As if COVID wasn’t enough to deal with I lost all my television production work, every booking at my vacation rental side hustle cancelled, my mom died, several close friends also, my wife and I divorced and I was hospitalized with kidney stones. So I limped into 2020’s not sure what to expect next and fearing what the fates had in store for me, what more they could take. I spent the following months alone, eating my single daily meal wherever the servers were nicest to me, tipping large to ensure their conviviality would continue. My beat to crap Toyota continued to carry me around town. It should have reasonably been scrapped or donated but it was the last car that my dad rode in with me. I could still see him smiling as we followed the hills in Eastern Pennsylvania and sandy flats of coastal Florida. I had an emotional attachment to the car with its taped on mirrors and slashed leather seats. So much had been taken that I was reluctant to part with any part of my past.
I began sitting on my back porch more often, especially late at night. The recently added screening kept the mosquitos and no-see-ums away. No one lives directly behind me. The next yard is part of a Victorian House museum, its gables and wrap around wood porches hung with a handful of security lights whose luminance seeps through the oak limbs and Spanish moss tresses. Most evenings the birds are quiet but the leafy branches crash and creak as squirrels leap between the trees trying to avoid the coyotes and feral cats hunting on the ground. One of those marauding felines seemed to have settled in and around my yard. It would watch me from within the security of bushes and low hanging branches. I am not a cat fancier. So long as the animal kept its distance I was indifferent to its day to day existence and ultimate fate. I could often hear the screeches of fights piercing the darkness. Winter came and went but only in the evening did air temperatures become uncomfortable for the unprotected. The gray cat seemed to survive without trouble. Similar to the other unowned cats seen in the neighborhood, the gray would not come near me. Any food left out for it would quickly be consumed by the tubby raccoons and scary looking opossums that lived beneath my porch and shed. When my young daughter moved to a nearby town she saw the gray and through her patience and soothing voice managed to coax the cat close enough to her to allow petting. It was obvious that the animal was not feral, just abandoned, and preferred women. At my approach, she would run away prompting an immediate rebuke from my daughter ” Don’t scare her dad.” Neither of us knew the animals gender but since Reilly had declared her to be a female, and named her Ruby, it was ok with me.
One afternoon while I was sitting and reading in the garden, Ruby appeared from beneath some bushes. We watched each other indifferently for a while. I returned to my book when I was startled by the cat jumping into my lap. I began to stroke her fur as she watched me and saw that a tuft of it had been gouged away. Carefully, the cat walked up my body and put her face close to mine. She stared at me and a vestigial bond was either formed or rekindled. After that encounter, Ruby would sit near me as I worked in the yard. Not exactly following me but close enough for comfort, my comfort. Soon I was allowing the cat onto my back porch. I found myself racing to beat the closing times of stores stocking kitty litter and cat food. Amazon was soon bringing boxes of toys and I had made a bed for her. Her attempts to get inside my house were constantly thwarted. There was no doubt that she wanted to share my inner abode and bed, fleas and all. She began to put on weight and our intimacy grew daily. She would sit on my lap purring contentedly. Sometimes she would like my fingers and nuzzle my chin, jump on my back but her claws were definitely sheathed. If I went out of town for work my cat loving friend would look after her until my return. Illogically, I began to miss her. We began each day together and I never retired without hugging her. I asked me friend to take her to her vet where she was given her shots. The vet announced that Ruby was a male and had been spayed. He also had an identification chip. Despite the gender reveal we continued to call him Ruby. Lets not go crazy, its a cat! The months passed. When cold weather was forecast I built her a small house with a carpet and heating pad. Other strays would come near the porch to stare at him, secure, fed and warm. Do cats feel envy. Her food was safe from mooching raccoons who boldly approached the back door as though pissed, really pissed that this new food source was being kept from them. It was an undeniable fact that Ruby and I had bonded emotionally.
The cat loved to get outside and roam the neighborhood, perhaps revisit old haunts. The neighbors knew and fed her treats. Ruby had become my companion contrary to all my expectations and past experiences. Things were less lonely.
A good hearted neighbor had given shelter to a pregnant stray who rewarded her with six hungry, mewing kittens that matured quickly into half a dozen wandering cats that were shredding her porch and narrowly avoiding the tyres of passing cars. Giving kittens away is on a par with offering free infections, there were no takers. In desperation she contacted a cat rescue organization who set traps to catch the budding strays. They also caught Ruby during one of his free to wander outings. The rescue woman was told the cat was mine and when she offered to have the cat checked by their vet, I said sure, what could it hurt.
On the following day I received a call from the rescue people informing me that my cat was an indoor cat according to its chip. The original owners had never added Ruby to the chip database. They were insisting that I bring the cat indoors with me. If I was not agreeable to that then they would keep the cat and try and place her in an appropriate home. The woman who had actually trapped the cat said she was given a dressing down by the main rescue organization because she had not “seized” the cat from me. They wanted an answer. In my heart I knew that my cat wanted to be indoors. Yet she had grown fat and happy on my porch and nestled on my lap. So strong was her desire to roam free that she had smashed a hole through my screen in order to get out. Yet she always returned, always. Trying to decide what was best for Ruby, I agreed to give him up and never saw the cat again. My porch and life were empty once again. I donated the stock of canned fish, dumped the kitty litter in the garden and gave her toys to a friends pets. The spare bags of kitty litter were given to my neighbor who was still stuck with one of the now too old to adopt juvenile kittens. I tore up the donation check that I had made out to the rescue group. The days are lonelier again but I have one less responsibility. My response to those who kindly suggest that I get another pet, or find a nice girlfriend, is simply no. That ship has sailed.