by Tony Robles<\/p>\n
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I\u2019m a catfather, been one for seven months. My cat is female. I got her fixed a few months ago in Asheville, one of those dog and cat snip operations where you drop off your pet and leave it in the care of the good surgeons while you think of the vasectomy you never had. My cat is a wonderful pet. In fact, I don\u2019t consider her a pet, really, but a roommate, a companion. When she came back from being\u00a0fixed\u00a0she moved about in a drunken feline stupor\u2014bumping into furniture and hitting the armrest of the couch head-first at mid-leap. It was as if I\u2019d spiked her water bowl with Kentucky bourbon right here in a mobile home park in Western North Carolina. But despite her uncharacteristic display of intemperance, she was fixed\u00a0which\u00a0meant no kittens, no\u00a0furry\u00a0adorable four-legged creatures with thimbles to spike with bourbon or anything else.<\/p>\n
I named my cat Francesca. Actually, I didn\u2019t name her. That name came via a coworker from a warehouse I work at in Hendersonville. It was one Robert Boucher (aka Bobby Booshay) who bestowed the name upon the gray tabby that now occupies my living area as a companion, rent-free tenant. The cat showed up unannounced at the warehouse sometime in October. I was struck by how petite she was; a small head and svelte body; gray with black stripes, and a patch of white on her neck. The cat was skittish. We tried petting her but she would bolt away in the other direction. We left her food in a bowl. Slowly she began trusting us to where she\u2019d let us pet her\u2014from a distance.<\/p>\n
But it was Robert, or Rob, that said, what should we name her? Our warehouse is a facility that assembles and sells small motorized wheelchairs and scooters.\u00a0 One of the technicians, an individual with a thick beard and eclectic musical tastes suggested we name the cat\u00a0scooter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>What\u00a0Bobby Booshay or my other warehouse brethren didn\u2019t realize\u00a0was\u00a0the significance of the name Francesca.\u00a0I am essentially a poet working in a warehouse\u2014a published poet with a\u00a0track\u00a0record of publications\u2014a\u00a0track\u00a0record that far exceeds my working\/employee record, a record rife with firings and misunderstandings.\u00a0Poetry has provided comfort, an outlet for my thoughts\u00a0which\u00a0often go unsaid in the workplace\u00a0environment.\u00a0I have three published collections of poetry. The editor of my first two books was the late writer Francesca Rosa. I owe the success of these books to her keen editorial eye and unmatched sensitivity.\u00a0When the name Francesca was uttered by the esteemed Bobby Booshay, I thought, this is more than a coincidence.<\/p>\n Soon everyone in the warehouse fell in love with Francesca. Well, not quite everyone. The business owner wasn\u2019t a cat person but rather a dog person. I would sometimes check in deliveries of gourmet dog food sent to the warehouse\u2014packets of nutrient-dense dog food sent in boxes insulated with dry ice. The food is packaged in plastic and looked edible for humans\u2014no kibble for the company boss\u2019 dog. The boss didn\u2019t care for cats and it seemed every time the boss would walk the warehouse, Francesca would appear. She would look on as Francesca leaped onto the warehouse shelves and lounge without a care in the world. One day the boss said, we\u2019re gonna have to call animal control. Francesca slowly became more comfortable around us and soon she was spending time at my desk. She\u2019d rub her head over my leg and on various parts of my desk. Who\u2019s gonna take her home my coworkers asked. Most had no room or had pets already. It appeared that a silent agreement had been made among us that I\u2019d be the one to take Francesca from the warehouse to my house. Beautiful but skittish, how would I do it?<\/p>\n I went to a hardware store and purchased a raccoon trap. I bought a small bowl from the local dollar store. I would set a trap and take Francesca home. I put the trap along the side of the warehouse on a Saturday afternoon with the bowl of cat food as bait. I arrived an hour later. The cat was captured, confined, and very angry\u2014its liberty stolen at the hands of a lowly warehouse tech on his day off. She was silent as I drove her home, about five minutes away. I carried the raccoon trap and the cat inside it to my porch. I opened the trap door\u00a0and\u00a0the cat bolted away, toward some box piled towards the rear of the porch. About 30-40 minutes\u00a0later\u00a0she crossed the threshold of my mobile home\u00a0but\u00a0not before making cat noises I\u2019d never heard\u00a0before\u2014distressful noises, perhaps the cat equivalent of profanity. She finally settled down\u2014at a distance.