Holly!! and His Black Coat of Invisibility

This coming week marks the fourth anniversary of Holly’s arrival in our house. It’s been four years since Susan handed me a black cat and, telling me it was a nice cat and that I’d like it, walked me out the door of her bookstore.

I vaguely remember that when the door closed behind me, there was an audible click. I was too polite to turn around and try the door, but I have always had the secret feeling that if I did, I would have found it had been locked.

My drive home that day had been traumatic. Ostensibly, I had accepted the cat from Susan because of the snakes we had began seeing around the garden and the coinciding fact that someone had told me that cats and snakes never occupy the same territory. I had made the mistake of telling Susan this. Holly had been her quick response. I think if I had told her that there had been too many geese flying over our house at night, Holly would have been her response as well.

As a result of her singular view on what I needed most in my life, I found myself driving my aged pick up truck through the streets of a southern Mississippi town not with a hound dog in the back and a rifle in a holder in the rear window, but with a tom cat in the front seat and a large bag of Kitty Litter on the floor. I drove carefully home, using only the side streets. To this day, I don’t believe anyone saw me.

It’s been a long four years since then. A long, hard four years.

I’ve tried getting to know Holly but he has made it difficult. While I am not always the easiest of persons to get along with, Holly has made it a point to redefine the word ‘difficult’ and applying the new definition liberally to himself.

I have built at great expense a faux marble window ledge beside my desk for him to lie on. He prefers the desk itself, lying with his rump mostly in the “in” basket. I’m not sure if his position has any sociological implication, but it is the way he positions himself, so I ignore him.

I have also gone through a great deal of trouble to get him a faux sheepskin bed for him to sleep on by the fireplace. He ignores it, preferring the narrow top of Stella’s antique china cabinet on the other side of the fireplace.

When I want him outside, he hides himself inside, usually in the bedroom valences where he can’t be reached. When I want him inside, he stands outside at a distance from me (but where I can plainly see him) and listens to my futile calls until finally, seeing me fully frustrated, he walks calmly away.

Someone once said that whereas most pets have masters, cats have staff. Holly has over the four years condescended to at least learn my name as his major staff member. When he wants something, he comes and calls for me with a quiet, barely discernable “Yeow.” It is soft, discrete, almost polite, call, but when I listen closely, it sounds to me very much like “Youthere.”

Over the four years Holly has allowed himself to change. He’s gotten fatter. Nowadays, fifteen pounds would be a very kind estimate of his body weight. I’ve noticed that he no longer leaps in one bound to the top of the six-foot brick wall on the side of the house. I’ve watched and it takes two bounds. Once up there, he takes about two or three steps and then drops down on his lofty perch atop the bricks and goes to sleep, no doubt easing his tired body from the exertion.

I say all this because of late there has been an unusual change in Holly’s demeanor. It has not exactly been gradual, but an obvious change in our day-to-day relationship. I’ve talked it over with Stella and she has told me to take Holly to see Dr. Mahler.

“What am I going to say?”

“Tell him what’s been happening. Tell him you’re worried.”

“But how ...” I looked at her confused.

“OK. Tell him what happened yesterday. That would be a very good example.”

I’m not sure I want to do that. Let me explain.

I was lying on the couch reading when I started to doze. The book fell on the floor and I turned slightly throwing my elbow up on the back of the couch. When I awoke, I found Stella sitting across the room from me with a big grin on her face.

I also felt a slight weight on my elbow and turning saw Holly draped across the back of the couch in a rather awkward position. The purpose of his arrangement was so he could put his head on my elbow and there it was. I looked closely and saw that despite the strained location, Holly was sound asleep.

How can I take him to Dr. Mahler with the complaint that Holly was getting friendly?