September
27, 2013
I was on the subway late at night, on my way home from a concert and after-party, when
a seat became available and a kind young man offered it to me, rather than taking it
himself. I had a long ride ahead and gratefully
took it. A nearby troll was making loud chauvinistic, racial, and all
other types of slurs he could think of, masking them in a sort of
conversation, but intentionally needling the passengers
around him. One woman cursed him out as she exited; the rest of us
mostly sat in silence and rolled our eyes. I'd been away from New
York for nearly two months and had forgotten such common subway joys;
the reminder amused more than annoyed me and I exchanged a dismissive
smile with my seat patron over the ridiculous nonsense.
A
little kindness goes a long, long way. On the 1 line, I have the option to
exit at 215th street, after which I hike up 110 steps to get to my
building, or I can exit at 207th street, which is a longer walk but a
more gradual incline. I was undecided about which I'd take tonight,
but the balance tipped in favour of 207, for the simple reason that
the kind guy went to the subway door as we approached the station,
thereby putting in my mind the prospect of walking with other kind people at
2am on 207th street, making that option seem safer. As I exited, I
noticed that he didn't, but by then I'd made up my mind and went
anyway.
Seemingly tiny decisions may be life-changing indeed. For it is thus, that I
passed the meowing car, at the intersection of 207th street and Post
Avenue.
More
accurately, the car was shielding a kitten crying at the top of its
little lungs. Its distressed squeaking was barely audible above the
street noise, and many passersby didn't notice it. However, I did; perhaps I am innately a cat lady, but I also have better hearing than
many, which I think is attributable to my classical musician's habit
of holding my ears at the more deafening stretches of subway tracks. The high end of my hearing is still intact (at least, I think it
is intact–what, did you say something?)
What to do about this
little fellow? I am decidedly a cat afficionado, but have so far
successfully avoided crossing the line to expressed cat-lady-ism,
which I understand has a prerequisite of four cats. (I have three and
two are currently housed with their grandparents, er, I mean, my
parents.) More tellingly and uselessly for tonight, I do not possess
a cat trap, as New Yorkers truly well-versed in cat-philanthropy do.
I have connections to some of these wonderful New Yorkers, but not at
2am. Still, I couldn't just leave the little guy crying there (and I did have a hunch he was a guy-kitty).
I
decided to begin with a conversational approach. We meowed back and
forth. I was trying to
communicate, "I hear you, hear me echo your sentiments, so come
out and let an empathetic stranger help you." He, however,
continued complaining frenziedly about his current situation, and
perhaps wasn't ready to have his life changed for the posh, so our
exchange remained a mere mewing chorus. Perhaps he was well
educated by his mother to never leave the cover of a car for fearsome
strangers. I, on the other hand, had no strangers to fear: all
passersby either heard the kitten and smiled, or didn't hear the
kitten and took a wide detour around the meowing woman peering
beneath a car at 2am. I'm sure I looked rather similar to another woman meandering by later, drawing little crosses with her index finger in the
air, on the sidewalk, and then on a few cars and a garbage truck.
Trying to be the heroine of the cat rescue story is a drug in and of
itself.
My
next brilliant strategy was to procure some food to lure the kitten out to
my snatching arms. Bouncers at a nearby nightclub had been watching
me, so I asked them if I could have a little milk, assuming the
bar would have it on hand to make White Russians and whatnot. Their
mystified looks confirmed that I indeed appeared as crazy as I'd hoped,
but I soon won them over as allies and added security in my
kitten-aid project. They said the bar had no milk, but suggested I go to the neighbouring street-corner, and get meat from John's Chicken instead. I mustered my best Spanish and bought two little strips of
chicken for 25 cents, earning a smile from the server, who did not
know how repugnant and sad the place was to me, a 25-year vegetarian.
(I do feel conflicted at buying certain life for my pet cats at the
cost of certain death at best for many nameless and innocent
herbivores, and know that sticking with even an organic norm simply perpetuates the cycle, but I am at a loss for a more
humane and ethical solution.) I returned with my bait to the car,
dangling it in front of the kitten, but he was too skittish to come
out. I threw him the first strip under the car, to get him hooked. He wolfed it down ravenously. (Ah, but did he raven it down wolfishly?) I showed him the second one, and
placed it dramatically a foot or so from the curb, trying to position
myself unobtrusively within snatching distance. It nearly succeeded.
