Niagara Storm Cloud

Niagara Storm Cloud

There he was, a giant among a cage of tiny, wobbly four week old kittens. He was a grey and black striped ball of fur and it was clear these puny cat fetuses weren't his litter mates. I approached the cage, put my finger through the bars, and he licked the tip of my finger. That finger lick sealed his fate. He was my cat, and would be for the rest of his life.

I paid the sweaty man with armpit stains the size of waffles eighteen dollars. nine for the cat, and nine for the container to carry him out the door. As I exited the store, the dark clouds overhead exploded, sending sheets of angry rain down on me and my new companion. I made it to the car, steaming up the windows instantly from the humidity. The kitten mewled pitifully from his cramped carrier.

"Mrowl?" he pleaded.

"Yeah, I know buddy, it's no fun being soaked."

"WaaAAaaarrL?" he questioned.

"I have to get you over the border first, then we'll talk."

"Waaayyy?" he protested.

"Because, smarty pants, I'm a US citizen and we are in Canada. I hope they let us through!"

"Mow."

"Yeah, you and me both. Hey, I know a perfect name for you!"

"Waaannngg!"

I watched the rain make opaque draperies of my car windows. Even with the cacophony of noise, I could still hear the roar of the massive falls behind me.

"You‘re my Niagara Storm Cloud!" I put my hand against the thin wire mesh of his cage, and the rubbed his tiny cold nose on my palm.

"Maaayyy!"


Niagara Storm Cloud talked to me through my five hour journey to the Michigan US border. Thankfully, he was asleep as we went through the customs gate.

"Anything to claim?" the imposing officer asked.

"No, I bought a few souvenirs at the Falls, but that's about it." I sort of lied.

My Pistons jacket covered the miniscule carrier in the floor.

My years of being a thespian in community theatre paid off, because the officer believed me and waved me through. I exhaled, and had to pull over at a swarthy looking gas station to calm my shaking legs. We had made it through. He was truly, really, my cat!

When I got home, the house was devoid of light. I secretly cussed my ex husband, Brad, who had been responsible for taking care of my house while I was on vacation. The idiot didn't even leave a light on, and the neighborhood vandals were having a field day with my Halloween display. Several of my tombstones were missing, and my upside down pants guy was sporting a strategically placed "stick" where his zipper should be. The little cretins were nothing if not creative!

I thought the toilet paper ribbons decorating my five hundred dollar red bud tree were a nice touch.

I unlocked my egg-splattered front door and was assaulted by the smell of cat urine. After investigating, I realized my darling ex had failed to scoop out the litter box, and my anal retentive mental patient spaz cat Fluffy, had taken it upon herself to not use it.

Let me digress and tell you a little about Fluffy.

She was the pick of the litter. A friend of mine had an alley cat that gave birth to a bunch of adorable black and white kittens. Fluffy was the prettiest, and the smallest, and I fell instantly in love with her. On the ride home, she climbed me with her panicked claws, raking troughs in my face that sport scars to this day. I wanted to give her a fancy -chancy name, like Arabella, or Dominique. My kids insisted on naming her Fluffy. She was a short haired cat and she was NOT fluffy at all, but the children won out, and she was Fluffy...

Fluffy would bounce sideways across the room, every hair raised in absolute fury. She would attack the kids by pouncing on their backs, or surreptitiously swat their ankles as they rounded hidden corners.

If I was relaxing on the couch, and had the sad misfortune of moving a toe, she would pounce on that too, taking the entire top of my toe in her mouth. She would then bite down and clamp on in hopes of cracking my toe like a clandestine walnut.

She was a charming kitten who would take balls of fuzz in her mouth and "nurse" them, kneading the bedspread, sweater or throw with her tiny sharp claws, creating more balls of lint and strings for her to suckle. Many times I would settle down on the couch after getting the kids to bed, only to discover my afghan had a myriad of half dollar sized wet spots, where fluffy had orally fixated.

To make a long story short, she was a spaz and would freak out at the slightest change in environment. You can imagine her reaction when I brought a new "brother" home for her. She hissed and spat, and batted at the cage. Unearthly yowls of horror emitted from her six month old lungs, and her ears plastered to her skull.

I decided to take my darling Storm Cloud to the spare bathroom, to quarantine him for a while.

He was a beauty. About nine weeks old, he was round and fat, with a shock of black and grey striped fur. His tail was like a bottle brush, and his eyes were luminescent yellow gold. If he wasn't a pure bred, he was a happy accident. I decided to give him a flea bath, to get rid of any pests he may or may not have. I am glad I made that decision.

