ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 18, 1996 TAG: 9611180102
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: MONTY S. LEITCH
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
THIS STORY has a happy ending. Because I say it does. Because I need it to. So, please, don't try to tell me otherwise.
We saw the cat first the night we arrived. It was crouched uncomfortably at the foot of the stairs to our rented vacation house.
Of course, at first we didn't know it was a cat. Because, at a glance, it wasn't recognizable as a cat. How could it be, with that jar stuck over its head?
A half-pint jar. Probably a mayonnaise jar. The kind of jar a hungry feral cat might just naturally put his head deep into, trying to lick the last of the tasty leftovers. The kind of jar that couldn't be escaped once it had been entered.
We tried to catch him then, but he bounded away into the dunes, deep under a thicket of bayberry bushes. "Don't worry," the Man of the House assured me. "He'll be back; we'll catch him."
But I did worry. A cat with a jar stuck over his head: How could he eat? How could he drink? How could he even breathe? Of course, I worried. I fretted. I went out again and again, searching the bayberry thicket. I saw a few tracks, but no cat. When a cat wants to hide, a cat cannot be found.
That was Saturday. "He'll be fine," the Man of the House reassured me again. "He'll be back, or someone else will rescue him."
Sunday passed. No cat. Monday and Tuesday. No cat. "Do you think," I asked, at last, "he will have died by now?" It would be a comfort, I thought, to stop worrying.
"I think," the Man of the House said, "someone else has rescued him already."
But Wednesday morning, there he was: trotting along the edge of our little drive as if nothing were wrong. As if he didn't still have a jar stuck over his head.
I slipped out a quietly as I could. I crept up behind him. I was almost there - he was within my reach! - when he turned and spotted me. And once again bounded away.
Compassion took an odd turn then. If the damn thing won't be rescued, I thought, then let him rot. I don't want to see him again. Out of sight, out of mind. I wanted him to take his misery, and disappear. I wanted to stop worrying. Damn him.
Saturday, the morning we had leave, brought a nasty little nor'easter. Driving rain, cold wind. Loading the car would be an even more miserable task than usual.
I went down early to start and there, just under the porch, crouched that wretched cat. Too weak and wet to resist, and blinded by his week-long inability to clean his eyes.
The jar came off easily. A little tug. But the cat's ears seemed permanently pinned back from their confinement, and his chin was rubbed raw. Maybe his spirit was broken, too, for he didn't even protest when I held him under running water to clean his face. A half-grown tom, I could see at last, nothing but skin and bones of him left.
"If you'd just let me help you earlier in the week " I kept saying this to him, as if he could understand. The Man of the House brought him canned milk, tuna and strained chicken. I toweled him off and tried to make him eat. He liked best the leftover ranch dressing he licked off my fingers; although you'd think a week in a mayonnaise jar would put a cat off condiments forever.
And so, he was rescued.
But then what to do? We were leaving. It was time to go. Past time to go. An eight-hour drive home. Where we knew our crotchety, spoiled, old tom awaited us impatiently.
Would he welcome this youngster into his home?
He would not.
Even assuming the youngster survived the ride.
And so, we made the youngster a shelter out of the wind and rain, under the rental house. We left him supplied with tuna and milk, fresh water and all the ranch dressing we had left. A week's supplies, at least. We left him with a cozy towel in which to sleep.
But we left him.
Where, I must insist, he's happy. Safe. Healthy again.
Or, at least, as safe and healthy as any feral cat can be.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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