He came out carefully, and started gnawing it–I reached out and
managed to touch his back, but as soon as he felt my hand he shrank
away with the quickness of instinct, shooting me a look of fear, and
darted back under the car. Dangit. From his reaction, I was sure he
had never been touched by a human before. I tossed him the second
strip, but now he was less hungry, and more wary, and I knew I had
used up the lure-tactic.
A
grown cat loped in our direction alongside the cars parked on the opposite side
of the street. Perhaps it belonged to the colony that lives a few
blocks down, which is fed and managed by a local cat lady. I hoped
this cat was the kitten's mother, coming to get him. Surely she could hear his high-pitched mews? But she continued on along the cars, passing
by us with an air of despondency yet purposefulness, walking slowly
with cocked ears, but never turning her head. I tried mewing in
tandem, for added volume, also to no avail. Life for street cats is
surely not easy, let alone beautiful, especially considering the size
of the local rats; perhaps she had too many worries of her own,
moving along like so many New Yorkers when we stare at the pavement
and sadly pass a homeless beggar. Or perhaps, if indeed she was the
mother (though I doubt it), she heard the cat-lady-like quality of my
voice and wanted him to have the chance at a better life, giving me
permission to try. I don't think that's the right interpretation;
still, I felt again more responsible for the kitten and less guilty
to take him from his home: if his mother was not around to help, and
even another cat wouldn't come look, who but me would be eccentric
enough, and have the wherewithal and perseverance, to help this
kitten at 3am?
 |
| 207 & Post, NW corner |
Soon,
I heard the kitten crying again. I followed the sound to a car on my
side of Post street, but no kitten was visible. I realized that he
must have climbed up inside the car from underneath. This seemed like
the perfect time to use my call-a-friend lifeline, and I knew just
who should be able to help: someone who would be awake after Friday
night ballroom-dancing two time zones further west, and who had
recently aided a sibling in car-inspection and purchase. The
conversation was good moral support for me: it helped keep my spirits
up and persist, and the kitten responded to my calm and continuing
voice too, peeking out from above the front wheel of the SUV. It
didn't matter that the main advice my friend gave me was to stay safe
and go home, since I was nowhere near doing that. (Anyone who has
tried to convince me to desist from trying to solve a problem once I
have my brain and heart wrapped around it, knows the futility of this
advice!) I thought the kitten might be becoming more accustomed to
me, and hoped he would give in eventually, and let me take him.
Post
street presents an odd juxtaposition of Inwood night life. Next to a
swank nightclub is a food pantry: 4-inch heels, cleavage, straightened hair, designer jeans and embroidered leather jackets of those who stay out by choice, walk by sweat
pants and grocery trolleys of those who have no-where else to sleep.
I figured I fit right in, somewhere in the middle. I felt safe, and
my violin and bag turned out to be perfectly safe too on top of the
SUV, where I could keep an eye on them. I tried to reach the kitten on the SUV wheel, but he fled under another car, a pattern that
repeated several times. At one point, he hid under a pile of garbage
from the pantry, scampering into the wooden forklift platform at the
bottom of it. I tried arranging the pile to block his entrance, so I
could catch him at the other end, explaining to the elderly people on
the steps, "Gattito". They watched me solemnly, and one
began rooting through wooden crates in the pile, to see if any of the
ears of corn in them were still good. I felt intense gratitude for my
own food, for knowing that I can afford my next meal, for the
privilege of selecting organic healthy food that I like. My trap
failed, and the kitten escaped back under the cars, again climbing
the front wheel of his favourite SUV. The owner of the SUV soon
emerged from the club, so I explained the situation to him, which he
seemed to think he could easily solve by taking charge, shouting at
the kitten to come out, and banging on the car. I asked him to please
let me handle the situation since I'd already been out for over two
hours and had started getting the kitten more tame. I was quite
pleased by how unsexy the owner seemed to think this proposition was,
and that he felt it was not worth trying to impress me any further
with his kitten-catching skills. In fact, "Willful-cat-lady" seems to
be a good guise for me: all night only one male club-goer, of several
who took an interest in the kitten and me helping the kitten, changed
the subject to, "Do you have a boyfriend?" I decided the
correct answer was "--Yes." "Are you sure?"
