Twelve years ago when I moved to Maine from Greater Boston I traded an apartment in the relativly leafy suburb of Natick for one in the heart of downtown Portland, an act which obliged me and my two cats, Scott and Zelda, to become urbanites. This, as I explained to Scott at the time, was admittedly counterintuitive; not many Massholes go north to seclude themselves from the great outdoors. But I did assure him, as he was the more adventurous of the two litter mates, that someday he’d be an outdoor cat once more.
Five years later, having taken on a wife, child, dog and sole proprietorship, I delivered on that promise. We moved to rural New Gloucester and Scott, once an indoor cat against his will, was free again to roam the countryside as he pleased. Zelda did too, of course, but she’s always been more of a homebody. The former Ms. Sayre never experienced the thrill of the wild that her furry companion did. For months after our arrival in The NG, Scott would prance through the sliding door into the house and pause to look up at me, his whiskered face beaming with squinty-eyed satisfaction. “This is AWEsome,” he clearly communicated to me. “You’re a man of your word.”
Scott died Friday morning, so this particular memory and scores of others are rushing over me just now. He’d been sick: a horrible earache and weight loss associated with what the vet presumed to be kidney failure, a common and ultimately fatal issue for 15-year-old cats like Scott. I hadn’t seen him all of Thursday — a problem because he needed his anti-biotic pill. A couple weeks earlier, during an initial round of similar treatments, he had disappeared for 48 hours and I thought, with great sadness, that he might have taken off for good rather than endure the indignity of another forced pill-popping. But I did find him; he was under the bed in our guest room, resting amid the sagging, tattered under-linings of the box-spring.
That’s where Silas found him Friday morning. I reached in to give him a soothing pat before the tricky matter of extrication, but his fir was oddly cool to the touch.
•••
I am a cat person. Dogs I’ve learned to appreciate but I shall always prefer a cat’s snuggability, cleanliness, independence and innate poise. They would appear possess a self-respect that lends more meaning to their affection. Dogs are great, but they seem pre-programmed to slobber love on humans regardless of who you are or how you treat them, because it’s implicit that they’ll starve without you. They are truly dependent, whereas cats, if they feel mistreated, will withdraw their affection and treat you with the appropriate wariness, or they’ll simply run off and take their chances with some other human, dinning on voles they kill and consume in the meantime.
By the same token, when a well-treated cat lets down its defenses and makes itself vulnerable to your love, it really means something. I’m not one to anthropomorphize unduly, but human-feline relationships feel, to me, more interpersonally genuine.
I grew up with at least 10 different cats and we had one at college, Miles, though my roommate Dave was his de facto dad and chief caregiver. Dave and I lived together after college but when we ultimately parted ways, Miles went with him. Having subsequently moved in with another friend, Tom, I quickly resolved to get two cats of my own — so they might have a playmate with when we humans weren’t around.
I found F. Scott and Zelda (shortly after re-reading “This Side of Paradise”) at the Tremont Street ASPCA, in Boston, and brought them both home to our apartment in Watertown. For much of the first year they both slept in my bed, under the covers, one nestled on either side, in the crook of each arm. Bachelor apartments can be slovenly, transient places but cats instantly make them more homey.
Zelda was, and remains, a paradigm of feline femininity: petite, graceful, shy and coquettish (one friend insists she bears a facial resemblance to the British actress Patsy Kensit). By comparison Scott was all man: larger, more consistently affectionate and adventurous. He went outside in Watertown while Zelda would not. He was fearless.
Scott was also a damned fine looking animal: dark gray with darker gray tiger stripes, white paws (his sneakers) and a handsome white breast patch which extended up under his chin and tapered down as it disappeared between his fore legs. I’ve always thought he’d have made a great addition to the cast of Top Cat. He had that Guys and Dolls swagger.
