I can count the number of times I've been "together" enough to be proactive. For instance, most of my life I never had car insurance--or health insurance. Once, during the mid-nineties, I had my shit together enough that when my younger brother tossed me a tip on some financial advice...an investment... I was able to capitalize on it. I met with this broker in the watering hole downstairs from the office builiding of Ditech, an up-and-coming mortgage house in Orange County. I bought into an IRA that folded into the 401K Ditech offered. It wasn't long before my ability to hold onto that "luxury" became negligible and I had to funnel funds toward more urgent matters. Nonetheless, it was during this time of never-before-seen-prosperity in which I decided to get a cat.
I've always been a cat person. Dogs require too much attention.
So, I had this sweet pad three blocks off the Belmont Heights beach between Long Beach and Belmont Shores. It was Southern California's sweet-spot...white people were moving into LBC in droves on the heals of Snoop and Sublime popularity and The Shores was already established aristocracy, and, upon my due-diligence, settled into one of the last bastions of "ghetto" left in the neighborhood.
I was working at Ditech doing the 405 hustle back and forth to work and my pad was a sweet one bedroom and a patio with enough dirt to have a small herb and tomato garden my mom'd helped me put in over one thanksgiving holiday. I found a cat shelter online and "mapquested" the address, drove over and knocked on the door.
The job I had was sweet. I was recently single, my pad was decorated minimalist. I was drawing and writing a lot. I walked into this two bedroom town-home up on Junipero--your stereotypical "crazy cat lady." I don't really know why I chose Walt--except that I wanted a cat who reflected my own personality and it wasn't until after we'd gone over the entire house and she shuttled me into the last room of the house that must have contained 15 cats all lounging around and only bothered enough to look up from whatever under-arm they happened to be licking to notice someone had entered the room, when I noticed a shy, under-sized black and white cat nervously peering out from behind a cat-trap--I knew this was the one.
"Can I see him?"
"He's a shy one."
"Hey buddy...what're you doing?"
He ducked behind the cat-trap simultaneously looking at me...a wondering look. As tenderly as possible I kneeled down and patted his soft head. He purred and let me pick him up.
"I like him. His name is Walt."
She wasn't happy about the name. I gave her a hundred dollars and she gave me paperwork. I put Walt in the cat-carrier and out to my truck. That was on a Wednesday, by Friday night, Walt wasn't eating or drinking and was huddled underneath my bed. By Monday I was worried and by the Wednesday after I'd gotten him, I was calling around to local vets offices.
The place was down off the PCH; a five minute drive from my apartment. I put Walt in his carrier. He was subdued of his own accord...he was sad and beaten. I talked to him all the way to the vet's.
"I know what it's like buddy." "Lotta people'll tell you they understand Walt, but they don't." "Everything's gonna work out little buddy, ain't no other way for it."
"So, I got this cat from some crazy cat lady off Junipero a week ago. I don't know what's wrong with it, but I don't have a lot of money to fork out for this so if you could just figure out if there's anything that can be done..."
"Ok sir, slow down...." and then fill in the rest with first-time-visit-rhetoric and about fifteen minutes later I was carrying Walt into a patient room.
Walt was disagreeable. Several "doctors" came in rotation, then together, then separate again, then assistants all asking questions about the cat--and me--and my relationship to the cat--and would you mind stepping out into the waiting room please sir....sir, please, just step out into the waiting room. It wasn't until after that I realized they were trying to figure out if I was an abusive owner. Which doesn't make any sense. I kept trying to explain to them that Walt is not the friendliest cat and that when you try to hold him down like that he was sure to rebel in the only way a cat knows how. The fact that I'd only known the cat for a week and understood this about him and could actually handle him in his distressed situation gave me pause only to recognize the veterinarians' incompetences...that they were secretly casting aspersions regarding my treatment of Walt was an incredulous notion. Had I recognized this, I surely would not have a cat. I would have demonstrated the typical behaviors of an abusive parent and declared that the entire lot of them wasn't worth the paper their degrees were printed upon. They would have declared me unfit because of the way I was getting "defensive."
I never understood why our society demands reservation. A friend of mine told me once that it's a wonder people aren't just walking around the planet screaming their heads off at the outrageousness and absurdity happening all around us. It's a hilarious image and one I often visualize. Sitting on the bahn in Berlin is particularly fitting to this hallucination.
You see this quality of behavior demanded of us in many places. Work, bureaucratic offices, restaurants, in public and in broken relationships, all propagate civilized behavior, otherwise you're likely to be disregarded as hostile. Like when you're calling any corporate customer service, your cell company for instance, will quickly threaten to discontinue the conversation if you---say verbally assault them or swear spells reinforced on the souls of their cowardly ancestors.
