A Fully Functioning Feline

by Terri McFadden

Demanding, aloof, funny and affectionate – any cat lover has seen these characteristics and more in their beautiful friends. Often embodied in a single, sleek feline. Somehow the cat stories from my family that have stuck with me the longest are about a lovely, black cat named Theo. He was a singular fellow – the characteristics mentioned above - demanding, aloof and funny fit him well. As to affectionate, not so much. This was a cat who knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it from the humans he chose to live with.

He was born to a free cat mother. Our son and his friends found her and a litter of kittens on Brackenberry Beach and without asking, brought one of the tiny critters to our house. We hadn’t had a cat in several years and I had decided that I didn’t need another animal in the house, what with four children and a dog. But I was charmed by the small animal bounding over the living room furniture and it made me smile that the little mite had exactly the same black coloring and white toes as our dog, Sasha. With a little trepidation (I’d had some rather destructive cats) I agreed he could move in. A lengthy discussion on a proper name ensued – our youngest pushed hard for Paws, roundly rejected by our eldest, who didn’t like “a body part name”. The ‘music’ the cat made my husband think of a black jazz musician that he liked; why not call the cat Theo? The name stuck.

Previous cats, despite furniture clawing and litter-tray missing, had all been lap-cats. Not so Theo. He rarely deigned to visit any of the six laps available to him of an evening. When he did however, the recipient, while honored, knew he or she was required to sit perfectly still. If you moved or (worse yet) absentmindedly rubbed an ear or chin, you could be sure you would first get an angry green glare. Moving or rubbing a second time usually brought a lightning fast nip. Eventually I realized that Theo didn’t expect his furniture to move, let alone rub his head. Understandable, if you thought of it that way. How would you feel if your sofa shifted underneath you or reached up an arm to pat you on the head?

Theo turned out to be the easiest cat I’d ever owned…I’ll revise that…ever shared a home with. When he wanted to go out he scratched the door, quite gently. Unless of course, the human in the room didn’t respond quickly enough. When he wanted to eat he meowed in the kitchen next to the drawer where the can-opener was kept. And meowed and meowed. We moved pretty smartly to his jazzy tune.

When Theo was about eight years old, our son was home from college and we were going away for the weekend. Ross agreed to feed and keep the litter clean, as no one else would be available. Although the cat preferred to be outdoors, he was fastidious and would use a litter box if absolutely necessary. When we returned, our son had gone back to school. As we climbed the stairs to the second floor the pungent aroma of cat urine greeted us. A small wet spot adorned our bed – on my side. But far worse was to be found in Ross’s room. Suffice to say the mattress had to be discarded. At first, I feared that our black prince was ill. However, it turned out that the porch door, where the litter box was waiting, had not been propped open. Both the human servants were blamed, but punishment was meted out as was only fair for the transgressions involved. Theo was nothing if not a fair judge.

That evening, as my husband and I watched TV, the cat scratched to go out. I rose and opened the door. He exited. I sat again, got comfortable and resumed watching the show. Mere minutes passed. As was his way, Theo flung himself, full-body on the exterior screen door. (His ‘let me in’ was always perfectly clear.) My husband rose, opened the door. Cat in. Giving us a clear-eyed look, he turned and raised one paw and scratched again. Sighing I got up and let him out. He vanished into the night, evidently satisfied that the door openers were once again working properly.

A few years later we moved to the mountains of North Carolina. I was fearful that the coyotes and foxes would make short work of this city cat. I remember thinking, ‘it’s a big house, he can explore it, at least for a few weeks’. The long journey had subdued the feisty animal and that first night he curled in a corner of our bedroom and fell asleep. In the middle of the night a commotion roused us. Turning on the light we saw our joyful cat, happily tossing a desiccated mouse from paw to paw. You could almost hear him say how much he loved his new country home; hunting had never been such a breeze back in Massachusetts.

The evening after our arrival, Theo scratched at the door leading to the yard. I ignored him. He subsided and I thought he was settling to a new, less active way of life. Minutes went by. Unseen by me he had circled the living room, silently slipped behind my chair and clawed the brand-new, brown leather. Never in his life had he clawed the furniture. Recognizing the inevitable, I got up, called the dog and we made a little parade behind Theo to the front door. I opened it, he turned right, padding across the grass. We followed. He stopped, looked over his shoulder and hissed. Loudly. His meaning was crystal clear: “I’m a fully-functioning feline. Leave me alone!”

I was sure that was the end of his imperious highness. Surely, he would become dinner for some larger carnivore. When we retired long after dark, he hadn’t returned and I comforted myself that I’d only done what he wanted. I couldn’t force him to be a different sort of cat – a housecat. Sadly, I just hoped his end had been swift.

About three in the morning a soft scratching could be heard on the door to the deck off our bedroom. Somehow Theo had figured out which was our bedroom – I’d let him out on the opposite side of the house at ground level. He came up a long flight of steps to the deck after his adventures in the new and beckoning countryside.  Clearly, he was a match for any wild mountain carnivore. A fully functioning feline and a very happy fellow indeed.