Skeeter: A Cat Tale Read online

  One of the errands was the pet store. I got a collar and leash for Skeeter so I can take him for walks and terrorize the neighbors. He needs something to do besides wreck my apartment.

  Love,

  Lynne

  February 29, 2000

  Dear Angie,

  We had our own sort of “leap” year celebration here today, brought on by my putting a harness and leash on Skeeter. The cat book said to put the harness on first, to give him a chance to get used to it. After about an hour, he realized he couldn’t get it off, so he withdrew under the bed to pout. I offered treats, but he snubbed me.

  When he finally came out, I clipped on the leash. The book said to let him get used to it by dragging it around. I don’t think Skeeter had read the book.

  He tore around the apartment, back and forth. His paws drummed on the wood floors. The downstairs neighbor pounded on the ceiling, making things worse. Another neighbor’s dog started barking, probably convinced a cat invasion was at hand. Some Million Cat March, maybe. There was far too much noise for just one.

  Skeeter revved up a whole other notch. He was moving too fast to catch now, so I couldn’t do anything about taking off the harness and leash. I could only watch.

  He leaped onto the sideboard, scattering plates and cups like bowling pins. It’s a good thing I’d bought unbreakable dishes in case of earthquakes. I’d give Skeeter’s performance an eight on the Richter scale.

  Mark knocked at the back door, wanting to know what the ruckus was about. I let him in and we cornered Skeeter and took the offending articles off him.

  Poor man, he probably thought he was going to get some writing done when he moved in here.

  Love,

  Lynne

  March 10, 2000

  Dear Angie,

  I can’t understand why Skeeter is so interested in flies. He’ll do anything to get one. Anything. He chases them from room to room with as much enthusiasm as if they were flying beefsteaks. He makes a strange noise during this pursuit, a kind of clicking sound.

  There seems no point to it. Even if he catches one, the calories gained by swallowing it can’t equal those expended in pursuit. Mark says the function of the exercise is to refine Skeeter’s hunting skills, and he’s probably right. Skeeter’s hunting skills could use some refinement.

  Yesterday Skeeter flung himself onto the back of the couch, trembled on the edge for a moment, eyes on an elusive insect, then fell back, tush over teakettle, landing on the floor with a thump. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed. I tried to look unaware but couldn’t help laughing. He stalked away, mortally insulted.

  I shouldn’t have laughed, though. No fair. No one laughed the day I skated down the cliff on my butt.

  San Pedro is a seacoast town. At the edge of the Pacific is a cliff, perhaps seventy-five feet high. I was wandering on the cobble beach below the cliff one day when I saw something interesting: an elongated flexible cone or seedpod that was new to me. Looking up, I saw that more of these littered the slope, dropping from a tree at the cliff’s edge. My sister was taking a basketry course and was interested in such materials. I decided to send her some of the cones.

  Climbing the cliff was easy, even gathering cones as I went. But when I turned around, I realized something. It’s harder to go down.

  I was looking at a nearly sheer cliff, stones at the bottom, and ocean breakers very close. Along the cliff top, a chain-link fence extended as far as I could see. No escape there.

  I abandoned my pride and skated down on my rear, blistering it in the fast descent and rubbing a noticeably-positioned hole in my clothing. At the bottom, I looked around to see if anyone had noticed. If any fool had been down there laughing, I would have throttled him. As it was, I stalked away in the shreds of my dignity and the shreds of my jeans.

  So I should have been more sympathetic when Skeeter wiped out on the couch. It’s always funnier when it happens to someone else.

  Love,

  Lynne

  March 20, 2000

  Dear Angie,

  If I‘d known I’d be living with Skeeter, I wouldn’t have bought an alarm clock. I no longer use one. He yowls me awake each morning at dawn, whether I need it or not.

  But before I met Skeeter, I thought I’d need a clock. I tried several. An ordinary alarm blasted me out of sleep too harshly, so I bought a clock radio. I was pleased with it till the day my waking time coincided with the news. “THE WORLD IS NOW CLOSER TO NUCLEAR WAR THAN AT ANY TIME IN THE PAST THIRTY YEARS!” This was not what I had in mind.

  Other clocks came and went. Some ticked too loudly for me to sleep, which solved the wake-up problem in a way. I struggled along until I found the clock in the New Age store.

  It’s a satin-black wood triangle, oddly appropriate on top of my bookcase with an Amish quilt on the wall behind it. The quilt too has black triangles in it.

  It wakes me with a simple soft chime, insistently repeated if I don’t turn off the alarm. I could have gotten a version that repeats affirmations in my voice, but decided the chime was enough. Some days, you don’t want any damn affirmations.

  The clock is getting dusty now that Skeeter shares my mornings. His 5:30 cries are sure as sunrise, though at this season, prior to it. Like the clock, he repeats at ever-shorter intervals till I get up. How does he know what the time is, I wonder? He may have an alarm watch, like many people who attend the same events that I do. Their alarms for this and that inevitably sound at the most dramatic moment of each performance, the most solemn part of every funeral.