"Yes." I moved away, and that, thankfully, ended the conversation.
My
kitten-quest, however, continued for hours. I tracked him back and
forth under the cars on Post, up onto their wheels, to the garbage
pile, back to the cars on 207th. He was becoming more tame, and would
let me approach within a few feet even when sitting on the curb to
dash across the corner, but I just couldn't bridge the remaining gap. He
wanted out of his situation and finally tried climbing the tree,
where at shoulder-height I should have been able to snatch him
easily, but again I only managed to touch his back before he sprang
off to retake cover under the cars. Nearing morning, he was so
exhausted that he actually came out on his own from under his original car on
207th, walked towards me across the sidewalk, mewing
plaintively, and lay down. He was clearly so tired he was trying to trust me, wishing that I could help. Still, the moment I
approached, his fear of humans got the better of him again, and he retreated again.
A
better-safe-than-sorry mentality is probably very rational for street
cats in Inwood; not everything is roses for animals here. Apart from
feeling, not inept, but not quite ept either in the
kitten-catching-department, my most helpless moment of the night was
seeing a delivery truck unloading cargo for the live poultry place
next to the night club on Post. The dozens of chickens crammed into
crates were not unloaded gently, but instead slammed down the few feet
from the truck to the pavement; no-one cared whether they were
comfortable or miserable, presumably reasoning that they would soon
be dead anyway. I could only mourn their fate, knowing I was
powerless there. I was investing hours for one little kitten, but
could do nothing for hundreds of chickens. On a side note, I feel
similarly overwhelmed sometimes when I take great pains to recycle my
trash, then read about the billions of barrels of oil used for
various things each day. Still, to take hope from the sarcastic words
of one of my favourite Onion articles, "How bad can throwing
away just one plastic bottle be, 37 million people wonder?" ...
perhaps 37 million people taking small steps to make their own little
backyards just a bit better places to live, can make a difference
in the big picture too. I do hope so. I would like to be one of them.
I
did want to make a difference in the kitten's life, but I had to give
up, nearing 6am. He had climbed up inside his original car on 207th
street, and after a few last mews fell silent. He must have fallen
asleep. I made a last attempt to get him out, by asking the John's
Chicken employee sweeping the sidewalk if I could borrow his broom to
try to get "gatito" out from under "automovil".
The employee came with me to try, soon joined by a friend of his.
Neither could hear the kitten, and both several times scanned my face as though to ascertain if I were a bit batty, but the friend offered to try to go
under the car, and would I pay him $20 if he got the kitten out? I
said, “Yes! Of course!” He said, what the heck, he really needed
the money, and tried. He couldn't quite fit, and emerged greasy and
without kitten. I said I felt I should give him something for
his effort anyway, but he wouldn't take it; he said he was honest and
had tried to do something good. They left.
So
far, my only tangible accomplishment was to have satisfied my
curiousity sufficiently to be able to develop a theory of how the
kitten came to be mewing under a car at 207th and Post.
Based on his behaviour all night, I think he did not know his current
surroundings outside of the six or seven cars he went back and forth
under, but he did seem very comfortable hiding inside cars, wherefore
I think he lived at a nearby cat colony, or in a super's basement
quarters with outdoor access, and had climbed up into the engine of
another car, for warmth, or out of curiousity, and gotten an
unexpected ride to his current location. It explains his
disorientation and terror, and again affirmed for me that just
letting him try to find his way home probably wouldn't work.
Now that he was sleeping inside the car's engine, however, there was nothing I
could do. The last clubgoers were leaving, one of whom asked me in
passing, "Did you ever get your cat?" I said no, and
wondered at how my fame had spread. I did not want the owner of the
car to start the car with the kitten inside. So I wrote a note in
both English and Spanish, and put it under the windshield wiper, to
say there was a kitten in the car, and to please call me upon his
return, leaving my number.
I
went home. Put down my violin and bag. Changed out of concert clothes
into yoga pants. Ate my leftover hummus and pita. Sort of took my
friend's advice to take care of myself a little. I would have liked to
go to bed.
