I Miss Even Your Drool...

It is odd that I do not remember how Alley Cat first came into our household. All I recall is that he arrived when I was young enough to think naming him after a brand of cat food conferred to him the greatest dignity.

In a house with a strong tradition against naming animals, it is a surprise that his name ever stuck at all. For generations the cats in my family have been nothing more significant than barn cats and have been named one of three generic names: Tom (if male), Cat (insert appropriate color), or Kitty. I can still see the lines of my mother’s mouth growing tight and the grip on her hand-purse growing stronger when, at the grocery store, I would insist she purchase Alley-Cat brand cat food instead of the plain brown bags of Publix brand or Winn-Dixie.

The special cat food brought a keen shine to Alley Cat’s fur, which was as soft and silky smooth as a rabbit’s. The only nuisance in petting him was that his hairs would come off in your hand and float around the room in little flurries of fluff. Because of this I bought him a blue plastic hairbrush. One hundred strokes before bedtime became our routine.

As I stroked him, his long whiskers and broad cheekbones vibrated with the strength of his ardent purr, and beads of drool often pooled up under his chin and dripped into my lap. His eyes and his head rolled back in deluxe pleasure, high exaltation, or pure luxury. He was always thankful for attention. He was like an old man who loves little girls: sweet, loving, smiling, appreciative and lonely. Were Alley Cat human, I’m sure he would have had me sitting in his lap. Instead, he consented to sit in mine. He was always as close to me as I permitted.

Not since Alley Cat have I received so much joy in petting a feline. The sheer amount of joy and love he received from my laying-of-hands on his fur was evident in the size of the drool puddle he left on the floor—a puddle that left my hands feeling magically powerful and strong.

Alley Cat’s under-footedness only occasionally caused confusion. On cold winter mornings before I threw off the covers, over the noise of percolating coffee, I could hear my Dad stumbling over Alley Cat as he went about making breakfast. I knew then that Alley Cat was rubbing against my Dad’s feet. My Dad’s grumbles and swears at the cat soon disappeared and when I arrived from the hall Alley Cat would be purring in my Dad’s arms. Holding Alley Cat was irresistible. Eventually he could win anyone over.

Alley Cat himself turned out to be an excellent father. When Alley Cat was approaching his middle years an opportunity came to our family in the form of an orange kitten that allowed his paternal nature to blossom. We baptized the new tabby “Tigger.” A spunky spitfire, we rescued her from certain death in the tangles of a fishing net left in an abandoned garage. We submitted ourselves to countless scratches and also to the oily black dirt on the floor to draw her out. For this she has never seemed appropriately thankful.

“Alley Cat will be jealous and miserable,” was my Mother’s principal attempt to discourage Tigger’s homecoming. But home she came, and through the grace of Alley Cat’s gregarious nature she was received whole-heartedly. He groomed her without cease, with long strokes of his course pink tongue, and was not deterred from his task even when she swatted at his face. He patiently permitted her to have her kittenish tendencies—when he ate from his food dish and she attacked his tail, he seemed to sigh “kittens will be kittens,” and continue about his business with minimal perturbation. He watched her adoringly while she ate. He shared his own food dish with her.

Alley Cat spent most of his time ushering Tigger into adulthood. Though Tigger has always maintained a sense of wildness and has never been completely tamed, her heart was soft toward her doting father. He cleaned behind her ears, followed her and protected her on walks, fought off snakes before she stumbled on them, taught her how to wrestle and fight, saw that she gained mastery in the art of hunting, and chided her when she stayed out too late at night by biting her neck. Each evening they shared a ritual in which Alley Cat bathed Tigger with his tongue while she held absolutely still. Then, in return, she gave him two or three cursory licks. I admit I grew jealous of their relationship. After all, I was the one who used to give and receive such affections. Tigger seemed to meet my eye with a look that said, “see, I am a princess, and even my father knows this.”

The mild Florida winters set in and passed and Alley Cat and Tigger groomed each other and kept company. One winter Alley Cat grew thin and then he altogether disappeared. I think he politely wandered to the woods to pass away alone—to keep death and our bereavement distanced. We have never found a body or bones. Occasionally I will still remember the peace of sitting in front of a warm window in the yellow sunlight, ten years old, rocking in a chair with that soft cat on my lap and nothing else in the world to consider.

