A Cat Named Darwin (16 page)

When I picked the cat up at the end of the day, $175 proceeded happily from my savings into the hospital's coffers, and this placed me in a new dilemma. Having spent a large sum of money on the cat's health, I had tacitly acquired another companion, although I refused to acknowledge this fact. I was only doing the humane thing. The cat was still a stray. The most I could do would be to put out some food on special occasions.

Meanwhile, he had to be confined for a few days so I could treat his eye with antibacterial ointment. But where could I keep him? Not in the flat. He and Darwin would certainly fight, and I had no desire to separate two brawling cats in my own living quarters. Then there was the possibility of infection. The FeLV virus was supposed to be highly contagious, and no cat deserved exposure to it. Darwin, however, had always had the run of the flat and had presumably shed virions everywhere.

Well, the risk could not be avoided. The cat had to be closely watched for a few days of convalescence, and as I thought about it, my office came to mind. Darwin had spent little time there, and if I shut the new cat in, he might avoid serious exposure. Darwin would retain 80 percent of the flat for his exclusive domain.

On the way home, I stopped off at the pet store, bought an extra litter box and a matching set of food and water dishes, and set up a temporary household under the south window of my office. When I opened the transport box, the cat set about cautiously investigating the corners and closets of his convalescent quarters. While his attention was diverted, I slipped out, leaving him to his explorations.

Shutting him in would prevent direct conflict with Darwin for a week, perhaps. But what would happen when I freed him? For that is what I had to do. Already I was acting as if this new cat would remain my responsibility, and while I hadn't faced the practical reality, I presumed in a vague sort of way that I would feed the newcomer and care for him outdoors. Only Darwin would have indoor privileges. Even I could see, however, that this was a temporary fix, and Darwin made the point clear that night, on coming in from his daily rounds.

I assumed he wouldn't know the new cat was locked behind my office door unless he made some fuss. Darwin walked into the living room, stopped, raised his head, sniffed the air, and proceeded directly to the office. He lowered his head, pushed his nose into the space beneath the door, and suddenly the sound of a siren started low and rose to the ceiling, where it swelled in volume and billowed into the living room like smoke.

I hadn't realized how astutely cats perceive odors. Like most people, I had gone along with the public illusion of the dog as
the
master of olfaction, blinkered by the media image of tracking, rescue work, sniffing for drugs and bombs. This was reinforced by the canister prominence of the dog's nose and muzzle, and by its blatant habit of smelling anything and anyone anywhere at the slightest hint of novelty. Somewhere along the way, the cat had lost its own fine sense of smell in the black-and-white simplicity of common perception. Darwin proceeded to disabuse me of this oversight.

Looking back, I began to see the astutness of his nose in countless incidents. Once, for instance, I had tried to trick him by opening a can of tuna as quietly and stealthily as possible to see how long it would take him to realize his favorite food had been sitting around, wasting time. I had even turned the stereo up to overwhelm any sounds I might make. No more than two minutes later, there was Darwin at my feet, begging for his share.

In light of these observations I began to wonder how the cat perceived the world and concluded that as a human creature I was not, nor could I ever be, privy to such sensations. Perhaps, when Darwin entered the flat, the shock of his rival's scent was similar in its negative appeal to finding a skinhead in your living room with a boom box, playing heavy metal rock. Whatever the reality, it was clear that both cats knew at all times exactly who was in the flat, and while the stranger's eye healed, my flat became the house of the rising yowl.

***

We had a few days, this dark tabby and I, to get acquainted. The first morning after incarceration I came to the door of my office bearing a breakfast bowl of delicious cat food, and before I could turn the doorknob, he became hysterical with anticipation. When I entered the office, he walked quickly in tight circles, rubbing against my legs. He rose up on his hind legs, placed his paws on the dish, and nearly jumped into it before I could place it on the floor. Then he proceeded to bolt his meal with the loud smacking of lips and the slurping sounds of chewing accompanied by suction. He'd had a night to adjust to his new surroundings and his appetite was up. I didn't think any more about that until later in the afternoon when I realized a large rubber band was missing from my desk. Could the cat have
eaten
it? It was then that I began to suspect the presence of a gifted appetite, perhaps a prodigy. I called Dr. Mader, who advised me to watch the cat's stools and make sure the rubber band had passed, because it could lodge in the gut, and that would require surgery...

