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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/book “War of Water” cc&d, v282 (the April 2018 issue) Order this as a 6"x9" paperback book:  |
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Feline Fancy III
Atticus: The Gentle Giant
Dr. (Ms.) Michael S. Whitt
Amanda Rosaleigh Blake and her Soul Mate, Michael Demian Randolph, two committed cat lovers, found themselves without a feline familiar in early March, 2002. As noted in an earlier Feline Fancy, the term ‘familiar’ is used in these stories in place of the usual term ‘pet.’ The two prefer the connotations surrounding the former term to those associated with the latter. Amanda discovered the term in Alice Walker’s novel, The Temple of My Familiar. Walker felt, and Amanda agreed, that ‘pet’ was an unfortunate name for the nonhuman animals with which we share our lives. It is condescending and demeaning to the animal. As Walker also explains the term ‘pet’ discourages humans from establishing close, meaningful and understanding relationships with the nonhuman animal world. The term familiar and the stories surrounding it imply that nonhuman animals embody spiritual qualities by which humans may benefit. I explain this again in case the reader has not yet read “Feline Fancies I & II.”
Over the past ten months they had lost both of their cats, one through theft, most probably, and the other through poisoning. The vet speculated that the latter cat had gotten hold of something in his environment that had done serious harm to his liver. Treatment was administered and seemed to work, but a few days later in December 2001, when the couple and the cat were at Michael and Amanda’s mountain cabin in northeast Georgia, the symptoms returned with a vengeance. Their beloved familiar died within forty-eight hours.
Amanda and Michael had a fine garden in their backyard at their home residence in Columbus, Georgia. A feline familiar was absolutely necessary to protect it from moles, squirrels and other pest’s felines are good at catching. In addition to the garden benefits, Michael and Amanda wanted a cat for other reasons. They felt that cats were healthy for cat lovers and vice-versa. Cat familiars were funny. They made them laugh and laughter is always a wonderful medicine. They were affectionate without drooling like dogs. They kept themselves impeccably clean most of the time. Cats accept anything their humans are willing to give them, but they feel no need to be grateful. Sometimes they show gratitude; sometimes they do not.
The couple had waited since December hoping a cat would come to them. In a large city with a strong and an effective animal control department, it did not always happen. After checking and rechecking the ‘free pet’ section in the paper and finding nothing, they went to the pound to see what was available for adoption. They were lonely for feline company and spring planting had already begun. As fate would have it, there was a single kitten available for adoption and he was adorable. Amanda fell in love with this kitten at first sight. He was quite tiny, just a ball of fluff at this stage. She looked at Michael and said, “I really like this little gray kitty!”
Michael was kind of taken with the little kitty as well. Without much deliberation, they adopted the little tyke. He seemed to be no more than six weeks old, approximately the age a kitten should be allowed to be taken from its mother. He was a lucky little kitty. He stayed in the pound for a total of forty-five minutes. The kitten was in the pound, on the lam, for three-quarters of an hour. He was the smallest and youngest feline familiar that Michael or Amanda ever had. This kitten was dinky enough that Michael could carry him around in his shirt pocket. The two of them were afraid they might crush him during the night when he slept with them. Fortunately, he most often crawled up between their heads which was the safest place for him to be on the bed. Michael and Amanda had to put a large throw pillow beside the bed so the kitten could get up and down the bed. Amanda did not take long to come up with a name for this ball of grey fluff. For some reason soon after she and Michael brought him home, they played Bob Dylan’s album knocked Out Loaded which has the song “Brownsville Girl” on it. Gregory Peck figures prominently in this wonderful ballad. From this she thought about the character he played in To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch. Atticus seemed to fit this little guy to perfection, Amanda thought. Michael had been engaging in his usual practicing of suggesting truly funny and absurd names. Amanda was ready to get serious about an appropriate name. She immediately went to him with her suggestion. Amanda had from the beginning of their relationship adopted the custom of naming feline familiars after famous radicals, social reformers, rebels, progressives, and the like.
That’s a great name,” Michael agreed. “And did you know that Atticus Finch has recently been named the number one movie hero of twentieth century films?”
“I didn’t know that,” Amanda replied. “However, it makes the name even more attractive.”
Since neither of them had ever had a cat this small before, they thoroughly enjoyed watching him grow. Two or three weeks after they brought him home, he was still too little and defenseless to be allowed to go outside alone. Among other things, Owls were around preying upon small squirrels who were usually born in the spring. Atticus was about the size of a small squirrel. Atticus would have been a tasty snack for one of the large owls who hung around the neighborhood.
As Atticus grew older he became without danger from these owls and other predators. In fact, when he came up on approximately the sixth month anniversary of his birth, he weighed bout ten pounds, a rather substantial size for one so young. Michael and Amanda took him to the doctor to see if he was mature enough to be neutered. Their Vet. was a real stickler for not neutering before the animal was physically mature enough. He did not hesitate with Atticus.
Dr. Bolton said, “He’s a fully grown cat. His teeth, for example, are fully mature. He’s ready for castration. There will be no problem at all with any stunting of his growth.”
