Whiskers

A Long Whiskers Tale

By Basil Gala, Ph. D.

If you looked at Whiskers, you’d think he was a cat, but he was a fur person, as my wife called him. This is not an animal story; animal stories about other people’s animals are boring. Animal stories are like the bumper stickers, “My child is an honor student at Madison Middle School.” Do you care about such news? Certainly I don’t give a hoot. I don’t know this person with the bumper sticker or her child. Anyway, honor students from Madison Middle School end up becoming residents of the State Penitentiary or accountants.

But let’s return to the story of the furry person Whiskers, so named by Elizabeth, my younger daughter. He appeared at the door of our house together with a gaggle of other stray cats my wife was in the habit of feeding daily. My wife said he sat apart with dignity looking on while the other cats scrambled and bickered over the food. He was scrawny as all get out, no wonder, being so dignified and proud. She brought the food to him that he took down wolfishly in one or two gulps. Next my wife adopted him, gave him a flea dunking, and took him to the vet for treatment of worms, ticks, and feline flue. The vet said he was a mature cat, about ten years old. He lived with us for more than ten years.

Elizabeth named him Whiskers because he had extra long whiskers on his cheeks--Elizabeth is very ingenious and creative. Once at home with my family, he ate ravenously for a few weeks and filled out his spare frame. He was a big, big tom, mostly white with black patches on his head and back and light blue eyes that he fixed on you with calmness and wisdom. His tail was long and bushy, carried proudly straight up in the air like a flag, swishing around when he was pleased.

Whiskers was pleased when he had lots of love from my family and from neighborhood female felines, after screeching and scratching squabbles with other toms challenging his large territory, the entire city block and surrounding streets. I watched once when he engaged a gray-furred challenger almost as large as he was in a Homeric duel, complicated by the presence of a smaller Siamese tom. Whiskers pounced on the gray tom, was on top of him, when the Siamese jumped on Whiskers back. Whiskers turned on the Siamese until that combatant begged for mercy and slipped away; then he returned to the gray tom. After the fight, Whiskers had deep scratches that we had to treat at the Vet’s; but the gray tom never returned to challenge our hero again. News of the great battle and Whisker’s victory must have spread far and wide, because afterwards Whiskers was king of his realm until we left that neighborhood.

Being King Cat has its privileges. All the females adored Whiskers in our block and neighboring streets and sometimes he would disappear with his current paramour in the bushes until my wife went after him and fetched him home. He followed her in dutifully but reluctantly, occasionally turning a regretful look at the object of his affections. Later he paired up with a neighbor’s cat, which gave him six kittens, three of them with his fur colors. We called that cat the welfare mother, because she was bedraggled and scrawny and her owner of the same appearance also was on welfare. We fed the mother cat and, like an honest cat father in the wild, Whiskers brought her fresh mice and birds to eat, which he caught with his incomparable hunting skills. He could snatch birds in the trees from the air.

Four little chicks were easy prey, beneath Whisker’s dignity as a wild animal hunter. Elizabeth got the chicks just before Easter as pets and put them in the yard. Whiskers thought it was fun to chase them around, so I said “No, Whiskers!” He looked back at me offended, “Miaou, miaou, miaou.” That may seem like noises to you, but the meaning is in the tones and inflections. He had said: “I’m just playing with them.” I speak English, a little Spanish, and a little Cattish.

Since I was a little boy growing up in the Greek countryside, I knew how to speak some animal tongues. I can still do the donkey mating call. Enthusiastic repetitions of the call finally caused my wife to leave me. (That mainly was the reason and some other little eccentricities of mine). The donkey call is most amazing, almost as amazing as the donkey’s dong when fully extended.

Anyway, after I scolded Whiskers about the chicks, he stopped chasing them, and simply observed them with keen eyes. Later he took to chastising other cats that came near them in the yard.

