A Living Magazine - Grounded in Maine - Prologue 6 - A Road Shoulder to Cry On (Part 2)

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I was temporarily paralyzed. Buddy hopped around and rubbed up against my legs. I seemed to separate out of myself. My intellectual side began working it all out, while I heard my emotional side yelling and pleading for this not to be happening. Obviously, since I befriended this cat, then fed him, then tried to defend him from Big Kitty, and healed his scalp, he was relying on me to put his leg back on. 

I had no idea how to handle this kind of situation. Search engines were still in their adolescent phase, but I was able to look up a vet hospital online. There was one on a road between Portland's Deering district and Westbrook. Shaking and hearing myself saying, "I'm so sorry, Buddy...Hang on big boy we're gonna get you all fixed up..." I dialed the number and spoke to a calm and helpful young woman. She gave me directions. I asked about the cost. She gave me three options: 1. Put him to sleep, 2. have him treated for free but lose custody, or 3. pay for treatment and keep him. It is unbelievable to me now, but I really didn't know which one I would choose. 

I had no cat carrier, was low on gas and only had about $50 in my checking account. Using a technique I would later call POMA, I simply handled one moment at a time. The important thing was getting him there. I scooped him up into my arms and even though he normally loathed being picked up, he did not struggle at all.

I went outside, opened the car door and sat down with him in my lap. He was purring loudly. Cats don't only purr when they are happy. It can be a form of pain control and distraction for them when they are in pain. Such was the case now. I did get the sense he was satisfied to at least have my attention. It was remarkably easy to transport him on my lap, though it seemed to take forever to get to the vet hospital.

We finally arrived and I brought him in. The hour was approaching 1:00 am. There were other animals there, but none as badly injured. The receptionist took me right away. I asked to go into the room while they examined him. This they had no problem with.

On the examining table Buddy continued to be his energetic self, hopping back and forth while we discussed the options. As we examined him, we noticed that the other three legs also had lacerations at about the same height. The other back leg being the worst of all. But they were not that bad. To this day it is a complete mystery to me what must have happened. Working barns are very dangerous places for cats. Plenty of farm equipment have blades of one sort or another. Who knows? We will never know.

I told them he was just a barn cat, not even mine, but that I'd been caring for him for about a year. The doctor asked me what his name was while she filled out the forms. I told her I'd just been calling him Buddy. The name became permanent at that time. For me it came down to euthanizing him or paying for treatment, since not paying and losing control of him might mean a long time in a cage at the shelter, and then still possibly euthanization if he wasn't adopted. The price was $35 for putting him down or around $350 for treatment. I had my hands full with the two other cats and I had no idea what kind of quality of life Buddy would have as a three legged cat.

He looked up at me and I looked down at him. My eyes filled with tears and I choked up. The doctor put her hand on my shoulder. After about a minute of silence I said, "Fix him up please. I guess I just gained another furball." She smiled and told me she thought I was doing the right thing. The final question was, do they take the rest of the leg off at the hip or simply smooth out the bones and sew it up at the ankle. We both agreed that he seemed to have little problem walk/hopping and that we should leave the leg as it was.

She told me I would not have to pay until I picked him up, but I would definitely have to pick him up in the morning. I agreed, not knowing where the hell I'd come up with $300. I thanked her and gave Buddy a good scratch around his neck before leaving. On the way back to North Saco, I let loose the stress with a tearful drive, but felt better about it all. I didn't realize that I had just made one of the most important...and correct...decisions of my life.

The next day I showed up at the vet with my checkbook, planning to float a check until I was paid at the end of the week and sucking up the overdraft fee if necessary. The nurse told me that the total was $210. I was very pleasantly surprised. She said they gave me a discount for taking him after 2:00 am, even though he was actually there before then. I thanked her very gratefully.

She took the payment and laughed about how Buddy had the spirit of ten cats. He had all of the nurses swooning around him. Whenever they pet him and talked to him he purred loudly, but whenever they left him in his cage, he became a little lion, growling angrily. 