The
phone rang at 6:33am; the driver had returned. He said he'd seen the
kitten. I exclaimed excitedly, "Thank you so much for calling!!
I'll be there in five minutes! Please wait!"
My
new flatmate, Jillian, had just awoken, and wondered what I was up
to. As I rushed to put on my comfortable five-finger shoes, I
explained, "Kitten-hunting! Want to come?" She did; I
hurried ahead, this time armed with a cat-carrying-crate.
The
driver and a friend had the car's hood open, and were poking around
inside the engine with a twig. They had heard and seen the kitten,
but didn't know where he was now. They were in favour of turning on
the engine, to scare him out. That made me very nervous; I worried he
could get injured. When I was growing up in Canada, the family cats
used to go out in all weather, including -20oC, and sometimes climbed
up inside the car's engine for warmth. One day, my mother tried to
start the car, and the serpentine belt cut through Puddi's tail. She
was lucky to survive, and that it could be amputated cleanly. I had
no wish for repeats today.
From somewhere (perhaps the driver had
a mechanic friend), a jack stand appeared, and we began to raise the
car. Someone handed me a large flattened cardboard box to spare my
clothes, and I slid on it under the car. That's a first for me! And I
wouldn't be surprised if it's a first in terms of white girls sliding under cars
on 207th street too. I peered around everywhere, using a
flashlight, but still no kitten. The serpentine belt was clearly
visible and clearly not grazing a kitten, and the driver assured me
that no other part could do damage, so we decided to start the
engine. No kitten.
Finally,
I thought to go around the corner to Post, where people from the now
much longer pantry line immediately recognized me and pointed to the
garbage pile: "He went there!" (Teamwork is a truly wonderful thing!)
The kitten had escaped from the garbage pile twice in the night, and I
wasn't going to let it happen again. Jillian came with me and with
her fluent Spanish helped me convince someone from the pantry who
wanted to organize the pile, perhaps for the garbage pick-up, to
leave it alone for just five minutes to let me do what I needed to
do. I could see the kitten inside the wooden forklift platform again;
the crawl-space was exactly kitten-sized. First, I sealed off the
front openings by placing wooden vegetable boxes in front of them.
The back was mostly already sealed off from my previous efforts, but
I had to do it a little better still, by moving more boxes. Once I
had fully trapped the kitten in the platform, I looked for an
implement to poke inside and direct him with. Brilliantly, there was
a 4-foot-long cardboard tube already in the heap, just waiting to be
used.
I
moved a box to make a small opening at the front of the platform, and positioned my kitty crate so its opening covered that of the platform. This way, he could enter the crate, but not escape
back into the world. Next, I carefully slid the tube into the
crawl-space along the left wall, until it reached the back, and
gradually moved it towards the right, like a divider, nudging him
forward and towards the right as well. He couldn't climb over the
tube, and so had no choice but to keep moving forward and to the right, towards the opening. Finally, there was one last remaining open space, the crate, and there was nothing for it; he reluctantly had to scurry into it.
Quickly, I shut the crate door. “Got him!!” I must have been
glowing. I held him up for all to see, and the pantry-line cheered.
We
had circle of kitten-viewers and well-wishers around us. People
congratulated us; Jillian translated. A man came forward to say he
knew a local bodega was looking for a cat to help keep the mice in
check. I appreciated the thought but was skeptical: while some stores
certainly treat their cats well, one of my other cats is a former
bodega mouser, and has required years of socialization to even start
purring. A bodega that doesn't know how desperately shelters are
looking for homes for their cats does not strike me as a great place
for a cat. I didn't have to say anything, however, for a middle-aged
woman rebuked the man, "No, she worked all night for this
kitten! She deserves to have him! He's hers!" The crowd agreed,
and the man smiled. Do I agree with her? I don't need a fourth cat,
but, if I weren't at least open to the prospect, would I be writing
this story?
We
took a picture of him with the driver, then took the kitten back to the apartment, the kitten-equivalent-of
kicking-and-screaming the whole way. He was not just unhappy, he was
mad. His mews were fiercely determined to let us know that this was
not at all an ok thing to be happening, and he would fight this
intolerable situation to the end. Jillian was pretty sure he was
yelling, "You bitch! How dare you!!" His volume increased
as we entered the courtyard and climbed the stairs. A resident cat
stared at us from a window.
