NONFICTION   

"I needed a cat to chase off a ghost."
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                                      Photo by Weebly.com                                    

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Cat and Dog
by  Ed Brownson

Author's Note:  This is part one of a six-part essay that is a memoir by way of two extraordinary animals I’ve had the privilege of sharing my life with: Ché, a most unusual cat, who was with me for almost 15 years, and Otto, canine extraordinaire, who made my life worth living for 17 years. I miss them both more than words can say. The passage below tells how Ché came into my life in 1987

Photo by Ed Brownson

Part 1: Cat Show Escapee, 1987
 
“Someone else is interested in him,” the cat show woman said to me, exasperated at my indecision. It was my third visit to her booth, the second time I’d asked to hold the little red ball of meowing, curious fur. “I told her you were first. Do you want him or not? You need to make up your mind right now.”
 
Oh my God, I have to commit to something? How can I? I can’t, I just can’t!
 
I died a thousand deaths in that moment. I hadn’t been able to make a decision in a year. I panicked.
 
I looked around, desperately searching for someone, anyone, to tell me what to do.
 
A woman in her mid-30s, my age as well in 1987, appeared. She looked at the cat in my arms then up at me, expectant. Light dawned. She was the other one interested in adopting the little guy.
 
“Well?” she said to the cat woman, her face sharp with expectation.
 
“Well?” the cat woman said to me.
 
It was late. The show was shutting down around us. My competitor reached for the kitten in my arms.
 
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1

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​I needed a cat to chase off a ghost.
 
My partner, John, died six months earlier after a long and gruesome battle with the HIV virus. His illness and death had worn me thin, wrung me out, left me a dysfunctional ruin. He was my first partner. He was the first dying person I’d ever taken care of.
 
The house we lived in, a Queen Anne on San Francisco’s Baker Street, had been remodeled and modernized by John’s own architecturally trained hands. His ghost moved through every wall, stepped on every floor tile, hung out in the modern chef’s kitchen with the glass wall overlooking the back yard. The kitchen was John’s favorite room. He loved to cook and didn’t think much of my own skills (he was right about that). Now, with him gone, I couldn’t make toast without his ghost advising.
 
After he died, I ran. I drove his ashes to his home in Montana where his brother and I scattered them at the Gates of the Mountains. From there I continued on into British Columbia, north and west, trying to outrun my pain, until I ran out of road in Prince Rupert on the coast. There, I ditched my car and took a ferry north into Alaska. In Juneau, the end of the ferry’s line, I grabbed a bicycle and kept going, as far north as I could get until I was stopped by a glacier. There I broke down, disassembled, and finally accepted it was time to stop running. Ten days and 3,000 miles later, I was back in San Francisco.
 
 
I wanted to leave the house on Baker Street, put the previous two horrible years behind me, but it wasn’t easy. John had willed me the house but it turned out the decision wasn’t up to him. The banks had the final say, and they were inclined to toss me out. It took months to convince them I was a risk worth taking. Once I did, I had to establish a payment history of at least a year before I could sell. And the outside needed painting too, the one task John hadn’t gotten to before he was hit with his first bout of pneumonia.
 
After months of bankers and painters, his ghost taunting my every move, I thought about getting a cat.
 
I’d had two before I met John. The first was lost to the Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, aka FIV, within a week of bringing him home from the ASPCA. When I brought him back sick, they told me he wouldn’t survive, and worse, I couldn’t bring another cat home for at least six months because of the risk of infection. That poor little guy wasn’t around long enough even to get a proper name.
 
I lost my second, a half-Persian rescue I named Pahlavi after the Shah of Iran owing to the cat’s imperious disposition, to a woman in Marin who was rich enough to keep a second house devoted completely to the comfort of thirty plus cats she’d rescued. Someone I’d met at work—I’d left him with her when I had to go away for three weeks without checking out where he would go. A big mistake. When I returned and went to pick him up, Pahlavi wanted nothing to do with me. I was heartbroken but I understood. Would you want to leave a place where you had classical music playing through a quadraphonic sound system 24/7 and fresh fish for dinner every night?
 
John hadn’t been keen on pets. Before he took ill, I was working down in Silicon Valley, long hours and longer commutes, so I never pressed.
 
So in late 1987, the Baker Street house was me, John’s ghost, and the bank. I was frozen in place, physically and emotionally. I needed a companion. Not another partner, god forbid. Someone to take care of in the fun way, to look after me, keep me regimented, remind me that the world existed outside my head, not just in it. Some one to say to me, “feed me, play with me, pay attention to me, or there will be consequences!”
 
There is no better ghost buster on this earth than a feline.
 