She went out back and brought this growling creature up the the counter in a cardboard carrier. I could see him through the holes hissing and quite pissed off. I started talking to him and immediately he stopped growling. Putting my finger in through the hole, I felt the edge of his damp furry mouth rubbing on one side of my finger and then the other. She also gave me three 1 mg morphine tablets for him, saying that I could give him one a day for the next three days for pain and to keep him inside as long as possible. She scheduled a date the next week to have the stitches removed.

When we got back home, I let him out of his carrier and immediately he bolted to the closed door asking to go out. That wasn't an option. If there is one thing that pissed Buddy off anytime before or after I adopted him it was being stuck inside. I didn't have time to buy litter, so I got some sand from outside and put it in a cardboard moving box for him. He was not pleased about this situation and just wanted to get back outside. It was a long day and I had to miss work to take care of him.

After a few hours he began to look uncomfortable and was licking and biting at the stitches. I gave him one of the pain pills. Within about ten minutes he got sleepy, pulled himself up on the couch and lying down next to me with his head on my leg. I read a magazine for a while, happy that he was sleeping. When I looked down at him a short time later I noticed his breathing was very shallow. I talked to him and he didn't respond. His eyelids were half open and eyes were rolled up inside his head a bit. Shit! I realized I must have overdosed him. Then his breathing stopped. 

I shook him and yelled at him to wake up. Nothing. God, no, not after all of this! I picked him up and rocked him back and forth, yelling, "Wake up! Wake up!" His eyes twitched a bit and I saw his chest expand with breath. He opened his eyes and looked lazily at me. The purring began again. This was even more difficult than I'd imagined.

On the morning of the second day back he was really feeling better. The pain must have been diminishing. I gave him a quarter tablet and he was just fine, if a bit groggy. He tapped his paw in the litter box, and I scratched at the sand encouraging him do his thing. Then, for the first time in his life, he peed in a litter box. I felt what parents must feel after the first potty success. Pride.

I had to go to work and was nervous just leaving him there. I left a note on the door written in huge letters not to let him out. The other two cats had spent the night outside, strangely of their own volition, but now they wanted to come in to eat. Instead, I brought their bowls out and kept them outside then drove off.

When I returned that evening, my note was in place, I opened the door and saw Buddy there on the couch looking at me. I greeted him and saw a little poop in the box. Triumph! At least the rest of him was still working fine. The two girls really wanted to come in now, so I let them.

It was our happy little family of four, reunited and hanging out together. Buddy seemed happier to have them around. Perhaps they had become his pride, his herem. Fonta was not a social cat - except with me - and immediately found her sleep spot up on the desk where I had a pillow for her. However, Tabitha went right up to Buddy and they touched noses in greeting. In the coming years, these two would form a real bond as we will see.

Tabitha wanted to go back out right while I was getting undressed to go to bed. Not really thinking about it all, I walked over to the door and opened it. She pranced out in her regal way and then as I went to close the door an orange flash darted out after her. Okay, so we knew Buddy could walk pretty well, but who would have known that he could now run like the wind.

In my underwear, I ran back to the couch, put my shoes on and then took off into the night to capture my escapee. He was nowhere to be found. I knew he was close by and probably watching me out on the road in my skivvies calling desperately for him. 

Then I saw a little glowing orb of orange hop from under one tree to another. Gotcha! Walking as if I was simply strolling in the bright moonlight I meandered nearer and nearer to him, pretending not to see him. When I was about six feet away I lunged toward the tree he was under and dove for him like coming into home plate. Narrowly, he slipped out of my grip and took off across the field. Determined not to be bested by a disabled cat, I rose to me feet and pursued. 

There we were, a drugged out three legged orange cat followed closely behind by an idiot in his underwear, tripping over clumps of grass and dead sticks. I was closing on him and seemed to have him cornered near the fence of Charlie's yard. "Buddehboy, come on! Give me a break!" But channeling the Force or something, he outflanked me and was off again into the night. "Fine, you little shit! You just try to fend for yourself now! And, good luck with all that!!" 

I was done playing games. That little ungrateful rodent could just take his chances for all I cared. A papa has his limits. I stomped back to the office door and went inside. The last few days had utterly exhausted me and I sat on the couch listening for a scratch at the door until involuntarily tipping over on my side and falling asleep. 

