When I was 29 I found myself fairly lonely in my new
apartment so I decided to get a permanent roommate. Yes, it’d be odd to have a
roommate who had no choice but to sleep in my bed with me due to it being a one
bedroom apartment… but I decided to look in the paper for aspiring roommates to
share my air with.
I got in contact with a supplier for this roommate and a
large box arrived at my door. I carried it up to my place on the third floor
and set up all the required roommate accessories… Food, water, and a box.
I checked the next day and there I found a suitor in the
paper. I drove down route 83 to the New Cumberland exit and hastily drove past
Allendale and down the seemingly long country road to one house. I had spoken
to this woman twice on the phone and explained to her what I was looking for
and she said she had just the thing.
I found the house and walked in with her kids. She brought
out a seemingly tiny young male to meet me and short of a cliché, it was love
at first sight. He ran to me and jumped in my lap and gave me a headbutt. I
said to her “what’s not to love? He’s perfect!”
I walked out with him in his carrier and I was a proud new
owner of a young male kitten. I had gotten him for 2 reasons. One, the
loneliness factor. And two, my grandmother and sister on mom’s side are
severely allergic to cats. So naturally, to keep them away from my house, as
they’re both worthless to me, I got my boy.
We’ve been tight for years.
As he grew, he learned to use the toilet as a bathroom just
like you and me. Yes. He was toilet trained. He was able to pee in the toilet
on his own after about 2 months of kitty litter hell, and in fact had issues
with the ol’#2, but don’t we all? So he just pooped right in front of the
toilet. Since I was home almost all the time, I just picked it up just about
directly out of his butt. I was more worried about the pee smell than poop
because, as the book says, everybody poops.
So there it was.
I had a cat.
And he isn’t one of those cats that hides under the bed all
day. When people came by, albeit few and far between, they all got not just a
glimpse of the boy, but basically got the full “hello” treatment. The lapdance,
the headbutt, the headlick, and of course the bite.
Jackass, who got the name from the crying the entire way
home from New Cumberland (“SHUTUP YOU JACKASS!”) and I would play and play.
He’d grab my arm and bite and scratch and I’d grab his face and bodyslam him
into the couch. Looking at my arm some people thought I was a cutter. Others warned
people who would stop by that I had a
vicious cat. But when they came by and saw he was the sweetest boy they’d ever
meet, they realized it was the protagonist who would make him bite me!
When I’d sleep when he was a kitten he’d wake me up by
crawling over my neck and licking my face. I’d have no way out of it. It was
either get licked or twist my head into kitten ass, so I dealt with the cleaner
end. And he was the best alarm clock a not-so-morning person could ask for.
At one point there was an issue in my apartment and I had to
move quickly so we moved to Mechanicsburg and he loves it here. Its such a
large apartment that we can play hide and go seek and he seems to enjoy the
birdwatching here that he didn’t get as much from in the city.
Things seemingly have been going swimmingly lately until a
few months ago I was petting him in bed now (he’s 6 yrs old and 17.4 lbs!) and
felt a bump on his hind leg. I didn’t think much of it, and in fact remembered
this one cat we dissected in biology that had a ton of fatty deposits on his
body. So I attributed it to his 17.4 lb frame.
But today I took him to the vet. I alerted her of a few
minor issues, and passively mentioned the lump I had found on his hind leg. She
felt around and all I heard was –oma. Fibro-blah blah-oma. OMA = OMG.
That’s usually a place where they inject the cat for their
leukemia shots, she said. And sometimes the spot develops growths or tumors
that don’t mean anything. But he hasn’t had those shots. He’s had nothing of
the sort injected there.
Again she continued using this –OMA word. Again remembering science class –oma means
cancer.
I damn near had a myocardial infarction. I threw up and shit
a brick at the same time. I never dealt with this news before and the pain was
and is just about the worst I can imagine right now. I closed my eyes and could
see the river coming at me at terminal velocity. It was easier to jump from the
bridge than deal with this.
So she said there are a few tests that need to be done to
see where and if it has spread to and what needs to be done beyond the removal
of the tumor. They took blood work and results will come tomorrow morning. Ever
hear the phrase “time stands still…”? well, the second hand hasn’t moved in 2
hours.
She said once they cut it out if it doesn’t grow back then
we’re all in the clear but if it does, and they normally do, then amputation is
next. And when I asked what I was looking at for it moneywise, I truly can’t
afford to lose a leg, an arm, or a paw... so if it grows back, that’s it. Ever
call Kevorkian for your best friend that yesterday had a bump and now has a
full blown deal? Ugh…
So details may follow, they may not. But my best friend of
many years now may be on his way to the other side. And even if this is all a
false alarm, if it’s just an odd mass of cells as she said it could be, I’ve
never been more afraid for my boy. And I am at a loss as to what to do.
From the day I fell in love with my boy, I knew the end was
to come. But the memory of the unbelievably great times I have had with him
will never die. He’s been there for me drunk, smoking, stoned, through the
naltrexone escapade, through the winning and losing of a speck of hope of a
girlfriend… he’s a mouser, he likes to lick olives (I think it’s the brine)
then throw up, he loves the power (vibrating) toothbrush. When you give him
fresh water he paws the ground as if covering poop in the litter box. He loves
to bite through the cords on the window blinds… (Half my bank account is invested
in replacing blinds). A treat for him is to drink from my glass of water
because it is refrigerated. And catnip? Forget about it. Cooked chicken. Tuna cans.
Steak. And 14lb bags of Purina naturals.
Finally, I am proud to share my bed with such a magnificent
animal with such personality.
Again, it may be a false alarm, it may be an early nothing. I
may be stuck with this Jackass for another 6 years. But lately he’s been
meowing a lot at the front door, and asking a lot of my attention, so it may be
he just wants attention or he’s telling me goodbye. I want nothing more than him
in no pain. He’s done nothing but bring me joy and aggravation, but mostly joy.
I rarely have hope for anything in life, (like my best furry
friend to live on) so this case is no different.
The surprise would be that he’ll be fine. But my life doesn’t
work that way. Its always the bad, never the good. As my former neighbor Joseph
DiComo did with his beloved cat Lucia… I shall ask my wish be granted that not
just he get cremated, but I will as well, and then our ashes be mixed and
dropped down a storm drain so we can be forgotten about in the water filter then
tossed into a landfill and help produce methane for the rest of time.
But at least we’ll be together. And in death, like in life,
that’s all that matters.
III