The other day I was sitting on a bench at this little spielplatz. Mostly I see people walking little dogs, never have I seen any kids playing on the little spring-loaded toys or in the sandbox. It's a bank of six benches--two rows of three facing each other on opposite sides of a walkway and you can see a bus stop and a busy street corner. On this corner is one of the places I go to in Berlin that has micro-crafted ales---IPA's no less. It was after work and I was trying to grade essays, it was a beautiful spring-like day. This old German guy comes walking across the street and he's yelling--shouting at the world. I couldn't understand him. A big pink bedsheet was bundled up like a sack of trash and hung over his shoulder and he stumbled. I wish I could've understood what he was shouting. He was angry as hell. Many people walking or biking by would look at him...much the same way I was looking at him...and then glance around for anyone else paying mind to the crazy old guy. People's eyes met other eye-witness's eyes and eyebrows would raise, small smiles of appreciation exchanged. As if to say, "Thank god! Thank god someone's willing to say it."
Sometimes when I'm talking to people, I see the glaze forming over their eyes and I just stop talking in mid-sentence and walk away. Sometimes I feel my own glaze frosting my vision and I've come to recognize it and it forces me to awaken and consider my own developed-biases...I try to let them go.
I learned this a long time ago. I used to live in this house outside of Kent, Ohio with a bunch of friends. People came and went and we had a lot of parties, get togethers more aptly and our neighbor would be over all the time. It was one of the coolest places I've lived simultaneously one of the worst. But we had this one party that literally almost brought the house down. Someone ended up getting sued over it. I was doing a background check on myself a few years ago and in my searching found that I was named on the suit. Walls were stripped down to the frame and electrical work, antiques destroyed, flags burned and this old black and white TV I'd had since I was a ten year old boy was smashed against the fire-place. When that happened I really haven't held on to very much. Always kept it simple and when people would ask me why I don't have anything I'd say, "it makes it easy to move around when I want."
It's a good philosophy and acquiring Walt was flying in the face of it. I remember thinking what sort of burden I'd be putting on him. Would I be able to feed him, how would it go if and when I decided to move, was I ready to take care of another living creature...it meant always having in mind a place for him and the notion was a warming one.
The doctors gave me a saline bag, a needle and a long hose with a valve-like contraption attached to it, and some kind of pills I was to sneak into his food. They didn't know what was wrong with him but that he was dehydrated and since he wasn't drinking on his own, I had to get him water intravenously, which meant sticking him with this needle just beneath the skin at the back of his neck.
I recalled as a kid growing up in Ohio, we had several cats roaming around our little farm. The cats would give birth and as the kittens got big enough my sister and I would help my dad take care of them. I learned from watching him handle these cats. He'd grab a fist-full of fur at the back of their necks and maneuver them around like a street-grifter playing the shell-game. That's how I handled Walt when I'd slide the saline-fed needle under the nape of his neck-fur. A cat I hardly knew at all, I'd grab a fist-full of neck-fur and pull, sliding the needle as simply as a tooth-pick slips into room-temperature-butter and hold him in my lap as the bag slowly fed him the much needed drink. He was scared--more than I was and he'd somehow impress himself deeply into my lap and look up at me, his little soft head stuffed onto the little mounded hill of his body, eyes clearly hoping that I wasn't going to hurt him and we'd do this for the next four nights after I'd come home from work.
In reality, I barely thought about what I was doing, otherwise I probably couldn't have done it. I only knew he had to have water.
And he got better. He was flea infested when I got him too. If you'd pet along his back in the opposite direction your hand'd kick up a spattering, like lawn clippings behind a push-mower. Riddled with fleas. I gave him baths. Giving a cat a bath is like witnessing shame and fear of death at once. A cat's truly exposed during a bath, but it was for his own good. It was a losing battle because I didn't really know the extent of his flea problem for a couple weeks after he'd been living in my flat. The place was lousy with 'em. My girlfriend at the time was a saint. She must have been getting eaten alive whenever she spent the night--but she never complained. Well, not until we were breaking up four years later and on top of everything else I'd fucked up, she tacked on this little ditty on her way out the door...."And I hated that fuck'n cat too!" That hurt. What bothered me more was that I never picked up on it. I mean, I must have been blind. How could I never have felt that vibe from her.
I believe people. I need someone to tell me if they're bothered, or reveal themselves in an deliberate manner in order to see them. I'm an English teacher and a colleague once told me, "Our jobs are looking beneath the surface. How can you not notice what people's motives and issues might be." I've considered this observation. Of course it took a virtual stranger to point this out to me. It says something about people and relationships that someone close to me doesn't have the courage or the inclination even to say something. Maybe I'm thinking about it for the first time and people have tried to tell me. I used to have this conversation with my friend Dave. I would try my best to avoid making an impact on others lives. Be transparent...you be you. Don't let anything I say or think sway your actions or thought process...I'm over here existing, you exist too, and let me know if you want to talk.
Everyone's sat on a park bench and played that game where you make back-stories up regarding people walking by. This guy Patrick, I've known him for about twenty years I suppose. I would say he's on my short list of friends, even though I haven't seen or talked to him in over three years. He could figure people out. When I met him he was just walking down the street. I was over JJ's place in Kent and we were standing on the sidewalk in front of his place talking to Scott who lived across town and this guy comes walking down the street toward us. Scott knew him from a philosophy class and Pat joined our conversation as if we'd all been friends for years. It was so seamless and fluid I didn't believe Scott or JJ when they told me they hardly knew him. That night Pat showed up and we got drunk and in the course of all the talk, I kept thinking how amazingly accurate his assessments of us all were. He knew people better than anyone I'd ever come across.
