Sunday, March 06, 2005

Rufus

Over the past few days Rufus had been acting unusually sociable and energetic.  She was traipsing all over the front of the house, where she rarely ventured, and spent more than her share of time nestled on Kel and my laps - sometimes simultaneously.  She’s been talky and sassy and full of life.  God bless you, Roofer. 

I guess we got Gumdrop the cat when I was only six or so, and she was a faithful companion till after I had gone off to college.  While I was in college, during our sophomore year, Jon and I got a little grey kitten from a friend, and Kashmir stayed with us throughout the next three years and then moved with Jon to New York when we all graduated; her little friend Biafra, matched to her grey perfectly and as neatly shorthaired as Kashmir was luxuriantly fuzzy, stayed in Philly with our housemate Bill.  Kel and I moved back to LA, to my dad’s house, where my sister joined us not long thereafter, in 1987; she had freaky friends up in the wilds of the Laurel Canyon uplands and one of them gave her a cat somehow: Sydney.

Sydney was a good housecat and we knew we’d miss her when we moved out (to a charming adobe-style flat with a no-pets policy).  Then, shortly before the day of our big move, dad found an abandoned and adorable doberman mix and brought him home.  Syd hated dogs with a passion, possibly because one had once bit off most of her tail, and she started living on the roof; she’d peek down over the eaves to complain down to us when we turned off the lights at night and lay down in our bed pushed up against the biggest window in the room.  She was too pathetic, and we wheedled permission to bring her with us to the new apartment.  Then she came with us up to San Francisco, where we moved her into a one-bedroom apartment at the bottom right corner of Pacific Heights - elegant lodgings but not what a former outside cat was used to.  She was climbing the walls, and for a little bitty thing like she was, she really ran the household.  We knew we had to get her a playmate to keep her company, so we went to the SFSPCA and fell in love with Rufus.

We loved Rufus because she sat quietly, almost smilingly, at the back of her cage, watching us and appreciating our attention but not yelling at us or making a nuisance of herself.  She was at once the most engaging and the least overbearing of the kittens available. While we were meeting her a very flamboyant and effusive man was trying to select a kitten to adopt and they were all shrinking from him in well-founded fear; he was hooting and cooing and so deeply engaged in his own fantasies of cat-ownership that he was oblivious to their discomfort in his presence.  As we walked out with our paperwork the staff were discussing how to prevent this guy getting a kitten.  I felt badly for him - his true desire to care for a pet was unquestionable, even as his fitness for the task was in serious doubt.  I knew it wouldn’t be good for any animal to live with him but I knew he’d be missing out on one of life’s truly sublime pleasures if he were denied a pet. 

But enough about him - we got ours, and an adorable one too.  We were stumped for a name, though, so she was just the little kitty, or love-pudding, or muffin, for a few weeks.  Eventually we realized that the only name we both liked was gender-divergent, but it was time to name the damn cat so Rufus she was, inspired by George Carlin’s character in the Excellent Adventure movie.  We learned some things about Rufus during this time: she was quiet, passive, clumsy; she had a big appetite; she did not clean herself or move around very much.  She liked to lie down over a sleeping person’s throat sometimes, and she liked to crawl into any paper shopping bags that might be left on the kitchen floor.  She liked to lie down on the ironing board, which we’d covered with a towel.  She was, as I mentioned, adorable. 

Sydney had other impressions: she ignored Rufus, hissed at her, gave her the hairy eyeball - and then, after about a week of this, Syd went missing.  We searched high and low for her, even into the airshaft next to the bathrooms down the center of the building, but she was nowhere to be seen.  At our wits’ end, we turn out the lights for the night, and immediately heard her yowling outside: she’d somehow fallen - or jumped - from our window five stories up.  This in itself would not have necessarily been too bad for her - cats are designed to absorb all that impact through a remarkable arrangement of not having a collarbone and being built out of slinkies.  She called up to us to get her; we scampered down and grabbed her and brought her back up.  She looked fine till she sneezed blood.  Since we were on a steep hill, instead of landing flat and absorbing all that downward energy properly, she had cracked her chin and split the roof of her mouth.  A nearby clinic stitched her up quite nicely, and afterwards she was much too sore to stalk away indignantly when the new kitten curled up next to her and fell asleep purring softly.  After about a week of that treatment, Syd realized that the new cat was not a threat, and might even be a nice addition to the household. 

