Sultan, Pretty and Me

Part 2

In February’s issue you were introduced to part one of this story and you can now read it along with part two, with part three coming next month. If you haven’t read last month’s issue just head to p30 to read part one.

Over my reflected shoulder, I could see my other cat/companion – also getting on in age, but still a king, or Sultan of Sloth, as I liked to call him. Sult for short. Long ago, as a young tom full of energy and eager for pets and caresses from Leticia or me (...mostly Leticia), long ago, when gaining the height of the next building’s roof was at least as important as the next meal, when the quick turn of a bird’s wing would have him off like a muscular, orange missile, long ago, he had had a different name, young, full of energy and pride: JonTom the Magnificent! Leticia’s doing. When Leticia had gone, JonTom grew listless and started a milk belly. And let the birds go by. The birth of a sultan.

They say that pets grow to resemble their owners. The sallow visage in the mirror indicated that the reverse was true: sparse, grey whiskers, tattered hair... The unfairness of it all came to me. While the whites of the eyes staring back at me were flecked with the burst vessels of age and long-forgotten over-indulgences, were yellowed and opaque, the irises and pupils shone with all the verve and energy I had ever had. Looking into my eyes was like looking at the ancient light of a distant sun. The energy, palpable and shining, weighed heavy with time, reflecting a wisdom I had never felt. Lost youth taunted me. I turned away.

Tired from my self-examination, I slumped against the edge of the bureau, envying the sleeping Sultan on my bed. His faded orange coat tried to capture and reflect the sunset sunlight falling through the tiny north window – to be magnificent again – but the dusty fur couldn’t maintain its grip on the sprightly beam. Light danced and shimmered, but away and away.

Sultan, feeling the weight of my attention, raised his head, looked up. His drooping whiskers begged comfort and love. Pet me. A familiar command, almost urgent enough to override the perpetual accusation of his solemn, pink-tongued smile: How could you let her go? Where is she? I don’t know Sult, I don’t know.’ The old guilt resurfaced. Survivor’s syndrome squeezed my heart. I stepped to the bed, arms and head hanging.

Sult bumped his head up into the palm of my criminally unoccupied hand, reminding me of the first commandment of cats. Thou shalt pet. I found myself able to smile, to forget death and loss. I ran my hand down his back. ‘Okay Sult, old man, looks like you’ve got me.’ Recalling my earlier, dark contemplations, I added, ‘For a while at least. Now, if you can bestir that hefty ass of yours, I’ll give you some pets.’

I smiled through the insults that came so automatically. It was a part of our relationship: I bugged him about his weight, he woke me up at zero dark thirty in the blessed AM to go out. Or come in. Or just from contrariness. Long ago I had realized that cats don’t care what you say as long as you say it through a smile. In those days I would grin like an idiot and state happily, ‘JonTom, you insufferable piece of batshit, get off my paper.’ And long ago I realized that you don’t make anyone so happy as yourself by talking to an animal. What you say doesn’t matter.

Image by Chen Yi Wen

Leticia had often observed, ‘You talk to that cat more than me!’ Mock hurt. Then she would lose the fake frown and laugh. And hug us both, warm embrace. Her shiny black hair would fall over us like a living blanket, her deep brown eyes, glow like twin banked fires. The love flowed so freely then. Leticia possessed and gave it in plenty. Her Hispanic upbringing had instilled in her a sense of family that no American could possibly hope to equal. Not always easy for me, her demand for affection: My parents had been remote and cold; I was remote and cold. An ingrained trait, hard to excise: the standing-off and letting emotion pass without affecting.

Our inability to have a child – on which she could lavish indiscriminate love – had hurt her beyond my capacity to heal. But she showed me; taught me how to participate in her healing. I learned. Now that I have fully and completely broken the habit of self-containment, she is gone.

Weak from memory, I lowered myself to the musty, mushy mattress. I continued to stroke the old and coarse fur of my old and coarse friend. With old and coarse and spotted hands, depending from frayed, grey-white sleeves. I stared in amazement at the bulging blue veins, the spider-leg fingers. My head shook from denial: those frail things were not my own, they were some other old person’s. I was simply borrowing them until mine came back from the cleaners. Sultan stretched under my ministrations, purring, a low rumble. Like a tractor engine idling.

Pretty, my young and still vibrantly alive (and, though I would never tell Sultan, my favourite) cat mewed from the other room. I could hear her scratching at the screen, one of the bad habits she had picked up from the Sult himself. It remained a constant source of argument between us, as I had to repair the two-foot square of shredded mesh every third month or so.

Night-time. Time for the romping and playing so essential to catness. Time to act the deadly huntress and perhaps bring down a grasshopper or two (vicious!). Pretty scratched and mewed again, impatient.

‘Just a minute, Pretty.’

Her ‘mew,’ never having grown past kittenhood, transported me. For a lovely moment another old face than mine, a face worn with love and care (but hardly with age), occupied the incomplete light.

Her ‘mew,’ never having grown past kittenhood, transported me. For a lovely moment another old face than mine, a face worn with love and care (but hardly with age), occupied the incomplete light.

‘Leticia.’

She smiled and held up a kitten. Tiny and thoroughly soaked, it was grey from wetness, writhing with the young’s need to find a nipple or create havoc – whichever came first. The image, framed by Leticia’s dusky beauty, grey-streaked hair, and a myriad sun and smile wrinkles bracketing her eyes and pink lips, would have made a lovely photograph.

‘She’s so pretty.’ Knowing I would not easily agree to the trouble – and expense – of another cat, Leticia rushed on, ‘She’s a stray. I found her under the lip of our stairs, trying to stay out of that awful, freezing downpour.’

I had looked out the window (invisibly clear and set in a wall that sparkled); a few clouds were dropping their light burdens, resulting in a sprinkle of rain. It was spring, so the rain was probably cool, but the day was warm. I looked back at Leticia, words forming in the back of my throat. She returned my (stern?) gaze with defiance. A glance at the tiny ball nestled snugly in Leticia’s loving arms, basking in their warmth, showed me complete purring contentment. From within the already drying puff of white, a pair of solemn blue eyes peeked out at me. Someone ‘mewed’ and I lost my heart and my resistance.

By Bob Ritchie. Hailing from California, Bob Ritchie now lives on the lovely island of Puerto Rico, where he discovered, among other things, that wet heat is better than dry. Bob (as he calls himself) is a writer of stories and has penned several things that he believes are good. His work has appeared in Unlikely 2.0, Small Print Magazine, Triangle Writers Magazine, and others; two of his stories were nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Neither won. Oh well. Go well.