Where There is Guilt, Also There is Suffering

or

Why You Should Never Keep a Pet for a Friend

A while back, an old friend of mine who had been living in Manhattan for a few years contacted me at my home in Colorado. She had the intention of moving back to Boulder after spending a half dozen years or so working in the city, and she felt that her stay in New York was coming to a close. Not only was she thinking seriously of relocating, but she was laying the groundwork for her impending move and thought that I should consider allowing her cat to stay with me for a month or so until she could secure an address. The request seemed harmless enough at the time, but seemingly harmless circumstances have often led to far more serious consequences. As was the case with my old friend of over twelve years, disastrous results occurred.

Kyle and I met through mutual friends at a dinner party at her house on Mapleton Street in Boulder in 1982, and although we maintained our distance for several weeks we began dating shortly thereafter. We had little in common except for a couple of vices, which included a general lust for life and several bad habits that will remain unmentioned out of good taste and a flair for dramatic omission resulting from discretion that I have developed over the years since those days were spent largely involved in illicit endeavors. In spite of our genuine affection for each other, the relationship proved disastrous. We lived together for two years, which seemed at the time like an eternity. Our unusually volatile home life included constant parties, marginal acquaintances, and a particularly unusual cat named Felix.

This cat was named during a time when Kyle and her friends were undergraduate students at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and they had been ingesting substances that led them to believe that this little creature was actually a midget in a cat suit. They searched and searched, but they could never find the zipper in the little guy's costume. Shocked at discovering that he was actually a cat after all, they appropriately named him Felix since he was black and white just like the cartoon. Felix lived up to his namesake, and was endlessly playing pranks on me when we three lived together during the two year adventure. He was a hunter. He used to catch mice in the fields next to our house and bring them to the front porch where he would eat them, leaving only the stomach or the heart for me to discover stuck to the bottom of my bare feet when I retrieved the newspaper every day. I imagined that he delighted in this daily ritual, and I learned to accept him for his sense of humor, albeit somewhat bizarre.

Humor, however, was the last thing on my mind when Kyle asked me allow Felix to stay with me during the transition of her move. I have not kept a pet since my own cat died a few years ago, and I have grown accustomed to keeping my sofa, rugs, carpet, bed, and upholstered furniture free from scratches, scrapes, cat hair, stray litter, and the assorted cat stuff of which no one can quite determine the origin or purpose. I never wanted a pet, and I have remained happily pet-free for several years during which I displayed the amazing temperence of someone markedly lacking the responsibility for a single living thing. In fact, nothing lives in my home; I've not even kept a single plant. I have delighted in watching the occasional flower arrangement or any number of my favorite long-stemmed red roses wither and perish in their vases to remain cherished in their death. My friends have often thought this peculiarity in my nature to be rather morbid, although I prefer moribund as the descriptive analogy of stylistic display. So when Kyle insisted that I keep her cat out of some distant familial connection concocted from our living together, I was terrified. When she left a message from New York saying, "Felix had a dream last night that he stayed with Jan and her dogs in the country, and he had an anxiety attack. Call back and leave a message since I'll be out this evening after seven-thirty... at church... to pray," I was mortified. I knew this to be a 'lose / lose' situation, because Kyle was resorting to Catholic guilt.

I'm not even Catholic, but I did recommend that she actively pursue any and all options, expecting that Felix would bring chaos to the natural order of my apartment that remains happily devoid of all life, save a few vegetables and very red, very dead meats that lurk in the icy recesses of my refrigerator. She did not pursue the virtually limitless multitude of options, however, and last week she brought Felix to my home under the cover of the dark of night. Although she is staying with her sister of whom I have no affection whatsoever, she could not possibly keep Felix there, as her dear sister is somehow violently and conveniently allergic to cats, especially Felix. Here he is: convalescing at fourteen years of age, wheezing with what I am certain is some advanced stage of cancer, drooling for whatever reason, and demanding attention that I am in no way prepared or inclined to give. Such fun a cat brings to my environment when he continually requires attention, alternately jumping up and down on top of me at the very moments that I manage to fall into a deep sleep and then scampering to the floor to claw at carpet that he dearly missed, having been relegated to hard-wood floors in New York's fashionable upper east side. Such delight entered my mind when my lack of sleep caused me to miss a question on an exam the following day that I stayed with my girlfriend in Denver for four of the next five evenings, returning home only to discover that the sweet, little bundle of fur had scattered cat litter and everything that goes with it everywhere in my apartment inaccessible with a vacuum cleaner. So thrilled am I at this point that I call Kyle. "Good morning, Kyle. How are you. Uh huh, yeah. Have you signed a lease yet? When will that happen? I see. What am I doing? I've been cleaning my apartment since six o'clock this morning instead of studying! I have dry and wet cat food covering the floor and walls in my kitchen! The bike room is filled with cat litter! Everything in the bike room is covered or filled with it! I tried to vacuum and sprayed it in the only corners that he hasn't violated! He's drooling on my period furniture! Everything upholstered is covered with quilts except my bed, and I can't even sit on my own sofa! I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS! I have very questionable, weird stuff mashed into my carpet! I have to study! We'll discuss this this evening!" I hang up, but just as I say this I realize that some bizarre, mushy, cat thing is stuck to the bottom of my foot. I look around for Felix. "Is there anywhere that you haven't tracked cat litter in this apartment?" I scream as he walks from behind a dining room table that is disassembled and leaning against my bedroom wall. I sit back down at my desk to study, thinking that I may have gone a bit too far with Kyle, but at least I know to place the pressure where it belongs. It belongs with Kyle, as does Felix. All is as it should be.

Or should it be that I should still have the same friend of twelve years, since I clearly do not?

Kyle arrived that evening, but only after a mysterious third party phoned to see if I would be home. She came with her niece and nephew and stayed inside of two minutes. When I asked where Felix was going, she stated abruptly that I should not be concerned. She would not speak of it or anything else to me, and I've heard nothing of her since.