My Best Friends Have Hairy Legs (6 page)

Growing up I always wanted a house full of children. I gave up that dream when he told me that if we ever had children and I wanted to leave him, he would kill me before he would give up or share custody. What an effective form of birth control that was!

When I finally left him, I slept with a loaded gun under my pillow for almost a year, even after I left the state and moved hundreds of miles away. I had nightmares for months that he would come for me.

I often wrote poetry during those years we were married, hiding it away where he wouldn’t find it, but needing some outlet for my feelings and fears. Recently I found one of my old notebooks and poems that reminded me of how far that “bottom” was before I hit it.

* * *

Thoughts of death came my way

Once again yesterday.

How much easier your life would be

If only it weren’t for me.

I prayed to be released from God’s plan.

But no answer; there is so much I don’t understand.

I fight those thoughts with hopes and dreams,

Decorating schemes, favorite things.

But once in a while it creeps back into my day.

How much easier your life would be,

If only it weren’t for me. (~1997)

* * *

My pen becomes a window to my soul.

Throwing back the shutters that confine me.

The words that escape express what my voice cannot. Hope.

Fear.

Love.

Anger.

They beat against the shutters, hoping to escape forever.

My pen becomes a window to my soul. (~1995)

* * *

Inside, I am a strong, self-assured woman.

Outside, I am a passive, insecure girl.

I wish I could turn myself inside out. (~1995)

* * *

I pray for death, it does not come.

Perhaps I still have deeds undone.

I wish I knew just what they were;

For then life’s purpose would be known for sure.

I feel so lost and alone at times,

All I can do is make up rhymes. (~1995)

* * *

Chynna died on Mother’s Day the year that I finally got the courage to leave him, two weeks after she had a small stroke. I was out of town on a business trip in Texas. Will had also been working out of town in Palm Springs. My father-in-law and grandfather-in-law had been living with us for two years by then, and when Dad called Will and told him how quickly Chynna had gone downhill after we both left, he immediately turned around and went home. I didn’t have that option, and so when he called to tell me that she had died in his arms as he walked in the door of the vet’s office I was inconsolable. I was half way across the country and couldn’t leave my class for another week. She had waited for one of us to come home, and it broke my heart that it wasn’t me who had been there for her.

When I left Will a month later, I also had to leave Crystal behind and it almost destroyed me. Seeing her little face looking at me through the fence as I drove away, knowing that she was grieving for Chynna as much as I was, and then not understanding where her “other mom” was going without her. But my apartment would only allow me to bring the cats, no dogs at all. It was years before I was able to forgive myself for leaving her. She died four and a half years after I left when she was twelve. Apparently she had put on so much weight that one of her bronchial tubes tore, and she suffered for about two weeks struggling to breathe before they took her to the vet and had her put down. I didn’t find out until a year later and it broke my heart all over again that I hadn’t been there for her when she needed me.

C
HAPTER
5

The Current Clan

All of the pets I had ever had in the past had been happy and well adjusted, never fearful like Trooper had become. Even the cats were friendly and outgoing—contrary to most people’s perceptions of cats being aloof and independent. That made Trooper’s sudden personality change even more baffling.

Cali (a calico, and also short for California) and her brother, Mandy (short for Mandarin Orange) had come with me when I divorced and moved back to Florida. I had picked them both from a litter of kittens the week after they were born, and so had known both of them since before their eyes even opened. She had always been a bit of a reclusive cat—taking her time to meet and greet when new people came into the house, but both she and Mandy had adored Tink from the moment they met her—something that surprised Tink. I can still remember the “deer in the headlights” look Tink had on her face when both cats—cats she had never seen or met before—rubbed up against her and started giving her kisses. I like to believe that it was because Tink reminded them of Crystal and they saw in her a kindred spirit. In spite of her being elusive when there were a lot of people in the house, Cali was a sweet, affectionate, and gentle cat. She stayed mostly in my bedroom and on the upstairs deck in her favorite place to sun, but would always come to greet me when I got home from work. She loved to sleep with me or snuggle on my lap when we watched TV. Often when I was stretched out in the recliner, I would have Tink on one side of me, Mandy on the other side with his head on Tink’s stomach, Cali on the back headrest. Later we would add Ebony on the extended foot rest. It was quite the balancing act to keep us from tipping when Ebony would jump onto the foot rest, or when I needed to get up. When Oreo joined us, he traded places with Cali, and she and Mandy both would curl up on my lap with Tink. They were all like a blanket of love. Unfortunately, her elusive personality hid an illness from me until it was too late. When I started dating Marc, she had started to hide more often. Perhaps she was as intuitive as Jazzmin had been about a person’s character. I would see her eating occasionally, or out on the deck, and would feel her walking across the bed at night, but seldom saw her downstairs anymore. One day I saw her sunning on the deck and went to pick her up and give her a hug. She had always been a small cat, but when I picked her up that morning she was practically skin and bones. I took her immediately to the vet’s office. She had lost almost all of her body weight and muscle tone. There was nothing obviously apparent, but he said that her breath smelled like her kidneys were failing. He could do a lot of tests that would be very painful on her gaunt body to determine what was wrong, but for a five year old cat to be that emaciated, there most likely was not going to be a cure for her. I gave her kisses, said my goodbyes, and let him end her pain and suffering. Looking back, I think that she knew she was dying and chose that day to stay out where I would be sure to see her so that I could ease the pain for her.

