A Cat Named Darwin (3 page)

When he finished his second feast, he walked over to where I sat reading the paper and jumped onto the couch next to me. After staring steadily into my eyes for an eternal fifteen seconds or so, he turned about in several slow, tight circles, testing the firmness of the cushions with his forepaws, then flopped heavily against my thigh. There he lay for the rest of the evening, dirty and populated with fleas, and while he purred, I reveled in the feel of his warm, small, dirty body pressed against my flesh.

Finally, however, it came time for bed, which meant it was time for him to go outside. He was still just a cat, and as pleasant as our time together had been, cats belonged outdoors.
In rules and laws,
crooned my interior voice,
is Civilization. In this iron fist in this velvet glove lie those rules and laws.

Heraus mit dir,
said the beloved memory of my German grandmother.

I stood to my full height, expanded my chest with a deep breath, and pointed toward the door with a military stiffening of my right arm. The cat stared at me for several moments, then, as if he had heard my interior monologue and understood perfectly, he hung his head and walked dejectedly out, emitting a tiny, thin, pathetic meow. No human ever expressed resignation and despair with more pathos than this cat. I was still, however, an unregenerate member of modern society, and I tried to shrug off the waves of pity as a mere projection of human emotion. The door closed behind the poor creature, the latch clicked, and I had just committed the first blunder of many in our relationship.

I had underestimated the cat.

A loud meow then arose from just beyond the door. Another loud meow. I did nothing. A louder meow. More pity welled up, but it hadn't a chance of forcing me to reconsider my policies. Louder still. How much volume does he have? I wondered, but refused to open the door.

The cat responded with a relentless series of meows that went on and on, blending gradually into one long ululation that penetrated ceilings, walls, and floors and seeped into the rooms. The siege continued for at least half an hour; then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Nothing was ever stiller or deeper than the silence that followed. What was going on? Was he merely taking time to breathe? That question was answered with a strange scraping sound, as if someone was rubbing a piece of sandpaper against the surface. Again the sound came. And again. Then the pace picked up and I realized that the cat was pawing at the door, perhaps clawing. This went on for minutes before it stopped. No sooner had it stopped than the loud, caustic meowing started up. All through the night it continued, periods of billowing wails washing over my walls followed by bouts of small paws pummeling the door until finally, needing to sleep, I resorted to earplugs, which dampened the sound but did not eliminate it.

***

When I awoke the next morning the siege seemed to have ended. Light streamed through the windows and cast the shadows of leaves and branches against the walls, where they slipped silently this way and that across the whiteness. It was as if a spirit had departed. I opened the door a crack and peeked out. No cat. I opened the door farther. Still no cat. I opened it all the way and stepped onto the threshold, and just as I did, the cat slipped through my legs so quickly that I couldn't focus my eyes. I stood there with what must have been a lobotomized look on my face as it slowly occurred to me that I had been set up, the cat pressed like a commando against the wall next to the door, and when my guard relaxed he made his move with such perfect timing that it could not be blocked.

Into the kitchen strode the big orange cat, exuding confidence, expecting—knowing—it was time for breakfast.

Not that this changed the rules; cats still belonged outdoors, and one never budged on basic principles. Steel fist, velvet glove. That night the siege resumed, if anything with more determination on both sides. I inserted my earplugs and went to bed. The next morning the same vacant silence. This time I knew what to expect, but as I slowly extended my head to check behind the door, I saw a yellow Post-it, obviously from my neighbor across the landing. The cat's wailing, of course, would have been as audible to her as it was to me.

Bill—

I think there's a brain-damaged cat in the neighborhood.

It yowled all night in front of your door for the second night in a row. Finally I threw a shoe at it.

Diane

The cat was nowhere to be seen, and suddenly I felt a twinge of anxiety. Had he been driven away forever? A small chill of loneliness. He had spent so much energy in his campaign with such unwavering focus that he must be ... and it occurred to me how desperate this little creature must be for the companionship of a human being, with its shelter from the real world. Then a strange feeling welled up in me and suddenly I wanted to call him, invite him in. But I had no name to call, so I simply whistled—a thin, quavering note from behind my teeth. About fifteen seconds later the cat appeared at the foot of the stairs.

***

Some context is in order here, because I grew up in a family of dog advocates who disliked cats and calculated their value against the gold standard of canine bonding and canine utility. We didn't dwell on the issue of cat versus dog, but if you added up the details over the years, the list would be downright damning. For example, with respect to that peculiar emotional subservience known as affection, which distinguishes dogs, cats seemed little better than reptiles. As domestic servants they were useless. At best they helped in rodent control, because they were unrepentant killers. They scratched furniture and urinated on rugs and wailed in the night. They neither guarded the house nor protected you from violent crime. They would not retrieve game or herd sheep or lead the blind. You couldn't train them—you couldn't dominate them and force them to your will—and therefore they were stupid. They were completely self-centered and did nothing for anyone but themselves; they were takers, not givers, thus they stood for bad values. Aside from the killing of rodents, their only benefit to man was in scientific experimentation. How anyone could bond with a cat was beyond comprehension; those who liked cats, let alone loved them, were probably limited in their emotional capacities.

So there I stood, unrepentant dogist and member in full standing of the Canine Nation, looking down without malice, experiencing the first tingling of a feeling I quickly suppressed, for I had no intention of assuming a long-term relationship with such a creature. In fact, I had no intentions of any sort. I was simply proceeding from moment to moment at the beck and call of impulses I had never before obeyed.

T
HE CAT WALKED OVER
and rubbed against my leg, meowing to be fed, and it struck me just how thin, gaunt, and dirty he had become since we met a year earlier. His fur had lost its sheen and was matted on his back with crankcase oil. My German ancestry, however, ran deeper than my family values, and worthless though this little creature was, his unhygienic plight triggered a cleaning response. He would have to be bathed.

