Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat

I recommend Mike Shea’s stellar documentary, “And This Is Free,” to anyone who is interested in Chicago blues and a good old fashioned American sales pitch. It chronicles a Sunday market on Maxwell Street in the sixties. I used to go there for cheap hot dogs in the early zeroes, when I lived in Chicago. The chicken man is from this film. This man plays accordion with his pet chicken on his head. When he finishes the song, he picks the chicken up off his head and places it on the ground and lays a blanket over it saying, “Go to sleep like a little baby.” The chicken obliges and a bottle of clear alcohol, moonshine perhaps, emerges from the man’s back pocket. He drinks several shots in front of concerned onlookers, including scared children, makes animal noises and babbles incoherently. The chicken is woken up and gathered, and they are on their way.

This is similar to the relationship between myself and Roly-Poly, my new cat. Metaphorically speaking, the man is me, the chicken is Roly-Poly, Maxwell Street market is my den, the accordion is my I-Mac, the moonshine is Coke Zero, the incoherent babbling is this blog post and you are the concerned onlooker and/or scared child.

Roly-Poly arrived in a cat carrier on a dark December afternoon. He had an upper respiratory infection (kennel cough) and was snuffling and sneezing. I carried the carrier into my apartment and placed it in the center of my living room and opened the cage door, expecting him to bolt out and hide beneath my bed. Roly-Poly instead stepped out confidently, looked me in the eye, and approached to be pet. Roly-Poly purred. After this weird and wonderful greeting, he explored the new territories, ate some food, and laid down beside his food and water bowls. He seemed conscious of being rescued.

I defied the odds and got a good cat. The cat has not done anything bad except drink out of the toilet, paw his dry food out of the bowl, and lick his neutering wound. I’m actually cool with him drinking some water out of the toilet because it shows me he’s got survival skills, moxie. Roly-Poly is a very good fox-cat, and a junk licker. I don’t think the junk licking warrants him wearing a cone on his head. That would only make him depressed. He does like to be pet; he does not like to play. The guy at the MSPCA lied. Roly-Poly does not care much for catnip or lasers.

Every day I squirt him in the mouth with a syringe full of antibiotics. Every night he sleeps in a cave deep in my dresser, blocked by a pillow.

He’s my little brother.