Patty Patten Tiffany

Two Tails

 

 

The Bilge Cat

 

I was having that dream again. Deep in REM somewhere, there was a furry visage that I snuggled with, sinister yet sublime.

 

“Not again...Pam, Pam” called George, who shook me awake.

 

 “Yes, it's that same hairy friend,” I sighed. My husband had patience in all things it seemed, too much, in fact. When I looked at him in our fashionable bedroom, I wondered how we got here from the radical fun of the 60's—comfortable and bored. 

                   

We had settled into joyless jobs in a colorless Midwestern town long on conformity. I had worn pumps forever and George, once a tiger, was a gray shadow of the wild man I met so long ago. The lively eyes I had loved were dull, and his pointy nose made his profile mouse-like.

 

Over dinner the next day, we talked, or tried to. “I think I'm done with banking,” I said. George, the ultimate worrywart, suddenly came alive, and half-shouted with relief, “I thought you'd never say that!  When do we leave?”  As usual, however, his enthusiasm turned to rehash and temerity before bed. I set the heels of my old pumps firmly down.

 

It took some paperwork and tense moments while George relapsed into middle-class man, but we made it through. We drank some champagne, closed the door to our homogenized lives, and packed to leave town.

 

In our new red Jeep Wrangler a couple of weeks later, we hit the road with a bright gypsy spirit and headed South. All the way South, that is, and The Southernmost Point in the U.S. is Key West.

 

Once we arrived, our fantasy of life on the edge was more than matched by the reality of Duval Street. The unique, oddball, and mildly insane who crowded downtown gave us a joy that we hadn't anticipated. We watched outside the parlors that painted your naked body with quasi-clothes. We cheered the young “dancers” on occasion (if you stretch their talent a bit) on the bar in cowboy boots and little else.

 

Then there were the clothing optional beaches and night spots. I'll never forget dancing cheek to cheek with George under the full moon and watching lots of other cheeks a bit lower down.

 

In short, we felt like twenty-somethings reborn to a new life in paradise. We didn't miss the pale faces and sepia world we left behind. Our romance rebounded with a vengeance; weird worked well for us.

 

Only one problem loomed large. After trying camping and a trailer park, we needed a permanent place to live. Alas, in Key West, housing in a hovel can cost a small fortune. We perused the local paper and decided to buy an old, 38-foot cabin cruiser.

 

Slip rental, known as a place to park a boat home,  was within reach, and we soon made our new home on Tarpon Pier. True to its name, there were usually eight huge tarpon lying under our boat. We fed lettuce to the visiting manatees, watched the slowly cruising nurse sharks and skittish mangrove snappers with their parrotfish pals. It was a personal water wonderland. Our boat wasn't large, but the outdoor decks gave us room to breathe, and we acclimated to ladders, holds, and a small space for two.

 

Even our quirky neighbors were fun. There was the petite lesbian couple, who seemed very much in love, the old Salt who had a roommate in a boat built for one; and the Snowbirds who came and went in cycles. All were friendly enough, and the old Salt, Ed, never failed to greet us walking down the dock. He always had some advice, too. Like, “ be sure to check your plugs” and “start the engine once a week”, and most often, he mentioned “make sure the bilge is clean and dry.”  “The bilge can scuttle you.

 

Life was frivolous and carefree until the day I found the kitten. We were kayaking through the mangroves when I heard a mewing sound. I peered through the tangle of stems and finally spotted a tiny tuft of fur. I paddled closer, reached up, and captured the creature, marveling that it had wedged itself in the dense knots of mangrove.

 

“Look, George,” I called, “it's a kitten.”

 

“I can see that, Pam. Put it back. You know I don't like cats. Its mother is probably somewhere.”

 

“Somewhere is right...like dead or drowned. No way am I leaving this poor thing here.”

 

Paradise found and lost, I guess, as from that day on, I protected the kitten like a baby, maybe because I never had one, and doted on it unreasonably. George was not amused.

 

I promptly named the kitten Houdini for its incredible ability to hide. George and I spent many an hour searching the boat and docks with “here kitties”, time that George did not appreciate. “Di”, as I had nicknamed him, rubbed and purred when he was found, as if the game was great fun for us all.

 

Di grew quickly, and, within months, weighed in at nineteen pounds—nineteen  pounds of muscle, that is. There was no catching him when he chose to fly from deck to dock and back again, and he climbed rigging like a monkey. Once grayish, his fur sprouted strange new patterns, including a circle around one eye that gave the impression he was staring intently, and the funny swirl of yellow that looked like a six on his belly.

 

As Di grew, so did George's animosity toward him. I found myself defending Di too often and put off by George's hostility. He was clearly jealous; and allergic. His sneezing and runny nose were irritating enough, but he began to eulogize the Midwestern days. Did he long for sleet?