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2

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​A few years earlier, a friend of John’s had invited us onto his sailboat for an afternoon on the Bay. On board was an unusual cat. Wild looking, his short light tan fur with ruddy brown tips gave him the appearance of a miniature mountain lion. Supremely confident, the cat prowled the boat like he was the captain in charge. He wore a roped harness to keep him from bouncing out if the boat hit a rogue wave. The cat was an Abyssinian, the only breed not horrified but actually delighted to be surrounded by a bay full of water.
 
Abys are different than other cats. Outgoing, curious, that love of water, they are always at the center of whatever is going on. They follow you around, greet you at the door when you come home. Lithe, big eared, small bodied, fierce eyed, their social behavior is (dare I say it?) more like a dog than a house cat. There aren’t a lot of Abyssinians around. They don’t breed as often as regular cats; one litter a year is the norm, four kittens the max.
 
We took to each other instantly, the sailing Aby and me. I spent my hours on that boat with him, not with the other guests, much to John’s annoyance. I never forgot that confident, beautiful, friendly feline who’d hung out with me that day.
 
Thinking about bringing in a ghost buster, I remembered that ruddy guy. But where to find an Abyssinian in 1987, a decade before the internet and Craigslists? I had no idea.
 
Somehow, likely a newspaper ad, I learned about a cat show in far-away Fremont. Still shattered and indecisive—the only decisions I’d made since I came back from fleeing north were the ones forced on me by the banks and the painters—I could always get in my car and drive away. It was a superpower. I’d been doing it since I was sixteen. I decided to go on a road trip to Fremont.
 
Having checked out a collection of cat books from the library, I hoped to see some of the exotic felines in real life, the Bengals and Birmans, the Burmese and Siamese, Russian Blues, and of course, the Abyssinians.
 
I was going to the show to look only, of course. To research, not adopt. I like research, I’m good at it. Definitely, I was not going there to adopt.
 
The first thing I learned about cat shows is that they are a mix of exotic beauty and eye-watering ugliness. The beauties are the cats. The uglies, the cat-people. The humans seemed to put all of their efforts on grooming and presentation onto their felines, to the detriment of their own appearance. Cats in thousand-dollar cages were tended by people dressed by K-Mart in polyester, denim work shirts and t-shirts, all stained.

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3

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​Digesting that incongruity, I learned, almost as fast, that there aren’t any kittens at cat shows. Kittens are prone to all sorts of plagues, including the dreaded FIV that had taken my first cat. Kittens can’t be vaccinated until they’re a few months old, so they stay home.
 
I did find one exhibitor with young Abys though. She had three, aged four months, recently vaccinated. Two were spoken for. The last one was a feisty little guy, the smallest and the only redhead of his litter.
 
Abys come in several colors. The two most common are ruddy—think of that mini-mountain lion—and red, which looks like, well, a mountain lion rolled in Cheetos dust. They’re like nothing else you’ve ever seen.
 
This little guy wasn’t coy or aloof. He had Personality capital P and Opinions capital O. He wanted OUT of his cage and OUT of the damn cat show, STAT. He demanded to go somewhere, anywhere, he didn’t care where or with whom, just so long as he could get control of the world around him. He was one of those aware critters that instantly put to rest any nonsense about animals being emotionless little bio-matons. If the sailboat-Aby had transfixed me, this little redhead took my breath away.
 
“He’s being sold as a pet because he has a flaw,” said the cat woman.
 
“A flaw?” I pictured some deformity, maybe internal, because he looked perfect to me on the outside. And he certainly didn’t appear weak or befuddled, just annoyed.
 
“Yes. I’ll show you.” She took him out of his cage and, once getting him calm, pointed to his tail. “There.”
 
I looked, then looked again. I saw nothing.
 
“There!” the cat woman insisted. “Don’t you see? That disqualifies him from showing or breeding. He can only be somebody’s house pet.”
 
I looked a third time. When I finally saw it, I sighed. The kitten’s “flaw” consisted of the barest hint of a stripe on his tail, a mark that would forever brand him an also-ran in Aby beauty contests. As a kid I’d raised pigeons for show. I knew about breeders and their obsessions.
 
“I don’t care about that,” I said. “I’m not interested in breeding or showing. I want a companion.”
 
I froze.
 
What did I just say? Did I express an opinion? Declare an interest? Oh, no, no . . . I can’t decide! I will not let myself decide!
 
I mumbled thanks and ran away. 

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4

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​I wandered the show, looking at the amazing variety of cats, the giant Maine Coons, alien-looking Devon Rexes and hairless Sphynxes. Circling an aisle, I came across a row of Persians and was stopped in my tracks. Some of the exhibitors at the show had pillows for the cats to sit on and maybe a colored cloth as a backdrop selected to offset their coats. They were, nonetheless, cats in cages.
 
