Lately, upon returning to my apartment after a day at work, a solitary figure races to greet me at my car. The engine is not yet dead and my door is not yet open when an animal crosses around the edge of my little fenced patio and stops outside the door of my car, hooting and mewing as he waits for me to exit.
His name is Crazy Eyes. He's a stray cat. I think he may have some sort of brain disease.
My apartment complex is overrun with stray cats. They're fascinating. They're gross, obviously, and I'm pretty sure all of them have AIDS, like some horrible mash-up of Rent and Cats playing in the parking lot on an endless loop. They're also comically inbred. They all look like police sketches of each other. During the day they huddle together in gnarly little clans. At night they all try to kill each other. In the morning they sing the song of their people.
Crazy Eyes is my favorite, because I'm pretty sure he thinks he lives in our apartment. He follows me to the door and looks confused when I don't invite him inside, despite the fact my dog has very literally tried to eat him,
This is mostly the neighbor's fault. Our doors face each other from only four feet away. The neighbors have apparently been leaving cat food outside their door since well before we moved in. Crazy Eyes is basically a domesticated stray who still lives outside, which is the absolute most useless thing any living creature could be. He begs for food and attention, just like an indoor cat, except you don't really want to touch him, on account of the parasites, skin condition, and probable feline leukemia.
I wonder sometimes where it all started. Who was Cat Zero? How did this happen? How did this apartment complex turn into Portland, Oregon for cats?
On the way to work one morning, I spotted an off-white Persian standing at an awkward angle in front of my car. I thought maybe there was something wrong with the cat.
"Hi," I said. "How are you?" To which the Persian replied by loosing a high, arching stream of cat piss across the hood of my car. The Persian stared at me as it relieved itself, a process that took no more than four seconds to complete. Then it left.
Just today Crazy Eyes showed up in our patio area. He paced around a bit, singing as he went. He examined every corner and then took a seat. He stared silently at the fence for awhile. At some point he left.
For her part, the former stray cat who actually lives in my apartment has no particular reaction to living in a community full of wild cousins. When the wailing starts, I look in her direction and wonder, "What must she be thinking?" But she isn't thinking. She's usually asleep. The hissing and crying and yowling is like white noise to her - just some business on the other side of the glass. Nothing to do with her.
That works for me. Really, Gilmore is the epitome of the American Dream. She rose up from the streets. She had nothing. Now she never has to work a day in her life. Her meals are all catered. She even has a live-in servant to tidy up after her.
I used to worry about Gilmore bolting out the door, trying a grab back a piece of that sweet, stray cat freedom. But here she is, surrounded by free cats, and I'm not sure she's even aware that they're the same species as her. When Crazy Eyes peers in through the sliding glass door, I see a genial, flea-covered simpleton. Sam sees something broken and dangerous. Gilmore doesn't see anything at all.
But he's there. And he's gross. And I hope a coyote doesn't eat him.
Shit - do we have coyotes here?