NO ORDINARY CATS
“There are no ordinary cats.”
— Colette
Coffee and cats are the two necessities around which my life revolves. First thing in the morning, as I sit down to write, Dash, a gray tiger-stripe shorthair in his middle years, sits on my desk resting a paw or his head fetchingly on my keyboard. If I ignore him, he rolls on his back and waves his plump, irresistible belly at me. When the birds and squirrels are active in the backyard, we watch them out the window together. Dash makes ominous noises deep in his throat as if to hint at what he could do were he not confined to my home as a pampered pet. In reality, it is hard to imagine how this sociable cat, who greets our guests at the door and converses with me all day, could survive in the wild.
We adopted Dash from a shelter without cages. It was a cat lover’s paradise, just big rooms full of cats. Dash was not the most beautiful cat, having short legs and a small head—in shape, he resembles an armadillo—but he won us over. After we were “introduced” to him, he followed us around as we toured, making a sound like “mer mer merp, merp, mer mer mer merp,” with a lilt like a question on the last syllable. Choose me, love me, he pleaded, and we did. Dash, in his early life as a stray kitten, was mauled by a Rottweiler and rescued by a good Samaritan who paid for emergency surgery, a history that explains Dash’s great love of people and his joie de vivre. The Dale Carnegie of cats, Dash comes out when we have company and circulates among our guests, winning over each one. He also takes a cross-country plane trip twice a year, without any impact on his good humor.
In my writing office, there is a picture of another special cat, Midas, who came to me in grad school when I had my own apartment in New York City and wanted a cat to keep me company during long, dull study sessions. On a cold winter night, a classmate rescued him from an alley in Morningside Heights. She described him on the phone as a black-and-white longhair with the “sweetest green eyes.” She brought him to my door, but when I opened the cat carrier, a mangy-looking creature, with dingy long hair and terrified green eyes that oozed with a discharge, slunk out and, head down, crept away and hid under my bed. He emerged a few days later to spray my leather boots. I thought of how my wish for a cat had backfired and named him Midas after the mythological king whose wish to turn everything to gold led to disaster. My friends joked that Midas was turning everything to gold with his pee. My father teased me about my scruffy new pet. “How’s Midol?” he laughed.
Soon, however, surgery (i.e., castration, sorry, Midas) fixed the spraying problem. Midas was a companionable cat who slept nestled in my armpit but still mangy until Don, the boyfriend who became my first husband, suggested that we give the new cat a bath. Midas did not protest as we put him in the sink and lathered him with cat shampoo, which turned a large round ball into a scrawny creature. After the shampoo, Midas sported a silky mane of shiny fur and a striking plumed tail. He became a handsome cat worthy of his regal name. He seemed to like being dapper and luxuriated during his regular brushings, rolling over so I could reach every spot.
At that time, I acquired a roommate who brought with her a Himalayan fluff ball named Hans. Midas was not happy with this incursion, but clearly he was a lover, not a fighter. Don picked Midas up to comfort him, and from the safety of Don’s arms, Midas let out a ferocious hiss. After that the two cats tumbled playfully, Hans always trying to catch Midas’s tempting tail. As cowardly as Midas was vis-à-vis Hans, he was a regular Philippe Petit when it came to heights. Our apartment was seven stories up, and once we looked out to see Midas walking daintily along the narrow ledge outside the window. Fortunately, we were able to coax him back in.
When Don and I moved to Brooklyn, Midas came with us. He preferred drinking water from a glass, and every morning as Don shaved, Midas jumped on the top of the toilet to enjoy a glass of water. When we had our first daughter, Liat, Midas learned to tolerate toddler kisses. Feeling that we had not filled our cat quota, we adopted a second cat, a rather dim calico. Vashti was a devoted and obsequious partner to Midas. She regularly groomed him by licking him on top of his head. Midas accepted these attentions with a look of noblesse oblige and disdain. I never saw him lick her.
I was pregnant with my second child when amidst the jumble of our busy days, we noticed that Midas was losing weight. He was diagnosed with feline AIDS. Midas became so weak, he curled in a corner without moving as Vashti sat devotedly by his side. I was in my eighth month of pregnancy when we decided to end his pain by euthanasia. Nestled comfortably in Don’s arms, gentle Midas bent his silken head and breathed his last. Vashti went into deep mourning, sitting immobile for hours in the corner that Midas had chosen when he was ill. I did not properly mourn Midas as I wanted to think only happy thoughts for the sake of the child in utero.
