A Fine Cat, and a True Gentlemen

When my husband turned 18 years old. I got him a cat. Which seemed like a very prudent thing to do at the time, especially since we were living in a car.  I took him to a friend’s house who had a bunch of kittens, and he picked one. He picked the sickest grossest runt of the litter.  He had cat pneumonia and cat conjunctivitis.  He sneezed all the time, and we were pretty sure he was going to die. But he didn’t. This lady from New Harbor known as, “The Cat Lady” hooked us up with cat meds. For free. Because we were broke, and living in a car. So, he lived. We named him Little Man.  For awhile we had a litter box in the floor of the back of our car.  Then he moved with us from one shitty apartment to another.  

      He was the world’s most adaptable, most laid
back cat. He didn’t care if he was an indoor cat, which he had to be when we lived on the top floor of Clark’s Apartments and in Portland, or an outside cat, like he was when we lived in Scarborough, and here in Slippery Slope. We had a parade of other cats in our lives, the first being Flatnose, followed by Henriette, Major, and Hiccup. LM outlasted them all, I have no idea how he managed to evade danger, right up into his last years and he was completely blind, but he did.
      LM was a magnificent hunter. When we first moved to the Slippery Slope, he killed voles with alarming speed. I had no idea how he was catching them all since he’d been an inside cat for a long time and was pretty fat. Then one day, I looked out the window and saw him sitting on top of the dog house. He was hunched over and kind of looked like a vulture. Suddenly he launched off the front and grabbed a vole. He was insane. That summer in addition to proudly bringing home voles, he also showed up for three days straight with baby partridges and once, a baby rabbit.
         He loved people, especially people who are allergic to or hate cats. He sought them out and climbed up on their laps. He never fully figured out how to retract his claws, so he was constantly getting them stuck on the couch, or in clothing. He didn’t mind dogs, except for my brother in-law’s dog Peanut, who some of you may remember  was the biggest asshole dog ever.  Peanut used to get in his face and bark and freak out. One night, moving with the speed of a ninja, he opened up a nice long gash in Peanut’s rump before calmly exiting the room.
           He loved kids, and was extremely patient and kind with my daughter, even when she carried him around in a less than dignified manner. Other than that he liked being held like a baby. However, he would bite the shit out of you if you touched his stomach.

          He had kidney failure, and we had to put him to sleep this morning. He was almost 17. I will miss him every day.
          Goodbye my friend. I love you so.