Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 5, 1994 TAG: 9406080008
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Elizabeth Strother
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
THIS IS a goodbye to Billy, a nutty cat I loved dearly who was killed in the middle of a busy Roanoke street where he should not have been.
Billy and Ginny were what I would call a set: not brother and sister, though their fathers were unknown so they could have been half-siblings, and certainly not a couple. I had fixed that.
But I got them as a pair, and decided to name them after a twosome - Anthony and Cleopatra? Franklin and Eleanor? Click and Clack? None seemed quite right, and I had been referring to them simply as "the little one" and "the other one" for some days before I thought how like my friend Ginny Hopkins "the little one" was: small, gray-haired, bright-eyed, interested in everything around her, always hopping about. And she doted on "the other one," who would have to be, of course, Billy, after Ginny's husband and Roanoke's former state senator, William B. Hopkins.
I became wedded to the idea, really, before the thought occurred to me that, instead of being flattered by what was meant affectionately, the Hopkinses might be offended by the honor. So it was with a twinge of anxiety that I explained all of this to Ginny, the human, and she laughed and brought her new grandkitties a little basket that had belonged to a family pet, now deceased.
Those two cats made a great pair. Billy was a handsome tabby, with black markings that accented his blue eyes dramatically, as if they had been painted on with mascara. He was shy and skittish, and at first would cry piteously whenever Ginny wandered off to explore. Invariably, she ran to find him and lick his face and ears, and gradually got him to come out of hiding and play.
They got used to the place. Billy grew so possessive, in fact, that he would have been glad to lose Ginny. I realized this when I took them both to be "fixed," and had to leave Ginny overnight with the vet. Billy was the lone cat of the house that one night, and he seemed in unusually good spirits - which evaporated the instant Ginny got home. He hissed and swiped at her, the little ingrate.
Things soon returned to normal, the two of them taking up again their grueling schedules - playing, eating, sleeping, just a merciless treadmill.
And then Binky arrived.
Binky had been put out of his home because of allergies - people's, not his - and with a particularly harsh winter upon us, I took him in as a favor to a friend.
I worried about the transition. Don't let the creampuff name give you the wrong impression - Binky is a big, hefty cat who arrived with a thick winter coat that made him look massive. And he had a reputation as a grump who bites when aggravated. Billy and Ginny, on the other hand, were small cats. I wanted to keep them separated as long as possible.
Forget it. Ginny got one look at the lumbering Binky and was more than happy to keep out of the room where I had him isolated. Billy sought desperately, at every opportunity, to get in. Though I always fed Ginny and Billy before going to the basement to feed Binky, Billy would abandon his food to try to slip into Binky's quarters and get to Binky's dish. Why is a mystery, because Billy never actually got any of Binky's food, which was the same stuff Billy had in his dish upstairs anyway. Success meant only a hissing, fur-raising face-off and a few gentle waps from a broom to get him out of the room before Binky hurt him.
Ginny, meanwhile, stayed upstairs and ate her food and Billy's, and left the boys to their foolishness. She didn't mind Binky being around, as along as there was a door between her and him.
I eventually had to ease Binky into the regular household, of course. Ginny ran from him on sight, but Billy was torn between discretion and valor, fear and territorial instinct. Binky and I came to a quick understanding about the biting - I decided there'd be no more of it, and he agreed. And he and Billy got to be pals, of sorts. Billy's favorite play became swatting at the sedentary Binky until the bigger cat chased him and tussled.
This undoubtedly is a guy thing, and I can accept that. But why, I will always wonder, did Billy continue to be bothered by Binky's full food dish? Twice every day, I'd put down Billy's food, then Ginny's - Binky, for all of his size, never tried to keep the little cats from their food - and finally Binky's. As soon as he started to eat, Billy would abandon his own dish and crowd his face into Binky's. And the big dolt would just sit there, looking like he didn't know what to do.
So I'd take Billy's dish and give it to Binky. Billy, bothered by that as well, would soon lose interest in the whole affair and leave after eating hardly a bite. Ginny, meanwhile, kept her head down and finished up her dinner and part of Billy's, too.
"You tell Billy his cat is so worried that another male might get something to eat, he's like to starve himself to death," I complained to my friend Ginny. "They're acting like a couple of fool men."
Billy's little-brotherish determination to stick with Binky - sometimes friend, sometimes rival - was finally his undoing. Binky was used to being outdoors, and once the weather warmed up, demanded to be let out. Billy insisted on following, and I relented.
He was a maddeningly silly cat, but a sweet one too, who sometimes woke me in the mornings by pressing one soft paw, claws retracted, gently on my face. I miss him.
by CNB