Sisypuss: Memoirs of a Vagabond Cat Read online

  SISYPUSS:

  Memoirs of a Vagabond Cat

  Patricia Halloff

  Copyright © 2007 by Patricia Halloff

  Sisypuss, Memoirs of a Vagabond Cat. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed in writing to Blueberry Books, 53 Nomoco Road, Freehold, New Jersey 07728

  TO JOHN

  The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the rock would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

  The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

  Albert Camus

  1

  First the spasms, then the ejection into the old doghouse, a place of biting cold, walls and roof full of chinks admitting icy vapors on the back of a gusting wind. Wet and straggly, a rudimentary cat, eyes closed, you wriggle from Mama’s womb. Welcome to the planet, Sisypuss! Since you’re in no position to see for yourself what’s going on, I’m telling your story. In ten days you’ll open your eyes, you’ll take over.

  Separated and quivering, you’re on a wood plank smelling of dog, Mama’s tongue licking you clean, worming into your large ears, giving the once over to your shadow-striped charcoal body, long legs and big paws, impressive tail. All in all, a fine specimen, Sisypuss, born to a mama who’s cleaned up many a kitten before you. For Mama’s no longer young. She’s balded in spots by scars of homelessness, wears the tattered fur of a cat who’s been around the block, lived through rough times. Considering her shape, those jutting ribs, no wonder the icy teat you somehow find when she’s finished with you produces only an unsatisfying trickle.

  Still, satisfied or no, with your first watery swallow comes awareness. You’re in life. You’re different from what you were minutes ago. Suckling, your paws begin to pump Mama’s belly bloated with kittens to come; your claws dig into her hard as you try to increase the trickle of what you need to survive, speed it up; and with each swallow your impression of existence solidifies. You’ll make it. You’re strapped to the wheel of life now, destined to roll through calamities and joys (the former outweighing the latter) until you fall off. Not to worry: Given a constitution able to withstand what life slings at it, you’ll do fine. In your shadow-striped suit you’ll stand tall on long legs, ears perked for hints of danger, black nose like a painted-on moustache sniffing for rats, sweeping whiskers testing tight spots, grand tail mainly erect.

  In view of your debonair appearance and jaunty attitude, Mama calls you Fairbanks after an old movie star she saw on TV during a brief period when she had a home. She called it right. Rarely will you kneel to despair in adversity. Still, times will come—oh, they’ll come—when bad circumstances will defeat all your resourcefulness, all your stratagems and courage, and survival will depend on human intervention. But that’s in the future. What’s happening now? Mama’s belly’s convulsing, she’s panting, her teat jerks out of your mouth. Where is it? Your desperately groping paws can’t find it. Where did it go? Then you recognize the scraping and licking sounds her tongue makes; they go on for a while until she’s back again, your source of supply’s restored, and beside you is Bob, bringing warmth with him. Together, you suckle, your eight paws knead Mama’s belly, you feed in complete harmony. From the get-go the strong bond of brotherly love unites you.

  Two times more Mama repeats this process. She expands, contracts, pants, and thrusts two more kittens into the world. The first plops down on your other side, the second on Bob’s other side. You get the bad guy. Your first taste of conflict in a world you’ll find in time to be well stocked with dissension, unfairness, evil while shorted in their opposites. From the start your other brother—Mama calls him Simon though Genghis would’ve been better—is a bad-news cat who immediately challenges your perception that existence is all loving Mama and Bob. The warm welcome you were ready to give the body buffering your non-Bob side from the bitter cold quickly goes when with a growl it roughly thrusts against you, does its best to jounce you away from Mama, its bared claws going for the very teat you’re sucking.

  Well, of course that gets your dander up. And not being a cat, if such cat exists, to turn the other cheek or swallow transgressions, you smartly cuff the aggressor’s growling muzzle. “MEOW!” A street fighter in the making, Simon retaliates; he gives you worse than he got, rakes your muzzle, drawing blood. You taste blood and outrage. You feel the sick thumping of a violated heart. With a hiss you hurl yourself into your first battle against your yowling, flailing, clawing blood-thirsty assailant. Commences no-holds-barred combat. Spitting and clawing and gumming and screaming on both sides: a struggle of biblical magnitude between brothers.