Practicality then reared its flat, scaly head. How to bathe a cat? Having had no experience in dealing with angry teeth and claws, I decided to ask the advice of friends who loved cats and owned many. Robyn, who lived around the block with three cats, referred me to a veterinarian who specialized in cats and ran a bathing and grooming service.

But how to get a cat from here to there? I did not own a transport cage, and purchasing one was out of the question for what was going to be a short-term relationship.

I called the vet, and the thin shaky voice of an old woman answered the phone, advising me to bring the cat in an old pillowcase. However, I soon discovered that evolution had designed cats to resist transportation in sacks. The cat and I negotiated the matter with some passion, but I cannot remember precisely how I convinced him to agree. All that remains are vague fragments of memory with images of claws hooking in cloth and wails of anger and desperation, of a cat held out at arm's length by the tip of its tail, where it cannot get you, of a cat rolled up in a towel. I recall a strong urinary odor as I drove. Later that afternoon, as I drove the cat home, the fur on his stomach and throat gleaming white, his markings a deep rich orange, a different odor began to waft from the sack, and my subsequent memories are very clear of washing the cat's rear quarters to remove the soil he had produced in sheer terror. Clearly, this creature had a deep-seated fear of veterinarians and automotive transportation.

The cat quickly recovered from the trauma, and that night, with a full belly, he curled up at my feet while I read the paper and watched TV. His warm, clean fur felt so comforting against my ankles. Later, when I put him out, he didn't cry and he didn't pummel and scratch the door. As I look back it is patently obvious that my life had taken a fundamental turn, and I hadn't a clue. The cat had abandoned his crusade for reasons known only to him, comprehending somehow that he had breached the walls to my soul, knowing in the reptilian roots of his brain that he had passed his trial by fire and found a home. The last person to understand this was me, of course, because as a human being I had the capacity—the glorious, essential capacity—to deny, without which life as we know it would cease to exist.

Over the next several weeks a pattern of existence began to emerge. Every morning I would open the door and find the cat sitting there, awaiting his food. I would feed him on the landing just outside my front door and, after eating, the cat would spend the day patrolling his territory and enjoying the rights of ownership, primarily sleeping in the sun or the shade and absorbing bliss. In the evening I would call him to dinner and feed him in the kitchen, after which he would walk into the living room and curl up at my feet or jump onto the couch and sleep next to me while I read or watched TV. When I went to bed, he went outside to enjoy the night.

I began to notice details of his appearance and behavior. His facial markings, for instance, led the eye on endless excursions through a labyrinth of fine markings. A line ran back from the outside corner of his eye and met another line running up from below to trace the outline of a mask. Five lines proceeded back from his forehead and converged in a cap of orange. They emerged from the cap and continued down to the base of his neck, where they coalesced into a single wide band that extended to the base of his tail. The tail, too, had its visual fascination, not for subtle complexity in its markings, but for the regular, half-inch spacing between the eight orange rings. But always my gaze returned to those thick circles of dark orange on each side that led the eye around and around, into a hypnotic trance.

I could not help but notice that the cat spent much time staring back at me, appearing to seek out my eyes or my face. I would walk away and sneak a backward glance and find him staring at me from behind. What this meant I had no idea, but the staring became a constant habit.

Then, of course, there were the fleas. They arrived in my flat like Ulysses' crew clinging to Cyclops' sheep, and the crew was impressive. Wherever the cat chose to sleep he left behind hundreds of tiny white eggs that seemed to glow against the black leather of the couch. There was no choice but to comb him as often as needed to remove these parasites—as much for my sake as for the cat's. I did not want to share my flat with vermin. I began to groom him every day and soon discovered that his reaction appeared to be hard-wired. In other words, he was incorrigible.

He tolerated, even appreciated, the combing of his head, neck, shoulders, and flanks, but any attempt to do his tail or hind legs provoked the most bloodcurdling threats of violence. This placed us in a dilemma. As a human being, I concluded that his legs
MUST
be combed. Fleas were having their way, and that could not be tolerated. Even though the cat objected, my superior overview of life trumped his right to dignity and he would have to endure a brief grooming each day.

So I called upon my superior human intellect to devise a scheme. I would wait until he was ravenous, and while he ate I would attempt to comb his hindquarters. This revealed that cats are able to yowl while frantically gulping food. They are also able to turn with blinding speed and rake their claws across the hand that feeds them.

Over the course of the next week I tried wearing leather gloves. The cat tried waiting before he ate until my hand came within range. I discovered that leather gloves were not the best protection against the cat's armament. Finally, having exhausted all options, I was forced to concede that there was no alternative but to call off my campaign against the fleas thriving in the dense cover of the hindquarters. And so the cat gave me a lesson in respect, revealing the fundamental truth that when push comes to shove, respect is a subcase of fear, that reprisal and respect cannot be separated.

Meanwhile, despite my cavalier presumption that cats meant nothing to me, this cat drew my attention compulsively. I could not be in the same room without glancing repeatedly at him, just as he gazed back at me, sometimes for hours. The thought never occurred that the more attention I devoted to his presence, the more memories my brain would store away.

One day, not more than two weeks after our meeting, I found myself thinking offhandedly about names. The cat needed a name. This had nothing to do with how long I intended to keep the creature or how highly I regarded him. My mind simply wanted something more specific to grasp than "that cat." To name, to name—yet another compulsion embedded in the human genome?

Now a name is a sacred thing. Just as a bad name is a curse that clings to one for life, a good name is a prayer, evoking the essence of the being, the creature, the
genius thingi.
A good name inspires its owner, often alluding to the traits of mythical figures, even gods, and if the name is truly sublime, it brings harmony and rhythm, poetry and music.