Not the Persians. To a feline, they were staged in exotic palaces: a Shiekh’s harem, Medieval castles, Victorian brothels and worse. You could hardly recognize the cages under the bunting and filigree. The long-haired Persians lounging on miniature settees and chaise-lounges inside were fluffed and permed to twice their body size, looking as if they’d just received an electric shock. I walked the aisle feeling like I should be bowing in the presence of royalty, realizing the rest of the cat people were peasants compared to the Persianistas.
 
Fleeing the feline upper classes, I circled back to the little red-haired Aby. I asked to hold him. The woman picked him out of the cage and placed him in my arms. “Hold him close,” she warned. “If he gets away it’ll be hell getting him back.” I petted him and he relaxed. A little bit.
 
I was taken, all right. I handed him back.
 
“Let me know if you’re interested,” she said. I nodded but again, I fled.
 
I was paralyzed. My head felt like it was going to explode, my stomach like I was about to retch. I’d fooled myself going there. Research, my ass. Some part of me was hoping this would happen. The only thing worse than playing mental games with yourself is when you realize the part of you that is doing the playing is winning.
 
I wandered without really looking at anything. Eventually I found myself back with the cat woman and her Abyssinians. I asked to see the little guy again.
 
“Ok, but if you’re really interested, you need to decide. Someone else is looking at him.”
 
He was more comfortable in my arms this time. There was a connection, at least it seemed so to me. 

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5

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“I think I want him,” I told cat woman.
 
What did I say?
 
“You ‘think’?”
 
“Yeah . . . I think so . . .”
 
Did I just say that?
 
“Ok . . .” she said, studying me warily.
 
“I need to find something to eat first,” I said. “My blood sugar is crashing . . .” True, but also more avoidance.
 
She pointed. “Over there. Snacks and sandwiches. Come back quick though if you want him.”
 
I found a crappy sandwich, sugary soda and a toxic bag of chips—cats eat way better than humans at cat shows—and tied myself in knots trying to push out a decision. I walked around eating, looking at the other cats again. None held my interest. I threw the food away and went back to the Aby. The cat woman looked at me and frowned.
 
“Someone else is ready to take him. I told her you were first. Do you want him or not? You have to make up your mind right now.”
 
I died a thousand deaths in that moment. I looked around for someone, anyone, to tell me what to do. There was no one. Even John’s ghost abandoned me.
 
The other person, a woman in her 30s, my age then, showed up. She looked at the little red cat in my arms then looked up at me.
 
“Well?” said my rival to the cat woman.
 
“Well?” said the cat woman to me.
 
―――
  

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6

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​It was late. The show was shutting down around us. The woman reached out for the kitten in my arms. I pulled away.
 
“He’s mine!” I shouted the words. “Yes! He’s mine! He’s coming home with me. He is! I’ll write the check. I need him! Do you have a box? I’ll take him now, right now! I don’t have a carrier. I need something to take him home in. He’s mine! I need a box!”
 
“All my paper carriers are gone,” the cat woman said, stunned at my transformation. “Let me see if someone else has one.” She went off to search.
 
I don’t know what shocked me more, the gorgeous cat who was moving in with me or the fact I had at last made a decision. The other buyer looked at me, more sad than angry. “He’s adorable,” she said. “I hope you enjoy him.” I felt bad for her but no regret as she walked away.
 
I stood guard, waiting for the cat woman to come back, ready to fight off anyone else who dared to take my new red friend from me. She returned with a regular cardboard box.
 
“Seems like everyone’s out of cardboard carriers,” she told me. “This’ll have to do.”
 
We did the paperwork, I took notes on care and feeding, then put him in the box. He did not approve. I carried him, meowing loudly enough to turn heads, out to my car, put him on the back seat and started off for home, 45 miles away.
 
Before I got out of the parking lot, the yowling ball of red displeasure escaped the box and took position under the driver’s seat. He howled. I got out, caught him, and put him back in the box. He was out again within a minute. Back under my seat, he reached out to attack my feet with his paws every time I shifted gears.
 
I laughed, hard. A full belly laugh, the first time in what felt like forever. I drove on, letting the little guy stay under the seat, praying he wouldn’t cause a car crash on our way home.

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​​Ed Brownson’s plays have been performed in California, New York and Italy, with many developmental and staged readings along the way. His latest, Tap, Tap Tap, about a woman confronting a horrible past, was selected for production as part of the Playwright Center of San Francisco’s Fall 2021 ‘Best of…’ series. He has studied playwriting at American Conservatory Theatre, Central Works Theater Company, Theater Artists’ Conspiracy and many informal venues. Recently, he has been working on essays and long and short fiction, ‘attending’ numerous pandemic-inspired Zoom classes and groups to help him along the way.

Other works in this issue:
Nonficion:
​Encounter at Shealor Lake

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