Desperados
Desi has always been an embodiment of the best of who I really am inside. When Des and I first met, I was beginning my path on a career in IT while still living with my former ballroom dance partner. I was probably 22 or 23. I find it amazing I don’t remember exactly. Desi was a lone 4 week old kitten, nourishing himself out of puddles in the back lot of the dance studio where Thom still worked and I still subbed in sometimes. Thom caught him one night with an elicit can of tuna from the gas station in front of the strip mall that housed the studio.
Thom called me around 8:30 and told me to come quick and bring the cat carrier. Back in those days, Scarlett was just around a year old and the only carrier I had was the cardboard one I was given by the Humane Society. I arrived to find Thom and some others standing on the sidewalk out front. Thom, all six foot two inches of him was holding a wee tiny yowling bit of stripey fluff. I leapt from the car, reached out my hands and cried “Oh you darling…. Stinkbomb!!!!”
I was now holding a hissing, spitting, enraged, oil and dirt covered tan and brown striped mass that had a softball for a head, very little body, a stick of a tail and very large feet. I initially deposited him in my tiny bathroom, where he took cover behind the toilet and hissed at me constantly without making a sound. I was charmed. All that rage, and fury and fear and angst from something so young and tiny. He had to be bathed several times over to rid him of the woods and parking lot grime. He got a good check up from the vet and some worm medicine and was sent back to our tiny bungalow.
The vet guessed he was about four and a half weeks old; but when your brain is the size of walnut, and your mother and all your litter mates die, and then you’re scooped up and shoved in a box, the world sucks and can scar you pretty bad in a pretty short time.
When we opened up the condo to him, beyond the bathroom, he made tracks straight to under my bed. Only having had Scarlett for a year at this point, I was new to the idiosyncratic nature of cats for the most part. I was used to troubled animals, abandoned animals, but none had ever been cats. I quickly learned that even cats that had spent their whole 4 weeks of life outdoors would use a litter box if you gave them the option: if you didn’t? They’d use your laundry.
Almost everyday, I’d come home from work, lie on the floor, on my stomach, next to my bed, and read. At first he would just hiss, now with sound! Then maybe a month later he’d come to the edge of the bed skirt and watch me. Then maybe around the end of the third month he’d sniff at me. By the fifth month, he was laying in the small of my back, but I could feel him taught as a coil. By the sixth month, he’d lay there and doze purring. By the beginning of the seventh month, he was exploring the condo and was using the regular litter box, adept at avoiding my roommates none too bright dog, and following Scarlett’s lead.
It’s been at least ten years, I can’t recall, so much has changed. Desi and Scarlett moved from that condo to my first apartment alone. Then they moved from that apartment to my next place in a new city two and a half hours away, then they moved to another apartment two minutes away. In August we all moved in to our first house… home.
Again the cats were hidden in the bathroom while the movers did their thing. Again, Scarlett came out almost immediately and explored every nook and cranny of her new surroundings. Desi made haste to find the bed and hid under it. But for the first time we were in a place large enough, that this was not a tenable option for day to day living. He was 10 or so, not 4 weeks; I wasn’t going to put a litter box in my new bedroom. The only litterbox was on the opposite side of the house. He would steal under darkness of night.
He and Scarlett had some displaced anger/territorial issues. She didn’t care after the first week. He still did.
Like I said, Desi represents the best and worst of me. Desi is the part of me that is quick to make unfounded snap judgements and stick to them for no good reason. He’s also the one that desperately wants comfort, quiet, acceptance and love. He denies himself amazing opportunities because of that.
The new house has a completely screened in patio with a cat-tastic level shelf running a foot above the ground at the base of the windows that Scarlett had been enjoying since day one. Desi missed out on the birds, lizards, squirrels, frogs and view for a month and a half because he was convinced that Scarlett wouldn’t let him out there. To be honest, for a while she kind of didn’t, but he didn’t really even try until recently. But back to the theme. Once he realizes he was wrong, he’s so happy to tell you you were right.
Desi and Scarlett are the two halves to my whole. Yin and Yang to use them as kitty clichés. She’s the confident, curious, flirty, outgoing, demanding part that most people know. He’s the shy, scared, skittish, defensive, grumpy, cranky, solitary inside that so many people don’t see and would never understand.
Lately, Desi has been making an effort. He’s been hanging out in more rooms in the house. And he’s been trying to hang out on the patio. He would poke his nose out and then go lay on the other side of the sliding glass doors looking out.
In the last week, especially when my Mom was visiting he took his fledgling steps out, always watching for his sister/keeper. Depending on her approach and demeanor he would scurry back inside.
Tonight he came out, over and over. The first two times he watched her and when she approached, he fled. Finally, I think she got it, and she just laid down and let him come forth.
He hid, he watched her, he realized she wasn’t watching him. He began to stalk the ledge strongly. She approached, he didn’t back down. She showed him the best places to watch for lizards and moths. Like she has taught him to hunt in the past. He overloaded and ran back inside. He came back out. He jumped in my lap. He purred and rolled around. Then he hopped down and hopped back up to the ledge.
My heart broke a little when I saw him out on that ledge, because he was me, out on that ledge. Still a little afraid, but ready to start again, even if he had to come back every once in a while for that reassuring head scratch.