“Well, Dr. Bolton,” I said, “There’s no time like the present. I think, if Michael is okay with this, we’ll leave him here today. He can make babies and that means he is a hazard as long as he is not neutered.”
“It’s more than fine with me,” Michael replied. “Young Me still has unspayed females and that makes me nervous, especially now that Atticus can make little ones.”
It was early that day and the couple was able to bring Atticus home that afternoon. Cats are always a little drunk after they are spayed or neutered. Michael and Amanda kept him in and enjoyed his carefree, staggering inebriated state. He was not getting any friendlier they noticed with people outside a small circle. With respect to people, he almost exclusively took to Michael and Amanda. Later his circle of human contacts extended to Amanda’s mother, when she came to visit and later after she came to live with them, and the late Elaine Crawford, a woman about Amanda’s mother’s age who lived next door. Michael and Amanda looked after her yard and did hael and Amanda looked after her yard and hohome repairs for the last several years of her life. She and Amanda’s mother passed at about the same time in late 2005 and early 2006. They were both around 85 and less rambunctious and noisy than their younger friends. Amanda believed that is why Atticus did not mind them and even allowed them to touch and pet him.
By the time Atticus was nearly a year old he weighed close to twenty pounds. At around nine months he topped the scales at eighteen pounds. Neither Michael nor Amanda had ever had a cat who had grown so large. He was long, lanky, and quite fine looking. People were astonished at how large and handsome he was. One man two doors down the street next to Elaine on the other side, told Michael, “You know when I first saw Atticus it was from a distance. He was so large I thought he was a dog at first. If their ‘Gentle Giant,’ as Amanda loved to call him, had known this he would have been highly insulted. When the neighbor, Mac, came closer and saw Atticus was a cat he told Michael, “I hoped that he was a nice cat.”
In the Spring 2004, Michael and Amanda had a yard sale. Amanda’s mother had temporarily gone into one of those assisted living places down in Winter Haven, Florida. Michael went down to get several things she was going to throw away. They decided to sell them in a yard sale in the fenced in, relatively protected back yard. That way the two could put out their wares out the afternoon and evening before the sale and not have to rush around madly doing that chore the morning of the event.
During the course of the sale, both of them got several good laughs at Atticus’s behavior. The initial crowd thinned out around midmorning. They were mostly flea market dealers. During this period, Atticus was nowhere to be found. However, after the initial crowd abated, Atticus let the couple know each and every time they had a possible customer. Their bedroom was just off the backyard before they built some additions to their house much later in 2006 and 2007. When a car pulled up, Atticus would fly in their bedroom from outside growling up a storm. “Grrr, Grr” meant “another blasted strange person or strange persons are here. I’ve let you know. Now, I’m finding a place to hide until the damned pests are long gone. He never missed a trick on this one.”
An instance that shows shy Atticus’s amazing sensitivities had to do with one of Michael’s friends who is quite fat and loathes cats. He also traps them like the old man and woman on our corner. However, he does not take them to the pound. What he does do to them is worse. He takes them to a deserted woodsy area and leaves them there. When he comes by their place, he rarely comes in the house. Rather, he talks with Michael in the yard. Once when he came by and Atticus and Amanda were in the house. She could hear him growling up a fog. He growled and by standing on his hind legs kept up with Michael and his friend’s whereabouts by looking out the windows and moving from window to window as they moved. Atticus did not stop this growling and moving until the friend was gone.
His actions seem to say, “Darn it, it is one thing to bring people who like cats around, but that guy hates us. Why are you doing this to me and to yourself, my Michael?”
In spite of his extreme shyness around most humans, even diehard cat-lovers, cat Amanda said she never knew a nicer cat. He is more than five now and Amanda and Michael have never known him to hunt anything but a mouse or a rat. Birds, for example, are beings to enjoy and by which to be fascinated, not to hunt and kill. Before she died, Elaine told them what a kick she got from watching Atticus and his fascination with the Avian members of the animal kingdom. She said, “I would get so tickled. He would just sit or lie there and watch them. He seemed to be fascinated by their movements and that they could fly. The cat did not seem to be at all interested in hunting or catching them. Atticus surely is one of a kind.”
The trees in Columbus were all huge, several Oaks and one Pine. These trees are difficult for a cat to climb and they will not bother unless they are desperate. Once a mean Tom Cat treed one of the first cats they had in Columbus, Amanda, in one of our big Oaks, but that was a case of desperation. Incidentally, Amanda did not name this cat after herself. She came from one of Michael and Amanda’s favorite characters in a Tom Robbins novel, Another Roadside Attraction.
Once in one of their cabin trips, Michael had shut the sliding glass back door. All of a sudden Michael saw Atticus freeze in his tracks and stare in fascination at the back door. He looked and called Amanda, “Come quickly. You’re going to get to see a bear at last.”
Michael had seen several of them wandering around at dusk and shortly after dark and later. Amanda had never seen one and was extremely curious about the ones in this area. Amanda ran from the back of the cabin, where she was working. There was a huge mother bear with three cubs looking in the back door. If it had been open, they probably would have walked right in since the scent of food was strong. Michael and Amanda had just eaten dinner!