After his first shampoo, through which he hang limply in my arms, I raked through his mass of fur with a lice comb. Something came off of him that belonged in a Stephen King novel. It was an insect, I swear half an inch long, with a pale beige, bloated, rotating butt. I kid you not, this creatures butt was spinning in circles. I screamed and washed the rotating butt monster off the comb and into the drain, where I added another minute of scalding hot water. Meanwhile, Storm Cloud lay on the floor in absolute melowness, looking up at me with his shiny gold eyes.

"Mrowl."

"Yeah, I know, I think I need to shampoo you again."

"Mow."

"Don't be a smart-ass!"

So I lathered the poor kitten again, this time leaving the shampoo on five minutes longer than recommended. After a second combing, so many dead bugs came off the poor thing, my scalp started itching in hypochondriac sympathy.

After the second shampooing, I sat on the bathtub's edge, weak in the knees from the spinning butt alien scare. Storm decided to use his litterbox for the first time. As he did his business, an odor like bloated road kill assaulted my nostrils. He looked at me as he voided his bowels, his tail twitching with every violent spasm. It was liquid. Pure liquid sewage. Not only did my beloved new kitty have pests on the outside, he more than likely had them on the inside.

A week later, he had his first trip to the vet. The vet commented on how beautiful he was. She said "Don't be surprised if he turns all black, because sometimes striped kittens change their coats." I secretly hoped he kept his stripes. She examined him and saw he still had flea dirt. I was concerned that he had too many shampooings, but she gave me some flea repellent to use anyway.

She palpated his stomach. She spent an extraordinarily long time on his stomach. She felt and probed and prodded. Then her brows furrowed. "His intestines are... roapy."

I lifted one eyebrow like an Elvis impersonator. "Roapy?"

"Yes, roapy." the vet confirmed.

"Um... What does that mean?" I asked, lifting the other eyebrow to join it's sister.

"It means," she cleared her throat, "That he likely has a whole host of intestinal parasites."

I thought about saying, "Well Duh!" but didn't. Instead what erupted was "Yeah, you should smell his crap!"

She didn't see the humor in my statement.

"You need to bring a stool sample in so we can identify what parasites he has."

I brought him home, then returned later that day with a little snack size baggie full of chocolate pudding and graham cracker crumbs. Not really, but that's what it looked like. I dropped it off to the vet and she called me before closing and said, "He needs Methyloxilpoopinglutinate."

That's not really what it's called, but it was in a huge bottle, and it was florescent yellow, and I was supposed to force this down Storm Cloud's throat three times a day without fail.

My tolerant little kitty just lay there as I squirted the vile substance down his esophagus. He didn't protest, and afterwards curled up on the floor licking his paws. He was perfect!

He was perfect, but evidently his intestines were not. It took six weeks to rid him of the parasites, and by the time I took my last little pudding baggie to the vet, the "pudding" had become a Tootsie roll, and Niagara Storm Cloud had grown twice his size. His adorable kitten stripes had vanished also. What remained was a stunning dark grey top coat with a lighter grey mane and underbelly. The hair on his undercarriage was curly. He was splendid!

When I was sure he was pest free, I brought him out of the spare bathroom for the first time. I placed him on the living room carpet and he immediately began rubbing against the couch like a long lost lover. Then Fluffy appeared. I heard her before I saw her. Her ears had disappeared into her brain cavity and her eyes were seizure wide. Her back arched, her hair fluffed and she emitted a wail that was worse than Yoko Ono.

She bounced sideways and stopped inches from Storm Cloud's face. She batted him several times on the top of his head, and hissed . Storm just stood there, his tail twitching. She began another round of rapid, claw extended slapping, and he remained stoic. She dove in for a third round, making sure he got the message. Halfway through her barrage, Storm slowly lifted his paw.

"THWACK!"

Fluffy hissed again and cowered, lowering her head.

He loomed over her, his paw raised in mid air.

"WHOMP!"

Fluffy yowled once more, and ran away so fast she skidded on the wood floor, flailing around comically before she got her footing and dashed to the other side of the house.

It's strange how things evolve. Within a week of "meeting" each other, they were curling up together and grooming each other's fur. They were very playful, especially at night, and Storm would let her "nurse" on the pads of his feet. Very odd feline behavior, I know, but it saved my afghans from her "affections"

Several years passed, two dogs were brought into my family, and I came to the realization I could no longer pay for my house. I should have sold it in the beginning and split the proceeds with my ex, but pride would not let me do that.