He never grew to be that big but his bearing was regal nonetheless — even in the wake of Tom sliding him across our hardwood floors, candlepin-bowling style, something I was appalled to learn this roommate of mine had been doing when I wasn’t around. Understanding that Scott was not, in fact, a cartoon character, I informed Tom this practice would have to stop or I’d commence to emptying the cat box into his bed.
At this stage I was an editor at the Marlboro Enterprise and Hudson Daily Sun, keeping some pretty crazy, essentially nocturnal hours. I’d often stop on the way home at the 24-hour Purity Supreme supermarket on Route 16 in Watertown for as many cans of cat food as one of those little grocery baskets would carry. I’d feed Scott and Zelda at 3 a.m. and we’d park in front of the TV for some quiet time, each of them settling on my respective thighs, while I watched SportsCenter. Tom worked normal hours; we could go an entire week without seeing each other. It was nice to have such adoring late-night company.
The three of us (Scott, Zelda and I) would eventually move to Newton where my brother Matthew and our Wellesley friend, David Kett, shared the top two floors of a Victorian. These were true cat lovers, as well, and Scott ‘n Zelda flourished in their company. Scott became particularily adept at going in and out via a second-floor window, which we kept open for him during the warm-weather months. In winter it was always an amusing shock to see him frantically but soundlessly mewling on the roof outside.
I was engaged to be married that July of 1991, and we soon moved again — to a pre-nuptial house in the suburbs. Great place to be a cat. Not a great place to be engaged, as it turned out. The relationship quickly imploded, so the cats and I moved house again, to Natick. It was a disorienting time for all three of us. The apartment — the first I had taken all by myself — was small and my waking time there mainly proved the dead of night, after work. It was a pretty grim, depressing existence, a sort of limbo: working while others were playing, sleeping while others were working, and sitting alone in my apartment while others were sleeping.
But I wasn’t truly “alone” in the apartment because Scott and Zelda were there; Scott especially seemed to sense my melancholy and turned his affection up a notch. I’d come through the door at 2 a.m. and he was always there, always happy to see me, always content to sit in my lap and bolster my self worth via his soft, continual purr. A cat’s purr is a powerful thing. Scott’s got me through that very difficult period.
•••
Our move to Maine meant that Scott would sacrifice his outdoor life and he bore that burden with great stoicism and restraint, though he did sneak out a back window one time onto the roof where I spent a hair-raising half-hour trying to coax him into my arms. I failed, and simply left the window open; he sauntered back inside after an hour or two. He tried to non-chalant the matter, hoping perhaps that he could make it a regular practice. But having decided the streets of downtown Portland weren’t safe for cats, I could hardly make exceptions for rooftops three storeys up.
Scott and his sister were never ones to be held. Scott especially would always come to you; a friendlier cat there never was. But always on his terms. His aversion to being held was only reinforced by the fact that each time I did make a point of picking him up, it meant a trip to the vet — or another apartment. Both trials involved car trips and Scott, like most cats, didn’t enjoy those, not one little bit. I could never bring myself to box him; I tried it once and he produced a bowel movement whose clean-up I shall never forget. It was Scott’s way of telling me that he would travel by car, but (again) only on his terms.
When Sharon and I were married, the cats and I moved a few blocks away, into her Mechanic Street home — a three-decker that would soon include a new husky/lab puppy, Trajan. During this period Zelda mainly made herself scarce, warily emerging from her hiding places only to eat and perform bodily functions. Being male, Scott gave no such quarter. He defended his turf and generally terrorized the poor dog until such time that Trajan understood this was Scott’s territory and he wasn’t interested in frolicking, not with Trajan anyway. About this time Scott also made a habit of catching mice and depositing them in our bed, a disgusting practice with a clear and defiant message: “Let’s see that dog of yours do this!”
Scott got outside one time while I was away on a business trip. Sharon’s friend Cheri was visiting and, naturally, both of them were panicked. They searched and searched, put up “lost cat” posters, and hoped against hope he’d come back on his own. Which he did, of course, with the same brand of matter-of-factness that characterized his other urban adventures. Scott never lost his outdoor assuredness. I bet he WOULD have survived five years on Portland’s mean streets, if only I had let him.
