Mickey

Before I left x, we had six cats. I planned to take Catherine and Mother - the two, very elderly females, with me. One week before I moved out, Mother disappeared. She'd always been a strange one. I'd taken her in, along with her two tiny babies when I lived in an apartment in the city of Vancouver. Mother had a broken tail, it dragged on the ground. She had a messed up mouth, and drooled. She might have been brain damaged, or maybe she was just wierd from living on the streets. She was a fantastic mother to her babies, which is why I named her as I did. She was with us for fifteen years. I miss her, and wonder where her bones are resting. I think she must have known something was amiss, as I packed my belongings and prepared to move out. I had been worried about bringing her with me to an apartment where cats are not allowed - she was still partly wild, but we would have managed. Maybe she didn't think so. She left, and has never been seen since. Though she wasn't ill, I have a feeling she went away to die.

Catherine came with me, and as I've mentioned before, passed away peacefully about two months later. That left four cats, all males, all living with x. Psychotic as x is, he has a soft spot for animals. While I have my doubts about the chickens' fate, I believe he has been good to the cats. There have been times when he phoned, and had to interrupt the conversation several times because Charlie had gotten stuck underneath the laundry basket and was trying to run with the basket over him like a turtle shell. Or when Piccollo was being terrorised by Bobby and needed to be rescued. Or when Mickey came home after a night on the town, and needed his special food to be prepared. X would put down the phone, and I could hear him talking to the cats, laughing his head off at their antics. It was charming, actually.

Today x emailed me to say that Mickey is dead. Mickey was hit by a car and his body left at the side of the highway. An old woman saw the body (or maybe she's the one who hit him, but didn't want to admit it), read the address on his collar and left the collar, along with a note, taped to the front door of the house. In his eight years of life, Mickey was hit three times, on seperate occasions. The third time killed him. It's as though he's been trying to die on the road all his life. Until finally - Strike Three.

I took him in three years ago, when his "mother" (and I use the term loosely) had to go into detox for cocaine addiction. When she got out, first thing she did was call her dealer. I refused to give back her cat. Someone else refused to give back her dog. Her sister refused to give back her young son. She didn't care. All those losses left her free to live as a vagabond, which is what she'd wanted all along.

I had planned to take Mickey with me when I move from here. I had fantasies of bringing him in a box to my new home, and the two of us sharing a life together. I was hoping to turn him into an indoor cat, because of his history with crossing roads. Now that can't happen. Mickey was a wonderful cat. He had a great excitement for life, and lived it to the fullest. I will miss him.