  If Mama hadn’t called a halt to it, ripped corneas and abscessed testicles would’ve resulted. “HSSSSS!” She slaps both your noses. A bad egg, a nasty customer without respect, the malevolent Simon hisses back at her. Not you, Sisypuss. Grateful for deliverance, you raise your striped face, open your pink mouth ever so slightly and give her your very first silent meow. And even though closed eyes unable to project innocence diminish its effect, it’s an instant success, a real heartstring tugger. Mama purrs forgiveness. Her loving tongue soothes your swollen and scratched muzzle. Then you snuggle up to her to nurse, comforted by her purrs and sympathetic mews from Bob and baby sister Alice, while seething Simon nurses his grievance.

  All in all, not an entrance full of promise for a happy, comfortable life, Sisypuss. Omens are bad: the numbing cold, the wind sending Siberian air into the dog house. Outside, clouds bloat a sky dark with impending snow and twilight. The four of you shiver against shivering, exhausted Mama, sucking thin milk, kneading in a futile effort to coax more from her. Then too there’s the rank smell of dog in that place. From time to time Mama’s eyes drift shut, she dozes for an instant only to rouse breathless and wide-eyed with a jolt and a cry. It’s as if in dreams she’s been fleeing from inimical powers she fears have crossed into the waking world.

  When the dentist’s car pulls into the driveway and its headlights shine directly into the dog house upon Mama who’s just returned from a futile search for food, she scoots to the far corner where the four of you lie. Panting with fear she flops down, paws caked with snow moving as if she’s running, but where can she run? Panic’s communicable; it transmits to you, courses through your body like a sickening current; you feel Bob twitch as if it surges through him. Simon growls, little Alice mews as it flows through them. Mama’s fear is as much a presence in the doghouse as the planks beneath your shivering bodies, the fingers of frigid air ruffling your fuzzy baby fur, the wind buffeting the roof and walls.

  The dentist’s, his wife’s and son’s are the first human voices you hear. “Jesus Christ! A cat! There’s a cat in there. Christ, Rhoda, look at this!” “You’re telling me bend, Barry? You know it’s hard for me to bend for God’s sake! Anyway, I saw it from the car. So what’s the big deal? Chase the thing.” “I can’t chase it, for Christ’s sake, its got kittens.” “Lemme see, lemme see, Dad. Yuck! Gross!” “Oh my God, why us? Why us I ask you? Didn’t I tell you to get rid of that eyesore when we got rid of the dog? I knew it’d be trouble!” Thus, into your life, Sisypuss, enter humans who may agree all men should be treated equally but deny other species their right to live free from want and fear. The skinny dentist, his obese wife a
nd oafish son want you out of their doghouse, out of their yard, and out of their lives.

  Mama knows what she’s up against. She’s run into this scenario many times before. She leaps to her feet, hisses, lets out a yowl which curdles your blood. She goes to the doorway where she arches her bony back, erects a bristling tail, lays back her ears, and bares her fangs, all the while emitting those fur-raising howls.

  “Get away from it, Barry!” shrieks Rhoda. “It’s vicious! It’ll bite you!” Mama hisses. A menacing growl rumbles from her throat. The dentist backs away. “It’s OK, it’s OK. I’m going. See, I’m going.” Then Mama’s back with you and the voices come from further away.

  “The day after Christmas, we’ll call Animal Control and tell them to take them away.” “But that’s three days! You’re telling me we’ve gotta live with this problem for three days, Barry?” Then, only the wind and Mama’s fast loud pants.

  Later, footsteps, and a bowl of milk is left outside the doghouse. But Mama’s too tired to get up right away, and when she finally drags herself over to it, the milk’s frozen solid.