The next thing I knew birds were singing their sweet songs in the trees of the brightening sky. Pink fluffy clouds held their golden edges in place as the world was waking up. I felt peaceful and calm. Then it hit me...BUDDY!

This time I was better prepared, even putting on clothes. The tips of the tree tops glowed red, as if they were smoldering. I walked down the street calling for Buddy. He wasn't over at the church. He wasn't at the neighbor's houses. He wasn't at the fire station. Then, walking toward Charlie's yard the silhouette of the large wood pile stood black in front of the purple and turquoise sky. And high atop, like a glowing golden god, sat Buddy, sphinxlike, reigning over his world, proud, stately, and happy to be the first creature to see the sun. Morning had broken and he was owning it.

I just stood there smiling up at him. He caught sight of me his wide eyes squinting into a cat smile. Leisurely, slowly, he stood up and did a great big stretch, ripping at the wood with his sharp claws and then climbed down like an expert. He walked up to me purring. I just looked down at him and shook my head. I turned and walked back to the office door. He followed me there and then inside where I fed him. The greatest thing of all about an abnormal situation, one that is painful, uncomfortable and anomalous, is that it never goes on forever, or it would then be the new normal. Normality, or better-put, stability always returns. 

The day came when I was supposed to take him in to have the stitches removed, but I was almost out of gas and money, so I simply did it myself. It wasn't rocket science. The vet had done an excellent job, leaving a bit of skin and fat around the stump of the leg, and the wound was completely healed.

He adjusted well to his new life. I would learn that no one was going to set the rules for Buddy. He would always be the master of the situation. As long as he could understand what was going on, he would consistently wrest control of his own life. And, as I would learn, he would even end up saving me from myself.

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Within a couple of months I had found an apartment in Gorham. It was a big and interesting place; a renovated barn, over a thousand square feet, with another thousand square feet of storage on the second floor. It was attached to a big classic farmhouse on Fort Hill Road. I moved my stuff and the cats there with the help of my sister and brother in law. 

In the eight years that followed I was faced with many wonderful and terrible personal issues. But for the most part, my living situation was the most stable that it has ever been. Through three job changes, three cars, a head on accident, a heart attack, and my eventual fall from domestic grace into whatever the hell I am now, my cats - and especially Buddy - would enjoy a settled life of suburban bliss. While we were there they luxuriated in peace and tranquility. They played in the yard, had fun in the snow, explored the fields and barns around the property, hunted, ate well and spent their time doing what humans have developed the domestic cat to do: live happily.

While I would go through the largest philosophic transformation of my life, one that would eventually change my mind about the meaning of all existence, Buddy would slowly change my world, and his presence and life-example planted a spiritual seed in my heart that allowed me to discover what I have called the Spark. It wasn't simple and it wasn't smooth, but it was effective. And now possessing that New Light, I have come to realize that perhaps I myself might someday change the whole world with the Spark's power.

However, this story is not about me. It is about Buddy. The years in Gorham are a fascinating tale, one that would take more than a hundred additional pages to scratch the surface of. That tale belongs to future books and memoirs. 

Here are some images from those days. I had to put Fonta to sleep a few years before these were taken. She was a wonderful cat and my first real animal companion, the one thread that connected my life back to Yarmouth and my college days. Bringing her to the vet on her final morning was the hardest thing I've ever done, not even excepting my very recent last day with Buddy. I offer the following to give some idea about what life was like for Buddy and Tabitha in the last of the Gorham years...

His Highness.

My first video of Buddy.

Loved these shots. He looked like he was at the bar waiting for a drink. 

The master of kitty yoga.

I call this the ellipsoid position.

Winter always meant fattening up, but he could still climb up onto the fence.

He could play fetch, but wasn't so great at returning the snowball.

This was my pride and joy each winter.

Buddy could not negotiate deep snow so I'd built paths for him,

something Tabitha also appreciated.

Different sleeping surfaces were selected according to his mood. 

One day he discovered that he could climb up onto the roof from the fence. This increased the number of places I'd have to look if I wanted to find him, as well as my anxiety about the possibility of a misstep...