It became clear the next morning when I tended to his eye that the new cat was an affectionate, easygoing creature well rehearsed in stroke appreciation. He made an easy and enjoyable chore of the procedure, resting his head in the palm of my hand to absorb my trepidation and barely blinking as I applied the antibacterial ointment. He accompanied this with one endless purr, like the pedal bass of a church organ—organ music in the truest biological sense.

I kept him in my office for three days and nights, until the eye was beyond infection and the rubber band had passed, and on the fourth morning, after rubbing the antibacterial unguent on his eye, I kneeled down and stroked the sensual lines and elegant patterns of his body and fur, savoring his presence with my hands. So healthy, vigorous, sleek...

I could not help comparing him with Darwin and speculating on what might have been. If only I had connected with Darwin a few months earlier, I could have had him vaccinated against the FeLV ... If only ... I felt a twinge of resentment—resentment of the burden Darwin had become in his time of need. I spun away and forced myself to face the challenge of keeping the two cats separated.

Feline infectious anemia resolved the issue. On the morning of the fourth day it reemerged and resumed its siege against Darwin's life. When I awoke, I saw Darwin lying on his side at the foot of the bed, gazing vacantly at nothing. His eyes were listless, as if his soul had wandered off into space in search of a somewhere haven, and he would not answer my greetings. I peered into his eyes, but try as I would, I could not push my will past the retina and slip down the optic nerve into his brain. I could not experience his mind. I saw only the vacant, silver-green reflections.

Once more to the hospital. Once more oxygen, intravenous fluids, antibiotic drip, catheter, daily visits, much money. The milk of human kindness. Preoccupied with Darwin's predicament, I freed the new cat. The neighborhood was his for the taking.

Three days later I brought Darwin home for another convalescence, with doxycyclene squirted into the corner of his mouth four times a day for two weeks and pureed food injected down his throat. Somehow, he managed to keep his weight and slowly, gradually, he came back from the brink.

This time, however, the episode left him physically deformed, for his right pupil was dilated more than the left. In darkness or light, the difference remained. Horner's syndrome, said Dr. Mader, common in cats with FeLV. A minor thing, perhaps, but it ruined his symmetry and framed the fear of impending loss.

Another casualty was the posture of his left ear; he now held it lower and pointed more to the front than the right ear. Probably owing to nerve damage, a classic problem attributed to the virus. Both pupil and ear were permanent changes, symbols of time, the passage of life, the solemn gestures of fate.

I let him go outdoors to pursue his interests as nature saw fit. There was nothing to do about the intruder, other than to hope the two did not fight again. As it turned out, they did not, probably because Darwin, in his weakened condition, was spending the majority of his time indoors and simply did not encounter his rival. When he did venture forth it was generally for a few hours during the day, when cats seem less inspired to fight.

***

Meanwhile, I continued to feed the new cat along the shady north side of the building, and he quickly accepted the arrangement as a natural right, driven in part by an appetite that was turning out to verge on the supernatural. The second time I fed him, he was sitting near the sidewalk at the head of the driveway, and the instant I whistled, he spun and trotted toward me, emitting a long, yodeling cry that bounced and warbled with the jerky motion of his gait—mee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow—as he trotted along. No matter how often I fed him he wanted more, and I could not help wondering why it had taken him three days to enter the trap for tuna.

The feeding became a ritual that I looked forward to, partly because I felt a kinship with anyone who had such a gargantuan appetite, and partly because I simply felt a deep attraction. With his small, dainty feet, he struck me as a bit of a softy, not so tough in the strategies of the streets and alleys as many of his peers. And perhaps I sensed the random privilege of my own incarnation as a member of
Homo sapiens
and realized in the subconscious labyrinths of my brain that there, but for the grace of God, went I.

Mostly, however, I looked forward to our assignations because it relieved me of Darwin's suffering. For a few minutes I could abandon my worries and cares in the new cat's vigor and escape the aching weight of Darwin's misery. Always this misery waited at the door to my flat like a coat on a hook, required dress for admission to my home, and always I put it on as I entered.

