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October 08, 2005
Orange Leo
I got the key to my apartment in April, when I was still down at Stanford, finishing my thesis. The apartment happened very suddenly, and although I'd decided in theory that I wanted to live by myself, the reality of sleeping alone after eight months of sharing a bed with Brett every night, and of staying by myself in a studio apartment after three years within shouting distance of Alex and Tamara, was quietly terrifying. At first I refused to stay in the city unless Brett stayed with me, but while I was doing the lonely work of finishing a thesis, Brett still had classes as well as commitments to the peer-counseling center where he worked. I could work properly only in my studio, where there ws a desk, a chair and a mattress Brett dragged in from the street and nothing else, as my dorm room had become too filthy, Brett's place was too distracting. I had to start staying in the city alone.
This was before I got Gerty the cat. Brett flew home to Denver for Passover the second weekend after I got my key, so I steeled myself for the occaision by loading into my car a space heater, several changes of underwear, heavy sweaters, a sweaty old t-shirt that stinking of Brett I planned to pull over my nose like a mask of laudanum to sleep in, the blanket from Brett's bed, also in need of a washing, whisky, valium, my journal and the four stuffed animals we own between us: Doggy and Amabunny (mine) and Shtasi and Cupholder, Brett's otters.
I worked as late as I could so as to avoid the terrifying prospect of sleeping. I smoked cigarettes and jumped in my skin at the slightest noise. No longer capable of propping myself upright, I'd taken my laptop onto the mattress, intent on typing myself into a coma via exhaustion or valium, whichever I gave into first. I saw the light spot of nose, the point of ears in a bottom pane of the courtyard-facing door. A cat.
Although it was well past any hour a reasonable person would come to the phone, even in the Rocky time zone, I called Brett's voicemail and left a message. "I have exciting news," I said, "call me back. It's not an emergency, but call me back. I have exciting news."
I had seen the big orange cat once before. It was the night after I'd signed my lease, when Brett and I were going to stay in my apartment for the first time. We were pulling up to the curb and I saw the cat come trotting up the street. I jumped out and approached the cat in a twisted, hunched down run, my arms extended. The cat had scampered off. I scampered after until it dissappeared behind the bars of a gate.
I went outside to have a cigarette and pursue the cat. He was friendly, this time. Cautious at first, he was soon weaving between my calves. He thumped back on the ground for a petting.
I wanted to lure the cat in, so I opened a can of tuna. The cat came in, but protested louldy if I so much as touched the doorknob, so I piled on more sweaters and let the brittle wet wind snuff out the warmth from the space heater and let the cat sniff out the apartment. While scrathing his neck, I examined the heart-shaped tag. His name was Leo, he belonged to Adobe Books around the corner, and because there was already one Leo cat in my life (a big white and gray boy that lives in my parents' home) I started thinking of him as Orange Leo. Eventually, the cat finished his tuna and went away and I, fully dressed, collapsed on the mattress, clutching all four stuffed animals to my middle and the Brett-stinking shirt spread over my pillow, calmed beyond the need for valium by the visit from the curious orange cat.
Orange Leo returned the next night, and I gave him more tuna. The following night, he relaxed enough to nap on the green armchair I'd purchased that day. He didn't protest when I closed and locked the garden door, only blinked at me with his sleepy green eyes, then buried his face under his tail and rear paws. We fell into a habit. Around two am, when I really was pulling out my hair, Leo would come around. We'd both fall asleep with the lights on, and when, at dawn, he started to howl to be let out, I woke up resentlessly, kissed the golden diamond on his forhead, and let him out. Then I'd get back in front of the computer screen and work more, passing out for the seond time after the daylit world had come to life.
I brought my own house cat, Gerty, home on May 30th, after my thesis had been turned in. Gerty, a three-legged female about half Leo's size, growled at Leo, and Leo kept his distance. He loved the courtyard because of its cornucopia of rats and pigeons, but I never saw him catch anything. Orange Leo like to plant himself at the entrance to a tiny alley and watch the pigeons with an expression of infinte contentment and peace. I would bring him cat food in the yard and sit and pet him there. I stopped in at Adobe to visit him (one time a pigeon had flown in and Leo purred audibly at it from the opposit side of a Japanese screen in the loft) but he no longer liked to spend so much time in my house.
A few nights ago, as I was returning home, a neighbor told me Leo was dead. He had been hit by car. I've been sad most of this week.
Posted by hissycat at October 8, 2005 01:44 PM
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Comments
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