L.A. CAT - THE WAR YEARS

I was taking a shower. Looking down, I saw what looked like the tail of a rat coming out from the edge of the shower curtain. Heart pounding, I drew back the curtain and there was a live gray lizard. I screamed and leaped out, leaving the reptile behind. Chloe must have brought it in and deposited it in the tub. Thank God for Cervantes, the maintenance man who lived in the peach apartment building behind my blue one at Sargent Court. He was there in a nanosecond.

Cervantes loved plants and animals. He would talk with the cats all day as he worked outdoors. He was in his late 50s with graying hair and a slight paunch under his cambric shirt. When he came to my rescue, it was with a broom to gently roll the lizard out the door while softly crooning, "It's okay, baby...okay, baby...okay..."

Another day not long after, I found bird claws embedded in the carpet.

Chloe's fascination with birds and lizards phased out after several months. But there were coyotes who wanted to hunt her. One horrible day, Glen and I found half a cat on the lawn--its brain streaming out of its head.

"I do hate coyotes," Glen said as he went to get a bucket. Nobody knew who it had belonged to or where it came from. After that, I prayed it would never happen to Chloe.

In the summer, when the coyotes would get so bad that we could hear them yipping away outside our windows, Cervantes would prowl the grounds like a night watchman with a baseball bat.

Like Chloe, Cervantes was one of a kind. One day he pointed to a Wandering Jew plant in the yard and said, "Me too. I am Jewish." His mother had been a beautiful Sephardic Jew. Cervantes was a multi-talented man who had been a chef in Mexico, and on occasion would stage mouth-watering barbecues under the spreading pomegranate tree. He had several children and grandchildren, all of whom lived in Mexico and would visit from time to time.

Whenever I needed help, I could depend on Cervantes. "How's the baby?" he'd ask whenever he saw me. "Baby okay?" Baby is fine, I'd answer. Always okay.

Chloe would let him pet her.

Like most cats, Chloe was a shrewd judge of people. If a visitor was loud, they never saw her. Parties could happen in my apartment and she would stay invisible until the last guest was gone. When I first moved in and the ex-boyfriend stopped by one night (to bring me something I'd left at his place), he reached for her saying: "Gimme that little cat body...". She slipped out of his grasp and jumped out the window.

I was always afraid of losing Chloe. When we first moved to Sargent Court, she fought a cat who belonged to a neighbor down the street. The interloper tore a small hole in her belly. The vet drained the abscess and put a bonnet on her. For a couple weeks, she was confined to the couch, looking like a sulky Flying Nun. Like most cats, she finally figured out a way to slip out and bite her stitches. "She did most of my job for me," said the vet.

Then the Bad Cat returned and bit the hell out of Cecil, our neighbors' calico. That was the last straw. We warned the Bad Cat's owner that if she didn't confine her feline, we'd report her to Animal Control. And that was that.

The hillside on which we lived was covered with ice plants and thick brush. It would be years before the Fire Department would ding the owner for the fire hazard. What it meant for me was a nightly search to find Chloe, flashlight in hand...calling "Here kittykittykitty..." I'd go in circles 'round and 'round until I'd finally spot a pair of green eyes glowing between the leaves.

The "Chinese" Caucasian film director and others of her ilk in the apartments were probably giggling and imitating me to each other--as they imitated Glen--but I didn't care how big a fool they thought I was. Only keeping Chloe with me mattered.

Two years after we moved into the blue building, the water heater broke again. This time Cervantes was nowhere to be found and a couple of tenants tried to fix the dripping with a screwdriver, which resulted in water shooting out and hitting the movie poster on the opposite wall. The poster was from the Denver International Film Festival where a movie I'd made had played.

Deja vu all over again. My stuff on the lawn. Firemen. Except now the manager tells me that I should move into the vacant apartment in the rear peach building. It would solve my current dilemma. I've been locked in battle with my hulking upstairs neighbor.

An academy-award winning film director, this guy would often pace the floor all night long. Six foot six and over 200 lbs., his footsteps would shake my whole apartment. I'd begged him and his fiancee to move into that vacant apartment behind us, but they said they liked their view.

I was falling apart at work from sleep deprivation. My lawyer-boss suggested I file a complaint against the manager for failing to provide peaceful enjoyment of the property. When I told him, "My neighbor says he's too big and heavy to walk softly," he replied: "Elephants weigh tons and they can step softly."

Weeks ago, the manager offered me the peach apartment. I resisted because I'd found out that my ex-boyfriend (aka "The Jerk") had started dating my neighbor Suzie who lived upstairs from that apartment.

