The yowling outside the patio door let us know that the after dark gang was all there and waiting. Pulling back the drapes I could see the whole rag tag feline crew. Broken Tail (whose tail went every way but straight), Shrimpy (who had obviously been the runt of the litter) Bent Head (a really sweet cat who through some horrid accident had so much scar tissue on the side of his neck that he held his head at a constant 45 degrees from level) Mange (who wasn’t really mangy but must of, at one time, been set on fire from the looks of his fur challenged coat) and a few others whose impromptu names I have forgotten. But there they all were, expectantly waiting for our big white-footed black cat to join them. Out the door Sigmund strutted and off they all went seeking nocturnal adventure.
Life with uber cat, the Einstein of cats in so many ways, was like being in an endless Disney movie. I think everyone who has had more than just a couple dogs and cats in their lives will have that one dog, that one cat who truly is “the dog,” “the cat” by which all the rest are judged. Sigmund, our first child after Diane and I were married, was that once in a lifetime, never to be repeated, cat.
A scrawny, long legged kitten when Diane brought him home, his bright attentive eyes soon called for a name of some gravitas. Sigmund Freud it was. But after a few weeks, his lazing around like a wet dish rag made it obvious to us that the cat was all double joints and somehow not put together right. When you picked him up and carried him, he was a relaxed wet noodle in your hands. This reality forced a renaming and Freud was dropped for Flop. As this floppy kitten grew into a sleek large, athletic cat (who could jump and catch something 8 feet above his head) that name evolved again. With the dawning of the realization that he was the cat to rule us all, fittingly he became Sigmund THE Flop.
Fiercely protective of his people/subjects, Sigmund would unnerve every visitor with his piercing stare and ability to sit unmoving, scowling until you did exactly what he wanted. “Get out of that chair.” “Don’t be so loud.” “Don’t get so close to my people.” “Pet me and love me now.” Once our guests finally did whatever Sigmund wanted done, Sigs would regally retire, flopped on the back of Diane’s or my chair, with one paw on our shoulder, daring the now uncomfortable guest to take from him what was plainly his. Us.
But Sigmund wasn’t just a master manipulator of people. He lived rent free in the heads of every dog he ever met. The basset hound next door, which the neighbor would tie to the power pole in our adjoining back yards, was frequently the object of Sigs' torture routine. With great slinking agility and depth perception Sigmund would park himself 18 inches from the end of the dogs 15 ft. tie and then begin a strolling circumnavigation of the yard. The dog frantically barked and whined as he followed the taunting cat around, his leash stretched to the limit and winding tighter to the pole. Round and round till the leash was no more and poor dog hopelessly bound, his BAAWARK, BAAWARK becoming a muffled, mewling, mork, mork, mork. Then the feline victor of this chapter of dogs vs. cats would twist the knife by plopping down right in front of the poor immobilized pup and proceed to defiantly wash his rear end.
This triumphant bath of his nether regions became Sigmund’s victory dance at every dog conquest. His keen dog finder radar would bring him to every tied up dog in the neighborhood where he would locate the end of the frantic canines roaming range, stare the dog down and then plop over for a leisurely wash of his butt. I am certain every dog within blocks of home developed facial tics and needed many sessions with the doggie counselor after suffering from Sigmund’s fearless psychological bullying.
When he wasn’t dog molesting, Sigs was a ruthless and tireless hunter, purging the entire neighborhood of every not-in-a-cage rodent. Heaven help if the kid down the street’s hamster got loose and out. Oddly enough, after ridding his little part of the world of all the rats and mice, Sigmund developed a more unusual taste...frog. After a night of his depredations, the driveway would be littered with 4 or 5 dead frogs, and all of them missing their hind legs. We were never certain if he ate the legs or just enjoyed seeing the poor things squirm without them. This amphibian obsession came to stunning head one night. Sigmund had trained us that when he howled at the bedroom window, one of us would drag up, let him in and then stumble back to bed with Sigs trailing. There was an unforgettable night when this same routine played out with a difference. This time Sigmund did not follow me back to bed, but instead put up a baleful and chilling yowl from the living room. Thinking that the cat was hurt, Diane got up to investigate. A cry of “OH MY GOD, SIGMUND!” sent me bolt upright, stumbling into the light to see what horrible state the cat must be in to bring such a yell from my wife. There, in the middle of the floor, my blurry eyes beheld Sigs, triumphantly smiling his catty smile, with one paw on the belly of a still very alive bullfrog. Somehow the cat had gotten into the house and past my half-asleep self, towing a frog that was much bigger then my size ten and a half shoe on the floor nearby. There was the great hunter with his trophy catch in the middle of the living room rug, beaming as bright as any cat has ever beamed.
One night not long after, Sigmund The Flop didn’t yowl at the bedroom window. And he wasn’t back three nights later either. We searched every yard that held a psychologically damaged dog pining for revenge. We scoured the shore of the now nearly quiet frog pond. We poked through all his haunts and hangout, and finally found him, crushed to death in the ditch, the loser in an attempt to cross that one busy street he had never been beyond.
Thirty years later, we still grieve.
Broken Tail, Shrimpy, Bent Head, Mangy and the few others whose impromptu names I have forgotten, came by once more, and waited the night away. Then I never saw them all together again.
