Yesterday, our cat, Misto, died. This morning I took him out in the backyard to bury him under our willow tree. Even though Mother didn't' believe in having pets, there were 11 cats, 2 dogs, a rabbit, and a sparrow buried under the tree. And except for a couple sticks put together to form a cross, there was no sign of the creatures resting under the earth.
As I laid Misto next to his soon-to-be grave, I notice little bits of
static
electricity jumping off him every time I stroked his fur. I saw fleas
jumping
off that had once shared his warm body and now were fleeing to a new
home.
Misto was a cat I loved, because I grew up with him. We all loved him,
except
for those tiny things. One thing was he always scratched up the
furniture and
sometimes hid small things like a spoon or a fork, outside or in his
little
area. Another thing we hated was his tendency to get fleas all the time.
I'm
not sure we really hated them. Get annoyed; yes, but I knew the fleas
had
once saved him.
Long ago, almost forever it seems, my older brother George had a tendency to go and play basketball with his friends before and after school. He came home form school one day with a bulge in his backpack, and it of course was not homework.
"Mom! Look what I found on the court! The poor bugger was sniffing around for food," he said to Mother. He opened his bag and there peeked out the smallest kitten you ever saw. Us younger ones were charmed and hooked already.
"What do you mean by bringing an animal home?" Mother scolded. "We can't keep a cat around, we're busy all the time. Go take it back, now."
"But he's starving," my brother argued. "Let's give him some milk. He's so scrawny."
Mother could clearly see the ribs that jointed out and relented some. The kitten was given some milk and a bit of meat we had and then the cat, soon to become family, presented his case. He, we figured it was a he anyway, would scamper around the kitchen on his short legs, look at us with those huge blue eyes, stumble and wave his little tail to regain his balance.
The kids of the family were won over, and Dad didn't' really care either way, but Mother had all the power. And Mother being a neat freak almost instantly knew that this kitten was flea ridden. She wanted to get rid of the fleas instantly, though we wondered that if we were going to let it go again why bother combing it, but we kept our traps shut.
Mother was in charge of giving the bugger his flea bath. Even with the rets of us helping, we could barely get the tiny thing into the bathtub. And he put up a fight up ever centimeter the way. Yowling and hissing and clawing against the tub edge, he seemed to be screaming like a soul begin dragged into hell than a cat just getting a bath. We got him out quickly enough and he shivered on the bathroom counter while Mother dried him.
"The fleas are just.. yuck!," she said. "Jake get me the comb on my dresser, I'll more on these fleas."
It was then when Jake came back, he asked, "What are we going to name him?"
"How about Fluffy? Or Bubbles?" I chimed in.
Mother seemed to hiss or growl. "We're not naming him anything. We'll keep him for tonight then George can take him back."
Not that we cared. Shouting and screaming we came up with a slew of names. But Mother whispered to the kitten. "You are such a Devil."
"What about that song of the radio?" I asked. "Mister Mist-full-of-fleas?"
"No, it's Mr. Mistoffelees." Mother petted the kitten. "Yes, that'll be his name, it means Little Devil anyway." She coughed. "I mean that is if we are going to keep him." Mistoffelees had become one of us.
And it wasn't' until later I realized that that was the same day a show named "Cats" had opened on our very own Broadway.
"I swear, he looks like Mr. Smith's ol' cat down the street. Bustopher. Could be related," Jake commented the next morning. He was right.
Our Mistoffelees, Misto for short, had the basic black coat with white boots, chest, and face. He had these large blue eyes, that I had mentioned, that were more the color black because his pupils took in everything they could see and had to be large to do so.
He also lived up to his name Little Devil. He constantly started to knock over thing when he jumped form someone's lap onto the table. Or when he jumped on a passing leg and bit. This happened to Dad a number of times and both of our parents threaten to throw our cat out. Not that they ever came close doing so with those big blue eyes smiling up at them.
Once those baby blues came close to extinction.
Really it starts out about our neighbor cats. Across the street, behind the white picket fence, there was a big tom cat. Mother always called him the "lady stud" because even to good humans, this tom was good looking and he must have been to females because there were lots of kittens around that yard.
But anyway, this cat was named Rum Tum Tugger, which I always thought it a silly name. He attacked other tom cats, probably because he was too selfish to share any those young females. Any time Misto had followed us down the street anywhere near that house, Tugger would leap over and start hissing and growling up a storm at Misto. Our tuxedo cat, being a shrimp of a cat, usually scampered behind our legs, except for one time when he stood his ground and took a very serious beating. I tried to stop this but I ended up with a bloody hand and Tugger still would not back up. The fight didn't stop until Tugger went back to his adoring female crowd.
I saw my Misto laying on the ground. He was bleeding a lot! And he had bad cuts around his face, and very close to his eyes. Near tears I took him in my arms and ran across the street and showed him to Mother.
Before Mother became a mom and a housewife (which we never really believed had ever been), she had been a nurse and therefor was a doctor to us and our pets.
"Looks bad, honey," Mother murmured as she cleaned the cuts.
"Misto's gonna die, isn't' he?" I cried. Mother didn't say anything, which made me feel worse.
The next day, Mistoffelees could barely move, or even open his pretty eyes. His cute grinning face had fallen into a solemn frown. But after a couple days of petting, resting, being fed, he could sorta limp around the kitchen again, which made me very happy.
Around the time of that accident, we had gotten a few other cats. A very tiny, tiny calico which we named Sillabub became Jake's kitten, a big black and white tabby named Munku became George's, along with a number of others, like Manhattan, Plato, and James. But I do remember Victoria.