Syd was always the dominant personality, but when she died three or four years ago, Rufus began to come into her own.  Already a cat well into her mature years, heavy-footed and thick-bellied, possessed of minimal interest in grooming and amazing capacities for motionlessness, a dear friend and a true comfort in times of difficulty - Rufus began to come into her own.  She and the dog got their relationship working on healthier terms; we found out she was diabetic and, with that under control with twice-daily injections, she seemed happier and healthier.  She had more than her share of foibles and quirks, but they were all endearing.  Mostly all, anyway; all of them worth talking about.  She wouldn’t often move, but when she came up to you and rubbed you with her forehead and the tip of her nose for fifteen or twenty minutes, you really felt loved. 

Over the past few days this behavior really came to the forefront.  Roof was trotting her portly self up to the living room, where we sometimes brought her but where she rarely ventured on her own - not only to sit on our laps and purr and rub us with the corner of her mouth, but even to munch brazenly right in front of us on the nice plant that Kel has always had to take such pains to protect from her.  She hopped up on the bed with me last night, or two nights ago?, rubbing the tip of her ear across my eyebrows so I would wake up and cuddle with her.  She just wanted the crook of my arm in which to curl up and fall into a wheezing snoring purring sleep, and I was happy to oblige. 

Of course, she never did learn to clean herself as part of these self-improvements.  Her chin was speckled and her coat was unkempt; we would brush her out but her skin was tender so we had to go easy on her.  Her toenails were long from lack of use and filthy from her habitual failure to do anything to clean them, as most cats do.  She needed regular baths and stylistic attention, and still she scattered filthy cat litter all over the house, onto and into the bed, through both the clean and dirty laundry, wherever she could; her litterbox skills were modest at best and more frequently merely approximate, but she did her best and there was never any disputing her good faith.  Her little hygiene challenges hardly eclipsed the pleasure of her company.

This afternoon I sat down at the computer to manipulate some photos when I heard a noise come from where Rufus often slept, a noise which should not have been coming out of her.  I came around the desk to find her stretched out, eyes open, mouth agape and grimacing, immobile and nonresponsive.  She was breathing in fast hard pants.  We bundled her up and got her to the local emergency pet hospital; this was at about 3.  We called at 6 for an update and they told us she was recovering slowly: responsive but unfocused, suffering from spasms in her limbs, and apparently suffering from a previously-undiagnosed liver ailment so serious they thought it likely to be cancer.  We drove back to the hospital and spent a few minutes with the lovemuffin in a sterile little exam room; she was really out of it and seemed to alternate between recognizing us and wanting to go home; and total insensate fear of everything.  Yes, I’m anthropomorphizing, but I lived with her for 15 years and I know what I think goes on in those deep yellow eyes.... she wanted out, and we gave it to her.  At about 6:30 tonight, Rufus was put to sleep with a massive dose of phenylbarbitol; it was over within 20 seconds. 

Rufus was an excellent cat, a dear friend, and a kindred soul.  I have thought several times as I type this at the computer where I was sitting when I heard her go into seizure, that I’ve heard her clattertapping her way in to see what I’m doing; I keep expecting to hear her yowl at me to stop typing and give her some cuddles.  I’m not going to hear that anymore, though, and no one is going to tell me to stop typing.  It’s time to stop, though, I think.  There’s a time for everything to come to an end.  Thanks, Rufus.  I miss you.

a sweet friend and a good cat