Sunday, April 06, 2008

• Requium for the King

  Currently Reading Echo Burning (Jack Reacher) By Lee Child see related

  This is Henry. He’s the King, Uh-Huh, Oh Yeah, or at least that’s the way I describe him in a poem on my personal web site here. Neither the photograph there or the one here really do the old man justice. The best way I can describe him is to say that he looks like a small gray lion. Really – he is one amazingly dashing fellow.

  
  

  

  
  

  We call him a variety of things like Dude, Old Man, Hanky-doodle, Hanky-panky (and people wonder why pets turn on their owners) and other things, but mostly we just love the old guy.

  He’s a long hair Maine Coon who is one of three rescue cats we have. I hesitate to say ‘own’ because I’m not entirely certain anyone actually ‘owns’ a cat. Someone once told me that Dogs have owners. Cats have staff. He’s the elder statesman of the bunch at 16. Emmy is about 11, and Ms. Skittle is soon to be 5.

  When I first met Henry, Ms. Skittle was just half a year old. She was all kitten, and Henry was all sensible and reasonable old guy. While it is safe to say that Ms. Skittle never – still never – quite gets it that when the other two are sitting on her bitch slapping her, they’re not playing tag. Still, she did bring out the kitten in the old guy now and then, and they would race back and forth through the house like wildebeests stampeding the Sarangetti.

  I’ve sort of come to the conclusion that cats really aren’t of this world – that there’s something otherworldly about them. There’s really no explanation for them, or for why they do the things they do. Why do they ‘pick’ one person over another, for example. Ms. Skittle is plainly my cat, and Henry and Emmy are plainly Linda’s cats, although when Linda first met Emmy, she was visiting with Linda’s son, Mark. Now, however, Linda belongs to Emmy.

  Henry was the same. He’d sit on a step stool next to Linda’s computer while she was checking email, help her write the email some times, and generally sleep cuddled next to her on the bed at night.

  He mostly just tolerated me. Oh, he would let me brush him, or scratch his ears or tailbone, and he never turned down a nice bowl of tuna water or a slice of smoked chicken, but Henry and I had a unique relationship. This best sums it up:

  One evening we were down at the bottom of the stairs waiting for a delivery. Emmy and Ms Skittle had come down the stairs to us, but Henry was sitting at the first landing. I called up to him and asked if he was going to come down and join the party. He stood up, turned around so his backside was facing me, and flicked his tail at me. Twice. He then looked back over his shoulder and walked away as if to say “As if!!!!” It’s the only time I am aware of that I’ve ever been flipped off by a cat. Oh, I’ve been flipped off before, to be sure, but never before by a cat! Guess he told me where I rate in this house!

  I think that maybe cats are here for us. The need us because they don’t have opposable thumbs and therefore can’t work the can opener, and someone has to empty the litter box, after all. But other than that, they don’t ‘need’ us like, well, like dogs do. Furthermore, at some level of sentience, cats are very keenly aware of this fact.

  I guess Henry must have done all he could with and for us, and his mission here was over. The old guy departed this plane of life at about 4:00 yesterday afternoon. As far as I could tell, he went peacefully and didn’t suffer.

  I suffered. I cried for hours. I’m gonna miss the old guy.

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