<\/p>\n Francesca explored her new surroundings, leaving small to mid-sized gifts\u2014namely cat shit and cat piss on my bedding. I chalked it up to nervousness, noting that my own bed-wetting episodes as a child germinated from an abrupt change in my living environment when I\u2019d moved from my grandmother\u2019s house to my father\u2019s house when I was a child. I dutifully cleaned the cat droppings and wished the urine-soaked bedding was christened by Francesca. However, a vague scent of cat shit lingered\u2014vague at\u00a0first\u00a0then more pronounced. Where the hell is that smell coming from? I asked. I finally located it\u2014under my bed\u2014a small pile resembling a scaled-down replica of a Hawaiian or Philippine volcano. I cleared what was under the bed\u00a0but\u00a0I began smelling cat shit in multiple places\u2014my car, at the supermarket. I was falling under the power of feline fecal matter suggestion. Francesca, however, became more at home in my, or now\u00a0our<\/em>\u00a0house.\u00a0She began using the litter box\u00a0with\u00a0regularity.<\/p>\n One evening\u00a0Francesca\u00a0and I were watching The Godfather<\/em> Part 1\u2014one of my favorites. Francesca leaped on the couch next to me. She watched the images on the screen, the gunfights, and the iconic scene when movie producer Jack Woltz wakes up to find a decapitated horse head on his silk sheet-covered bed. In one of the greatest performances in cinematic history, Woltz (played by actor Jack Marley) cries out in horror. As I recall, it went like this:<\/p>\n Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!<\/p>\n It was a scream that could curdle anything into cottage cheese. Francesca sat next to me and began to purr.<\/p>\n I remembered Francesca shortly after catching 3 mice in one week; one of which dangled from her jaws as she leapt onto my bed at 3 am. Cats are predators, a friend told me. Fleas are assholes, another told me. I turned to Francesca. \u201cHey, you\u2019ve been living here for a couple of months,\u201d I said, \u201cHow you liking it?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cIt’s fine,\u201d she replied, watching Marlon Brando ambushed at a fruit stand on the screen. \u201cAnyway,\u201d I said, \u201cmaybe we should have a written agreement.\u201d Francesca moved away slightly. \u201cWhat kind of agreement? She asked.\u201d I rubbed my chin. \u201cAn agreement that says you\u2019ll be a good cat. That you won\u2019t crap on the floor; that you\u2019ll\u2026\u201d “Did you forget about those three mice I killed?” She said. \u201cI\u2019m more than earning my keep.\u201d It was true, she eliminated the mouse problem. I began playing with her, friendly (not decapitated) horseplay when she swiped at me. Her claw hit my upper lip. A drop of blood formed\u2014just enough ink for a cat roommate contract\u2014or a short story\u2014this one. We continued watching The Godfather<\/em> until the end.<\/p>\n It has been wonderful being a catfather. I brought two of my patio screens doors to a repair shop since Francesca slashed through them. I\u00a0am keeping\u00a0her in the house\u00a0but\u00a0she manages to escape and return. She\u2019s a sweet cat, the\u00a0sweetest. For the last several\u00a0months\u00a0she\u2019s been the best roommate, keeping the mice away and, through her melodious purring, has kept my blood pressure down.<\/p>\n However, I know I live with a predator. I had been sleeping, a restful sleep. I awoke expecting to find Francesca sleeping nearby. She wasn\u2019t there. I looked up at the ceiling before rising to a sitting position. I saw something at the foot of my bed\u2014an odd shape. I couldn\u2019t make out what it was. I got closer and saw two small eyes. It was the head of a mouse. For some reason, I became frightened of the way Jack Woltz was in The Godfather<\/em> when he awoke to find a horse head in his bed. I looked towards the door. Francesca was looking at me. She flicked her tongue over her whiskers. I looked at the mouse\u2019s head. One of its eyes winked. I let out a scream worthy of an Academy Award:<\/p>\n Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!<\/p>\n Jack Woltz would have been proud. My\u00a0cat Francesca–a predator but a sweet one. And fleas are assholes.<\/p>\n The End.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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