This morning, when I came down the stairs, Tigger was meowing to be fed. She swatted at me and stuck a claw into my leg. She treats me as though she were mistress and I her misbehaving servant. She demands to be pet when it appeals to her, but if I am to pick her up and set her in my lap on my own accord she bites my thumbs and grabs my wrists with her claws. Outdoors she meows to be let in, and once inside the house she meows to be let out. After Alley Cat left us, I tried to convince Tigger into becoming my sleeping companion. I would bring her to my bed and feed her kitty treats; she would nibble the treats and then leave. After repeating this experiment multiple times with similar results I gave up. I soon learned that I was not missing very much—she jumped onto my bed one night and lied right on top of my feet. I felt rather guilty when I kicked her off of the bed.

Tigger is an enigma. She has grown fat and her stomach is soft and droopy, but she once was lithe and wiry. She has a small frame, a short tail, and a miniature face with slanted green eyes, but she walks as though she is as large and fierce as a panther. Her small teeth are sharp and she is quick to snap if displeased. Her coat is course and her outer hairs do not fall out—intriguingly, under her coarser orange outer-coat is a thick layer of downy white fuzz. Her white chest consists only of this fuzzy matter and is the softest part of her fur. She will not let me touch it. She is a beautiful queen. I would hold her more often, but I don’t like to be bitten. She is the type of cat that you cannot seduce—she must come to you. When she does sit on a lap she uses it as a sharpening instrument, repetitiously kneading left paw and right paw into your leg.

For fifteen years has Tigger dragged birds and mice and moles to my doorstep. For fifteen years she has followed me on walks, balancing the length of the board fence that borders the driveway to my house. For fifteen years has she puzzled me with two very distinct modus operandi: one childlike, seeking affection and petting, that crawls into my lap and falls into a deep sleep—the other, wild and unpredictable, with a sinister and errant claw that draws blood regularly. I have learned when to draw close to Tigger and when to keep a distance—mainly from trial and error. If she scratches once during the day, she will strike again.

If Alley Cat was a welcoming and nurturing father, Tigger has not progressed beyond a spoiled and self-centered adolescent. Before Alley Cat’s death, we welcomed another addition to the family. Natasha was a lean black kitten who earned her name due to her resemblance to the conniving Russian woman of the Borris and Natasha duo from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Alley Cat welcomed Natasha as he had Tigger—adopting her as his own daughter—and Tigger could not accept this. She threw temper tantrums in the form of hideous groaning meows, developed odd habits such as refusing to come off of the furniture (she also refused to allow Natasha on the furniture), and was openly nasty to the poor kitten in the form of hisses and evil glances. Alley Cat plodded along at his even pace loving both girls equally. Tigger gave him the silent treatment. Alley Cat just seemed to sigh and say “teenagers will be teenagers.” He did not take it personally, which infuriated Tigger. After Alley Cat died, we were forced to give Natasha away due to Tiggers continual abuse.

Four nights ago, on Thursday, Tigger woke me at 3:37 in the morning in her usual way. The first phase of this process consists of persistent meowing, which I routinely ignore. This is my first mistake. If ignored, she goes to the window and rattles the blinds by climbing and jumping on them. It makes an awful racket but I am an accomplished sleeper and simply put the pillow over my head. The pillow-move was developed to avert the third stage of her design—climbing on top of my head, and sometimes lying on it. The physiology of the human facial structure includes several painful pressure points, most of which Tigger manages to find with acute accuracy when standing on my cheekbones. If applying pressure to my facial-cranial cavities or attempting to suffocate me with her furry stomach does not rouse me, she is forced to revert to phase four and pee on my bed.

Tigger is frequently an annoyance to me. As I am walking out the door with my baby son on my hip and a diaper bag slung over my arm and my purse on my shoulder and my backpack on my back and coffee and appointment book and banana and green sippy-cup and keys in hand, Tigger bolts into the house and hides. She is too old to stay in all day—I refuse to clean a litter-box, so I must laboriously set everything down and find her. I am late to work. I can’t count on both hands the number of times during a single day that she runs under my feet and trips me, causing me to spill something or inviting near death on the staircase.

I keep her for sentimental reasons and because I have had her for so long. One might hear me talk about these animals and conclude that I am a “cat-person,” but I would not classify myself as such. I much prefer the intelligence of dogs. My family has encountered several cats in passing, but only these two, Tigger and Alley Cat, have aroused in me a loyal concern and curiosity. Alley Cat was the first, his “daughter” the next, and after these I do not know if there will be another.

I suppose that after Tigger passes I will miss Alley Cat the most. Tigger is a loving pain in a more hectic world. Yet I am thankful foe the memories these two small animals have left me. If I never have another cat again, I will remember these two with fondness and it will be enough. Ah, the days were long, the evenings cool, the scratches painful and insulting; the lap was warm, the purring strong, and the drool prolific.