When I moved to Los Angeles, a city mad for flowers and foliage, my mother bought me a large planter full of hardy outdoor plants to compete with the mini-jungles cultivated by my neighbors. Sadly, the plants died. Only their dried stalks remained, a scarlet letter at my doorstep, for all West Hollywood to see.
On my journey past the twenty-something's four pillars of commitment, (plant, pet, boyfriend, baby) I had run out of steam in the first mile. To be fair, I was spending a lot of time and effort keeping my fragile relationship well watered. I had moved west to see if my long-distant boyfriend was the real thing or just a mirage, but the transition from vacation relations to reality was taking just about all the energy I had. Plants, pets, and (lord knows) babies, would just have to wait.
From February to July 2002, I tried to settle into LA. Some things were remarkably easy. The man at the electric company didn't just ask for my social security number, he wanted to know when I moved, and from where, and why, and how was it all going? The salesman at the mattress store, dismayed by the fact that I was sleeping on the floor of my new apartment, had his deliveryman make one last late night delivery, so that very night I could dream in comfort on my pillow-top deluxe.
Other things took time. Luckier than most of the unemployed dreamers trying to "make it" in LA, I had a new job, two friends, my favorite aunt and a boyfriend. Still, I battled the loneliness and insecurity brought on by leaving an east coast life padded by mom, dad, and all the best friends my life had produced so far.
And so it went, into the summer. I joined a book club, and went to the beach. Driving down Sunset Boulevard, I marveled at how the summer wind could be so warm and still have the bite of early spring. I cried more than usual. I bought a lot of furniture, pushing away the thought that each piece was another obstacle to a sudden escape from LA. I got cable, so I could have a wider selection of televised anesthesia.
Which brings me to a warm Monday evening in August. I was seated at my newly purchased dining room table with my roommate. (In the interest of never saying, speaking or writing her name again, we'll just call her Single Blonde Female. Let your mind do the rest). She was riding high on Percoset, describing the removal of her wisdom teeth in graphic detail.
I thought I heard something outside the window, but couldn't place the noise. I heard it again, low but frantic, the sound of something desperate to be noticed, but desperately afraid to be heard. Barefoot, I ran out the door, and walked slowly along the edge of the iron fence that enclosed our small front garden. I looked through shadowy plants, but saw nothing until I came to the end of the fence. Peering out from the growth was a scrawny orange and white kitten. He made the face of a howling cat, but only a small squeak emerged. I didn't think. I grabbed him by the scruff, pulled him tight to my chest and walked inside.
My roommate, in her prescription haze, could only stare at the wriggling creature. I let the cat down onto the floor and it howled, again making no noise. Then it started to run, back and forth across the wood floor. I could see all its ribs, and its face was dirty. It had no collar.
I told SBF that we would have to keep the cat overnight. Then I would take it to the vet the next day and determine if someone had lost a kitty. I ran to the 7-11, bought litter and food. The kitten wolfed his food, while I constructed temporary litter box out of cardboard. SBF picked up a carrier and some anti-flea soap from her boyfriend's house, then left for the night.
The wide-eyed kitten scrambled under the table as she shut the door. Trying to assess the situation, he peered out from amongst the forest of chair-legs. He was a long-haired white cat with a tiger-striped mask on his ears and face and orange spots on his body. He had a wild orange fox-tail, and lustrous dark lines curling from the corner of each amber eye.
I picked him up and looked him again. It didn't take long to discover that he had fleas. As the kitten continued to run frantically around the apartment, I decided that he probably wouldn't stay in one place long enough to let the fleas jump onto my furniture. Hah.
After a full evening of fussing, teaching him where to find the litter, and trying to decide if he was born wild or just lost, I decided to call it a night. As I lay my head down on the pillow, the kitten howled in the darkness, then jumped up onto the bed. He took a long look at me. Then he plopped down at the head of my pillow, curled up around the crown of my head, and pressed his soft-flea ridden belly directly against my scalp.
I jumped up and tried to place him on the ground. He yowled, and jumped back up on the pillow, nuzzling his flea-ridden head against mine. I flipped the pillow over and tried to place him at the foot of my bed, reasoning that the little buggies couldn't travel that far north by the end of the night. He returned to the pillow immediately. I looked at the clock-midnight. I picked up the cat and walked into the bathroom.
After bathing the cat in anti-flea soap, which he endured with a withering glare, I grabbed tweezers and started attacking the fleas. Looking back, it was probably somewhere in the middle of that late-night session of flea-plucking that I felt the first stirrings of love. Love, mixed with a certain revulsion induced by a pest-ridden kitty. Love, charged with the low-grade current of fear brought on by snatching something off the street and letting it into your bed.
Which is exactly what I did. I dug through my closet, took out a knit cap, and pulled it down around my ears. As the kitten snuggled against my head and began to purr, I resigned myself to the thought that I had slept with worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment