Bud’s Stories
“How Bud Became a Housecat”
First Story. “Getting to Know You”
When Bud first appeared from behind our neighbor’s tool shed, slogging through early April snow, he was the skinniest cat I had ever seen in my life. North to South he was obviously a good-sized cat, but in between he was a wiener on legs. My heart sank. Everyone knows the rule: feed a stray cat and he belongs to you. I had a cat and he hated the mere thought of another cat. But, oh, this poor cat!
So it began. I would carry bowls of food to places I thought the skinny red cat would likely find them, but where I knew they would never be traceable to me. In no time at all the later-to-be named Bud was meeting me edging furtively out of my yard, a bowl of kibble hovering stupidly in front of me as I froze at the sight of him. They always know.
There ensued a period of weeks when I exited my yard, twice daily at a designated time, morning and evening, sat in a lawn chair with a bowl of food in my hand, and waited for the red cat’s arrival. As often as not he was lurking nearby waiting for me. Still, all of this was on my terms. No feeding in my yard. Bud had to understand that he was his own cat, not mine.
As it turned out, Bud had his own set of rules. One morning in a daze of good will I scooped a handful of kibble from the bowl and offered it to Bud . Hand feeding! Bud ignored the food and sank his teeth half way through the palm of my hand. Clearly one of Bud’s rules forbade hand feeding. It was no easy task receiving a tetanus series without identifying the perpetrator of the bite. Something or other about state laws.
Eventually, Bud was following his daily repasts by jumping on my lap and sitting proudly for the other neighborhood cats to see. “I belong here,” he would seem to be saying, “but on my terms, of course.” Having his fill, he would jump down and continue his daily itinerary as a stray. And I, I would continue to protest to my wife (who would nod in amusement) that Bud was his own cat, not mine.
Soon, early every morning loud gar-oops! would resound through the neighborhood as Bud announced his arrival for breakfast and family time! Then to save travel time he began sleeping on the weather-ravaged porch furniture of my next door neighbor, and would jump the fence in a wink when I appeared at the back door with the bowl of food in my hand. Of course, Bud was his own cat, not mine. But it was nice to see him there waiting. And if he weren’t there, I couldn’t help but wonder a little wistfully where he was.
One late spring morning my wife called me to a window at the side of our house. Come, look at this. There, in a box full of the previous day’s grass clippings, lay Bud, curled up fast asleep. It was the day I knew in my heart that Bud was not his own cat, he was our cat.
When eventually I acknowledged the fact, Bud stopped making any vocalizations whatsoever. Evidently, he had nothing left to say. He had gotten what he wanted..
Second Story. “Bros”
Even after becoming an official “our cat,” Bud was still a long way from becoming a member of the household. The impediment was his new “Bro,” Smokey, the resident household cat who went berserk at the mere thought of another cat. Once, many years before, his littermate, Tigger, had become the object of shrieking, unrelenting fury–for days–because Smokey caught the scent of an alien feline wafting in the window on a breeze. Worse yet, Smokey would make the entire house his “fire hydrant” for weeks in response to a perceived threat posed by the presence of one of his own kind.
So it was quite simply out of the question that Bud should become a housecat. That first summer he “lived” in a pile of old comforters on our picnic table. By fall he had taken up residence in the garage and learned to come and go by using a cat door. By winter he was living in the basement, coming and going via a cat door where a basement window used to be. Through the door he would come, down a ramp, onto the oil tank, down another ramp, on to the wood-working bench, and then down to the old easy chair dragged down from the attic just for him. Strict protocol was to be observed. Smokey was to have no hint of the alien presence in his house.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. During his first summer with us Bud was slowly, slowly introduced to his new Bro Smokey in the back yard–and new Bro Smokey to him. Bud showed no interest whatever in Bro’s existence. Looked straight through him when he looked at all. Bro Smokey never took his eyes from the new red cat for a second. Not for a nanosecond. All through the summer this carefully managed arrangement limped along as best it could. Bud had already crowned himself King of the Household and held court from his “nest” of comforters on the picnic table, walking off periodically in regal fashion to patrol his neighborhood before returning to his knitted throne.
Nothing better showed off the show off in Bud than “walk time.” Smokey was leash-trained, as all our cats have been leash-trained–as Bud himself would one day be leash-trained.. Twice each day–guaranteed by the main clause of his Constitution–Smokey got an on-the-leash walk down the lane behind our house. From day one, Bud burned to participate. Nothing so simple as walking along beside us would do. Bud had his own special way of taking a walk, designed to impress me and drive Smokey crazy. As Smokey and I walked along, Bud would shadow us furtively, as well concealed behind hedge or whatever natural cover presented itself as he could manage. Suddenly, he would burst into view, race ahead of us at breakneck speed , and scramble ten feet up the nearest tree trunk or telephone pole. There he would cling, nonchalantly–but grinning broadly; then down he would come, slowly, like a telephone lineman, and off he would sashay, so smug and full of himself that he positively glowed. While Smokey glowered..
