that <\/em>bouquet for good. <\/p>\nNo, what fills my nose whenever I walk through the door is a kind of musk, earthy and pungent, subtle but pervasive. In some odd way it\u2019s come to embody the idea of home, which should tip you off that I don\u2019t entertain much. Still, every so often, maybe after I\u2019ve spent a few hours visiting my friend Rick\u2019s suburban Versailles, this faint Rusty-residue makes me shudder enough to wonder whether there might be any way of concealing or expunging it. Yesterday evening, I raised the question on Facebook. Directly came the answer: chop \u2019em.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at this,\u201d I replied, \u201cas a case of Do Unto Others.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, it\u2019s not,\u201d insisted my literal-minded friend. \u201cIt will take him out of the realm of potential threat to others, and will curb his agression, which is what gets most free-ranging toms in trouble. It will increase his longevity and generally make his life much more pleasant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut Rusty\u2019s never been that aggro,\u201d I protested, and told the story of how he\u2019d once been a bully\u2019s favorite target, but how regular feeding at my hands had built him up to the point where he could stand his ground. I still remember watching through my door as he eyed the perch under the outside staircase where his rival used to lie in wait. He\u2019d filled out enough that his haunches looked as powerful as a little sphinx\u2019s. \u201cJump, Rusty,\u201d I cried. \u201cYou can do it!\u201d And he did. And I almost wept with pride. <\/p>\n
Unimpressed, my friend wrote back: \u201cThe bigger cat bullies him because he is a threat. I\u2019ve owned cats forever and altered toms are much much nicer and much much happier. They don\u2019t miss their testicles.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remarked this sounded an awful lot to me like letting the terrorists win. \u201cWhy dont I make like Canon Fulbert, kidnap the big cat, and cut HIS nuts off?\u201d \u201cSilly Max,\u201d she said, \u201canthropomorphizing Rusty.\u201d \u201cOf course,\u201d I told her. \u201cI always anthropomorphize the people I love.\u201d <\/p>\n
I think all animal lovers do this to one degree or another. The habit can be more nauseating or less so, depending on which human qualities they project onto their pets, and what type of relationship they construct based on those projections. I may be an interested party, but I maintain that I see Rusty and his relationship to me in pretty wholesome terms. He\u2019s the young David Copperfield, a distressed gentleman whose natural grace complements a plucky, independent spirit. I\u2019m Mr. Micawber, the good-hearted fuckup who treats him respectfully when his fortunes are ebbing. Somehow I doubt our relationship will evolve quite the way Dickens\u2019 characters\u2019 did; there\u2019ll be fat chance of my ever borrowing any money from Rusty\u2019s friends. Still, the paradigm leaves me no excuse to pack him off for any irreversible, life-altering operations.<\/p>\n
Another member of my Facebook council tells me I\u2019ve got the paradigm all wrong. \u201cYou are really in the position of cat demigod here,\u201d wrote this man, another cat veteran of many years. \u201cYou get to decide whether your subject enjoys freedom or comfort. Step up.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s true \u2014 in many respects, Rusty\u2019s behavior toward me has become markedly more, well, worshipful. When he first began coming around for regular meals, he\u2019d allow me to pet him two or three times before recoiling and bolting back out the door. Now he\u2019ll follow me from room to room. He naps at my place regularly for hours on end, and has even spent a couple of nights. If I squat down on the floor, he\u2019ll knead my lap with his forepaws while pressing his nose against mine, or brushing his forehead against my face. Once, when I closed my eyes, I felt his rough little tongue licking my eyelids. \u201cHe thinks you\u2019re his mother,\u201d a friend advised me.<\/p>\n
So all the time I\u2019ve been thinking of Rusty as a person, Rusty\u2019s been thinking of me as a cat. It\u2019s amazing we manage to relate at all. But I\u2019m not sure I can stand to be a castrating mother any more than I can stand to be a castrating shah-n-shah or Son of Heaven. Rusty\u2019s tomhood is lot like my history degree. Viewed objectively, both have more potential for harm than good. Rusty\u2019s libido, as one of my friends so bleakly put it, could lead to his \u201cproducing thousands of kittens each year, most of whom will live short, ragged lives filled with fleas and starvation.\u201d My veneer of culture, thin as onion-skin paper, has yet to earn me a decent living. Worse, it\u2019s made every one of my craptastic day jobs feel like slow torture. <\/p>\n
I am not up on elitist philosophies \u2014 I mix up the Strauss who taught at the University of Chicago with the Strauss who wrote waltzes. But I\u2019d bet that in somebody\u2019s Utopia I\u2019d have had to undergo an operation that would leave me exactly enough gray matter to bag up groceries at Fry\u2019s and none at all to dream futile dreams of journalistic prominence. I\u2019d probably be happy as a lark, drooling onto my apron as I tipped my cap. But I would not be me as I like to think of me.<\/p>\n
By now, Rusty\u2019s dropped some pretty clear hints on how he sees himself and his priorities. Outisde is danger \u2014 bigger cats, dogs (including a Siberian husky-timberwolf hybrid), thoughtless drivers, bored cat haters, maybe even cultists who\u2019d offer his blood to Moloch. Inside is comfort \u2014 Friskies Savory Shreds with ocean whitefish and tuna in sauce, petting on command, a sky-blue woolen blankie he\u2019s fetishized, maternal me serenading him to the tune of \u201cYankee Doodle\u201d (\u201cRusty is a fussy cat;\/eats just like a yuppie;\/Doesn\u2019t like his belly rubbed;\/Because he\u2019s not a puppy.\u201d). You wouldn\u2019t think it\u2019d be much of a contest, but sooner or later, having decided he\u2019s had his fill of domesticity, Rusty always heads for the door and the open road.<\/p>\n
Maybe if I had him \u201caltered,\u201d to borrow my friend\u2019s Dr. Moreau-worthy expression, he\u2019d be mine on more of a permanent basis. For all I know, it\u2019s exactly the promise of sex and socially irresponsible procreation that lures him from my bower. But I tend to make a broader equation: Rusty is a free spirit, an independent soul. He may be affectionate enough (or opportunistic enough) to form a regular attachment to a kind human, but ultimately, his real life is out there<\/i> somewhere. Strictly speaking, he may not need his goolies to be a dharma<\/a> bum, but it seems right that he should keep them around, just in case. <\/p>\nRusty shall remain as he is \u2014 that is my executive decision. It is my parental decision. The next time I see him strutting out the door \u2014 as the song goes \u2014 with his tail in the air, my eyes will probably wander down to his furry little testicles. I\u2019ll think, \u201cBut for my grace, they\u2019d go,\u201d and I\u2019ll wonder whether I made the right decision, my doubts spelling the difference between a demigod and the full deal.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My house smells like tomcat. I don\u2019t mean tomcat spray. Rusty, the stray orange tabby who began using my place as a flophouse last summer, pulled that trick exactly twice. Both times, thank God, he chose to mark the imitation hardwood floors of my kitchenette, and not the champagne-carpeted floors of my bedroom. No steam […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[571,187],"class_list":["post-7191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-leo-strauss","tag-pets"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/p>\n