The evening of the second Monday in June I accompanied my parents to the local veterinarian's office. In my mother's arms was Rascal, one of a pair of cats my family adopted in 1990, who had over the last twenty-four hours exhibited every moribund quality of an animal fit for barbiturate mercy. What the vet had diagnosed as a minor stroke the week before deprived the russet tabby of mobility and lucidity. Rascal was drawn, unsteady and capable of little more than sleep, and the vet's standing rule for "a pet no longer acting like a pet" applied.
I took — have taken — the death rationally. Rascal enjoyed both longevity and affection, her declension so gradual it was graceful. But there are moments, crystalline in memory, that evoke on account of man's dignity toward those creatures over which he has dominion: my mother letting Rascal crawl on the front porch to where the cat had many times in her youth scrambled, disobediently, out the door; Rascal craning her neck to peek out the car window; in the lobby of the animal hospital, one last look from the old cat, cognizant or otherwise; and the doctor's aide, with a laconic condolence, carrying Rascal down a short hall to a scrubbed, off-white room from which the dying animal would be released.
My mother and father and I drove to a restaurant where we toasted the memory of our beloved family pet and spoke of questions of ownership made relevant with Rascal's passing. How would Rascal's surviving littermate Buddy, punctilious and fussy in his own right, fare without his companion? How soon to adopt? The questions were for my parents, since I had long since moved out and had not considered owning cats for myself. Even so I advocated the continued presence of the animals at the house in which I grew up — my father was willing to adopt more within reason, while my mother took on a number of reservations. None of her extenuations seemed justified enough to deprive either my mother or a cat of warm companionship so I counseled and cajoled freely. I assumed the discussion would remain academic for some time; at least until we learned of a respectably owned dame bearing a litter.
Before the end of the month my mother was informed by a friend that the friend's acquaintance had brought home, for caretaking, a pair of litters from the shelter at which she worked. Would my mother like to go see them? She accepted the invitation and returned with a story of ninety minutes spent with a dozen tumbling, mewling kittens. One litter was a week older than the other, unanimously white with broken tabby stripes. The second litter was a mix: the mother was thin from indigence but lithe and sleek by design, of Oriental lineage. Three of her brood reflected this, two pitch males and a tortoiseshell female. The fourth and fifth kittens, a boy and a girl, were sired from a father of very different blood, notably larger than their siblings, striped silver and brown, and hirsute. My mother remarked on one of these last two, dubbed "Harry" by the shelter caretaker — he was the largest, and gregarious and unwieldy, scampering for my mother and tripping over his own feet.
My father and I were invited to accompany my mother on a second viewing and it was shortly after the three of us were led into the worker's basement nursery that I reversed my position on ownership. The first litter was evanescent, hardly to be seen. Led by the clumsy greyish champion, however, the second litter met our group and played. Before the visit was half over I had silently chosen the big tabby and the tortoiseshell. The black pair attracted my parents. These selections were made known to the worker within a week, and after another visit — between the caretaker's subtle appeal for the fifth, who proceeded to steal my mother's heart during a third visit with adoring gazes that were almost sentient — all five kittens of the second litter were reserved, three for my parents and two for myself. On the first Friday in August, the kittens were taken to their respective adoptive homes.
Shelters christen animals for clerical purposes, so it was with no compunction that — once in my custody — the girl, as homage to the Japanese keiretsu, became "Mitsubishi" and the boy, in a tribute to American colloquialisms, became "Mac." The latter is irreducible, the former abbreviated in practice to "Mitsi." After puzzling over Mac's size and length of hair I determined with some confidence that he and his sister counterpart are part Maine Coon — the Maine Coon being an American breed whose more memorable specimens possess the size, appearance and genial temperament of small collies. Mac is enormous for a kitten, stocky and sturdy. Head-on, he looks like a fuzzy rectangle. Mitsubishi is svelte, her thin frame clothed in silky, short fur. Two months ago she showed the signs of a tortoiseshell pattern; since then the coat has progressed from black with faint, butterscotch smudges to a black that dissolves, hindward, into a neutral opalescence, save for two patches of stark white — one on her jaw and the other running down her belly.
Mac and Mitsubishi are intelligent and sociable. Both come when called, following fast success with associating a verbal command with a treat; though it appears as if both believe their name to be "Mac." The two are fascinated, for some reason, with my excavation of their litter; upon hearing the shuffle of clay they regularly approach and insist upon helping. Opening the refridgerator similarly draws them into the kitchen and, were they to have their own way, into the vegetable crisper. When I am seated and working, the kittens find a nearby perch and look on.
The kittens acclimated themselves to my apartment quickly — three weeks from the day I opened an animal carrier on the floor of my bedroom to let the pair out, Mac and Mitsubishi are calm and content, and very much at home. Even so, the day they arrived, the two kittens were judicious when they weren't overwhelmed in consternation, squealing out the moment neither one could see where I had gone. Their world consisted of a triangle: litter in a half-bathroom on one arc and food and water in the kitchen on the other, the space under my bed equidistant. Sovereignty was established over the next several days in what was a sort of feline colonialism, generally consisting of two steps: one, discovery of an object; two, all the scandent possibilities. First the kittens found the balcony's sliding doors, then the curtains. They found the top of my bed, then my endtable and everything on it. The kittens encountered my pair of powder-blue wingback chairs and then the wings themselves.
Although sixteen years is time enough for entropy, I do not particularly remember Rascal or Buddy nearly as athletic or excitable and Mac and Mitsubishi. The kittens tussle and chase each other incessantly; it was with some encouragement and discouragement that I taught them not to mistake my hands as valid targets, and it will require more work to secure the same exemption for my pantlegs and shoestrings. Both kittens are eager to pretend to hunt, and so Mac and Mitsubishi are each the other's favorite plaything. I have hesitated to invest too much in cat toys; kittens and cats are pragmatists in leisure. Intention means nothing next to design, and anything with reasonable ballistic properties that can be dislodged will be dislodged — I consider myself lucky to have eschewed tchotchkes. In just one storebought item have they have not lost interest: fluorescent, crown-shaped pieces of plastic. Sold as "Cat Crazies," these are reverse Klein bottles in the sense that they cannot not exist in the cat universe.
Tireless activity has its foibles, as humans do in fact tire. Buddy and Rascal were kept in the basement of the family house, at all times and then at night, for nearly a year; and age had likely becalmed them by the time they were given unrestricted range of the house. "Lights out," to my dismay, has been interpreted by Mac and Mitsubishi as license to do whatever they want with the benefit of not being seen. My bed was designated for midnight battles and, worse, after keeping me past reasonable hours the kittens would make one clatter or another between half-past five and six o'clock in the morning. Simply closing the door carried with it risks, principally because the litter box was most effectively located in the bath off the master bedroom and a disruption of continuity, even with a second box outside, could bring confusion and attendant coprological mishaps. Even when I was ready to shut the door, I was defied on the first try. Within thirty seconds, two pairs of paws curled between the bottom rail and sill, pushing and tugging and undermining the door like sappers would a wall; then one cat apparently used the other as a battering ram and Bang! the door swung open. I tried again; the kittens obliged and I have since slept soundly.
Tomorrow I will bring Mac and Mitsubishi to the veterinarian for standard tests and other confirmations of well-being. That cost will be added to that of apartment security deposits, adoption fees, food, litter, amenities, time and sleep. What is returned? Unconditional affection; more memories, vitrescent and edifying, not so bittersweet as June's.