"Her Crimes Against The Household Were Many..."

This is the fifth installment in a series of short essays inspired by the 22 Trump cards, featuring original artwork by Greg Erskine (Click and scroll down for large version).


When my partner and I moved in together several years ago, he decided to adopt a kitten. I already had one cat, a tender creature named Dura who'd spent every moment of her post-adoption existence trying to overcome the species/language barrier and communicate her sincere thanks. To this day I still catch her giving me sweet, glassy-eyed Nancy Reagan stares of limitless adoration from across the room, purring little contented purrs to herself even though no one has touched her recently. That kind of thing can really get to a pet owner, so I agreed with Tex that it would be good for her to have a kitten to play mother to. Let those limpid green eyes fixate on something else for a change, I thought. So after a few disappointing trips to various shelters, one day Tex came home with a big cardboard cat-carrier. “Look, Dura!" I announced as he reverently opened the lid, "You have a baby now!”

But the creature that thundered out of the box was no baby. It was entirely full-grown. Though it had the same plain brown tabby markings as Dura, their resemblence ended there -- it stood an inch higher and wider at the shoulder, and where one cat had wide, pale bodhisattva eyes, the other's were like two lit cigarette ends burning through a fur coat. It was like seeing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde meet face to face. The new "baby" lashed its tail furiously and regarded us all with equal malevolence. Dura looked positively stricken; whatever illusions she’d had of our home as a post-shelter utopia were dashed upon the arrival of Ajax.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Tex glowed. Oblivious to the horror mounting in the room, he told the story of her homecoming. While touring cages at the shelter, he walked past what seemed to be an empty kennel when suddenly an animal sprang out of its shadowy recesses and hung onto the wire door with its claws like a vampire bat, panting and gnashing at the mesh with its teeth. One look at this slobbering beast and Tex knew she was the only one for him (a plot-point which makes me look back at our first date with some suspicion). The adoption attendant scrupulously tried to talk him out of making a huge mistake -- apparently this cat had already been returned by another family because “she played too rough.” But love is irrational, and Tex could not be swayed. According to the nametag affixed to the kennel, this cat's prison-name was “SPARKLES". On the way home, he re-named her after the Greek warlord who was driven insane by Athena and, mistaking them for enemy soldiers, hacked up a herd of cattle with his sword.

I’m no elitist when it comes to sheltering animals. Even the most cosmetically unappealing or ill-tempered creature deserves care, because let’s face it -- we’re all just one unfortunate accident away from relying on others to change our absorbent undergarments, and I’d like to think there are people out there who will do this for me even if I struggle and swat at them. But as months went by with no sign that Ajax had any interest in joining our family, I began to doubt that I’d ever overcome my disappointment in Tex’s decision.

Her crimes against the household were many. She was obsessed with knocking over vases, glasses and other delicate objects. After learning how to open desk drawers, she mutilated and fouled important papers and photographs. She ate more than her share of the food -- the moment dinner was served, she'd hunch directly over the bowl, firing her head into it like a piston, shoveling down so much, so fast that she usually wound up sicking it all up again minutes later. At night, she uncannily seemed to know just when I was on the verge of falling asleep, because that’s when she’d curl up in the next room with a plastic shopping bag and start chewing it patiently --testing, I was sure, to see exactly how many long minutes of wet crinkling noises I could withstand before I'd careen out of the bedroom like buzz-cut Britney, screeching blasphemous oaths and swiping at her with both arms and both legs.

Actions can be forgiven, but Ajax's entire character was overshadowed with an essential… unwholesomeness. Whenever I tried to scoot her away from something she had no business touching, she’d yowl complaints and dig in with her stumpy little legs, resisting with all her weight like a rebellious toddler. When scolded or disciplined, she'd recover her self-esteem by making a beeline straight for Dura, intent on beating the stuffing out of her. When petted, Ajax would seethe and ripple the skin on her back in apparent disgust (the feeling was mutual, I immediately felt a strong desire to wash my hands after touching her). She hissed and spat constantly, over everything, over nothing. She was full of comment in the form of low moans and hoarse screams, but never anything resembling a normal, happy cat noise. Even in her rare moments of apparent neutrality, that look of burning, Ahmadinejad-ian contempt never completely left her eyes, and her black lips curled in a perpetual sneer.

