TerrieMiller.com

It’s been a hectic week, with more feelings and emotions than most. It’s draining.

I’d been home a while and would have been happy to stay embedded in the loveseat with Steve and Laika, but our CSA box pickup is on Thursdays, and I didn’t want to let it go until tomorrow. So I headed for Laguna Farm.

On the long one-way section of Main Street, a shape dashed out from the right; in a split second I recognized the shape as cat before I felt the ugly thud of my car hitting it. I saw it continue across the street; even in the rear view window I could see that the tabby’s hind legs weren’t working like they should.

As I stopped and parked, I saw another car behind me stop; the driver got out, a small figure, and ran across the street looking for the cat. I thought he must live in the neighborhood and prayed he wasn’t the cat’s owner.

He wasn’t. He was calling to the residents of the house, but there was no response. Almost as upset as me, he asked, “Are you the person who hit it?” Yes. “He ran into this yard, but it says beware of dog.”

I ran along the side of the house to look into the yard from outside the fence, but couldn’t see anything. There didn’t seem to be a dog anywhere; the man was almost crying at this point; I certainly was. He went through the gate into the yard first, cautiously, and I followed. I didn’t really see the point; the cat was certainly dying. It would hide and we’d never find it.

But the man found the cat, under a porch; much too far to reach. I came around to that side of the porch and the cat looked back at me, panting. The man pleaded with the cat to die quickly. We agreed that even if we could get to it, it would probably try to bite us.

What a shitty thing. The cat sat there and panted. Was I going to walk away? Was the man going to crawl in after it? Were we going to knock on doors to ask for help or find the cat’s owner?

I don’t remember making a decision. I just know that in a split second I found myself belly-crawling under somebody’s porch.

I got to the cat. It hissed at me. Reaching as high over his head as possible, I grabbed him by the scruff and pulled him towards me. Pushed myself backwards across the dirt, grabbed him again and pulled. Three times and I had him out in my arms. I knew it was hopeless. The man put down his sweatshirt and we wrapped the cat in it. I headed for the car and he followed.

He thought the vet near the humane society would be open; if nothing else, we could have the cat put down and end its suffering. I thought about trying to take the cat alone in my car. “Do you want to hold him if we take my car and I drive?” He agreed, and when we reached the parked car, I gave him the bundle. Off we went.

The cat struggled a few times, mostly if we talked, so we stayed silent after exchanging names and a few questions. Phil asked, “Do you have pets?”

“Two cats. Two snakes. A dog. Two chickens. You?”

“Three cats. Two dogs.” We didn’t really need to ask, did we?

The vet wasn’t open. I knew the emergency pet care on Fulton Road would be. The cat was still breathing, and Phil was up for the trip. Off we went again.

The cat made bad noises. As we got closer I could smell that the cat had lost control of its bladder. “Is he still with us?” I asked, glancing down at the motionless paw sticking out of the bundle.

“He’s twitching.”

We pulled into the parking lot; on the way in, Phil said, “He’s not moving; I think he’s gone.”

The receptionist called for a nurse right away and Phil laid the bundle on the counter, took the sweatshirt away from the lifeless cat.

They took the body back into the hospital and said they’d look at it; thanked us for bringing it in. They asked us to leave our names and phone numbers but not fill out any of the actual form. They’d contact the Sebastopol police with the information; if someone called about a lost cat, the description would be in records and at least they could find out what happened.

We left, dejected but not surprised. At least we tried; we did what we’d hope someone else would do for our pets. And this kitty had been in fine shape; obviously someone’s pet.

We didn’t talk much on the way home. I didn’t feel like I was capable of having any kind of normal conversation, likely to start blubbering about leaving my job and how nice people have been to me there and how strange life seems at the moment. I dropped Phil at his car and went to the farm, then home. I glad to be done for the day. I feel wrecked myself.

I told Steve what happened and mentioned that the police might call to get a more specific location than “Main Street”. Steve said that there was a message on the machine; he’d heard it go on but hadn’t answered it in time, just before I got home. I didn’t think the police would call that soon.

The message was from Pet Care. They wanted me to know that when they looked at the cat, they’d found that it was still alive. They were “breathing for it”, and though the prognosis wasn’t good, they were calling the Sebastopol police and see if they would be authorized to do more for it. I can call back before 10 tonight and find out what happens.

In a split second, I felt less futile about the crawling, the drive to Santa Rosa, the smell of cat piss in my car. I don’t expect to hear that the cat makes it, but it was worth the effort anyhow.

When I called back later that night, of course, I learned that the cat had died.