Mandy, was—and is—healthy and happy. He is an orange striped, stumpy tail Manx, just like his mother, and just like a half sister a few litters before him. Mandy is the most laid back cat I’ve ever had. If I were to give him a human “personality” I would have to say he would be a California surfer dude. When I am bent over a cabinet or gardening project too long, he will jump onto my back and then lie down like he is on a surfboard. His front paws will wrap around my waist like he is giving me an upside down hug… or getting ready to paddle in on a wave. He is the most talkative of the three cats and whenever I return from a trip away, he will talk non-stop until he is almost hoarse. I’m not sure if I’m catching hell for being gone, or if he is filling me in on all the trouble the other cats got into! He loves to be cradled like a baby, rolling his head back to look at the world upside down. I can just imagine him with a Jeff Spicoli grin saying “All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I’m fine.” (O.k.—I’m dating myself with a quote from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High!”)

Ebony, my long-hair black cat, was tossed from a car when she was five weeks old and came to me by way of the office secretary where I worked. She is the most social and demanding of my cats. Trying to close her in another room when I have parties proves to be a waste of time because she rabbit-kicks the door so hard she can pop the latch and join in the fun. She will mingle among the guests, demanding adoration and praise from everyone and when she doesn’t get enough satisfactory attention, she will not hesitate to head-butt the offending person or nip their fingers until they continue petting her. Fear is not a word in her vocabulary. One afternoon I was talking to neighbors who were with their bulldog, Pelé. He was about six months old and already almost 20 lbs heavier than Ebony. Apparently, Pelé was standing too close to me because Ebony charged out of the garage to protect me and chased a screaming Pelé down the driveway. It was months before Pelé would walk near my townhouse without cautiously looking for that crazy black torpedo! We still laugh about it!

Oreo was found in a parking lot when he was just a few days old. He still had a little bit of umbilical cord on him. The girl who found him didn’t have any idea what to do with him, and so he came to me. His name came from the coloring on his head. Black on his eyes and ears with a white stripe 5 down from his forehead to his nose and a white mouth—a typical Tuxedo cat. I would take him to work stuffed into a sock to keep him warm, then put him on a heating pad in a desk drawer so I could feed him every few hours. I slept at night with him held against me—spooning—and he still occasionally loves to sleep with me that way. I’m sure his mother was feral since he still has a bit of a wild streak in him. That boy can cuss worse than anything I’ve ever heard when he has to do something he doesn’t want to—like getting his claws trimmed. He loves to “help” make the bed by tunneling under the blanket and then making vicious wild cat growls and hisses when I try to move the blanket around him. He really is frightening sounding and if you didn’t know that he was really a mama’s boy, you’d think he was rabid and going to rip your eyes out. Oreo is the hunter of all three cats—finding squirrels, birds, snakes and lizards in the house is not uncommon during the summer months—and not always dead either!

I have to throw Ripkin in here at this point even though he isn’t really my dog, but my neighbor, John’s. Ripkin was a rescue dog; John got him in Texas as a 40+ pound, approximately two years old adult dog, so his history is unknown. He is a yellow lab mix, and somewhere in his DNA is a little Chow that shows as black spots on his tongue. As soon as Trooper and Ripkin met, they were best buds. Ripkin can stand completely under Trooper, and Tink could (and often would) stand under Ripkin, so they looked like one of those stackable children’s puzzles. Since John is active duty military, Ripkin often camps at my house when he is on temporary duty away from home. He now also comes over during the day occasionally for our own “doggy day care” at my house. As a result, Ripkin has learned to tolerate and appreciate my cats—all of whom accepted him with their usual attitude of “Oh great. Another dog. Whatever.” He did make a few attempts to chase one of them up the stairs before he got the sharp end of Ebony’s paw when he tried to chase her. Ripkin has one of those happy, go-lucky personalities. No one is a stranger to him, and he loves to meet, greet and frisk you for treats. Whatever his history was, at some point we think he must have been starved for food. He will quickly inhale any food, treat, or potentially edible substance before he even knows what it was. Most of the time without even chewing, and will always look for more as if he has an insatiable hunger. Both Ripkin and Trooper recognize each other’s names and know where the other lives—if Trooper and I are returning from a walk and he is off leash, I can ask him if he wants to see Ripkin and he will make a beeline for his front door. Ripkin will do the same. They are, for the most part, inseparable pals who are always excited to see each other and spend time playing or just lying on the floor napping. I can tell, however, after a week into one of Ripkin’s extended stays that their relationship is almost like a big brother (Trooper) with an annoying little brother (Ripkin) in spite of the fact that Trooper is the younger of the two. Ripkin can have a pushy “me first” attitude about everything from eating to getting out the door first for a walk, or getting upstairs to bed or to who gets to ride shotgun on the way to day care. On a recent two week stay, when I did our usual “last one upstairs is a rotten egg” call before going up for bed, Ripkin made a good attempt at getting up first, but Trooper body slammed him into the wall at the bottom of the stairs and beat him. Yep, typical “siblings.”