One day several weeks later, the new cat developed a slight limp. My heart lurched and stumbled against the inner walls of my chest, and I reached down and swept him into my arms. He placed his left paw on my right arm and I saw that all his claws were frayed, bloody stubs. I checked the other paw and found the same thing. I had no idea what could have caused this, but whatever it was, it had been violent. I found myself carrying him up the stairs to the flat. I wanted to protect him, to shield him from the dangers of a natural life, but then I stopped midway, remembering that Darwin was sleeping inside. We had come to an impasse. The time had come to face the issue of keeping the new cat.

I sat down on the steps and cradled him on my lap. He commenced to vibrate, the energy passing from his organ of purr into my thighs and proceeding directly into the reptilian complex beneath the cerebrum of my brain. There it caressed the inner lizard of urge, desire, feeling, appetite, lust, and deep, deep pleasure. The lizard understood immediately what the cat was saying, for they spoke directly to each other in the language of touch and feel.

***

For years I had been pondering the mind as a process arising from the anatomy of the brain. For years I had been bewildered. I am still bewildered, though not quite so thoroughly, for I had a front-row seat as my mind went into the convulsions of a difficult decision.

As a biologist, I thought in terms of evolution, natural history, plants and animals, physiology, genetics, molecular biology. I knew that certain regions of the brain generate certain aspects of the mind, and I knew that the different regions are interconnected by bundles of nerves which serve as neural pathways.

As a writer I looked for common terms to replace the Brobdingnagian words assigned by science to the brain's anatomy. I wanted names that arose from the nature of the specific regions, based on what they contributed to the mind, and if the name had a wry twist or a certain lilt, all the better. Thus the inner lizard. In time these names assumed a life of their own, like characters in a fable or actors in a morality play.

There was, of course, the inner lizard, named for the reptilian complex or limbic system, the center of visceral impulses like lust, appetite, urge, aggression. This creature was an island unto itself, supremely self-centered and wholly oblivious to the outside world. Having no intellect, it had no awareness of self, no comprehension of space or time, no conceptual grasp of death. It expected immediate gratification; it wanted what it wanted and wanted it
NOW
. The inner lizard, however, was stitched with countless neurons directly to the other creature, the cerebrum and its cortex, that cap of anastomosing neurons which generated intellect. The reptile, therefore, had to manipulate its cerebral partner because intellect stood between its urges and their satisfaction. The intellect was the lizard's link to the world. Reason operates the hands, the hands manipulate the world, so the lizard, to get its way, had no choice but to manipulate the rational mind.

The cerebum creature was harder to name, in part because there is no antecedent in evolution. There has never been an animal in the natural world without skin, limbs, or muscle; there is no creature incapable of any movement whatsoever, existing as a flabby, defenseless, three-pound gob of neurons that transcends itself in a rationalizing, self-aware mind capable of conceiving existence and death, comprehending infinity and eternity, holding moral values and religious beliefs, aesthetic sense and philosophic curiosity—the whole panoply of intellect by which we humans define ourselves and project our gods. Such a creature could exist only in myth or fairy tale.

I thought of the human skull, that bulbous urn of bone with its high forehead and bulging rump. I thought of Humpty Dumpty, with his immense noggin symbolizing a brain larger than reason, and the name of this fabulous creature came to mind, ready to take its rightful place in the natural history and natural politics of my mind.

The noggingod was everything the inner lizard was not. Where the lizard was supremely self-centered, the noggingod was able to rise above itself as disembodied curiosity and observe the lizard as it writhed in the cold blue light of reason. Because all senses are routed through the cerebral cortex, the noggingod comprehended a world beyond its self; one of its main tasks was to measure, weigh, analyze, and make rational sense of it. As a result of its wide horizons, the noggingod understood that other individuals similar to itself existed outside its skull, and these others had feelings and rights, just as did the noggingod. They had to be respected if one wished to coexist and reap the benefits of social living. Despite what the lizard might feel or want, its actions had to be edited. The lizard had to be curbed.