  Or perhaps he’s subscribed to some wake-up call service, for which I’ll eventually receive a bill. Knowing Skeeter, that seems likely.

  Love,

  Lynne

  March 31, 1999

  Dear Angie,

  Skeeter begs for my oatmeal every morning, but he wouldn’t eat any if I gave it to him. He asks for lots of things he doesn’t want. He stands at his overflowing food bowl and caterwauls, just to test the service around here. He nags me to let him go out on the balcony and usually lasts about three minutes before demanding, equally loudly, to be let back in.

  Asking for what you don’t really want isn’t the greatest idea. Things can work out oddly, as they did for George.

  George was a guy who lived near me when I was in college. I didn’t know him well. One summer morning I was about to go to the swimming pool when a friend called. She asked me to deliver a message to George, who didn’t have a phone. Since it was on my way, I agreed to do it.

  That was the summer I wore white everything. Someone had told me it was “my” color, and I probably did look good in it, with my pale skin and dark hair. At nineteen, you don’t wear “your” color once in a while—you make it into a fetish. My getup must have looked like a nurse’s uniform, but I thought I was glamorous—the woman in white.

  I had white dresses, white shorts, white blouses, and white everything else. I must have used more Clorox that summer than in my entire life since. My apartment reeked of it. I bleached everything to the point of destruction, wanting the whites as stunning as possible. And they were.

  So when I headed to the pool that morning, I was wearing a white cover-up dress over a white bikini. I knocked on George’s door, and he hollered for me to come in.

  George’s place was one room, and he was still in bed. “Oh, hi,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable. Take your clothes off.”

  With a bikini under my dress, I decided to do it. It hadn’t occurred to me how like underwear the white bikini looked.

  “Sure,” I said, and took off the cover-up.

  By then, George was hiding under the blanket, trapped in his own apartment and in his own joke. I told him it was a bikini, delivered the message, and left. I hope I didn’t leave him with any lasting traumas, but I never knew. He avoided me after that, for some reason. Maybe he didn’t like white.

  So Skeeter had better watch out. When you ask for something you don’t want, you sometimes get it.
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  Love,

  Lynne

  April 8, 2000

  Dear Angie,

  I started a cold last week, but it went away without doing much. It’s just as well. Skeeter has neither the gluteal muscles to stand upright, nor the opposable thumbs to carry trays with healing foods like Chinese hot-sour soup or lemony tea. The truth is, if Skeeter did have the necessaries, he still wouldn’t carry trays. He’d be out the door in a flash, borrowing the car.

  Lord knows what it would do to my car insurance rates to add an adolescent male to my policy. Would it make any difference that he’s neutered?

  The City of Los Angeles seems to think it would. The city council is considering a proposal to tax unneutered animals. I suppose they’d ask for a certificate from the vet, but my heated imagination pictures something else. I see an army of pet inspectors, lifting cat tails to make sure there’s not more there than there’s supposed to be. Take your dachshund for a walk, a man from the city will show a badge and make you take off the dog’s little plaid coat, so he can get a better look.

  I had similar thoughts a few years ago when the council passed the ordinance about “picking up after your pet,” as they so delicately phrased it. I imagined they’d have to hire short undercover agents to hide behind fire hydrants. “Freeze! This is a bust!” The dog’s hind leg would already be raised, though, so he couldn’t put his paws behind his head. The owner would have to take care of that part.

  I can’t blame the city for trying to do something about the problems uncontrolled animals can cause. On the other hand, the cleanup ordinance didn’t work well, and I doubt this one will either. It will be another bureaucratic idiocy, costing much and accomplishing next to nothing. Angelenos have gotten used to those over the years. They’re as persistent as colds, and the remedies aren’t much more effective than hot lemony tea.

  Love,

  Lynne

  April 22, 2000

  Dear Angie,

  For all his feistiness, Skeeter is wary of company. It’s my fault.

  When I first moved here, the landlady said I could have a cat. She knew of a stray in her nephew’s neighborhood and drove me over to the empty house where this cat was said to hang out, so I could see it. I knew what I was looking for: a calm adult female.

  I didn’t see any cat. “Kitty-kitty,” I called, tentatively. A tabby-and-white kitten appeared from under a bush, ran down the driveway, and threw itself into my arms. It was less than half-grown. Although I’m not an expert at sexing cats, a look at the relevant areas suggested it was a male.

  It licked my face. The deal was done.

  So Skeeter was not afraid of strangers when he came to me. As I said, it’s my fault.

  To begin with, I don’t have many visitors. I live at the extreme southern tip of Los Angeles, so my friends tend to meet me places, rather than drive to the end of the freeway and beyond. Also, I’m studying for professional exams, not socializing as much as usual.

  Skeeter’s early experiences with strangers were not the best, either. A conscientious owner, I immediately took him to the vet’s, first for kitten shots, then for neutering. This involved a series of excursions when he was imprisoned in a cat carrier and taken to see strangers, all of whom did uncomfortable things to him.

  The final straw came when, for a minor indisposition of Skeeter’s, I decided to spare him the trip in the carrier. I arranged with a vet who makes house calls. She came to the apartment, examined Skeeter, and decided there wasn’t much wrong with him. Told me to give him bland food for a few days, which turned out to be good advice.