I stopped paying on the house, and It went rapidly into foreclosure. I had six months to get my things in order before I had to vacate the house after the bank took possession. I had to leave a lot of things behind; my piano, most of my furniture, my wonderful refrigerator, and a lot of dishes and miscellaneous toys. The dogs went to Brad‘s place, and the cats remained in the house, where I fed and watered them and changed the litterbox. I found a small place for the children and myself, but they didn't take animals. I finally convinced Brad to take the cats too, and I drove to my former house for one last visit, to get them. Someone had broken into the back bedroom window, and the cats were nowhere to be found. I yelled out the back window for Fluffy, who would usually come meowing when I called her, but she never appeared. I called for Storm, and heard a faint "Mrowwl" from the depths of the outbuilding.

He came running to the house, leapt up to the window and into my arms. It's hard to explain the simple joy I felt at that moment.

Fluffy was seen around the neighborhood, but she was never captured nor returned, because she was so skittish. I guess she went feral, and to tell you the truth, that doesn't surprise me! Storm Cloud missed her terribly, he meowed plaintively and moped around my ex‘s house for several weeks. Every time I dropped the kids off for a weekend, he would talk to me and rub against my legs, enticing me to take him home. He did enjoy being able to go out in the woods and play though.

Brad and I remained friends, and decided that instead of living in abject poverty separately, we would rent a house together and save money. So I started looking for houses in town. There was an old white Victorian close to the railroad tracks that was for rent. I brought him over to look at the house, and he fell in love with it too. The only stipulation; we could only keep one of our cats. Since my ex was going to pay the majority of the rent, and his cat Alice was the "Alpha," I started looking for a home for Storm Cloud. I hadn't lived with the cat for over four years, and thought I had grown detached to him. We tried giving him to the next door neighbor once, but he ran back to Brad's house.

I even went so far as putting him in the paper as pet of the week; a local adoption service. I got a lot of calls and we found a home for him. I needed to update his vaccines and get his flea medication as well.

The day came for me to take him to the vet. I loaded him into his carrier, feeling a rush of déjà vu the size of a bowling ball in my stomach.

"Mrowwwl"

"Yes Storm, I know, but you need to find a good home, we can't have two kitties in our new house."

"Mow."

"Now don't be like that."

"Aaaaannnggg?"

At this point, I could barely keep my composure.

Storm and I arrived at the vet. When she took him out of the carrier, she said, "Well hello handsome!"

I had forgotten how beautiful he was. I watched silently as he endured his exam, received his shots, and was so mellow he almost fell asleep. He loved the vet. He rubbed against her and drooled a little before they placed him back in his carrier.

I paid the vet and got back in the car. The cherry blossoms from the tree overhead were rapidly coating my windshield. I couldn't have seen through the glass anyway; my eyes were veiled with tears.

I called Brad, and through choked sobs I told him, "I can't do it. I can't give him up!"

"What are we going to do then? The landlord said only one cat!"

"I don't know, but I can't let him go!"

Silence overcame us.

"Well," I began, blowing my nose into a McDonald's napkin, "We could just sneak him in and hope for the best!"

Silence again.

I heard a sigh on the other end of the line. "Didn't I TELL you you couldn't do it? Didn't I warn you?"

"Yea, I guess you did, but I can no more give him up now than I could give up the kids"

"You dork." he scolded.

"Yeah, I know." I ended the phone call. I took a deep breath and pressed my windshield washer button. I watched as the pink blossoms made smeary tracks on my windshield, finally clearing to a slightly acceptable view.

Niagara Storm Cloud moved in with us, along with Brad's cat, my two dogs and a plethora of rats. Since then, Alice passed away, the dogs have gone grey and all the rats, thankfully, are well over the rainbow bridge. Storm is a huge, handsome fat cat that likes to roll on his back for belly rubs. He also keeps me awake at night. The second I move a muscle, he thinks I'm getting up to feed him, so he hollers until I give in and put a handful of food in his dish.

He meows and howls, and throws up hair balls. He drools, claws the furniture, and sometimes misses the litterbox altogether. Sometimes, when we feed him soft food, he takes "death shits" that make the entire house smell like Zug Island. He‘s obnoxious, sometimes attacks our ankles, and has bad breath.

But I love him, and can't fathom how I ever thought I could let him go.

What was I thinking?

2,849 words!