Chapter 20 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)

CITY CAT

The first animal I got after I was on my own was a black cat my landlord gave me when I lived in a fifth floor walk up in Manhattan. This cat had a certain ally-cat toughness to him which I suppose is needed when a cat is someone’s first responsibility to another living being when on one‘s own.

I couldn’t believe he could survive in an apartment alone for a weekend while I visited my parents, so I smuggled him on Eastern Airline’s shuttle flight to Boston. I was working for Braniff Airways at the time, and had lived in Queens; Elmhurst; and Woodside before making the move to Manhattan with a roommate with whom I’d gone to Bay State Academy in Boston. Judy B. was always discontented with one roommate or another and we’d move, then move again. Now it was just her and me, and she was becoming discontented with me. But she was going into the airline hostess area of Braniff, and I was engaged to be married.

On the trip, the cat rebelled at being zipped into a flight bag. I felt so guilty. The passenger next to me said nothing, nor did the attendants, but it was obvious that the yowls and growls weren’t just a bad case of indigestion. I didn’t have the guts to actually take the young cat out of the bag, but stuck in my hand, caressing the poor critter in an effort to calm him. From what I remember, I guess that worked, but the cat would have fared much better at the apartment with dry cat food and enough water for a few days.

I thought fresh air and exercise were physical requirements for pets. It was the first time I had a need for kitty litter, but after that necessity, I still thought it needed a romp in the park, so I would take Blacky out to an area just around the corner of my apartment where he could chase pigeons. City pigeons seemed quite tame, but they become clever at gauging just how close they’ll allow people or their pets. Blacky would crouch down on he pavement of this “concrete park” and sneak up on its victim …in plain sight thinking he would be able to catch this easy prey. This gave both the pigeons and Blacky all the exercise they’d need. Blacky was still quite small then, and I’d wonder if he’d get carried away by the bird if he ever succeeded in catching hold of one.
Blacky was less than a year old when I married and moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. In one way or another, Blacky always seemed frustrated. I scolded him for getting up on the counter by the sink, so, when my back was turned and the cupboard was open, he jumped into it and pushed things out. In so doing, the cat broke some of my good china. I know an animal doesn’t do these destructive things on purpose, but …I began to wonder.

I now had to keep him inside …to be an indoor cat. He missed his outdoor privileges, and when he had a chance, would give us the slip, usually when I was airing out the kitchen from one of my failed suppers. Our apartment was on the second floor. Blacky would yowl from the roof above the fire escape, where he somehow climbed, wanting me to rescue him. I’d have to climb up precariously on its railings, hold on to the gutter with one hand, and grab the cat with the other to quickly swoop him down before he had a chance to know what was happening… or rebel. At that height, any animal is going to hold on for dear life, so he’d dig in his claws in the process.

For a party trick my husband thought it hilarious to get out the llama slipper, something I brought back from a free airline trip to South America, for a little show Blacky would put on. He was now a maturing male cat, and somewhat sexually frustrated, so he would go at the slipper like a male puppy on a leg. I would be red with embarrassment.

Then Blacky got out once too often. He evaded my high wire act attemts to rescue him, and somehow found his way to the ground and left. I knocked on a few doors, and posted a notice of our lost cat at a corner grocer’s to no avail. When we saw a cat in the neighborhood that looked just like him about a month after his disappearance, and when he acted like we were strangers, we figured that he was better off in his new home, as he looked like he was thriving well.