost killed him. Blinded him in one eye. He had puncture wounds all over his head. Amazingly, he had sustained no serious injuries from the fall. We nursed him back to health, though he scarcely let us touch him.

With his permanently dialated eye, shredded ears, and eighteen pound frame, Hunter looked more like a charicature than a real cat. As soon as we opened the front door to let him out, wildlife fled in all directions. Unfailingly, there was a dead squirrel at our back door at least once a day.

One particular afternoon, as I went to open the front door for Hunter who was meowing loudly outside, my mother came running up behind me yelling, "don't open the door!!!" It was too late. I had opened the door and in came Hunter, a plump chipmunk clenched in his jaws. He gaily pranced across the room and squeezed himself under the sofa. "Oh, shit!" my mother barked. "I'm sorry! I didn't know!" I offered. I had not recognized the low, gutteral growling of a carniverous feline with a fresh kill. Only my mother could make the distinction, and she had tried to warn me.

"Quick, go get a broom," my mother ordered as she peered into the cramped space where Hunter had wedged himself. And the chipmunk. "We've got to try to get him out," she announced. I suspected, though concerned for the chipmunk's well-being, she was more worried about her white carpet and the blood that might be spilled on it.

We worked the broom under the sofa. Hunter growled deeply. I was scared. I had no doubt he would defend his prize to the death. Still, the wooden broom handle and the sheer strength of our efforts forced the cat from beneath the couch. He scampered to the corner of the dining room and in the transition, lost his hold on the chipmunk. The poor creature bolted in the opposite direction.

The tiny chipmunk, now cowering in the opposite corner of the room, shivered in terror. I was not sure whether he was more frightened of me, the gigantic figure looming above him, or the chipmunk-eating machine. I had donned a pair of rubber gloves to protect myself from wee nipping teeth. I also knew full well the thin gloves would be no match for the claws and fangs of the bigger beast.

As I carefully scooped the miniature being into my hand, feeling his little heart, beat, beat, beat impossibly fast, my mother chased the cat to the back door with the broom. I stroked the chipmunk's head lovingly and knew he hoped I would let him go and go away. He wanted no part of me and my clumsy, terrifying caresses. I opened the front door and put him down on the porch. He remained there frozen. I did not know my mother had let the cat out the back.

I met my mother in the kitchen and we realized what had occurred. Peering out into the front yard through the window, we could see Hunter was already there, racing across the lawn. The chipmunk had moved from the porch. I fantasized that somehow the xhipmunk had escaped the jaws of the monster cat once again and did not succumb to his mortal wounds, though not likely.

Despite the years of hard living, Hunter lived to be sixteen years old. Once my mother passed away, he came to live with me. For fear that he would venture back to my mother's house instinctively, we chose to keep him inside, with short, supervised jaunts in the enclosed back yard where he would walk the perimeter of the fence again and again. After he mangled every piece of furniture in the house, we had him declawed. We realized too late that you can take a cat out of the wild, but you can't take the wild out of the cat. He stopped eating and we had to put him down.

Hunter was mean and nasty. Even still, I loved him unconditionally, and I knew deep down he loved me. He was the perfect cat.