Henry Miller Remembered…a Note for a Fallen Feline Friend

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.

They wrestled. When I had shoulder surgery, I spent my two weeks' recovery with the new kitten and young little dog wrestling on my lap as I read LONESOME DOVE and GENERATION OF SWINE and watched movie after movie.

Henry Miller, like all cats, was a great writing partner, when I could write

again. He would sit on the desk and stare or sit in my lap and curl up as if to say "No matter your prose, your lap is warm and that is good enough."

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