The Rantin’ Raven: The Second-Meanest Cat

[Author’s Note:  Today’s post has nothing to do with issues or controversies, no reminiscences of Wicca back in the day. But [1] the planned book for which I wrote it is never going to happen, [2] I never met a Pagan who didn’t love animals, and [3] it’s an amazing true story. Hope you enjoy it.]

Anyone who says that animals don’t communicate — that they can’t form and carry out complex schemes — never met the second-meanest cat in Pomona.

I was living in an old farmhouse that’d been absorbed by city and turned into apartments. I had half of the ground floor; my tiny living room had once been the sun porch and so one whole wall was windows. If my living quarters were cramped and shabby, outdoors was another matter. Rambler roses climbed the fence in profusion and, left over from its life as a farm, the yard still contained an assortment of fruit trees: plum, apricot, and an enormous persimmon. Across the driveway, the house next door had avocados, an old grapefruit tree that still produced a few fruit, and the biggest grapevine I ever saw. Impoverished hippies though we all were, we ate well.

Next door is where the Second Meanest Cat lived. She probably weighed in at six pounds, tops, one of those demure-looking little tabby cats. Why her humans kept her I’ll never know, as not even they could pet her. And it wasn’t that she just wanted to be left alone; she went looking for trouble. When I first moved in, she tried to attack one of my cats, Figaro III, through the screen door. One day I came home from work to discover my 19-pound Maine Coon cat, Frenchie, cowering in a corner of the porch with his shoulders covered in bleeding scratches. Evidently he’d tried to make friends.

But even the Second Meanest Cat loved somebody. Her owners also had a huge, long-legged, black and tan coon hound who was as friendly as she was antisocial. The two were practically inseparable. They napped together under the avocado tree, the tiny cat lying between the dog’s huge callused paws or against his belly. They walked the neighborhood together and wandered the half-block of open field behind the two houses, farm property that had not yet been built upon, the coon hound shortening his trot so the little cat could keep pace. Their owners said the two animals even shared their food.

An old rickety shed on the edge of the field was the lair of the Meanest Cat, a feral tom that had probably never been tame. Far gone in life and in that sense of degradation unloved cats get, he looked like he hadn’t even tried to groom himself in years. His long hair, black and white pied, was matted and filthy, one of his eyes had a rheumy crust around it, and his ears – what was left of them –were crumpled and full of holes. And his mission in life, apparently, was to beat up the Second Meanest Cat.

Fast? You never saw fast until you saw Second run by with Meanest at her heels. Usually she’d scoot into the house or up the avocado tree where, for some reason, Meanest never followed. Sometimes the coon hound would chase the old tom off. But it happened several times a week. It had to have been a miserable life.

The driveway that separated our two houses led to a paved parking area shared by the tenants of both. The pride of the Second Meanest Cat’s owners was a red 1959 El Camino, one of those long, low pickup trucks designed to make pickup trucks less “truckish” looking. Actually, they were among the few tenants of the two houses who could even afford a car, so it often had the parking lot all to itself. This one particular Sunday morning the only other was at the far end of the lot.

I had made myself a nicer-than-usual breakfast and was just sitting down to it at my antique tea table (the only good piece of furniture I owned) and looking out the windows at the beautiful day. Movement across the driveway caught my eye, and I saw the Second Meanest Cat and the coon hound come walking — no, marching — out from under the grape arbor and onto the parking lot. There was such a purposeful air about them, such an impression almost of squared shoulders, that I stopped eating to watch.

The two friends, in perfect step, marched across the hot pavement and stopped at the El Camino. The dog jumped into the truck bed, turned around to face the tailgate, and lay down. The cat moved to the precise center of the area just behind the truck, sat, curled her tail around her legs, and blinked.

And for several minutes that was all.

I was just going back to my cooling omelet when the Meanest Cat emerged from the tall grass of the field. He started across the parking lot in the general direction of my yard, saw the Second Meanest Cat, and immediately veered towards her. Oh, boy, I thought.

The Second Meanest Cat saw the old tom cat begin to walk towards her, with maybe 10 yards of ground still between them. I expected to see her take off running. But no.

Instead, she gave him a haughty, dismissive look over her shoulder and turned her head back away, looking straight ahead.

The Meanest Cat broke into a trot.

The Second Meanest Cat glanced sideways at him and again looked away. The Meanest Cat picked up the pace.

Just as the Meanest Cat reached her, the Second Meanest made a neat sidestep. And up from the bed of the truck, with a mighty “Woof!” the coon hound surged over the tailgate to land squarely on the Meanest Cat with all four paws. That old tom took off running like the very devil was after him, and was never seen again.

Second Meanest and her partner walked casually home.

Animal behaviorists are only now, 40 years later, beginning to understand how much more intelligent and creative animals are than we humans give them credit for. The ambush of the Meanest Cat was a complex operation requiring careful planning and precise execution: how did two animals, not even the same species, communicate something many humans would not have been capable of?

I only know that since that sunny Sunday morning I’ve never looked at animals the same.

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