Cats are the only animals that are domesticable but not
controllable. That is, dogs, horses, these animals can be trained to do our
bidding. Lizards, tigers, bears will always be wild and only really stay with
us and obey us if we keep them caged and restrained. Cats will become pets,
return to our homes and show us love.
But now amount of breeding could create a cat who would pull a plow.
And it doesn’t matter because cats are hunters, first and foremost.
We’ve turned them into housepets, kept them locked up and perhaps that is for
their own protection but nothing can make them be anything other than a swift,
independent hunter. Such was Henry Miller.
Bec brought him home with 3 other kittens that had been
marked for death at the South Central shelter. But these three had breathing
problems, see, and so were quarantined, and that was where the lady found them
and rescued them and dropped them off at the animal hospital where Bec worked.
Their sickness saved them from death. And from there they came to live with us, at least until we could find them
homes.
There was Edgar, the gray, morose one.Fat Kerouac, the grandiose
and standoffish, almost surly girl. And the loveable pervert we named Henry
Miller.
Henry Miller had big eyes. As if he was born wide awake and
wished never to be otherwise. And with those big eyes he stared at me. Deeply.
Curiously. Affectionately.
We didn't want a
cat. We wanted to downsize. We love animals but with eyes on an
ever-changing horizon, we felt like lightness would be the key. Dogs are
tough to move long distances with. Cats near-impossible. And yet... and
yet Henry chose me.
And Cecile, our dog, he
chose her too.
Henry Miller, like all
cats, was a great writing partner, when I could write
Cats are much better writing partners than dogs. And reading partners, for that matter.
Henry Miller spoke with a French accent. And in L.A. we thought him a bit of a dandy.
He
never went outside the gate into crack-addled Hollywood. Once I built
him his 6-foot tree he would spend whole weekends up there when strange
dogs entered our house.
He wasn't an asshole
like every other cat. He would ask for food but not violently. He waited
patiently for breakfast, especially if we needed to sleep it off. He wanted nothing but to
be part of our family. And stretches.
His
favorite thing to do was stretch. Becca or I would grab him under his
front arm pits and he would stretch his paws out, arching his neck up,
eyes closed, getting loose and limber.
Just one thing we had in common.
He liked to sit with me when I wrote.
He
liked to jump around, to climb. That cat tree was the one thing I built
of which I was most proud, partially because of how much he got out of
the climb, jump, spin it took to the crow's nest.
He didn't bite or scratch our friends, our family, anybody. He was kind to people.
He put up with the stupid things people do to animals they love, like putting Santa hats on them.
A
few months after moving to Jackson, we found out he was beating up the
neighborhood cats. Especially one whose owners said he was usually the
bully. Henry brought us dead mice a few times. We thought he was just a
soft house cat. But in Wyoming he thrived. He became the king of our
street and a stud of a mouser. We even shaved him into a lion. Partially because of all the burrs but still ...
He was a lion, goddammit. A proud, strong, graceful, beautiful big-hearted fucking lion.
Maybe it was
because he was Cecile's little brother from the second he met her. She
wrestled with him. Toughened him up. Cuddled him. Antagonized him. So
soon he thought he was a dog. Could wrestle like a dog. Even with dogs.
He was Cecile's best friend, no doubt. They were young together.
They were supposed to grow old together.
She seems to be older since he
died. She spends more of her day sleeping. Seems to have gotten morose. Disenchanted and bitter. As if she's realized that you can lose best companions like that.
Even ones that were so damn tough. And goddamn was he tough.
But
he was still good in a lap. He was still the cat that people who didn't
like cats liked. He was still the cat that people who liked cats loved. He was a magic cat, that's for damn sure.
He
was a once-in-a-lifetime cat. The most even-headed, calm, friendly (but
not overly-so) and, by the end, badass cat Becca and I have ever known.
And she's known hundreds of cats.
He was
all-around good. Strong. Loving but not suffocating. A part of the
family but not needy like a dog. Kind to his brood, tough to his
enemies. With good balance. Good sense. Good heart. Good strength. And a
great hunter's instinct.
Though he did not
move well. That is, when we threw him in a cat carrier for the 900-mile
drive from L.A. to Jackson he mewed the whole time. He screamed from the
hotel room where we tried to leave him in Ogden while we took the dogs
out.
But his first moment in snow — stepping
out and sinking in, up to his chest, staring at us with eyes wide and
hair prickled — that was priceless.
Henry Miller was supposed to grow up with my son Jackson. He was supposed to send little Jackie Boy off to college.
He
was tough but kind. Outgoing but not annoying. He was like the star
athlete who gets straight A's and beats up the high school bullies for
picking on the geeks.
To people who say he died because we let him out, who believe the thing to do with cats is lock them up inside or put them on harnesses, I say why not get a turtle? What good is a life spent imprisoned. Henry loved the outdoors. He was too energetic, too carefree, too much of a lover of the wild and the night air and the hunt and the grass and the trees to ever be tortured by forcing hi to stay inside. His death could've maybe been avoided. But he probably woulda hated his life.
He was trying to get
home. That's the best we could discern when I got the call from the cop
who said he saw Hen in the jaws of a neighborhood dog in the field
behind our house. He had been scared, either from the dog or a car or
something. Maybe the dog shook him to death. Maybe a car hit him. Either
way, this beautiful cat, so full of life and love and skill and heart,
this cat who cat-haters loved, was frozen and stank of piss with a
hideous expression he never made and some dried blood out of his nose
and his tongue out his mouth.
I've seen plenty of animals die. But his was a tragedy. He was young. And he was the best goddamn cat I've ever known. Becca has known hundreds, maybe thousands of cats if you include her job. Even had a cat she loved for a long time, Oscar. And she admitted Henry was the best cat she's ever known.
The
other day, Becca saw a mouse in the house. This is when they come
around, in the fall. This would've been what he'd been growing towards all summer.
It's just such a goddamn shame.
We'll always remember you, you eternally-happy, forever effervescent, bright-eyed little bastard.
Henry Miller, May 2011-August 29, 2013
Love,
Ryan and Becca