As I mentioned earlier, Buddy and Tabigha developed a tight friendship. While they often got on each other's nerves (usually because Buddy would ambush her), they enjoyed each other's company immensely. It was never very long after seeing one of them napping to then witness the arrival of the other at the same location...

 

I mean, are you kidding me?

Five acres of sleep spots and this is where they chose.

This is one of my favorite pictures of all time.

There is something about the contrast of colors, textures and surfaces.

It was right after they'd had a tiff, hence the back to back.

I ended up using it as the basis for my digital manufacturing logo...

Doublepaw.

There is a short and sad subplot to the story of the cats in Gorham. A cat who I think may have been the sister of Big Kitty, first named Little Kitty, and later Crabby, was quite feral. After some time of going back to visit the North Saco property over the years, she eventually began to warm up to me. She even allowed me to pick her up and would bury her head in my neck, licking my hair. On one particularly brutal winter night, I saw her there in North Saco while picking something up and decided to try to adopt her, by bringing her back to Gorham. The other two cats despised her. And for Crabby the feeling was mutual. They tormented her relentlessly. 

She made it through the winter there and into the summer. The following picture is the only time I ever saw all three cats together. They were relaxing on the cool floor during a heat wave... 

Crabby, Tabitha and Buddy.

She went missing shortly after the above picture was taken and I thought she might have run away, due to the rejection of the other two cats. And who could blame her. But I later learned from my landlady that she had tried to cross the road and was hit by a car. The very distraught driver brought her to the vet hospital, but they were not able to save her. My landlady wasn't aware she was the new adopted cat until I asked her if she'd seen her. So, I knew nothing of the event until about a week after she died. I felt guilty for a long time for having taken her from the place where she knew how to survive and placing her among enemy cats, only to be killed by a car. Sometimes we can love a little too much...

I made this for my little niece so she could see where my cats lived.

Buddy was always a big fan of the grill. Whenever I would cook he would travel back from where he was sleeping or hunting to be present. I came outside one morning after leaving the grate against the grill and saw the following. His attention to detail and meticulous licking was too funny not to capture. It is the Zen of the grill lollipop...

I called this shot "Buddy Time," because of the sundial.

We all know about the love affair between cats and computers. My place was so large that I had to keep the heat down low during the winter. Buddy found the monitor to be the warmest place around...

 

Watching the snow fall.

This Honda was my very last car.

The relative haven of Gorham was coming to an inglorious end. I was in a state of personal turmoil, having quit my job and not able to get another business rolling fast enough to pay the bills. I was suffering from PTSD after my heart attack and drinking heavily. I indulged in the most destructive kinds of self loathing, frequently fantasizing about suicide--how I could it, what it would feel like, and knew that if I succeeded there would be no afterlife for me.

One night in the deep darkness of my despair, I climbed into the tub with razor blades carefully lined up along the edge. There was no water and I was in my bathrobe. I felt somehow comfortable. I felt very little emotion, though the tears were pouring out of my eyes. An hour went by, then another. Strangely, in this position, time was all mine. I controlled the Universe of my own existence. I touched a razor's edge without picking it up. 

I had few friends anymore, did everything alone, and was alienated from my parents. I knew that no one really cared about what I was doing. They all had their own problems. The world went on no matter who was in it or who was checking out of it. My life didn't mean a damn thing. There would be no difference if I were to pull that razor up the length of my arm.

I resisted praying to God, for I was on the brink of choosing something that the Creator would never sanction. I hated the world. In the daytime the sun laughed mockingly at me and at night the moon turned its back, choosing to shine it's light on young lovers and happy old couples rocking their chairs on creaky porches. I hated everything. But, I hated myself so much more.

Lost in my poisonous thoughts, I heard a familiar click, click, click... Then there was an "aaack." I turned to see Buddy in the doorway, purring that loud purr of his, squinting his cat smile at me. He walked over, put his paw up on the edge of the tub and hopped up and into it, settling on chest. Our hearts beat together. The vibration of his purr penetrated right through my body and into my dying soul. He looked straight into my eyes. I broke down completely, sobbing and stroking his soft tummy. There was no way....no way I could leave him.