The next important cat in my life was Topanga, a magnificent Maine Coon tiger-stripe female who came to me after my divorce from Don. I adopted her for $32.00 through a pet service. An Italian cop from Staten Island brought her to my door. “She was my girlfriend’s cat. She left da cat when she walked out on me,” he said gruffly. He opened the carrier, and Topanga climbed daintily out. “I don’t have time for da cat. Her name is Shmoopie,” he added sheepishly, then was out the door in a rush as if afraid I might change my mind.
The name Shmoopie did not do justice to her elegance. The cat had large green eyes, the refined bone structure of a supermodel, the tufted ears of a bobcat, a magnificent coat of silky fur, and an impressive plumed tail. When Liat, now twelve, came home and I told her the cat was named Shmoopie, Liat pronounced, “That’s pathetic.” We began discussing new names, and as we were watching the TV show Boy Meets World, we decided on Topanga, an exotic name for an exotic cat.
To say Topanga was extremely neurotic would be an understatement. At every loud noise, her back arched and she skittered across the floor. Had she been a person, she would have needed a valium just to go to the supermarket. She was a poor eater except for one particularly expensive brand of cat food, Fancy Feast. However, like a good best friend, Topanga comforted me. When I lay on the couch, she would drape herself on the arm behind my head and reach down a paw to knead my neck, claws politely retracted, almost as if giving me a massage. She slept with me but never woke me in the morning. Instead, I would open my eyes to find her watching over me, winking a doting cat smile. When my mother babysat, she told me that, without fail, at 6:00 p.m., Topanga took up a post at the window to watch for me as I came home from work. As I climbed the brownstone stoop, Topanga would meow a hello, and by the time I opened the door to the apartment, she was there to greet me.
When I began to date, Topanga dated with me and had strong opinions about the men I brought home. Topanga was fond of my first serious post-divorce boyfriend, a clean, quiet man with a soft, mellifluous voice, whom no one else in the family liked. As we sat on the couch together and he reached over to hold my hand, Topanga slipped a paw between his fingers. When Steve, my second husband, came with his booming soccer coach voice, Topanga took an instant dislike to him. There was no love lost on Steve’s side either. It was almost like they were rivals for the privilege of sharing my bed. Topanga painted her feelings in urine all over the one piece of furniture Steve brought with him, a futon. Every day, she reminded the offending upholstery just how pissed off she was that Steve had invaded our perfect love nest. In time, they reached an accommodation when she discovered that Steve’s chest was the warmest spot in the apartment.
When Steve and I left Brooklyn to move to Maine, Topanga seemed for a time a happier, more confident cat, proud of her expanded territory. Then a thyroid problem led to complications, and we came home to find her back legs paralyzed. It is possible she was poisoned by something she ate off the floor of our two-hundred-year-old house. Before we could get her to the vet, blood began to gush from her nose. We tried everything to save her. Three doctors and $2,000 later, Topanga was in the animal ICU in a hopeless condition. We decided to end her agony, and I asked for the opportunity to say goodbye. “She’s in great pain; she’s not the same cat,” the vet warned me. When they brought Topanga in, she was howling like a banshee. “Hi, Topanga,” I said in the special voice I used for her. She quieted instantly and let me stroke her ruff. As the doctor gave her the medicine that would end her life, I thanked Topanga for being such a loyal friend. I told her I never would have survived my divorce without her. I reminisced with her about the good times we had. I begged her forgiveness for letting her get so sick. I spoke for ten or twenty minutes with tears streaming down my face. Topanga’s sweet, soulful eyes said she understood and forgave. By the time the medication took effect and Topanga died, the vet was in tears, and Steve was so upset, he almost fainted. I was devastated and mourned Topanga through poetry and a small ceremony. Her ashes sit in a box on my bookshelf.
The author Colette said, “There are no ordinary cats.” In some mysterious way, cats come to us when we need them, the way that Topanga came to me when I was newly single. Dash is sleeping nearby. If he was awake, he would say, “Mer mer merp,” with a rising note on the last syllable, which translates as “What about me?” He would remind me that life is lived forward, and the most important cat is the one in your lap right now.
Following a long career as an attorney, Dana Robbins obtained an MFA in creative writing from the Stonecoast program University of Southern Maine. Her first book of poetry, The Left Side of My Life, was published by Moon Pie Press of Westbrook, Maine in 2015 and her second book, After the Parade, was published by Moon Pie in 2020. Her poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Dana lives in Bronx, NY and Palo Alto, California.