  But Skeeter’s suspicions had been confirmed. He now regards every visitor as someone who may be carrying a rectal thermometer. I guess I’d hide under the bed myself if I expected guests to behave like that.

  When people come to visit, they always want to meet him—I don’t know why. You’d think they’d be warned off by the stories I tell. They make a special trip beyond the end of the freeway, knock on my door, and expect to meet the cat. I give them coffee and cookies and introduce them to Mark. But if Skeeter doesn’t put in an appearance, they seem disappointed. Some people don’t know when they’re lucky.

  I’ve even been accused of inventing him. But if I could make up a character as good as Skeeter, I’d call Mark’s agent in a minute. I’d write a series of best sellers and forget about the professional exams. I’d have company all day long. Skeeter could damned well get used to it.

  Speaking of company, when are you coming to visit?

  Love,

  Lynne

  April 29, 2000

  Dear Angie,

  I’ve seen a couple of movies that featured “outtakes” as part of the comedy. I tried taking some pictures of Skeeter last week, and now I’m wondering whether the outtakes from this effort might also be worth keeping.

  I borrowed the office camera, since I wanted to post the pictures on the Internet and don’t have a digital camera of my own. I don’t know much about cameras or photography, but I learned a bit. The office camera, chosen for architectural photography, is much less satisfactory for taking pictures of a cat. Particularly Skeeter.

  The problem is that after you push the button to take the picture, there is a pause of about a second before the thing actually works. This is fine for buildings. If they move noticeably within a second, you have more serious problems than a poor photograph. Skeeter, on the other hand, never stays still for more than the blink of an eye.

  He was cooperative about posing, in his way. He made funny faces for me as I pushed the button. But the photo showed only the back of his head as he turned away, satisfied his performance had been recorded.

  I dangled a catnip mouse, and he obligingly did a somersault. That time, I got a good shot of his nether parts as he completed the maneuver.

  Another time, he held a pose, but I was rewarded only with the triple beep that means the disk is full.

  Further attempts to immortalize Skeeter resulted in enough outtakes to fill my second disk. The most interesting was the shot in which he had left the frame before the camera got around to recording him. It was a fetching portrait of my bedspread, though, suitable for framing.

  Twice, he pounced on the camera right after I pressed the button, apparently taking the dangling strap for the tail of a large rodent. These shots, too, provided interesting outtakes.

  I finally caught on to the problem: given anything much to do, Skeeter is a lot faster than my camera or me. I removed the fun stuff, all his toys, and also my afghan, which he was chewing with ominous delight. I rolled the camera strap and hid it in one hand. In the brief interval in which he considered his options for wreaking havoc in the absence of anything to wreak it on, I got one useful photo, the one I eventually posted.

  I’m going back to architectural photography. I was told on one occasion the building I was restoring was a cathouse, but it didn’t pounce on my camera even once. Meantime, I have some remarkable outtakes of Skeeter. I’m not sure what I’ll do with them yet, but I think I should save them, just in case.

  About your visit: Could you make it early to mid-June?

  Love,

  Lynne

  May 2, 2000

  Dear Angie,

  I’ve shuffled the furniture around to make the living room more comfortable for a houseguest. Also, it looks better this way. I don’t rearrange nearly as much as I used to. That’s a good thing, because it makes Skeeter uneasy.

  He walked around afterwards sniffing everything. Then he looked me in the eye and performed a few claw-sharpening maneuvers. I’ve read that these are a means of marking territory. I suppose he has to reassert his ownership of anything that has moved. Otherwise, it might be mistaken for mine.

  I was uneasy myself on a furniture-moving occasion years ago when my friend Mandy redecorated for me. I suppose Mandy was doing me a favor, since she’s a professional decorator. It wasn’t her fault it didn’t work out.

  At the time, I lived in a tiny house t
hat I had arranged to my liking. Mandy visited one day and decided the living room could be better. And I thought, well, what do I know? I’m no decorator.

  She started modestly. “I think the room would look better if you switched this table with that one,” she suggested. It wasn’t much work, so I tried it. The effect was OK. Maybe even an improvement. I wasn’t sure.

  She didn’t leave me much time to mull it over. Right away, she suggested I move the bookcase to the other side of the room. This called for removing the books. I may have gotten sidetracked looking at a couple of them. When I looked up, moving day had come. Furniture, lamps, and assorted objects were in a tumble in the middle of the room.

  “I need some help with this stuff,” Mandy panted. “It’s heavy.”

  It was. I was in the middle of my Mission Oak period. I didn’t have much furniture in that little place, but what I had weighed a ton. I got up and helped. I lifted, strained, and heaved. When things attained a semblance of order, Mandy studied the effect.

  “I think the clock would look better on the bookcase,” she said, whisking it to the new location. You don’t do that with a pendulum clock. It throws the balance off. But it was too late to say so.

  She didn’t like the new arrangement either, so she adjusted it, piece by piece. Finally, she was satisfied. “There!” she said. “This is so much more you.”