Michael and Amanda took Atticus to the mountains twice in the summer and fall, 2006 in order to re-bond with him and to let him know that he was still the most special cat in the their house. When Emma came to live with them, he got a little bit distant with the couple. However, Amanda’s mother began to cultivate the attentions of one of Young Me’s young cats. She called him Bo or Beau. Amanda was not sure what spelling her mom intended, but if she wanted a cat far be it from Michael and her to tell her she could not have one. They were delighted with this situation. However, in a region of ‘Bubba’s and ‘Bo’s Amanda knew how most people would interpret the spelling of this pretty, male neutered cat’s name. Thus, Amanda extended his name to the very Southern “Colonel Beauregard” with Beau for short. Well, to complicate matters, Beau or “The Colonel’ had a sister who was like his shadow. This pretty tabby neutered, female followed him over as she seemed to feel she had to be close to her brother. Since, at first, she would not come in the house, they fed her outside. At length, Michael named her ‘Sylvia” and that had stuck. Now she has gradually become a house/yard cat like their precious little Emma.
Nevertheless, Atticus was their very sensitive cat and his feelings were quite hurt when Michael and Amanda moved another two extra cats in. They did not ask for this to happen. It just did and it was the only humane way to handle the situation. However, Atticus tended to shun them, their bed, their expressions of affections, everything except their food. Amanda’s feelings were especially hurt since he had been her constant companion on the bed next to her ankles for three years. One day when Atticus and Amanda were here alone, she cried her eyes out and asked Atticus, “Since I love you so dearly, Atticus, why you are treating me so meanly?” She was sobbing.
To her astonishment when she went back to the manuscript she was working on in the bed, there was her big fine gray cat waiting to jump on the bed with her. He stayed there until Michael came home and he knew there was someone to take care of the seemingly hysterical Amanda. This did not last, but it did show that he understood some things they never imagined he did. This is when they got the idea to take only Atticus with them to the mountains again. This was shortly after Amanda’s eighty-six year old mother died and they had been leaving him with her. They did this because the car trip seemed to be so hard on him and she seemed to enjoy his company when they were gone. After Amanda’s mom was gone, they stayed several days on this trip and this helped immensely to show Atticus that he was still number one Familiar in the their house. When this trip seemed to be wearing off, they took another one with the same positive results.
The three needed to make another trip as it has been a long time since they had been to the cabin. The last couple of months had been severely wintery. They had been having one of the coldest winters we have had in a while. It would have been at least ten degrees colder at the cabin. In the mean time, a dear friend of Michael and Amanda’s, Catherine Jurczyk, who is also a committed cat lover, came to visit. Out of sheer necessity she had to bring her cats with her. Until she gets some dough-re-mi, she is stuck living with a jerk who murdered one of her kittens. She could hardly leave any living being with that idiot. She set them up in an ingenious Cat Condominium in their blue bedroom. All three of the other cats were scarce during the two days she was here, but immediately got over it. Not Atticus, he had to pout a little bit longer from the shock of the new cat brigade. A trip to the mountains was on their list for the month of March. It would be good to have him back fully. He had been hurt at first from Emma deciding to join the household. Atticus would have to accept it, and Michael and Amanda would have to convince him he was still the number one most important feline familiar in the household.
Meanwhile during a cold snap they were having, Emma spent many of her hours on the floor or on the bed in front of the warm fire. Atticus often came in at night and joined Amanda, Michael, and sometimes Emma, on the bed. However, he still seems to spend much of his days in his dank ‘Mole Hole,’ as we have come to call it. This is simply a special place under the guy’s house who lives in back of us. He usually leaves there late in the afternoon but sometimes comes earlier. Like most cats his first concern was for a plate of food. Then he gets comfortable on back of the couch, on their bed, or other warm and nice place to be in the house. At some point during the late afternoon or evening he spends on their bed. Often he comes two or three times, especially after everything is quiet and all but their soft lights are out. Except for Atticus’s periodic standoff behavior’s in between trips to the mountains and on Columbus where the other cats were around, everything seemed to be going well with their feline familiars. See pictures on page 15?
Finally in early April Michael, Amanda, and Atticus headed to the mountains to stay from Monday through Saturday morning. Atticus was a delight in the mountains. He was friendly, affectionate, and loving. Michael and Amanda were delighted. Atticus did loving things he had never done before. For instance, he pawed Amanda’s chest. He got closer and closer to them as the trip wound down to the end.
For the rest of his time with them he more or less accepted the other feline familiars without resentment. He played his role as a shy and gentle giant until finally only he and Sylvia were left.
Along with precious Woody, Atticus turned out to be one of two of the best cats they ever had. He managed to survive all of the dangers to feline’s lives, especially the dreaded automobile. They lost both Emma and Angie to these murderous and careless vehicles and their thoughtless drivers.
In 200? He began to show signed of illness. Finally, an older vet of considerably experienced Vet found an inoperable tumor on his stomach which promised to take him out in a few weeks. Amanda and Michael were devastated with sadness. They nursed and watched over him with a vigilant eye. They fixed a small garden on the edge of their other familiars graves with potted plants, hanging plants, and plants in the ground around his grave.