As months turned into years, we all altered our patterns and habits to accommodate the shift in household politics. Except for Ajax of course, whom continued to sulk and plot like an exiled monarch. Her unpleasantness wore at my domestic happiness the way air pollution eats the faces off of statues. It was even worse for Dura, who never really bounced back from her descent in rank. One day she was a proud shareholder in an egalitarian interspecies alliance, and the next she was a scuttling, Epsilon-grade refugee, relegated to shooting me quick, pieta-like looks of sympathy from her world beneath the furniture. At times like these I'd started doing all kinds of math in my head to figure out how soon Ajax might be likely to die of natural causes. But then I’d wind up crossing paths with one of those tiny old rich ladies on the Upper East Side, and I'd remember the powers of longevity that evil confers.

And still, somehow, Tex’s adoration of her persisted. What scant good could be said of Ajax on the day when we finally prepare her funereal barge for the East River, no one will be able to say that she had never been loved. Perhaps she realized that this one man was all that stood between herself and a shallow grave, because after a couple of years (during which I imagine she considered us all under probation), Ajax began to show signs of loving him back. Just him. Sometimes, for example, she'd pay affectionate morning visits, bathing his entire hand with her scabrous tongue as he lay half-asleep in bed.

But then she started licking the end of her own tail down to a raw, pointy nub as well. And having wild bug-eyed fits in which she seemed to be trying to pull the damned thing right off. That was when we began to suspect there was more to her temperament than just pure wildness and meanness. In our search for answers, we eventually discovered that Ajax had literally every symptom of Feline Hyperesthesia, a neurological sensitivity that could potentially explain everything from her aggression and strange vocalizations to the muddy, Godzilla-esque look in her eyes. One website even dared to suggest that some of the medieval myths about cats could be attributed to fits of hyperesthesia. Cats seen wigging out over nothing -- in some cases even having seizures or reacting to hallucinations -- were naturally assumed to be in cahoots with the Devil, just like their human counterparts.

As eager as I would have once been to treat her affliction with the seven daggers of Megiddo, everything I read indicated that her symptoms were likely to fade as a result of a stable and healthy home life and plenty of exercise. As with any mental patient, the amount of stress and boredom she endured could play a major role in her recovery. Her tail-slaughtering, for example, coincided with a move into a new apartment; dealing with the situation humanely would put us in the position of becoming ever more attentive and servile, lest she pull herself apart before our eyes.

However unlikely it sounds, finding out that your cat has iffy brain-circuitry can actually be a huge relief; it certainly deepened my appreciation of Ajax and her small, problematic life. What might have happened to Ajax if Tex hadn't loved her at first sight? Would any other family have tolerated her tyrannies and megrims long enough to uncover the source of her issues? Considering everything she had working against her, it's amazing she wound up in a cage labeled "SPARKLES" instead of one marked "EUTHANASIA".

Now that I actually knew what the matter was, I had so much power to make things better for her -- which ultimately made things better for all of us. I thought regretfully of the many times when my indifference or intolerance must have contributed to her condition, and I found myself facing one of the primary miseries of pet ownership: there is no way to apologize meaningfully to an animal. You can pet them, you can give them treats, you can look them in the eye and say, "I'm deeply sorry that I threw that copy of GQ at you after I discovered you licking all the ink off its front cover," or, "I regret squirting contact-lens solution at you from across the room when you began pulling down the curtains at 5 AM, instead of getting up to see what was the matter. I was not at my best." But you can't make them understand, you only ever have the present tense to offer them.

The two of us shared a milestone recently. After nearly five years as wary bunkmates, one day Ajax nonchalantly hopped up into my lap while I was writing an email. I froze in my chair, partly out of pure amygdaloid shock and partly to avoid startling her away. She squatted there hesitantly, nuzzling my inner elbow with her cold nose for about 20 seconds before hopping down again, nonchalant, as if this sort of exchange happened all the time. It's our daily ritual now, the one small thing that is just ours. Also, I've occasionally had the treat of seeing Dura find the nerve to walk up and pop her in the nose for no discernible reason. Ajax endures these small defeats with aplomb -- her tail may lash peevishly, but all its hair remains thankfully where it ought to be. I think it’s fair to say that she learned her place not long after I learned mine. Happy as I am to serve, I'm also quite pleased on the occasional mornings when I wake to find that it's my hand receiving the tongue-bath.

Previously On Arcanalogue: The Emperor