Third Story. “Visiting”
Bud was never a people-person sort of a cat. Automobiles and people struck him about the same. He ran from both. The only people he had any use at all for lived in His House. But although Bud did not like people, he loved to visit people. In their homes, that is. Even before he became a full-fledged housecat, Bud flabbergasted us and many of our neighbors by approaching with utmost confidence the open door of anyone who happened to be standing in a doorway for almost any reason, and then . . . walking right in. Where did a street-smart, people-shy cat like Bud ever acquire a habit like this? Through the designated house he would saunter, taking his time, checking everything out. Then back out the door he would walk, never deigning to glance at the dumb-struck owner. But woe to the unlucky person who bent down to pet the cat who had just toured the premises while he was exiting! Quite likely the hand drawn back would be dripping blood.
Bud’s most memorable “visit” was a sort of entering-without-breaking caper. One set of neighbors, an elderly couple, traveled a good deal. They had two black cats, who came and went through a cat door next to the back door, a cat door much like Bud’s. Someone (I hope!) stopped in periodically to see to their needs. As I later learned, the traveling couple would drape their chairs and sofa with sheets when they went traveling. (Why I never learned. Were they dust conscious? Could they possibly not want their cats on their furniture? Are there such people?) At any rate, after their return from one of their excursions, I ran into them one day. How was Bud doing? they inquired, smiling in a cryptic sort of way. Oh, fine. Do you know, said Mrs., when we went to take the sheets off the furniture, we didn't find black fur on them, we found red–all over!
So Bud, having mastered the art of the cat door, had added his newly found mastery to his already formidable skills at visiting. He had made himself at home in the house of strangers (well, nearly strangers) and–I have no doubt–helped himself liberally to the victuals left for the delectation of others. (Well, by now he was a big cat. No skinny bones, he! He needed lots to eat.)
What I want to know is this. Where were the two black cats while all of this was going on?
Postscript
The husband of Mrs. died recently, but shortly before his death I ran into the couple walking down the same lane Bud and Smokey and I walked down so many times. Both were quite old now and very hard of hearing, so it was a conversation in shouts.
HOW IS BUD?
OH, HE’S DOING FINE.
HE HAS WHITE PAWS, DOESN’T HE?
NO, HE’S ALL RED. BILLY DOWN THE STREET LOOKS A LOT LIKE BUD BUT HE HAS WHITE PAWS. BUD ONLY GOES OUT WITH ME NOW.
OH. (Sly smile of recollection from Mrs.) WE’VE BEEN FINDING NEW RED FUR EVERY MORNING. HE MUST BE COMING IN EVERY NIGHT AFTER THE LIGHTS GO OUT AND LEAVING EVERY MORNING BEFORE WE GET UP. NICE TO KNOW SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE!
Nice.
Last Story. “The Solution to a Problem Without a Solution”
“Some problems have no solutions.” A familiar axiom. This is also how I thought when I found out from routine blood testing that Bud was FIV positive. In the late fall of his first year with us (in the basement) I decided that, at the very least, he must be neutered and vaccinated, because he fought constantly and always seemed to have at least one abscessed wound. The FeLV/FIV testing was almost an afterthought.
(Bud got his name when he was taken to the vet for the first time. Name? I was asked. “Red,” which is what we had called him up to that time, didn’t seem a proper name for an owned cat. My wife on a few occasions, had greeted Bud with, “Hey, Bud [as in Bub], what are you doing here?” So Bud he became forever after.)
Now Bud can never be a housecat, I thought. Smokey can’t live in the same house as a scrappy cat with feline AIDS. When the vet suggested that if I were not prepared to take Bud in, I ought, as a matter of civic responsibility and as a gesture toward the good health of the outdoor feline population, to have Bud put down, I was angry–though the logic of the proposition was hard to dispute. In the end, I simply allowed status quo to reign indefinitely. For two winters and two summers, Bud lived in the basement and came and went through his cat door.
Some problems have no solution.
In November of his third fall in our care we found Bud one morning in his basement lair with his jaw drooping horribly and the right side of his face severely damaged. Whether struck by a car (as the vet assumed) or having fallen from a great height (as I thought–Bud was a great rooftop walker) , Bud’s upper and lower jaw were broken, his palate was split through to the sinus, the muscles in portions of his face no longer worked, and his ear was damaged internally. To try to save a cat so severely injured when he was doomed to die of feline AIDS seemed preposterous. So that is, of course, what we did. His jaw was wired up, his palate was sewn up, etc., etc. and five months and many complications later, he was right as rain!
The world works in mysterious ways. Given the length of his convalescence there was no question but that Bud would have to be brought up out of the basement and into the house proper. And so he was. But shattered as he was, Bud was in no fit state to challenge Smokey’s place in the household. He barely moved! As months went by, the Bros learned to tolerate one another as they never would have otherwise. And Oh, yes. Bud’s upper canines had been obliterated by his accident; his lower canines had to be blunted in order to prevent him from piercing his upper lip. Bud, it seems, could no longer deliver a penetrating bite. FIV is spread largely by penetrating bite wounds.
This is how Bud became a housecat. For the rest of his life he had access to his enclosed backyard. He had enough teeth to chew his food. He got walks through the neighborhood every day. (As a housecat, he had a Constitution, too.) Neither Smokey nor Bud is with us any longer, but ours will never be a house without cats.
And some problems that have no solution manage to get solved notwithstanding.