  By the time Animal Control comes, three days have turned to five. Five days of brutal weather, Mama’s milk diminishing day by day. The four of you suffer aching hunger, sink day by day into greater and greater lethargy. Still blind as bats, ears and paws numb with cold, you huddle together feebly kneading Mama’s belly, weakly suckling Mama’s watery milk. Simon’s the only one of you who has enough energy to do anything but lie still. Without compunction, lacking any sense of brotherliness, with claws and snorts he keeps trying to take over the entire milk supply. That his forays end in defeat because you and Bob always rally enough to join forces and defend yourselves and little Alice, doesn’t deter him. Simon may not be able to see Bob’s good-natured face turn fierce after having had enough of his nonsense (Bob being a cat who doesn’t act in haste), but he surely feels the swat Bob delivers to his nose pointed as any rodents. “MRYOWW!” Simon shrieks, a shriek of such agonized outrage that Mama, with a hiss of exasperation and a sigh of weariness, swats both of them.

  A punishment rarely visited upon you, Sisypuss. For even though you don’t wait as Bob does before giving the rodential nose the blood-drawing rake it deserves, and even though Simon lets out the same outraged shriek, the silent meow protects you. Having proven in the past its power over Mama, you use it once again to melt her heart. So, though she gives Simon a good swat, she lets you off with a token cuff to the ear. You’re something else, Sisypuss: a cat who knows his onions, one born with a firm grasp of how to charm your way through life—if only circumstances had always permitted it.

  Still, nothing’s all bad. From Simon the Psychopath you get experience in dealing with outlaws which’ll stand you in good stead. A born criminal, he digs up Mama’s belly until she shoves him away with a hiss. Even little Alice needs to be guarded from him. Her gentle smile, her plumpish dove-gray body and fluffy tail, snowy muzzle, bib, and belly don’t soften his villainous heart; nor do her timid mews of protest keep him from trying to push her away from Mama. You or Bob must always lift a paw against him. Who says, “There’s no such thing as a bad cat” when there’s a Simon? The brotherly love you and Bob share until death parts you is unknown to him. Had he been born a dog, he’d have bitten the hand feeding him and laughed.

  The five days before Animal Control arrives go by on stilts of ice. Once a day at dusk Rhoda orders the son with his father’s pitted neanderthal face and her body from the Internet where—not because he can be called pedophile at eleven, but because he’s interested in the doings of peers—he watches child pornography and wonders if he should try some of what he sees. “Take this to those stinking cats! Remember, leave it outside, she’s vicious!” She squeaks in her mouse’s voice. “Don’t worry. Who wants to see them? Are they blind or something? Yuk!” So, dressed for an arctic expedition out he trudges on duck feet, a hippo of a boy with rubbing thighs, holding a paper plate containing a spoonful or two of gourmet cat food disdained by the two house Siamese and a few table scraps— not enough to satisfy even a wasted cat like Mama. “Here, stupid things, stuff yourselves,” he grunts, giggles his castrato’s giggle, kicks the doghouse hard with his orthopedic shoe, and hurries back out of the cold.

  So, on the third day, his handout being even smaller than usual, Mama drags herself outside at twilight to forage. She’s feverish and coughing. She’s come down with something. “Wish me luck, guys,” she says, hoarse and breathy. But later returns, empty-jawed. The dentist keeps his garbage cans clamped shut, his landscaping service poisons the moles and mice, birds have emigrated to neighbors with feeders. Famished and bitter, Mama talks about the two Siamese who stared at her from the bay window. “Hoity-toity, like I was riffraff.” In the livingroom, Mama says at the end of a rattling cough, there’s a fireplace burning logs, a Christmas tree with colored balls and lights. “Oh, the rotten dogs. No heart! They’ve got no heart,” seethes Mama over and over until the cough starts up again and she has to stop talking.

  Well, although her anger frightens you, still it’s a relief to have her back. For when she’s away fear icy as the wind coming through the doghouse doorway, fear far worse than the fear you feel over her anger seizes you. Now you can breathe easier, you can find comfort in suckling, feel the warmth of her love. “My poor babies. There’s not enough, not nearly enough,” wheezes Mama. Shivering all over, you Sisypuss, snuggle closer, touch her belly lightly with a loving paw, silently meow. But it’s Bob who knows what to say. “Rest, Mama. Don’t make yourself cough. Our luck’ll change.” Simon sneers, kneads harder, sucks harder. Little Alice mews plaintively and gives up suckling.

