The cats: Part II

"This just all seems . . . suspicious," said Officer Snow in a barky tone ground to perfection to be used for eliciting confessions.

For weeks, I fretted over the ninety-degree heat and how it swells in a home with shuttered windows. I worried that the bank would come and claim their prize. I feared I would not be able to keep this man in collusion with me on taking care with the cats--I had to be nice to him. And most of all, I imagined that "animal lover" would one day let them all out herself, setting them "free" in her twisted logic. She still had a key to the house and came back every few days to sprinkle kibble and offer them fresh water from a dirty bowl. I urged the man to change the locks. He did. The count down had begun.

Contacting a recent reacquainted friend who happens to be a vet, she offered kind words and a single phone number. Start there, she encouraged. And of the six or so numbers that initial call solicited, I made a connection with the first number I dialed, fourth on the list. I went by gut and it seemingly paid off.

This was a conduit to a grassroots group of cat rescuers. A chain of every day people fostering abandoned cats, strays and owner give-ups. She began by letting me know there was really no more room for any cats anywhere. I expressed my disgust at this couple, their lack of responsibility, of compassion. "Assholes," she spat. I agreed.

"I normally don't do this and if you tell any one, I will deny it up and down," she said. She began threading the fabric of our plot. I was to take the cats to the XXX police department, tell them I found the cats in a box in a mall parking lot. Geography was key to whom would take them in, I learned. The police would do an intake and begin the chain of events that would lead the cats and kittens to a series of foster homes. Lead them to safety.

On July 4, we pulled up to the house once again, equipped with my large dog carrier and several boxes punctured with holes. I was confidant this would be an in-and-out operation. I planned on being back home in an hour, hour and a half max.

I could smell the cloud of ammonia from the driveway this time, while I was still in the car. My eyes watered upon entry. I heard nails scatter on linoleum, heard small thumps from all corners as the cats bunkered down in hiding spots.


What the night lovingly hid, the daylight harshly told the truth.

The innocent gray/silver/black kittens were easy to coax. They melted under my touch. Four. I saw what I assumed their mother atop a urine-stained mattress lain on the front room floor. The kittens scampered about her as her round amber eyes grew rounder and bigger in suspicion, her ebony coat eliciting a pet. A fat orange tabby came out to look. Other cats disappeared as I turned my attention their way.

I called a creamy cougar-esque cat to me and plunked her (or him) in the carrier. I grabbed the tabby by the scruff and urged him in, too. One pluckish kitten curious, got placed inside. Then the ebony mother got too close to the man and he grabbed her, not by the scruff, but somewhere else causing her to twist, caterwaul--scream out a guttural ancestral sound. Once the other cats heard the mournful cry, they went down under.


It would take hours before the mission ended.

Two of the kittens played hide-and-seek in the entertainment center that had one door hanging askew like a fallen tooth. When I went behind there, I found feces stacked up some two feet high. Cats despise filth and will refuse to go in a dirty litter box. They'll find another place.

Another cat ran into a side bedroom. Apparently, the owner thought that leaving a window open was the right thing to do. The cats jumped in and out of the room with the aplomb of seasoned acrobats. Seemingly hundreds of flies flew in tornado spirals in the center of the room. It was like something out of The Amityville Horror. The stench of baked feces filled the room.

Baby blue walls told me this was one of the boy's bedrooms. So did piles of discarded urine-soaked sports shirts, shorts and PJ's, random action figures akimbo on the floor which could hardly be seen, a dismantled Game Cube. The closet reflected three-feet high piles of . . . a discarded life: comic books; gym shorts; crayons; an original Disney sketch yellowed by urine.

A note in loving script taped to the door read:
Nicky, please wake up Cody at 7 (be nice!)
Have a muffin and yogurt for breakfast.
Love you.

I cried. I cried for the cats lovingly collected like Precious Moments figurines. I teared for the boys who called this filthy war zone home. I wept for the adults even. How could they think this normal on any level?

As much as I would like to say that I spent hours gingerly placing all the cats in the carriers so they would feel safe, I can't. He began chasing the cats who fought and howled and I receded to a place of paralysis and could only assist as he got one after another into the boxes.

I cannot describe to you the horror of pressing my face to the filthy floor looking amidst debris for the cats. Nor the hopelessness when I discovered that some of the cats dug out holes in the couches and had buried themselves. I am ashamed I felt so defeated.

Further, she had lied. There were not seven cats; I counted eight. And as we left as the daylight hours dissipated, and "oh my God" sprang forth from my lips. I turned and saw yet another orange tabby. After another half hour of hide-and-seek, I told him we had to go-that we could return for one cat.

Except I turned again and atop one scratched up bureau sat a gorgeous long-haired chestnut brown cat looking regal and austere. The bureau was taller than either of us. He asked me to attempt to get the cat; I looked at his bloodied, scratched up arms and the paralysis rose.

So he reached up but the cat eluded him, moving back and forth. Not to be undermined, he grabbed at the lower half of the body and the cat fought valiantly using all its strength to hang on to the corners of the bureau. It sounded like he was killing the cat and my speech was lost. I could only look -- but couldn't move. He shook the cat loose, forced him to release his grip; I ran to get the carrier. . . but he fumbled and the cat escaped.

We had to leave; I would come back for the other two. For now, I felt good in knowing that most of them were out and headed for good health, new homes and a better life.

But it wasn't quite over. Yet.

Part III tomorrow.

Luragana