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Can’t we all just get along? A Tale from the Farm

We could all learn a thing or two from Bad Boy. On the day of his full pardon from the big house the guards bade good-bye with a combination of tears, respect and palpable relief. I was repeatedly assured he was the toughest, coolest cat on death-row. And so my plot to spring him ended. At about sixteen pounds of pure coon cat muscle and attitude he sure looked the part.

I needed a big, tough cat to run the rodent control division of the farm. I immediately renamed him Sarge. Sure he was tough looking, but in a clean-cut way. My wife at the time immediately re-named him Boo Boo Kitty. He’s not a kitty, I demanded, he’s a twenty-five pound coon cat and he doesn’t have boo boos - he gives them!

These days Boo Boo roams the farm keeping unwanted intruders like gophers, moles, rats and tax collectors (I know, redundant) off the property. He usually leaves small jobs, like mice, to the barn cats - Thelma and Louise. Boo Boo once again lived in the big house. The barn cats came from death-row too, but weren’t ready for the complexities of indoor living. Feral rescues don’t flush nor share. Boo Boo is a grateful ex-con, and often leaves his work on the front doormat to ensure he won’t be sent back for lack of effort.

Once he settled in and understood the new deal and the new humans, Boo Boo became a softy. In the house that is. I didn’t see that coming, but was delighted. That’s his other job now; a sponge for outpourings of love and intimacy from otherwise stoic humans living in the big house. “Come to mama little Boo Boo snookums, I have a plate of fresh salmon” my ex says to the cat. “Get your own beer you lazy bum” she says to me.

I will tell you this, however. Once, years later, I really needed to get Boo Boo to a vet, and he knew the 'you're going to the vet' look a mile away. I donned thick leather gloves and snuck up on him. One whiff of those gloves and my intent and he was a mad ball of fury and fight. I literally sat on the bugger (two-hundred and forty pounds) and he still beat me. He won. That's my Sarge. Not going back alive, I assumed.

Boo Boo’s new grand lifestyle came with additional challenges. Specifically, two sixty-pound chows. I recently learned that several dynasties ago chows were bred as Chinese fighting troops. I thought they were just cute little fluff balls. Then I saw one in battle one day. No further questions, your honor. Anyway, Aveda, the female chow, appears indifferent about sharing space with Boo Boo. She will, however, jump into the fray when Mikimoto, the male chow - who eats, sleeps and dreams about the day he can eat Boo Boo - gives chase. He almost succeeded. Just once.

Just one day after Boo Boo’s pardon Mikimoto got a piece of him. I was distracted and did not handle the introductions properly. Boo Boo ended up in surgery. Already, he had boo boo’s. Damn. I still called him Sarge in front of his friends, though. Fortunately the muscle tear in the belly area would heal, and kitty rehab (sleeping 20 hours a day under the bed) helped him rapidly overcome his physical wounds. Psychologically, however, Boo Boo was in for a longer recovery. Another second or two between the chows and he would have been mincemeat. I vowed to have everyone start calling him Sarge, even the dogs, from that point forward. Who would mess with a thirty-five pound coon cat named Sarge?

After two weeks under the bed Boo Boo finally came out. For another two weeks he sat at the top of the stairs, waiting to run back under the bed. He did finally venture downstairs, but through vigilant surveillance kept a good distance from the dogs when they were in the house. I should explain that the chows are trained to remain in the large farm kitchen and under no circumstances travel into the rest of the house. After awhile, the cat realized that the majority of the house was his domain and the kitchen and the yard that of the chows. Boo Boo came and went from the house through other doors or the kitchen’s front door when it was clear. Those were the operating rules. Bolder and bolder Boo Boo became, venturing closer to the kitchen, inch-by-inch, but never getting close enough to get eaten.

Recently I noticed that Boo Boo has been trying to make friends with the chows. I guess he’s figured that we all have to live in this house together and it ain’t getting any bigger. Often he’ll sit just a few feet from the kitchen threshold, the Berlin Wall of his animal world, and stare into the kitchen as if he belonged there too. All the action is in the kitchen. Food is doled from the kitchen, lonely humans are always in the kitchen, the dogs are always in the kitchen and parties always end up in the kitchen.

Day by day he tested the waters, getting just a little bit closer to the kitchen threshold during action hours. Lately, he walks lightly into and out of the kitchen when the dogs aren’t looking, anticipating the day he can claim his own corner in the sun. He even left a mouse in the chows’ water dish the other day, a peace offering if ever there was one. The chows, however, just assumed a critter went swimming without a lifeguard on duty.

I remain impressed by the daily advances in inter-species relations Boo Boo is making, inch-by-inch. It’s taken him a year of constant diligence, positivity and especially forgiveness to create a slowly evolving atmosphere where we all might live freely and safely together in the same space. Just the other day, in an act of passive resistance that would have impressed Ghandi, he seated himself in the middle of the kitchen and waited for the chows to come in from the yard. When the back door opened, Boo Boo remained seated, steadfast, defiant, not flinching.

Mikimoto approached slowly, cautiously, indignantly, wondering why Boo Boo didn’t flee in terror. When they were almost nose-to-nose Boo Boo let out a long-overdue colossal hiss that seemed to say “I belong here too, deal with it”. Miki froze, then looked around with an astonished “does anybody else see what’s happening here?” look on his face. We all just went about our business. Checkmate. I wonder if Miki was thinking that he was just busted in rank by a forty-pound coon cat with the ability to forgive and forget. By Sarge, that is.

Epilog: Recently, many years and a few dogs later, Sarge was called home, his tour-of-duty complete. In his final months Sarge became a full-fledged member of the spontaneous kitchen love-huddle-on-the-floor team. As his physical body was slowly ravaged by lymphoma (he knew long before we did) he became less concerned about the physical perils of jumping into the fray. He was living in the ‘now.’ He was teaching us that achievements are preceded by beliefs. He believed that no harm would come to him if he simply jumped in expecting acceptance. What was left to lose? What’s an arm or a leg when the rest is riddled with cancer and you have weeks or months, not years, left?

It’s a shame that so many of us wait until we are almost gone to shed the heavy burden of our ego – that ‘person’ in charge who carries the grudges and doles judgment - only to find that accepting our fate aligns our experience with our destiny. It turns out that the ego compulsively stands in front of a better fate. Yet Sarge reminded us to jump right into what we believe and declare “checkmate” as we speed past our egos to take a shot at happiness before we get the call. Thank you, Bad Boy. I know why we met now. And I miss you.

Essays: Our Thelma and Louis | Can I Die Now? | Metaphysics Over Easy (Hold the Toast)

Sharing Onions | The Horse Hollerer | Another Day at the Office of Life