  Animal Control fulfills Bob’s prophecy for the worse. “Oh my God, it took you long enough but thank God you’re here!” Bloated face beaming in a fur-trimmed hood, zipping up a fur-lined jacket, Rhoda waddles from the house to meet her deliverer. She can’t turn you over fast enough. “I’m telling you, what an ordeal this has been, you can’t imagine!” She squeals to a man who’s already got Mama by the scruff. Mama’s wailing and spitting and coughing as he shoves her into a cage, while the four of you cringe at the doghouse doorway terrified by the sound of her frantic struggle. Next he grabs you, Sisypuss, and though, trying to break free, you scream and spit like Mama, you wind up in another cage where Bob, Simon, and little Alice soon join you.

  “Mama? Where’s Mama?” You ask over and over. But even Bob doesn’t know. Simon’s crouched in the cage corner, growling; little Alice, mewing pitifully, is hunched between you and Bob who starts licking the two of you nervously, grooming you as if he was Mama. For the first time you hear dog yelps, whimpers, and whines. You smell dogs and fear. Even though there’s no wind in the truck it’s cold as the doghouse. Then there’s a plunging in your stomach, you’re lurching, a dizzying sense of dislocation and off-centeredness overtakes you because the van’s now moving. You begin to wail, as do Simon and Alice and even Bob. The dogs howl louder.

  All the way to the pound a united lament of total despair which Mama’s voice doesn’t join continues. Wide with terror, her eyes stare at the whimpering, howling dogs; paralyzed by dread, she neither whimpers nor hisses but sits gathered into herself, her legs tucked under her body, her jutting ribs sucking in and out. Sightless, you and your siblings can’t know her cage is right beside yours, for her wracking cough can’t be heard because of the racket the dogs make, her scent can’t be picked up because of their strong smell. In the blackness of blindness the four of you—yes, Simon too now— huddle together shivering, wailing, legs tucked under, sides sucking in and out, terrified by the jolting and bucking, the motorized transport anathema to cats.

  Then suddenly the motion stops, the van door opens, and your cage is carried into the first warmth you’ve ever known.

  2

  Warmth flows over and through you. Your first taste of comfort, Sisypuss. But much better than that: Mama’s back! And snuggled up to her again, because you don’t know what
they mean, you rejoice in her familiar cough and feverish heat. All in all, except for the stronger animal smells and disinfectant getting you in the throat, so far a great improvement over the doghouse! Certainly you could do without the howls and barks and whines and whimpers and wails, the clanks and jangles and human voices, but what’s perfect? And for the hour or so before Linda and Janet stop in front of your cage, you’re blissfully happy, all’s more right with the world than you’d ever known it to be.

  “The mother’s gotta go,” says Linda and Mama’s body turns rigid, she catches her wheezy breath. “I knew it, I knew it, the bitches,” she groans and abruptly your bliss comes to an end, your sense of well being goes. “Where, Mama? You just got here!” You protest. “Where’re you going now? When’ll you be back?” You ask. But Mama’s shaking too much and coughing too hard to answer. “But the kittens!” Janet objects. “Why can’t the vet treat her?” “Why? Look at her, Janet. Think, Janet! She’s no chicken, she’s all bones, she lost part of an ear. Quit looking at me like that and check out the bald spots all over her. Get real, think ahead. Suppose we call in the vet, suppose she’s cured. Then what? Who’s gonna want her? She was no beauty in her best day.” “Still, the kittens!”

  But Linda won’t budge. Raising an arm tracked by new scratches and old scars she rakes her hair. “Holy Cow!” If Janet’d just think about it another minute, she goes on, she’d agree the kittens could get lucky only if they were healthy. “And the only way that’s gonna happen, Janet, is if they don’t get what the mother’s got. Get it? Plus,” Linda points out, “a contagious cat could infect the whole damned place—and then what?” Janet looks down, opens her mouth to say something, but closes it again with a sigh. “Look, the world’s not coming to an end, for Christ’s sake. I’ll give them the little Calico. She’s young, she’s still got milk, she didn’t come with her litter which is no doubt fish food in some lake. Two birds with one stone. As close to a happy ending as we get around here.” Linda waves her hand. “Save it, Jan. I don’t want to hear it. I already have. Once I even believed it. And, Jan, you better toughen up or you won’t last a week.”