Victoria was my little sister's, Philly, cat. Vic was an all white cat and was deaf because she had two blue eyes. I never liked Victoria all that well because she always pranced around and always seemed to find it essential to shed her silky white fur all over my black blankets and my blue jeans. And I also didn't like because she made Mistoffelees hate me for a whole week.
It happened when I was just 10 years old. Victoria had kittens one day, which no one was really happy about except Victoria and Philly. Through conversations between Mother and Dad, I heard Misto was the father of these kittens. They had to take both our male cats in and have them "fixed". Being ten, I wasn't in the know, if you know what I mean. I had thought that mother cats found their litters, but somehow that fateful trip to the vet was caused because Misto helped Victoria locate those kittens.
The tuxedo cat sat in his corner for a week and growled at anyone who came near after that Vet visit.
Of course, Misto in due time forgave everyone and life went on. I took him out on our walks when he wanted. One summer eve, years later, we were walking. Well I was walking. He'd run around, up ahead, lie down, soak up the heat from the sidewalk, come back to make sure I was there and then repeated this.
But one evening, he ran far, far ahead and he didn't' come back for awhile. I got worried. Manhattan, one of our adopted strays, had been hit by a car not long ago. I jogged quickly, and whistled for my cat to come back, hoping he'd jump out o the bushes in a game of pounce. But he didn't.
I was panicking, until I remember the junkyard. A lot of stray cats and dogs hung out there. He'd probably run off there. It took almost half an hour to get there but when I did, I was amazed. I started sneaking around some cars because I felt I should be quiet, like at a hospital.
The moon suddenly peeked out from behind a cloud. White beams glowed on me. I felt so small, so insignificant. No, I was small, and everything was big, but I felt more... like concentrated power.
"Electra," whispered a soft tenor voice. "Come dance with us."
I whirled around and did a double blink. It was Mistoffelees but… not. For one thing he was bigger, no I was smaller, or was it both? "Come Electra, come play," he almost pleaded.
I looked down at my hands. No, paws. Delicate, and furry. I was completely furry. In my mind, I sighed about, knowing that this was a dream that I was a kitty cat.
I followed Mistoffelees deeper into the Junkyard. The Moon was beautiful now, full of life, and power. It reflected a rainbow of colors in the deep heart of this feline junkyard. There were dozens of other cats. It was a complete society. They had a party, or a dance or a ball, or whatever you call it.
Never having a dancing lesson in my life I knew every move and all that concentrated power in my muscles made the whole thing effortless. This cat society, Jellicles they called themselves, I saw cats I knew. The hip swinging Rum Tum Tugger, Misto's probable Uncle Bustopher Jones, Victoria, Plato, Munkustrap, and some others. I swear I even saw my brother George in a cat form but I'm not sure. Everyone sang and danced and told stories about one and other. This was so much fun, everyone seemed to say. Everyone except one. It was a gray female, who had been weathered and battered over years it looked. She seemed to almost make you cry by standing there. Grizabella was her name. I tried to touch her, just to make her happy for a tiny bit, but I was shoved away. Everyone avoided her for unclear reasons. She did leave and the festivities continued.
The rest of the evening was a blur of fun. I remember my Mistoffelees dancing. He was like the most skilled human acrobat and then some. Sometimes when he raised on his hind legs, sparks flew form his paws. And he had a big rainbow ribbon which he charmed the rets of the kittens.
Grizabella came back. She sang. I could elaborate but I would ruin such a sweet sorrowful song and I couldn't do that to that faded beauty. But her song made her accepted. I don't' remember what happened next, except there was a lot of light and sound and all that power and life and magic.
The next thing, I woke up in bed. "That was a crazy dream," I said to
myself.
Glancing at my alarm clock, I slept in pretty late. I felt Mistoffelees
curled up by my leg, purring very loudly. "Maybe it wasn't a dream…" I
asked
myself, since I noticed a rainbow ribbons between those white paws.
Years flew by and I got to pay attention to Mistoffelees less and less, because my family and I were growing up. Mother died when I was 19, so I stayed home to help raise my little sister, Philly. Mistoffelees was heavily affect by my Mother's death. I think it was because Mother was the one who first accepted Misto at such a big effect.
But the tuxedo kitten with the big blue eyes had aged and now was an elder tomcat with sparkling skies in his sockets. He never seemed to get old until I was 23. I still helped around the house though I was usually gone off to work, so I didn't really notice it. He slept a lot more, and seemed sad. An idea struck my sister, Philly that it was because the Broadway show "Cats" was closing.
"Yeah right. He doesn't even know the show exists," I snapped. I was very uncertain though.
Thanks to my big job and very little time off I was "handsomely" rewarded with a ticket to see the last show of "Cats". I went and saw it. I enjoyed it during the time, and felt young again.
When I walked outside back to my car, I felt tears in my eyes. I remembered that dream way, way back when I was still young. I drove to my old house.
When I walked in, I asked, "Where's Mr. Mistoffelees?" No one knew. I searched around for awhile and found him sleeping on the warm washer and dyer.
But he wasn't sleeping. He had slipped away in his sleep.
Then this morning, I buried him. I felt very sad, but I didn't cry. I would have cried if he had had his baby blue eyes still open to look at me. I thought about making a stick cross for a grave but I didn't' bother. Mistoffelees was a very aloof cat. I thought it best for him to still stay that way, no matter where he is.