•••
Perhaps Scott’s most endearing quality was the way he took to my son, Silas. Small children are notoriously tough on cats but Scott — even in his advanced years — was very patient with the boy. By the time he was two years old, Silas had learned that calm and gentle overtures would be returned in kind and soon Scott was joining us in Silas’ bed for goodnight snuggles. At first Scott would leave when I left, but soon he stayed on with Silas through the night. Scott was never much of a between-the-legs snuggler; he got right up there on the boy’s chest where he purred them both sleep.
Silas and Scott were pretty much inseparable come bedtime. One summer night Scott was still outside when 8 p.m. rolled around; Silas and I were lying in bed together, chatting and snuggling, when we heard Scott scratching at the second-floor window. He was up on the roof and instead of waiting by the door; he’d gone to a place where he knew Silas could hear him. I went downstairs, called Scott off the roof and let him inside. When I returned the to the boy’s bed, Scott was already there.
Silas has a great bunk in his room, accessible only by ladder. When Silas was old enough to negotiate said ladder, we put a mattress up there thinking he would jump at the chance to sleep on high. Silas loves to play on high but was reticent to sleep there because, as we learned, the boy figured Scott wouldn’t be able to join him.
Scott did begin to slow down about 18 months ago. We had his parathyroid gland (and an attached tumor) removed around that time, which revived him for a while but we could all see the end was near. He was getting thinner and moving a bit more slowly with each passing month. He no longer bounded into my lap; he’d put his paws on my leg and sort of hoist himself up. He slept more and his outdoor excursions became ever shorter.
This slow decline allowed us to prepare Silas and Clara for the inevitable, but there’s only so much one can do in this regard.
Zelda has a bizarre habit of hanging out in the master bedroom and meowing, loudly and plaintively, at nothing in particular. She does this mostly in the mornings when the kids are gone to school and I’m working in the barn, so most of the time only Sharon is privy to these mysterious howls. Apparently, the Thursday before Scott’s passing, Zelda had moved her banshee act to the back bedroom. She must have known her brother was there, and that he was breathing his last. She tried to warn us, I guess, but Scott’s time had come.
My son was devastated, of course. “I just can’t stop crying,” he whimpered that morning. “I stop, but then I think of Scott and start crying again.” At first it didn’t quite register with Clara, still only five. She was very composed and curious about the whole episode; she wanted to look at him and touch him. But after school the matter sunk in; she came through the door bawling and didn’t stop for an hour.
The ground is frozen here in New Gloucester, so we had an indoor funeral ceremony for Scott before we brought him to the vet for cremation. We wrapped him in a yellow towel and laid him on the rug before fireplace. Sharon bought some red carnations and we laid one on top of him. Silas offered up a small, stuffed kitty to accompany his friend into hereafter; Clara followed suit with a stuffed bear (a move she much regretted later that night). We all sat in a circle recalling our fond memories of Scott and had a good cry.
I regret that Scott’s final days weren’t happier. He wasn’t fond of being force-fed antibiotic pills, nor did he appreciate the ear drops. No surprise there. Even in his younger days, Scott would make himself scarce when such a regimen loomed… A few days before he died, I had given Scott his treatments and he duly disappeared for a spell. After everyone else had gone to bed, I was sitting on the couch watching some TV when Scott emerged from the kitchen. He loped around the corner and gave me a squinty-eyed smile before laboriously pulling himself up into my lap. I remember thinking there would come a day, perhaps quite soon, when he and I couldn’t enjoy a moment like this. So we sat there together for two hours. My legs fell asleep and, after a time, I could barely keep my eyes open, but I was so pleased that Scott had forgiven me my therapeutic trespasses. I wanted to savor the late-night moment.