 

One night, when Di was particularly active, a virtual trapeze artist on the decks, yowling at the stars, George snorted, “I've had it,” and in a few stealthy, lightning moves, grabbed Di by the scruff. With a toss and a bang, Di wound up in the bilge for the night. Protest died in my throat when I saw the glassy-eyed anger in George. His face was more pointy than ever, and his mouse-like profile had morphed to one more like a rat—at least to me.

          

Di was strangely quiet down there, but I thought I heard a low rumbling around midnight. When I let him out the next day, he hissed and spat at George and ran by me down the dock. Were my eyes deceiving me or did Di look larger?

 

The next night, when Di came back, George immediately nabbed him and shoved him into the bilge. I cried silently for my beloved and pondered life without Di.

 

When dawn streaked its gold over the bight, I tiptoed out of our bunk to let Di out, and, as he disappeared again, I was sure he had grown another few inches. What was he eating down there? He was at least the size of a bobcat, and I noted his claws left notches in the dock as he fled.

 

George felt the change in Di that next night, too, as he heaved and puffed to stuff him into the bilge again. Sadly, our cat disagreements had taken the light and passion from us, so I marched up the ladder to sleep topside in a deck chair.

  

Dosing, I imagined I heard a hurricane wind howling around me. I bolted upright in the chair and heard the bilge hatch open. Heavy steps were followed by scuffling, scratching, hissing and was that a roar or a scream I heard? I couldn't stand the thought of what George might be doing, so I snuggled into my chair again, sniffling, as an eerie stillness returned.

 

Morning broke stormy and gray, and the boat home was rocking in the surf surge topped with foam. I tried to shake myself awake.

“Let those lines out,” called Ed, “and don't forget to check the bilge.”

 

In a start, I remembered the sounds of battle from the night before and rushed to the bilge to see what remained from the fight. As I opened the hatch, Di emerged rubbing and purring, all his old self and almost his old size, except for a large bulge in his tummy. I thought of the gingerbread dog and the calico cat as I petted him.

 

I didn't bother to look for George that day and didn't miss him the next. As Di and I snuggled in the boat bunk, it occurred to me that he was actually a better companion than a man in most ways. After all, pets were allowed everywhere in Key West, and Di and I enjoyed the nightlife and our super seafood dinners under the stars. Di didn't drink and only chased women with long, bushy tails.

Some nights, however, I look into Di's strange circle eye, and I think I see George glowering back at me.

 

 

Cat Scratch Fever

 

There’s always magic in a new relationship, at least the good ones, and Mike and I made every day about romance and a chance to revisit our crazy past, including the mad music of the 70’s.   We loved to swim, walk the beach, snuggle like teenagers, and we loved our cats.

 

We met in Key West, home of the Hemmingway’s famous six-toed cats, and we laughed about having four normal-toed felines between us already.  Mine stayed with friends far away in Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay, during my winter and spring wanderings.  His were entrenched on his floating home on the docks off Roosevelt Ave. in Key West.

 

A few months of crazy “in love” fun convinced us to try to bring our lives together, and the warmth and sideways charm of Key West was our first choice for this new life.

 

His home was spacious and the only boat house with a view of the cut out to the Atlantic, which we came to love at sunset, holding hands, and sipping margaritas.  We read our horoscopes for fun and never looked too far beyond the day at hand.

 

Life was idyllic in those heady first weeks.  Springtime in January was a dream for me, and Key West never failed to provide quite the sideshow in its offbeat denizens…animal and human.  This included sword swallowers, Jack Russell’s with palm-frond hats, and troops of tourists going in and out of Sloppy Joe’s around the clock.

 

We enjoyed this “zoo” for humans and had nothing but high hopes, which included our new blended family with the four cats.  After all, we had plenty of room, or so we thought.

 

Ming and Tom Tom, his feline friends, were tidy and disciplined, kind of like Mike, who never left a dish in the sink.  They were two Siamese with all the pretentiousness the breed can offer, and their schedule was sacrosanct.  Food, water, playtime, all dispensed at regular intervals, cued by the horrific howl of the Siamese if the timing was off.  We lived much of the day by their rules.

 

My cats, Houdini and Brindle, rescue cats, did not stand on formality.  They rose when they pleased, cuddled when so moved, and left the schedule up to me.  We were the three musketeers—free form and free spirits, until Key West.

 

Mike and I managed the little conflicts, like the bowl switching at the evening feeding and litter box dominance when a spit or a growl settled the matter.  It was the strange nights we began to worry about, and the visitors.

 

In short, the wars began in earnest when the sun went down, as each “team” chose its corner or balcony.  We humans heard a quiet invitation when the very special yowls began. 

