All punishment is mischief; all punishment in itself is evil. –Jeremy Bentham
Long hair—ebony, shining, sleek, almost glittering.
Eyes—the color of midsummer grass after a rain.
Ears—pointed, alert, long.
Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
At least, when Vee looked down and saw the cat, she imagined that's what he should have looked like. Instead, his eyes were dull, his fur matted, one ear torn. She realized, kneeling beside him, that the fur wasn't just matted; it was his blood that had soaked through and hardened. She couldn't tell how injured he was.
The long ears flattened.
She reached a hand out to the cat, and he hissed. She jerked her hand back.
"WWJGD?" she muttered. What would Jackson Galaxy do?
Vee removed her eyeglasses and sat down next to the cat. Slowly she offered one of the temple tips to the offended feline. "Go on, have a sniff," she encouraged, keeping her voice low.
The cat looked at the tip of her glasses, blinked, and looked back at her, staring at her eyes. The cat's eyes narrowed, and he hissed again.
Vee frowned, sitting back and staring at the cat. "Mixed signals, kitty. Cats narrow their eyes when they're happy… but that hiss is not happy." She sighed, standing up. "I've got a warm apartment and I'd like to take you there and make sure you aren't hurt too badly. But I also don't want to get sliced to bits."
After putting her glasses back on, she held out her hand again. The cat lifted his nose and pointedly turned away.
She couldn't help but laugh at the haughty cat.
"Look, buddy, you're flopped in an alley, you're filthy, you're hurt, and you're probably hungry. You can't afford to turn up your nose at me, even if I'm a crazy woman who talks to cats. Which I am, apparently." Pulling her hand back, Vee started to look through her bag, finally finding the Chick-fil-A sandwich still warm in its pouch. She opened the pouch slowly, and the cat perked up despite himself. Reaching into the sandwich, she pinched a piece off the chicken, and with a small smile, she held it out to the cat.
The cat hissed but couldn't hide his twitching nose. Vee smirked. "Lucky for you, I'm patient," she said, holding out the chicken on a steady finger. Finally, the cat tried to scoot toward her finger, immediately howling and ending on a plaintive note. Vee's smile faded as she saw him struggle. "Okay, cat, I'm sorry. This is happening." She brought the chicken right up to his mouth, and he hissed before taking it. "So this is me talking, trying to get you used to the sound of my voice, because I'm going to pick you up in a minute and I want you to feel safe when I do… I know you're not going to like it, and I know it's probably going to hurt, but I just can't leave you like this." She saw the cat swallow the chicken, and she sighed. "Now or never, then."
As gently as she could, she moved in to pick him up. He hissed three times in quick succession before settling in with a small whimper.
"You're handling this beautifully," Vee whispered. "I know you hurt. The vet's not far."
One sponge bath, nineteen hisses, three vet bites, two vet tech bites, seventeen stiches in two places, two vials of blood drawn, and one powerful sedative later, Vee carried the now-sleeping cat into her apartment. She lined a cardboard box with a soft (okay, very used) plaid blanket and transferred the cat into it. He barely twitched in protest.
"Good drugs," she told the cat. "You haven't hissed in like half an hour. You'll be okay while I go to PetSmart and get this place ready for you. Cat food, too. You're going to want that. And maybe some toys…" Gently, she rubbed a thumb on the cat's head, smoothing the area between his eyes. "You should be okay for an hour or so."
Pushing the cart down the aisle as she bought the necessary items, she thought about Pantry, the one-eyed brown and white cat who had been her closest friend for the better part of a decade until she died rather abruptly. One moment, playing. One moment, sleeping. One moment, eating. One moment, an odd cough-wheeze; the next moment, dead.
Until then, Vee hadn't even known that cats could get heart attacks. In a fit of grief, she threw away everything of Pantry's: the squeaky M&M toy, the brown striped catbed, the silver bowls engraved with her name and little paw prints—not to mention about $50 worth of litter and cat food. After she took Pantry to be cremated, Vee hadn't allowed herself to go anywhere where there were needy cats. She didn't need that kind of pain again. If you asked her if she'd get another cat, she would say of course… just not yet. Not yet had turned into two years.
When she returned, he was still sleeping, so she began to set up her new purchases. The cat now had food and water bowls, toys, catnip, a scratching post, litter box, and a better bed than a cardboard box with a ratty blanket. The cat opened one eye, then the other, barely managing a perfunctory hiss through his lethargy.
"Right, right, hiss. Well, you're probably going to hiss at this bed. The doc told me you're a male cat, but the only bed they had available was this." She pulled a large satin catbed out of the bag with the word Princess written in crystals on the side. And it was pink. So very pink. Vee lifted the black cat and settled him gently into the princess bed. "You look pretty," she told him with a smirk. "Bet you'd hate that if you had any idea what I was saying."
The cat looked at her, flattened his ears, hissed again, and curled his tail around his body, burying his face. And except for the food and water she put in front of his bed and very brief trips to the litter box next to it, he didn't move for over a week. After the first night, he didn't even protest when she dripped the sweet-bitter meloxicam liquid into his mouth and chased it with a little tuna. Sweetened with honey, the meloxicam NSAID helped with the healing and relieved some of the broken cat's pain.
When Vee took the cat back to the vet, the vet asked her (only half-teasing) if she wanted a job. As he removed the stitches, he was impressed at just how well the cat had healed, despite its continued sullen hissing. She laughed, paid the $78 bill, and took the cat back home, sitting down on her couch and turning on Netflix, playing—what else?—an episode of My Cat from Hell. She settled the cat in her lap, and he looked up at her and hissed, then kneaded her leg until he fell asleep.
"I didn't decide to adopt you," she asked the sleeping cat. "But I have, haven't I?"
Author's note: Thanks to my husband for suggesting the title, and for lovers of terrible cats, I highly recommend My Cat from Hell.