Don't Make Eye Contact

FROM MY CHAIRr at the dining table, I watched a cat trot up the street in that sort of stiff-legged gait they employ when they are in only a minor hurry. The cat was on the opposite side of the street from the house, and in the gathering darkness I could not see much of its features. When it was even with our driveway, the cat turned left across the vacant lot and disappeared into the darkness. I could see that it was small and dark, perhaps all black.

There was no way of knowing, of course, whether the cat was someone’s pet. Cats are not respecters of property lines.

I was just as glad that I was inside and not in a position to invite  it to come sit for a spell and get acquainted. I — we actually — have a long history with cats. And we are determined at this time not to have another one — or any other pets. I claim that Adelaide has forbidden me to make eye contact with any stray animals.

I had dogs when I was a kid, (cats, too) but the dogs were always mutts, and they stayed outdoors. Not long after we were out of school and married, we adopted our first kitten — two kittens actually — and kept cats almost ever since. They were good pets for people who worked long and often odd hours.

From my observation of dog owners, if you get home late, the pet is likely to be waiting with a leash and saying, “Where on earth have you been? I’ve had my legs crossed for hours. We need to take a walk.”

A cat is more likely to affect disinterest, as if to say, “Oh, you’ve been gone? I hadn’t noticed.”

Cats seem to be determined to entertain or please you only on their own terms. If you cannot accommodate to a creature that shamelessly uses you, you’re not cut out for providing a home for a cat. I did not say own, because nobody truly owns a cat.

IN EXCHANGE for tolerating eccentricity and independence, we got years of entertainment, and, yes, companionship.

One of our first cats regularly greeted us from the roof of our small cottage when we arrived home from work. She would mew plaintively until one of us fetched her down. Poor thing can get up there but can’t get down, we thought. We thought that until Adelaide got home one day just in time to see the cat scampering nimbly down the tree that grew next to the house. Got tired of waiting for us to come home, we guessed.

Another cat — Ivory, the one which helped us civilize our two sons — decided that I was the devil incarnate. When I came into a room, she would slink out as if she feared for her life.

Our younger son opined that Ivory had just made up a game to amuse herself, an opinion bolstered by the fact that when I was the only one in the house, Ivory had no qualms about jumping in my lap and purring while I read a book.

After Lightnin’, our last picked cat, disappeared I vowed I wanted no other. Lightin’, my favorite of all the cats we have lived with, was part Manx and all smart. He also, I am chagrined to admit, behaved much like a dog without any of demands a dog makes on your time.

He was the only cat that actually came when I called. He sat by my chair while I read and jumped up in my lap on invitation. He asked to go out each evening (he neither wanted nor needed a chaperone), and in 30 minutes or so he would jump on the kitchen window sill and wait for me to open the door.

ONE NIGHT, after the rain had stopped, he went out. He never came back to his spot on the window sill.

I searched that night and the next day. No sign of him. We speculated that he’d been caught by the very large dogs down the street. They seemed to escape from their fenced yard with some frequency.

By then we were spending part of our time in Montgomery and part of it at Lake Martin. No more cats, we said.

There are two kinds of cats, however, ones you pick and ones that pick you.

Hendry (that’s not a typo) and Yellow Cat picked us, so theoretically at least, they were not our cats. Hendry belonged to our son and his family when they lived next door to us. When they moved to a new neighborhood, they took Hendry with them, but Hendry kept coming back to his old haunts. We reluctantly accepted responsibility for him.

When we moved full-time to Lake Martin, Hendry came, too.

Later came Yellow Cat. He apparently had been a pet at one time but had lived on his own for quite some time. He hung around our place — in sight but out of reach — until I began feeding him. We had a more formal sort of relationship: I fed him and took him to the vet when necessary; he did what he darn well pleased.

(The stories of both cats are detailed in Yellow Cat, Hendry & Me: Dispatches From Life’s Front Lines). Yellow Cat died of what the folks at the Vet School at Auburn said was a heart attack. Hendry went out one night and never came back, probably the prey of some wild critter.

Though neither was technically our cat, we were attached to both and we saddened by their loss.

Thus the dictum about not making eye contact with stray animals.

As I watched the little cat disappear into the darkness, I acknowledged it wasn’t just Adelaide’s dictum. It is mine, too.