A Cat Named Max

Cats are graceful creatures that never really have an owner, and I’ve told many stories about those that have occupied large places in my heart. One of them was a big Tom, a little special and just a bit more memorable than most.

All our acquaintances knew that Anne and I were cat people and rarely a week passed that someone didn’t try to give us one. We usually resisted, or else we would have had hundreds of cats instead of the handful for which we felt responsible. A cry for assistance occurred one day that we couldn’t ignore.

Friends of friends owned a small apartment complex, and someone had abandoned two cats in an upstairs apartment. A week had passed before the property owner found out and by this time the two felines were traumatized. Anne and good friend Bruce rescued them from the locked apartment after much ado and lots more trauma.

Both cats were solid white, one a young female, the older a grown male. Bruce fell in love with the little female and took her to care for. The big Tom was half-crazy from his stay in the apartment, and it was soon apparent that if Anne and I didn’t take him, we would have to have him put down.

We named him Max because there was a Mel Gibson movie out at the time called Mad Max and this new addition to our family qualified as more than a little wacky. Max was an American Bobtail/Siamese mix. He was white with slightly crossed blue eyes. He had only the semblance of a tail, and his hind legs were longer than the front ones. Even though fixed, Max had a heavily muscled torso and tufted ears that caused him to look like a white bobcat. Oh, and he was very strong.

For the first few days, we fed and watered Mad Max while giving him a wide berth. There were other cats in the family and soon he began to cozy up to us. He liked King Tut and followed him wherever he went. Tut was as regal as his name implied and I think he liked having a lieutenant around.

After a year or so, we noticed Mad Max was looking sick so we put him in the cat carrier and took him to Dr. Dugger, our friendly vet. He spent the day there, and when we picked him up, Dr. Dugger explained what had happened.

"Tailless cats tend to rub their rear ends in the grass and occasionally get plugged up. Max had an excretion ball that solidified to the point it wouldn’t pass. We gave him a sedative and then soaked his rear in warm water until we could extract it."

Dr. Dugger gave us some antibiotics for Max and the big boy was back to his normal self in a day or so. As time passed, he became an integral part of the family. He loved his daily full body strokes and began demanding his share of the attention. He was still sort of nuts, and if you rubbed him once too often, he would take a swipe at you with his powerful paw.

Another couple of years passed, along with the oil boom. Anne and I were struggling and had little money to go to the doctor or dentist, and the cats relegated to emergency only vet visits. One incident finally occurred that we had no money to let the vet remedy. Max had developed another petrified poop ball in his rear, and he was miserable by the time we noticed it.

"You’ll have to fix it, or he'll die," Anne said.

I knew she was correct. Drawing a bucket of very warm water, I pulled on a pair of gloves and prepared for the worst. I needn’t have worried. Powerful Max was too sick to fight. He didn’t even squirm when I lifted him and lowered his rear into the warm water.

I don’t know how long it took, but the petrified poop soon began to soften. I finally got hold of it with my gloved hand and worked on it until it finally came loose, Max and me both breathing huge sighs of relief as it did.

Max and I both survived the petrified poop ordeal, and he lived with us all together for almost ten years. He met his demise early one morning in a dramatic fashion. Anne was walking outside to get the morning paper when she heard a commotion in the garage. The cats liked to sleep there, roosted on the hoods of our car, and we always kept the door cracked so they could go in and out.

As Anne stood looking at the garage door, a large German shepherd came bounding out with Max in his mouth. Anne chased them down the street in her robe and nightgown, yelling at him to stop as she ran. The dog paid her no mind and quickly outdistanced her, disappearing down the block. We never found Max’s body.

Max was limp, his eyes closed when the large dog came running out of the garage with him. Our vet told us the dog probably killed him the moment he got him by the neck.

"He probably never knew what hit him and I’m sure he never suffered," Dr. Dugger told us, hoping to make us feel better.

Mad Max met his dramatic demise, hopefully without suffering. Anne and I consoled each other with the knowledge that he was a grown cat when we got him. He lived another ten very good years with people that cared for him deeply before the dog got him.

Yes, Max was a little different and slightly crazy, but we loved him despite his less than perfect qualities. He was a special cat, and sometimes you love special beings in ways hard to explain except in your heart.

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Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

Sweet-toothed Cat

Butter Cup

There was a stale chocolate doughnut in our kitchen that Marilyn decided to feed to the birds or squirrels outside. She threw it under the bird feeder, returning a few minutes later to find Butter Cup polishing it off. I knew she was a finicky eater but didn't know she liked doughnuts. Guess I know now what to give her for treats.
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Total Eclipse of the Moon

Mavis, Anne, Jack, Dale Rood, Isey, Thanksgiving, circa the 80s

When I went outside very early this morning to watch the lunar eclipse, I realized I was in for a mystical treat. A golden moon brightened hazy sky, back dropped by luminous Christmas lights decorating neighbors’ houses. My big tomcat Goldie joined me as I watched the unfolding event.

I had no telescope and only gazed up at the lunar phenomenon with my naked eyes. The realization that I was witnessing a total lunar eclipse the same day as the Winter Solstice, two events that occur on the same day only once every four hundred years, or so, caused me to recall another story recounted many years ago by my Grandmother Dale O’Rear Rood. Grandmother Dale was born on October 27, 1891. She was nineteen when she witnessed Halley’s Comet in 1910.

“Halley’s is the only naked-eye comet that a human can witness twice in a lifetime. Mark Twain saw it twice and so did Papa Pink. I’m going to live until it passes one more time.”

