All About Charlie

I’ve been involved with males ever since I was 14 months old, when my brother Lyle entered my life, starting a fierce sibling rivalry which lasted until we both left home. Most of my relationships – including those with my other two brothers – have been amiable. I enjoy conversations about even such “forbidden” subjects as religion and politics, and I had men friends, not all husbands or lovers, until I moved to Texas three years ago.

Now the only male in my life is Charlie, with whom the conversations are one way. I talk. He does not listen, even when I say, “I know you can’t help throwing up hair balls, but I wish you would throw up on the kitchen tile instead of the carpet.” He looks innocent, turns his head, and, while I’m down on the floor cleaning up the mess, he pads away on soft, furry legs.

Charlie came into my life ten years ago. As my 70th birthday approached, I told my son David that I thought I ought to settle down and stop traveling. I needed a cat to keep me company on lonely evenings. On my birthday David took me to the animal shelter in Albuquerque. David told me, “Don’t get a kitten, Mom. You are too old to deal with a frisky kitten.”

We entered a room filled with cages two-tiers high. Many cats lay napping at the back of their cages. I looked for a little black female. This big white cat stood up, clinging with his paws on the door of his cage, as if to say, “Please take me!” He wore a pink collar (which meant he should have been a female), and a tag which said “6 years old.”

I sat down on a little stool. An attendant opened the cage and put the big cat on my lap. He hung off on both ends, hind legs dropping down beside my left leg, forepaws on the right. I thought surely he would try to gain purchase and jump off. Instead, he lay there and purred.

That’s how Charlie adopted me.

One of my Albuquerque friends was Charles White, so my white cat became Charlie. My friend called him, “my godson.” I only paid $5 for him at the shelter, but when I took him to the vet, it cost over $100. He had already been neutered, but he needed shots. Also, his fur was dirty and matted; he needed an expensive bath and beauty treatment.

When the veterinarian examined Charlie, he looked in his mouth and said, “If this cat is six years old, he certainly has taken good care of his teeth. I think he is one or two years old.”

He was frisky. He had perfect "house manners"; he never clawed furniture or carpet, but, like a child, he also wanted to go outside and play. In Albuquerque as soon as I got up in the morning, I let him out the back door. He ran across the patio. If he could not find anything interesting among the rose bushes, he hopped up on five-foot high concrete block wall and explored the perimeter. Once he chased a roadrunner along the wall and across into the neighbor’s, where the bird got bored and flew up to the roof of the house. Several times he got into fights with cats that invaded his territory. Once he suffered a head wound which required another trip to the vet. Another time I heard the noise of cats snarling and ran out. I tripped over a sprinkler head and landed on my face on the concrete sidewalk. That’s how I got this chip in my front tooth. All Charlie’s fault.

I try to guess at what happened to Charlie before he came into my life. He is a beautiful, long-haired cat, who looks as if destined to spend a life of cat-luxury sitting on a silk sofa. He likes to be close to me, sitting on my lap and following me around the house. He purrs when I pet him. But he was terrified of men. When my neighbor LeRoy came to the door, as soon as Charlie saw him, he ran and hid under my bed. Maybe he was some other old lady’s pet, until some man abused him and threw him out. He had been a stray long enough to need that beauty treatment. Also, he is perfectly content with dry food. After ten years he still won’t eat canned cat food or drink from his water bowl. He always jumps up on the bathroom counter and waits for me to turn on the tap so that he can drink running water. Makes me wonder what trauma he suffered.

After Charlie came into my life,I forgot to be lonely. I also forgot my resolve not to travel. For the next ten years I made at least one “big” trip a year, usually to Europe. A neighbor, a little Hispanic old man, filled Charlie’s bowls and cleaned his litter box while I was gone. Each day he found the food bowl empty, but he never saw the cat. After being away for three weeks or more, I’d find Charlie hiding under my bed. I coaxed him out, and he looked at me so pitifully, as if to say, “How could you abandon me like this?”

These days my “trips” are to the dialysis center, grocery store, and library. When I turn into the driveway, Charlie is waiting in the front window. He jumps down, and as I hit the button to close the garage door, I hear his “meow” on the other side of the kitchen door.

Since we moved to Texas (Charlie cried all the way to Amarillo), he has become a house cat. At first I was afraid that, if I let him go outside, he would run away and try to go back to New Mexico. (I wanted to do that, too.) Now he seems happy to stay inside this comfortable, air-conditioned house in Texas. He sleeps most of the day, waking up in time to follow me into the kitchen as I put my “TV dinner” in the microwave. While I eat, he crunches on his little nuggets in the corner next to my dining table. After supper he climbs onto my lap or sits next to me. I watch television. Sometimes Charlie seems to watch, too. Other times he just stares at the box of Kleenex on the end table. Who knows what he is thinking?

As we grow older, Charlie and I are both slowing down. At least I don’t sleep all day.