Patrick was an artist then--and one of the best most original artist I'd ever known personally. And that's saying a lot. I knew at least three other artists whose art was unparalleled. The subjective nature of appreciating art dilutes such a claim, but I have studied art, art history, critical theory of art and I have my own tastes that gravitate now, toward the real...the art I liked as a young man, before I knew anything about art, was more abstract. Over the years I've come to appreciate the realistic nature of art, with an eye toward surrealism, abstraction, and impressionism. When I met Pat, I knew Dave and Conrad and loved their works. Their art made me want to know the person who could make this...to talk to them and listen to them. I wished I could make what they'd made. Pat's work had the same effect. In my life, I've had dreams about each of these three artists' paintings.
I don't really talk to any of those guys any more, but I'm sure if we met it would be warm and more than pleasant. I did meet up with Pat years later in Portland a few times. He was in a jam with a girl he'd fallen in love with. I remember sitting and having coffee with him and Scott and JJ on a bright sunny Portland morning. We drank coffee and smoked cigarettes into the early evening. He'd concocted this crazy notion that the FBI was watching him. I wanted to believe him...he was forthcoming on every front...an honest man before me. So few people have this quality. It had taken away his confidence...his chi or center. His experiences and intelligence were still intact--he was still Pat, but he questioned himself--more precisely I think he questioned his reality.
He'd gone away from art and went to law school and passed the bar in Washington and was scraping together a living, he'd explained, from basically meeting people randomly. He was substitute teaching at inner-city schools in Seattle and hatching jobs, seemingly from thin air whenever opportunity presented itself. I looked at him and thought, this person should be a giant, not what he was presenting me. He should be 10 feet tall and striding down the street, not staring back at himself and doubting.
At my apartment later that night in Portland with Pat, Scott, and JJ:
"Oh...hey. So this is Walt," Pat went right up and pet Walt on the head. Walt flopped onto his back and Pat rubbed his belly.
"Otter," Scott said. "Show Pat your coffee table." I'd made this coffee table with a flip top. It was rustic and raw but pretty sweet for a hand saw and a few carving tools.
"It's a work in progress," I said and went on to this little braggadocios spiel where I take on this high-falutent persona and explain the finer points of hand-crafted furniture making.
"Otto man," Pat said while getting his hand clawed by Walt. "This cat's crazy man. He's just like you."
And I told him the story of when I first got Walt. Feeding him intravenously and how it was touch and go and the nurses all thought I was an a cat abuser.
"Yeah, me and Walt's been through a lot..."
I got Walt in the autumn of '99 and in that same year I met the woman of my dreams, decided to go to college and leave LA for Portland. My girl found a job with habitat for humanity and I enrolled in community college. At the time California and Oregon had this reciprocity agreement that said you could forego the residency qualifications and pay in-state rates in either state. I hopped on the Oregon Health Plan and started getting food stamps for the first time in my life. I also bought a '94 Ford Ranger extended cab for six grand, cash money out the door during this time.
I packed up the Ford with the entire cab left free I figured Walt would have plenty of space and make the trip fine. I wasn't even out of LA and had to pull over for Walt. He puked.
"Hey Walt man, you gotta chill man," I told him. He looked at me confused and a little angry.
"Look, don't give me this right now," I reasoned. "We're movin' up buddy. We're gettin' out of this race riot man. LA's been nothin' but trouble man. We been lucky lately. Sure things have been good, but that was a dead end man. We're lucky Walt. We got a woman that loves us, friends to count on, and I'm startin' school with health insurance and food stamps."
He didn't seem convinced. I put him in his carrier and he was happier. I stopped every hour or so. The Ford was loaded down and I welcomed the stops. Rest areas along the five were nice and Walt liked getting out and walking around.
We drank coffee, listened to Dylan's "Time out of Mind," the whole way up. I smoked weed and kept the speed at a steady 65 the whole way. We stopped at every rest area which worked out to about once an hour. Once we pushed thru San Francisco Walt fell asleep and it was dark and I pushed the Ford to 70 and didn't stop till Mount Shasta.
I remember how hopeful I was. I'd made a few such trips. The landscape always seems to welcome me in these moments. I often think that these images...the times when I packed up and got on the road to a new place...these images will be what I remember on my death-bed.
I've done it six times. Chicago to Yankton, South Dakota: Hartington, Nebraska to Medina, Ohio; Kent, Ohio to Los Angeles; LA to Portland; and Portland to Florida via Chicago; and the last time was Florida to Berlin. That was a little different but I still remember driving thru the South Florida Glades and watching the sun coming up over the horizon and having that same surreal feeling of wide open possibilities.
Me and Walt lived in several places starting in southern California where I had to feed him intravenously. Then we stayed with JJ and his wife and new born baby Ezra. That was trying everyone's patience and I was glad to find a place with my girl at the time off Stark street in SE Portland. Then I got my own little studio on PSU's campus and I had a little garden plot where I could take him outside and he helped me garden and brew home brews.
