Sunday, April 20, 2008

L.A. CAT - BIKER CHICK


"He's like this biker who rides in every now and then to date her, and she's like this cloistered Uptown Girl," my neighbor Bill joked one day when we were discussing Chloe's boyfriend. "He rides in on his Harley and says to her, 'Today I caught a rat...' and she goes, 'Ooooooh!'"

Almost from start of Life at Sargent Court, Chloe acquired a boyfriend. He looked like a male version of her, if she'd grown up poor and turning tricks on the East Side. I never knew his real name or if he'd ever belonged to anyone. He wasn't feral, but socialized with no other cats except Chloe; he was tolerated at Sargent Court because he only rarely turned up and didn't fight with the Sgt. Ct. cats, even though he'd never been fixed.

Chloe's boyfriend had her gray tiger stripes, white underside and raccoon tail. But his face was flattened and puffy. Like James Cagney.

When we lived in the blue building on the first floor, Chloe's Suitor would hop onto the north side window ledge and meow to her. Not a let's-get-it-on howl, but a persistent serenade. Chloe would sit atop the mahogany antique radio-console and just be with him. On the south side, I'd put out food for him at the front door.

It wasn't until our third move at Sargent Court -- upstairs in the peach building -- that Chloe actually seemed to look forward to his visits.

The getting-to-know-you process for cats can be slow, depending on their level of trust. The courtship of Chloe and Carlos (as I finally began to call him) was no Romeo and Juliet whirlwind (balcony proclamations of Love not excepted). In the sixth year, their romance seemed to bloom. Although Carlos continued to be neither punctual nor regular, he'd occasionally show up at night. He'd meow for Chloe and she'd run to the door. I'd let her out onto the open-air balcony that I now shared with my neighbor Suzie. Chloe would lie down opposite Carlos, very relaxed; and he with her. They'd sit that way for hours after I fed him.

I don't know why I never took a picture of them together. I didn't take any of Carlos by himself. Maybe it's because there are moments that overwhelm me to the point where I can't even reach for a camera. They are meant to be absorbed into my skin and soul. I live them in the present. Then they are gone.

While Chloe was dying -- now only a few weeks ago -- I forced myself to take pictures. I'm still using my old Nikon camera that my ex-husband gave me for my birthday in the 80's, and haven't had that film developed yet. She looked ridden with the effects of cancer, so I tried to get some angles where it didn't show the horror as much. But I had to have those final shots.

Likewise, nobody ever took a photo of the two of us together. Not in 14 years. I aimed the camera at a mirror and shot with her behind me before she passed away. I hope it comes out.

My issues with Suzie had subsided. Once a "friend," she dated an ex-boyfriend of mine (aka "The Jerk") after I'd broken up with him. In response, I wrote her an angry letter cutting off our friendship. But before I moved into the downstairs apartment in the peach building, I wrote her another letter, asking for forgiveness. She did forgive me. In fact, she came to my doorway the day I moved in and cried. "That guy didn't mean anything to me, Marlan!"

Suzie had moved on. She was involved with a guy she really liked. Water under the proverbial bridge. It was time for me to do the same. And thanks to her, I did.

She lived upstairs in a glamorous corner apartment whose walls of windows looked out onto a panoramic landscape of greenery, then stretched out into cascading layers of Los Angeles...skyscrapers....the Hollywood sign...even Santa Monica beach on a clear day. Like me, she'd attended USC and was a screenwriter. Unlike me, she had an East Coast pedigree and an Academy-Award winning cousin who lived in the Blue Building with his paramour [his story is in a previous post].

I lived in the downstairs apartment for three or four years. Then one day Bill, who was now the manager, called and said, "The guy upstairs from you is moving out. So you can move up there if you want." I declined. I'd had enough of moving. "Then the drug addict next door to you who has the wild screaming parties almost every night says he wants to move in there."

The drug addict had thrown a bucket of water on me one night when I was walking past his door. I'd called the cops and he told them he thought I was a burglar.

I moved upstairs. As before, Chloe adjusted pronto. She even enjoyed looking out at the spectacular view, mistress of all she could see. Suzie had a couple of rabbits in a cage that took up most of the balcony. The rest of the space was filled with her furniture, plants and junk. She had lived at Sargent Court years before I moved in, and there may have been a territorial "seniority" issue. Or it may have been, as my neighbor Sanda noted, Suzie was somebody who "likes to add things."

Suzie also possessed two tabby cats, brother and sister. These cats didn't like Choe at all and vice versa. Eventually, Suzie began to nag me about Carlos: "He's probably got fleas and a disease and he's not fixed and he probably sprays...You shouldn't feed strays..."

I didn't consider Carlos a "stray." This seemed to be Suzie's main concern: people and animals that weren't part of her "tribe."

It was somewhat of a relief when in my seventh or eighth year of living there, a quarreling young couple who some tenants liked to refer to behind their backs as "Trailer Park Trash," adopted Carlos. They immediately had him castrated, changed his name to "Mugsy" and made him an indoor cat.

"He sleeps a lot," they'd tell me whenever I'd inquire. I never told them how much I loved him or mentioned his "relationship" with Chloe. It wouldn't have been a consideration anyway. To them, I was the Old Maid Who Lived in the Shoe. A pre-menopausal failure. They were saving money to buy a house. She had a job at Trader Joe's. He was in The Industry. They were going somewhere. And they were taking Mugsy with them.

A year later, Mugsy died of cancer. Chloe never had another boyfriend. We lived like two nuns who liked men but had given ourselves up to God.




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*Note re Carlos not being fixed: I was afraid to touch him for years. After I was able to pet him, I still wasn't sure how hard he might fight if I tried to pick him up and put him in a cat carrier. And no, I had nobody would would agree to help me with this.

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