 

The Siam gang, as I came to call them would rally around midnight.  They chose the leeward deck so that their strange songs drifted into our bedroom long into the night.  We saw shadows on the rail and believed they were trotting back and forth as the night wore on.

 

Houdini and Brindle chose the windward deck and seemed to be choking a bit with little hisses and spits in between.  It was hard to see on that side away from the dock, so we assumed all the noises were just these two singing to the night.

 

Soon, our nights were a surround-sound version of a Cats production, minus the melodies.  It was actually more like a Ted Nugent heavy metal festival for cats—only just the high pitched wails, like keening.

 

With little sleep and four wild cats to deal with, the romance dwindled between Mike and me, and now, our differences seemed important.  He began to remind me of how to do things with the electronics in the boat house…a “how to” lesson every day on something. When he wasn’t looking, I started to mix up the canned goods he had put in neat order.

 

At the same time, the cats became more aggressive, more feral, and hid from us most days.  No schedule for the Siam gang and no cuddling from my previously low-key pals.

 

Something had to give, and we decided to do what every normal (a loose term) Key West family might do.  We went for a consult with the Catwoman.

 

A well-known seer and problem solver, the Catwoman inhabited a run-down shed-like dwelling just past the cemetery in town.  The odd stones she had out front added to the macabre atmosphere, as did the dense banyan trees that knotted around the hut.

 

With a bony reach and cloudy eyes, Catwoman had never been seen in daylight and was a pale, scrawny visage that didn’t seem quite real.  She told us to sit and hold the old anchor ropes attached to her table while she held the other side.  After what seemed like an hour, she swayed and her head dropped for a few seconds.  In something like a growl, she said, “Join the party tonight and you will all heal.”

 

On our way home, we considered her instruction, vague as it was, and decided to do as she said.  Mike was an inveterate costume lover, and having been through a dozen Fantasy Fests, the costume extravaganza of the year in Key West, he knew that territory well.  Within a few hours, he had us festooned like the stars of a Broadway Cats rendition, and we felt ready to “join the party.”  He pulled my tail for fun and I rubbed pointy ears against his neck.  Something about the feel of soft fur all over was exciting.

 

Since the cats never appeared even in shadow until midnight, we waited until the clock began to chime the hour.  He took the Siam gang deck, and I took a position on ocean side.  And we waited.

 

When our ship’s clock sounded, it seemed there were cats all around us…big ones, kittens, tabbies, and Siamese.  With the doors wide open, Mike and I could see each other in silhouette at least, and the cat procession continued.  I know I saw a bobcat saunter by one moment, but somehow the smell and sounds began to seem soothing.  Mesmerized, I felt a meow coming out of my lips and heard Mike spit and hiss from his side.  The hours drifted by and as dawn broke, he and I sidled back into the boat house bedroom and fell asleep contentedly.

 

The next night was peaceful and the cat parade seemed over.  Mysteriously, our felines were back and chummy, as if they had been transformed by our nocturnal metamorphosis.

 

A few days later, I caught Mike in the kitchen lapping milk out of a bowl.  That same day, I ate two cans of tuna.  The next week, as fur started to sprout on our backs, we kind of liked the soft feel and cuddled a little more often.

 

Catness became us, it seemed, and we inhabited feline grace happily.  Roaming the dock at night, we leaped up on the boat’s flying bridges with Michael Jordan ease and loved to glide along the thick bowlines.  I loved Mikes newly yellow eyes.  They gave him a predatory intensity and moonlight became our aphrodisiac.

 

By the time our whiskers appeared, it was almost time for Fantasy Fest, we were proud to show off our new cat costumes.  Authentic seemed to work, and we won first prize handily.

Now, in Key West it’s easy to get by wearing a cat suit every day, but we found ourselves loving the night more and more.  And our cats more and more.  We ate together, slept together, and made a lovely family unit.  Ordering food was no problem, but I think the delivery boy wondered about the fifty cans of salmon and tuna every week.

 

All in all, our lives as cats turned out to be the best thing for Mike and me.  We were so much in love again, and the old cats were happy, so when I had my first litter, there was joy all around.

 

Sometimes we visit the Catwoman at night.  She loves the little ones, and her cloudy eyes perk up whenever she sees them.

 

She doesn’t come out to watch, but we think of her each year at Fantasy Fest. If only she could see how the crowds love us--we are their stars with whiskers. They just don’t know they’re real.  

 

 

Patricia Patten was born in Appalachia, descendant of the infamous McCoy clan. Daydreaming and books allowed her to travel the world as a child, while her first real travel came through college study abroad in Austria. Her master’s in German was a great fit for a career in higher education, and she retired in 2013 after 30-plus years, mostly as a dean of admission in Virginia. She has called Mexico, Canada and Germany home and just completed a three-month western sojourn in an RV with her husband, a puppy, and a very strange cat.