Grandmother Dale didn’t quite make it, dying February 27, 1985 at the age of 93, less than a year from the date (February 9, 1986) Halley’s Comet last passed close enough to Earth to be seen with the naked eye. She actually came closer than Papa Pink; despite his boasts to the contrary, John Pickney O’Rear was born September 9, 1837, almost two years after the comet’s passing November 16, 1835.

I thought about Grandma Rood’s story as I watched the moon disappear into darkness, and then reappear the color of burnished bronze. Goldie didn’t seem to care but shared my moment like a spiritual being that somehow understood the importance of the celestial event.

Marilyn usually leaves the radio in our living room all the time. I’m not a religious person, but I couldn’t help but reflect on the Christmas song, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, playing as I opened the front door and cast one last glance at the sky. It caused me to reflect on my own existence. I won’t be around in 2061 when Halley’s Comet appears again, much less in four hundred years.

Giving Goldie, my big tom a last scratch behind the ears, I grinned, deciding not to ponder the thought further as I plodded off to bed.

###

Born near Black Bayou in the little Louisiana town of Vivian, Eric Wilder grew up listening to his grandmother’s tales of politics, corruption, and ghosts that haunt the night. He now lives in Oklahoma where he continues to pen mysteries and short stories with a southern accent. He is the author of the French Quarter Mystery Series set in New Orleans and the Paranormal Cowboy Series. Please check it out on his Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iBook author pages. You might also like to check out his website.

The Place You're Meant To Be

I plan to winterize the dog’s shed early this year because I think we’re in for a cold winter. I also cranked up my hot tub because it’s always great to sit in it when the wind is blowing and the mosquitoes have disappeared for the season. It all reminds me of an exceptionally cold winter, some years ago.

I’m not sure of the year but I think it loosely coincided with the first Gulf War. Anne and I were at low ebb financially, but we were somehow managing to eke out a living. We were renting a house in an Oklahoma City neighborhood called Summerfield. The house was small but had a small pool and a hot tub.

Our house backed up to a creek with water and many trees. Because of the creek, we had critters visit us every night – skunks, possums, foxes and armadillos. They became so tame that I could open the sliding glass door and actually feed them out of my hand. My vet had a fit when I told him this.

“They could get rabies. You want them to bite your cats?”

I didn’t but I apparently had a better opinion of my cats’ intelligence than did my vet. They would never back up from a fight but, likewise, they weren’t much for starting one either.

A large unfixed stray tom lived in a drainage pipe near our house. He was wilder than the wildest skunk or fox, and he wouldn’t tolerate a human coming near him. Well, at least at first. Soon he was lying on the couch on the back porch and would even let me pet him – once or twice maybe.

The winter grew so cold that I draped plastic sheeting around the back porch to keep out the wind. Big Cat liked it and would lie out on the porch all day, but at night, he would disappear to chase field mouse, squirrels, or whatever. He didn’t bother my other cats and they seemed to feel safer because of his presence.

Leon and Dan, two trivia friends had dropped by one Friday night. A cold front had moved through the previous day and there was ice on the pool. I had the hot tub cranked so that it wouldn’t freeze, and Dan, Leon and I decided to take a dip.

When I say it was cold, I mean gray cold, a wind blowing so hard that it would freeze the moisture in your eyebrows.

“I’ll jump in the pool if you two will,” Leon said.

“You’re crazy,” I said.

“I’ll do it,” Dan said. “A quick cold dip will be good for us.”

Dan was smart; a PhD candidate in economics from OU, but it didn’t stop me from raising my frozen eyebrows.

“You’re both crazy as hell,” I said. “You won’t last thirty seconds.”

“We’ll be fine,” Leon said. “Our body temps are elevated because of being in the hot tub. I can’t believe you’re such a pussy about this.”

By this time, it had begun to sleet, the wind whipping like a proverbial banshee, the wooden deck around the spa rapidly growing slick.

“Who is the pussy?” I said, pulling myself out of the hot tub and racing the short distance across the slippery deck, to the pool.

“Geronimo!” I yelled as I hit the icy water.

Dan and Leon followed me into the pool. Dan was correct. Our body temperatures were elevated to the point that contact with the icy pool didn’t cause us to have instant heart attacks. That didn’t mean we could stay in the frigid water for very long. We hurriedly climbed out and immersed our bodies in the hot water of the hot tub.

We repeated the plunge into the pool at least two more times before rushing into the house, toweling off and then sitting in front of a roaring fire for at least half an hour.

I loved the little house but it had a structural defect – its foundation had split in the middle, something we geologists call a down-to-the-basin fault. The prognosis was dire and Anne and I began looking for a new place to live. Like the first Gulf War, winter ended and I somehow managed to sell a prospect, allowing us to move into improved digs.

I couldn’t find Big Cat when it came time to move because I don’t think he wanted me to find him. I did see him one last time. He stood a hundred feet away, looking at me, not coming when I called. He finally turned and walked away - stopping before disappearing into the drainage pipe that he called home. He seemed to dip his big head toward me, as if saying, “We had a good run, but this is where I’m meant to be.”

There’s a warm breeze blowing tonight, a big golden moon in the sky. My dog Lucky just died and I’m missing him, and thinking about that last cold winter and that old big cat. It saddens me, and makes me think that the only real thing we actually have on this old earth is the here and now, and maybe the only place you’ll ever be happy is that drainage pipe in your heart that you call home.

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