After my wife and children moved out, I took Whiskers, the chicks, and myself to my parents’ house. My dad hated cats, dogs, or any house pets, considering them filthy and sources of disease. Wise old Whiskers allowed him a wide path in the house and never intruded into his room, dad’s inner sanctum, filled with classical music and literary volumes. There were no problems between them unless my mother fed Whiskers from dad’s favorite meal: fresh fish. “She fed him half of my halibut,” he would say in a hurt tone. I had to explain to my mother how costly halibut was. It didn’t faze her. Whiskers had become her best friend. He would sleep on top of her, all stretched out, while she rested on her favorite couch. “Whiskers, I have to go to the bathroom,” my mother would eventually say. He would not move and she would not move. When eventually he would wake up, she would rush to the bathroom with a groan.

My mother enjoyed the chickens too that pecked around in the yard. She would feed grains to the chicks from her pantry, and if we had fresh corn, they would get it first before anybody else. If she left the patio door open, they would come into the kitchen and pecked at her naked heels, demanding food. The chickens grew up to become gorgeous Rhode Island reds, especially one who turned out to be a rooster, unexpectedly. Eventually, the neighbors reported us to the City’s code enforcement officer; the chickens had to go.

Whiskers remained with us for a while. He would follow my mother out on her walks to a nearby Calvary Church, where she went to pray alone. She never attended services there, but the church tolerated her. Sometimes Whiskers would run ahead of mother, but stay close by, and would escort her back to the house, unless he ran into a dog on the sidewalk. Then he would high tail it for home immediately.

When my wife had established herself in her own home, she wanted Whiskers with her in her condo and she got him. Thereafter, he was to be an inside cat, free of fleas and fights, so she had him spayed and his front claws removed, so he would not scratch furniture. After a few months my wife moved on out of town and Whiskers returned to me and became an outside cat again. “I don’t have my front claws,” he said to me in Cattish, “but I have my back ones. I don’t have testicles any more, but I still have my libido.”

Now in territorial fights with other toms, Whiskers developed new tactics. He would allow his antagonist to chase him under a car and there, safe from being jumped on, he would fight with hind claws. When a dog chased him, he would climb a tree, pushing up with his hind feet and hugging the trunk with his front feet. He was no longer King Cat, but he held his ground.

In the meantime, fortune smiled on me, after a little hard work, and I was able to buy a big house in the country of San Diego for my parents and two teenage daughters. Whiskers came along and Baby, brown Persian- blend female cat which Elizabeth had adopted. She was almost as big as Whiskers, but very stupid. She was young and amused him with her crazy antics. If he wanted to doze off and she bothered him with her games, he would give her a good whap with his paw and she would quiet down. They played together a lot, chasing and tumbling. A favorite game of theirs was running around through two open doors from the kitchen to the family room and back again. Sometimes Whiskers would change direction and totally surprise Baby. She could not figure out how he did that trick.

Whiskers wondered a lot among plentiful trees and bushes in the area. He would greet me with happy miaous when I arrived with my car, recognizing the sound of the motor and walk around the block with me like a faithful dog. He caught birds in the trees with teeth and clawless paws and mice on the ground, which he sometimes presented to me. When I saw feathers in his mouth, afraid he might get parasites, I said to him: “Bad boy!” He would slink away guiltily.

Baby, being extremely timid, never went outside the back yard. One time a feral tom chased her into the house and she screeched her head off as if he was murdering her before he even touched her. Then Whiskers arrived and the strange tom left in a hurry. Baby died from kidney failure in spite of her youth. Whiskers became very sad, close to tears. A few months later my father died from old age. He was 100. Shortly after my father’s death, Whiskers did not return home one evening.

A friend said Whiskers was taken by a hawk, but he too big for that fate. Others said coyotes got him. Our cat was too wily to be cornered by a coyote with so many trees around the place for climbing to safety. Alia said Whiskers went into the bushes somewhere to die quietly, knowing it was time to go. Elizabeth said he died to accompany my father to Heaven. I can imagine my father complaining to Saint Peter: “Does this flea-infested cat need to come in here with me?”