Kitty Was Not a Toy.
Kitty was a wonderful distraction from my isolation … for a very short time.
At first, she was adorable and sweet and the most wonderful experience in my life. Having my own kitten excited me beyond anything I’d experienced in eons, and I couldn’t get enough of her. I carried her around and held her in my lap; I balanced her on my elbow and I bounced her on my knee. I played with her during every available minute of the day, dragging a feather-filled string across the carpet and watching her pounce, loving every second of it.
It became obvious very quickly, though, that Kitty was not a toy.
We used the cardboard box from underneath a case of Miller Lite for Kitty’s litter box, and shredded newspaper for litter until she was older. She was box-trained immediately.
I was blacking out for hours at a time, so I missed much of Kitty’s upbringing. I would wake up with scratches up and down both arms, since Kitty did not know enough to play gently.
When she was old enough, we had her spayed and declawed, because that’s what Larry said we had to do. “We don’t want her fuckin’ scratching up the furniture!” he said.
No, we don’t want that, I thought.
I cared so very, very little about the furniture, but we had the vet remove her front claws. The lack of deep scratches on my arms was much appreciated, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized what I’d done to my poor cat, removing her natural defenses and causing her to be unable to climb when she needed to escape predators.
If I had it to do over again, I would never declaw my cat. In 1987, though, I just did whatever Larry said.
Kitty drank milk for a long time; Larry said all kittens drank milk. Eventually we transferred her to canned food but she always had milk as a treat.
As she got older, Kitty got bored with wandering around in the living room and started mewing on the window sills, begging to be let out.
“She needs to hunt!” Larry said, and he opened the window so she could come and go as she pleased.
Couldn’t she get hurt out there? I thought, imagining the cars whizzing by on Main Street, and every other street in Pitcairn. But she wanted out, so we let her out. Somehow she didn’t get run over.
Kitty would climb out onto the roof and sit for hours. Eventually she started jumping from our roof to the roof next door. After that, she was just gone – and we’d leave the window open, so she could return at her leisure.
Once – only once – Kitty watched as we spread lines of cocaine on the table – then she pounced. I picked her up and threw her across the room, screaming obscenities, and spent months searching our ratty, disgusting carpet for specks of white powder. I ate a lot of cigarette ash during my search.
Sometimes we’d leave for a whole weekend, leaving her a pile of dry cat food and enough water for her to bathe in. She survived every weekend. Looking back, I think about how lonely she must have been.
If I had it to do over again, I would do a lot more research before getting a cat. Well, if I hadn’t been so drunk. Instead I just did what Larry said. I loved Kitty, but I was completely clueless.
It took no time before Kitty became a responsibility and I went back to being irresponsible.