Now what? We decided to set him up in the bathroom, a nice confined space, easy to clean in case of parasites, and separate from my other New York cat. Taming a kitten is not difficult, but I've never yet been able to do it without shedding a little of my own blood. I reached into the crate, so that he could smell my hand. That was scary for him, but ok; after all, I'd been doing it all night as he danced above the hubcaps! Then, I reached in with both hands, and pulled him out. He yowled angrily and made good on his promise to fight, biting me with all his might in my left index knuckle. I caught the scruff of his neck, like any good mother cat, pulled him back, and placed him on my lap. His sides were heaving from exhaustion and fear, but as I began to pet him, he finally began to calm down. I must have felt much less scary than he'd expected–how would he have known I wouldn't harm him?–but I must still have looked monstrous, for whenever he turned his head to look at me, he stiffened up again. So I kept his head turned in the other direction, and five minutes later, he was utterly comfortable in my lap, and perfectly happy to be petted by me, Jillian, and another flatmate, Dave, too. (Meanwhile I sucked on my knuckle to stop the bleeding and prevent infection; that, along with submerging it in iodine twice for a good half hour each time, let me emerge as good as unscathed.)
Dave
asked whether I would keep him. I said I didn't know, that I knew
people who might be able to take him, and that I'd be travelling in
two days for a week. Both Jillian and Dave immediately and eagerly
volunteered to take care of him in my absence. (Who can resist the
cute kitten?) I was swayed, at least for now. The kitten needed a
name, what should it be? Ten minutes after biting me with all his
might, he was now tame enough that we could ascertain that yes, he was indeed a he. Jillian said the name would have to be Spanish,
in honour of the neighbourhood and all the people involved in the
kitten-catching. Dave suggested the car-themed "Cylindro,"
which I rather liked, especially as the kitten is kind of
cinder-coloured. But somehow, the name "Ernesto" sprang to
my mind, and stuck. He is very earnest indeed! He more than proved it by
persisting with mewing for over four hours. It is very important to be
earnest. Later, we added a middle name: "Karlito." He was, after all, found under a car!
He also proved his new-tameness by tolerating a much-needed bath. With the
street soot removed, his pretty tabby markings became visible. He had
quite the appetite, and figured out the litter box
quickly. He was, however, hosting a bloodthirsty colony of fleas and ear mites, and at 7 or 8
weeks old he was too young for any mainstream pesticides, so I began working on those problems with a flea
comb, more baths, and mineral oil in the ears. Later, I finished off the bugs with diatomaceous earth and obsessive cleaning, and took him to the vet, who gave him a de-worming pill, and confirmed my intuition: thank goodness, no FIV or FeLV! For the first few
days, Ernesto sometimes re-lapsed into fear of human legs and feet, and
would hiss upon our approach, but he liked being picked up, and
played and purred.
A few hours post-taming.
He's
curled up on my stomach as I write this, reclined, a month later.
He's made himself entirely at home. What is it that moves us to help
another creature? Is it a selfish indulgence for my empathy neurons,
to hear him purr and partake in his feeling of comfort and happiness?
Is it true altruism, if that exists? Or are they one and the same
thing, or is it a mix of both? Although I now have added
responsibilities, the relationship feels symbiotic; for one thing, he
gives company to my other New York cat, who after a few days of
growling reluctantly exuded that she likes having him around, and for
another, he actually likes my violin playing (she doesn't). He's
certainly also more fun than youtube kittens. We did watch some
youtube kittens together, also Dancing with the Stars, both of
which seemed to intrigue him greatly. He makes me and my flatmates
smile..jpg)
Now, I usually exit the subway at 215 street, and if I exit at 207, I hurry past Post. As much as I've bonded with little Ernesto, and am happy to have helped him win the lottery, and wish that all creatures human and otherwise could win the lottery, I don't need another kitten. Does it make me less cat-lady-like if I'm a little afraid word might get out? Is there indeed a word in kitty-speak for “cat-lady”?
Ernesto Karlito surveys the world.