Initially, Suzie had been my morning hiking partner. She loved to "girl talk" as we walked, telling me details about her last breakup. I would interject from time to time with an anecdote about The Jerk.

One day she cut me off with "sounds like a real loser."

So imagine my surprise when one day two years later, she tells me they've been dating. They met when she found him practicing with his fishing rod on the lawn, and was about to throw him out when he said, "I'm friends with Marlan."

I didn't want to be anywhere near either of them, but with my apartment sinking like Atlantis, the manager told me: "You've got no choice."

One time my Tai Chi Si Fu drafted my Chinese horoscope for me. It involves sticks and predicts your life, decade by decade. My life would be fate-appointed, it said. Until late middle age.

With so much out of my control, I could only hope Chloe would stay constant. And she did. Up until two weeks ago, when neither of us could pretend anymore that she could fight off her cancer.

Our move to the peach building went smoothly. I was afraid Chloe might continue to pop in and out of the broken screen in that first apartment, and surprise whoever moved in next. But she never looked back. As far as she was concerned, the moment we moved into the peach apartment, we were home. Again.

L.A. CAT: THE FLOOD

When I first saw Sargent Court, it was 4:00 a.m. My then-boyfriend lived half a block up the street. We met while I was living in Topanga, licking my wounds over my divorce. Then he asked me to house sit for him while he went to Europe for three weeks.

His landlady lived and managed the Sargent Court Apartments. On the way to the airport at 4:00 a.m., he stopped off to leave his rent check at her door. When we pulled up, he said: "Come on, you've got to see this." In the pre-dawn light that September morning, the massive flowering grounds mystified me. I thought we were in front of a hospital or mental institution. I didn't understand that they were apartments until the day I needed them.

A week later after his return, he suddenly needed to be "alone" blah blah. It coincided with my news that I needed to get out of Topanga because my roommate Rainbow was on the warpath. She had drawn battle lines after I took her to my fave Chinese restaurant and the food made her sick. "You know I only eat raw food!" she screamed. She'd asked to go. I took her. She asked for a salad and they said they didn't have salad.

So I called him and said I needed to talk. We had an awkward dinner. Then I dropped the bomb. He smoked for a while. Then said, "Well, maybe you could live in the apartments. Up on the hill."

We went up the block to see the place again that evening. Fog lay in thick drifting white mists on the grand lawn. It was late. We stood at the hill's edge looking out at the view in silence. I knew it was over.

When I first moved into my apartment, my neighbor Glen gave me the rundown while he weeded his roses: "Don't be surprised if one day, you wake up and find the cat doing the backstroke. It means your water heater broke."

A few weeks later, Chloe woke me up early and when my feet hit the carpet, they sunk into water.

We were outside with a lot of my stuff on the lawn, watching firemen vacuum out the water. They left industrial fans to dry the place out. When Glen heard about the fans, he said, "Oh goodie, cats just love big noisy machines."

I'd been sitting in a daze at a picnic table when Glen sat down next to me, saying: "First, the manager needs to get you a hotel room until your place is dry...Then you need to be financially compensated for hardship."

At that moment, I saw my now-ex-lover saunter across the sidewalk where my furniture was spread out, and firemen were coming and going out of my place. Very happy to see him, I ran up and said, "My water heater broke!" He frowned and said, "Better get someone to vacuum that out. I need to talk to my landlady about my view. She's planning to build a fire escape for the upstairs apartment right in front of my picture window." He lived on the lowest floor of a duplex. His unit was ensconced into a hillside. Then he slid back down the steps to the street, calling over his shoulder: "Put in a good word for me!"

Then the manager appeared and gave me the keys to the place over my ex's apartment, which was empty.

I lugged the essentials to the quaint house. The first essential was Chloe. I put her inside, locked the door and went back for more. When I got back, I couldn't find her. Now I saw that a window was open in the kitchen, large enough for a scared cat to jump through. Hyperventilating and crying, I called The Ex and left a message on his machine that (a) I was going to be living upstairs for four days and (b) I think my cat ran away, so please keep an eye out.

After I had spread my sleeping bag on the hardwood floor, turned on the lamp (the electricity was still on), Chloe came down the stairs. The place was built like a townhouse with an upstairs and she'd been exploring. Relief! It felt right to see her tripping along down the steps, ready to keep me company in this new space.

Chloe didn't care where she was as long as she was with me.

