A Good Cat Is Hard to Find
“I was a middle-aged woman sitting semi-nude in the mud in the wee hours of the morning, singing to a stray cat in an ivy patch.”
It was one of those deep summer nights in Georgia when it’s nearly impossible to tell if the steam is coming up from the ground or down from the sky.
The rain had stopped a few hours before, but now, as I crouched on the sodden earth long after midnight, the humidity hung on me like a wet woolen coat. I could see two pale green eyes staring out from a thick patch of English ivy. A soft but plaintive meow rose from beneath the leaves.
In desperation, I did the only thing I could think of — I sang. Specifically, my own version of the old Irish lullaby.
Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral. Too-ra-loo-ra-li.
For God’s sake let me catch you. I’m about to f**king cry!
Earlier that August evening, I’d gone out for groceries. I came home with a cat. I wasn’t looking for a new pet; I already had a grumpy elderly tabby at home and didn’t particularly want another one. But there I was, muddy, bloody, and wet, desperately trying to coax the terrified creature into my arms.
Six months in, the pandemic was raging. The death toll grew by the day, and I was in a constant state of anxiety. The process of reinventing my job to move from a courtroom to my dining room had been exhausting, and every time I ventured out, I was petrified I would bring home the virus and become the instrument of my partially disabled 77-year-old mother’s death. To add injury to insult, I’d injured my back. I’d lost my sense of agency over everything, including my own body.
"My intent was only to scare the cat, which I assumed was feral, away from the street. But when I got out of the car, it toddled toward me and began to rub against my legs."
On the way home from a rare trip to the grocery store one rainy Sunday night, my headlights caught a glimpse of a small cat scurrying across the parking lot of a barbecue joint. As I sat at the red light, turn signal clicking, I watched it head toward the heavily traveled street. It was late, and I had Zoom hearings first thing in the morning, but the cat-cuddling part of my brain took over, and when the light changed, I pulled into the lot. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing its tiny grey and white body crushed into the blacktop the next time I drove by.
My intent was only to scare the cat, which I assumed was feral, away from the street. But when I got out of the car, it toddled toward me and began to rub against my legs.
I leaned down and stroked the cat’s head. Young, but not a kitten, it wove itself around my ankle, tail raised. I didn’t see any evidence of maleness, but having just met, it seemed a gross breach of etiquette to peer too closely. I guessed she was a she.
In what I can only describe as an out-of-body-experience, I watched myself open the door to my SUV, sling the cat in the backseat, and jump behind the wheel.
What in the holy hell am I doing???
The cat howled the second I cranked the engine. It was only a five-minute drive home, but the prospect of traveling even that short distance with a wild, frightened creature felt insanely daunting. My passenger darted from cargo hold to back seat and back again.
“I’m not going to hurt you, okay? But please, please, please don’t jump on my head and make me crash and kill us both!”
The howling continued unabated. When I pulled into the driveway, she leapt into my lap and pawed at the window. I eyed the short walk from car to screened porch. It might as well have been 10 miles.
“All right, little girl. Let’s do this.”
I tucked the cat under my right arm like a fuzzy football and opened the car door. The second I stepped out, she struggled loose from my grasp and raced toward the open hill across the street from my house, leaving a long line of claw marks down both of my arms from just above the elbows all the way to the wrists. Beyond the hill were hundreds of acres of woods, teeming with coyotes and copperhead snakes. If she made it past the crest, she wouldn’t survive the night.
Shit. I grabbed a can of cat food from my grocery bags and ran after her, screaming “KITTY-KITTY-KITTY-KITTEEEE!!!” all the way.
The cat had darted into the ivy ringing the tree line. Every time I moved in her direction, she ran further up the hill. I cracked open the cat food and sat on the wet ground. She crept toward the smell of the food, but was still beyond my reach. This advance and retreat continued for hours, and though I got a tiny bit closer to her each time, my sense of dread was growing. I had impulsively removed an innocent creature from her environs, no matter how humble, and now she was worse off than before.
“Look, if you’ll just let me catch you,” I bargained, “I’ll take you back to the parking lot and you’ll never see me again.”
"In one fluid motion I’m certain I could never duplicate, I turned, dropped the T-shirt over the cat, and snatched her up like a sack of oranges."
Her head poked up just above the leaves. She eyed me suspiciously as I continued to blather my apologies.
Exhausted, I sat on the soggy ground and tried to strategize. Rainwater and sweat drenched my entire body; blood still dripped from the open claw marks. I’d had a cat once who liked to hear me sing, despite the fact I can’t carry a tune in a dump truck. Thus began my improvised rendition of the Irish lullaby.
The cat moved slowly to the edge of the ivy, where I’d placed the open cat of food, and nibbled. She was almost close enough to touch. I needed something to catch her in, but my options were limited to my bare hands and what I was wearing. As I struggled to pull my sodden T-shirt (emblazoned with the face of Flannery O’Connor, no less) over my head, my “quarantine 15” spilled into the dim moonlight like an unbaked batch of the sourdough bread everyone in America but me was making. Then, in my peripheral vision, I saw headlights approaching.
A neighbor’s car pulled to a stop at the bottom of the hill. I clasped Ms. O’Connor’s face to my chest.
“Y’all okay up there?” a male voice called from the darkened interior of the car.
I tried to sound casual. “Oh, I’m fine, just trying to catch a cat.” I waved him along.
“Well, if you’re sure.” The car pulled slowly away.
I sat back and mentally surveyed the situation. I was a middle-aged woman sitting semi-nude in the mud in the wee hours of the morning, singing to a stray cat in an ivy patch. I had to give it up. All I could do was hope she’d still be here in the morning.
I stood and began to walk slowly toward the house, my T-shirt draped around my neck like a soggy scarf. After a few steps I realized the cat was creeping behind me.
I had to take another shot.
In one fluid motion I’m certain I could never duplicate, I turned, dropped the T-shirt over the cat, and snatched her up like a sack of oranges. She howled and struggled against me as I ran down the hill, across the street, and up my front steps, but I managed to toss her onto the screened porch and slam the door shut before she could escape.
My foundling scrambled for cover under a wicker chair, and I collapsed on the stoop, breathless. A soft rain started falling, but I didn’t move. It was 3:30 a.m. As I considered the events of the evening, it occurred to me that in the hours since leaving the barbecue joint, I hadn’t thought of anything else. For the first time in half a year, I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t worried about the virus, or my job, or even my mother. My back didn’t hurt. I had no idea what I’d do with that cat, but she was safe. We were safe.
I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed a win, a small taste of something good, something hopeful to make life in a season of abject fear bearable, even for a little while. What had begun as a reckless act in a parking lot had ended well, at least for the moment. And that moment was enough.
Two years later, I have a daily reminder to keep counting the victories, however small, wherever I find them. Her name is Tallulah.
Pamela Wright’s personal essays have been published by Purple Clover, Full Grown People, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.