And no, The Jerk (henceforth to be known as) never came up to say hello or ask after the cat. In fact, the following year, when we "got together" again for an ill-fated affair and he saw Chloe, he said: "Oh, I thought you lost her."

Those four days in that empty house with the single lamp and cuddling in the sleeping bag were like camping out. But I didn't care where I was, as long as I was with Chloe.

TWO FOR THE ROAD

I met Chloe when she was about 6 mos. old. My roommate had gotten her from the Pound in Topanga Canyon to chase away our mice. My roommate insisted Chloe be confined to our tiny kitchen because she didn't want cat hairs in her mouth when she did yoga on the living room carpet.

The only entrance to that house was through the kitchen. That night when I came home, Chloe was the first thing I saw--pacing like a trapped tiger, squeaking her funky meow.

My roommate, whose name was Rainbow, had been resisting getting a cat because she said, "The mice aren't bad and cats in this canyon are coyote fodder." Then one day I walked into the kitchen and Rainbow yelled, "A mouse bit my toe!" Later that evening, Chloe was there to greet me. I squatted down to pet her and after a few strokes, she hid under my dress. "Mama!" my roommate laughed.

Chloe slept in a basket. Every morning when I entered the kitchen, she'd jump out and stretch so I could pet and fuss over her. Although my other roommates called her my "daughter," she still officially belonged to Rainbow.

My most vivid memory of that time is the night all my roommates were out, and I made a complicated soup (Rainbow owned the house but not an oven because she ate only raw food). Chloe sat on the counter intently watching my every move, keeping me company. I talked to her, sang to her. And she squeaked back.

One day I was outside doing Tai Chi in the front yard and Chloe was in front of me squeaking an insistent squeak, very annoyed at being ignored. As I finished the form, I stood quietly with my eyes closed...and she jumped straight onto my chest! I flung her off with a cry and she never tried it again.

Fourteen years later, the arthritis in her hind legs would make it impossible for her to perform any more grand leaps, and I would make steps next to our bed so she could easily climb into it.

How I moved to Topanga is detailed in my first novel, One Divorcing Woman's Roadmap for the Karmically Challenged. I was going through a divorce when I landed in Topanga, and when it was time for me to leave, after my car was packed, Rainbow said:

"You can take the cat with you."

Because Chloe was "skittish" with everyone but me. I was happy that I could take her, but that was a stressful move. I had numerous personal problems and was almost at the end of my tether.

Not having a cat carrier, I threw Chloe into the car with all the rest of my stuff and started off for the hour ride to L.A. where I'd rented an apartment. Chloe was screaming and howling. When she ended up at my left foot next to the brake, I pulled into a small business compound on Topanga Canyon Road and stopped -- headlights shining on the door of an artist's studio.

"That's it!" I said. "You are out of here."

Next to the artist's studio was the Chill Out Cafe where stray cats were often left. I felt certain they'd find her a home. As I opened my car door, the artist came out of his studio and shouted, "Can I help you?"

"Do you want a cat?" I asked. Chloe was meowing like crazy inside the car.

"No ma'am I do NOT," he answered with a slight warning in his voice.

I got back in, drove away and said to Chloe, "Okay, but you'd better behave."

And she did.

For 14 years, she was everything I'd ever wanted in a companion, and when it came time to move to Kansas, she made the drive without a single tranquilizer. And when it came time to move to Missouri, she was the best passenger ever. And when I had to move back to Kansas, ditto. Our drive to San Francisco in '06 was fraught with danger and problems. But Chloe was serene throughout.

As L. Frank Baum almost wrote about Toto and Dorothy: Chloe didn't care where she was as long as she was with me. At one point we even faced tornadoes...but I'll blog that in another post.

During the time of her cancer, Chloe grew even more loving and attentive, as if she knew how short and precious our time suddenly was. When I touched her, I felt her love in every part of my body, but particularly in my chest where the heart chakra is. The pain was so intense, I felt like the Tin Man when he says, "Now I know I have a heart because it's breaking."

Chloe was one of a kind. We lived 10 years on Sargent Court in Los Angeles. Fate decreed that we change apartments in the complex three times. She settled into each move with no period of adjustment.

Rainbow was told by the Pound people that Chloe didn't like "other cats." I imagined Rainbow checking out cages full of frisky cats, passing cage after cage until she came to this beautiful cat with the gray and white stripes and the calico face...in solitary confinement.

At Sargent Court, my neighbor Sanda had her own cat who also didn't like other cats. We used to cat-sit for each other. The first time Sanda ever cat-sat for Chloe, she told me afterward:

"She is one of a kind. All the rest are just cats."