Celebrating Barney

Yesterday my Barney, Da King, the best black cat ever created, crossed the Rainbow Bridge into Heaven. He would have been 19 years old in another 11 days, but he had used up the last of his nine lives.

　

He was such a love. I got him from a lady who rescued cats on her own. I remember reading the paper that day. The ad said something like, "HELP! I have 35 cats I have rescued who need homes, Come and take a look at them. You will find one who will take your heart away."

　

I had been thinking about getting another cat for a while. My little Whitney had been needing company I thought since I started working 12-hour shifts and she was home alone so long. I figured a companion for her might alleviate her boredom. Besides, all that time alone couldn't be good for her being a social animal. So I decided what the heck? Can't do any harm looking. So I began the 50-mile trip to the lady's house. There were three shelters nearby, but for some reason, her ad really hit me. I guess it was the sheer number of cats she had that impressed me. She did all the rescue on her own with no funding from outside sources, she told me. And if one crept up on my heart, that would free up a place for her to rescue just one more. So off I went.

　

When I got there I found a humble dwelling. The woman lived alone and her passion was animals. How she fulfilled that passion was to rescue those unfortunate little ones that were abandoned or born without homes. She was right... OMG cats everywhere!

　

She led me to different rooms with little litters here and there. These were just born... Those are ready to go, six weeks old... Those will be ready next week... And then there were the miscellaneous assortment of young adult or adult cats. There was any flavor you fancied, long hair, short hair even hairless, all in any color you could imagine. I thought I had died and gone to Kitty Heaven. How would I choose?

　

She led me to the living room and had me sit on the couch. She brought basket after basket of the litters. Oh, they were sooo very small and cute. I picked them up one by one and inspected every one of them. But my heart didn't ring its bell.

　

In the meantime, this one cat (one of the adults) would come around and sit near me. I reached over and petted him. He was just the normal domestic short-haired black cat. For lack of a name, she had been calling him Arsenio. Being a black cat and seeing Arsenio Hall was popular at the time, it seemed fitting. But I could never see myself calling out that name... too many syllables. Would take a week just to say it. After a pet or two he would wander over to the other side of the room and just stare at me.

　

By the time she brought in the third basket, he had taken up residence by my right side and had decided to lay down there. My hand wandered down and petted him again and again. I could feel his purr motor running.

　

I have always found that the way to see if a cat can ever trust you is to pick them up and very slowly roll them over on their back to see if they will lay in your arms like a human baby. He was standing on my lap as she went off to retrieve just one more basket of babies.

　

I reached underneath him and talked softly to him as I rolled him over on his back. I cradled him close to me and scratched under his chin and then his chest and belly. He never tried to get away. He was loving the attention. It was probably a hard commodity to come by with so many little ones needing the attention. His eyes half closed in a very contented way. And that purr motor of his was running at full throttle.

　

When she came back in I asked her who Arsenio was and how it came to be that she had him. He was one of five found at the local fairgrounds. The others in the litter had been adopted out because of their longer hair. But he had been left behind. No one ever seemed to want him. She did tell me he was very loving though, but that mostly he just kept to himself. He was guessed to be about nine months old.

　

My own history began to kick in. I had been adopted as a child. The family who adopted me had wanted a boy but had 'settled' for me because I wasn't that old yet. I can remember the words of that story biting me more than once. So I asked her to tell me more about him as I put him down on the floor.

　

He had all his shots. And he had been neutered only the week before. One of the local veterinarians gave her reduced rates for all these things due to the numbers of animals she brought to him. I thought that was very noble of him. Everyone was willing to do a little bit to help these animals.

　

I glanced down and he was grooming himself. Must be I had gotten him dirty when I was petting him...LOL. She handed me the basket in her hand and I began to check them out. These were the ones that were ready to go. I could take one home today she said. There were four of them. I hadn't gotten to number two when Arsenio was up on the couch again trying to get into my lap.

　

His gold eyes were so clear and bright. He looked so happy. I asked her to take the basket and picked him up and rolled him over on his back. He never moved. He just lifted his head a little as if to say, Come on scratch me.

　

By that time I had been there for over half an hour. With each basket, Arsenio had made his presence known. In essence, I felt that he had picked me. Who was going to take him home if I didn't? I knew this lady would keep him forever, but that wasn't the point. Had he done this before I wondered? Actually, she said, no he hadn't, but he certainly liked me. How can you fight an argument like that? He liked me!

　

And so in an emotional surge I told her I would be happy to take him home with me. She was obviously happy and told me she would go get his paperwork. As she unfolded the shot record everything was filled in except his birth date. She told me she would guess-timate it. I said that would be fine. She looked at the calendar and counted back nine months. It was April 24. That made his birth date July 24, 1990. As she wrote it down I began to cry and told her it was a match made in Heaven. It was meant to be. That was my birthday. Arsenio was meant for me.

　

With all parties involved happy, I left there with Whitney's new companion and felt as though I had just participated in something divine. I placed him on the seat beside me and headed for home.

　

He did NOT like being in the car. His eyes got so huge and he was clearly in a panic. He glued himself to the floor mat on the passenger side and yowled a sound that I had rarely heard before, with his eyes still bugging out. I tried to comfort him, but to no avail.

　

Those eyes reminded me of something, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I kept talking to him. He kept yowling. Arsenio wasn't flowing off my lips too easily either. But what else could I call him?

　

Suddenly I remembered Beth. She had cats. They were so funny the way they carried on. I couldn't wait for the antics at my house to begin. And then I remembered something else. Beth had one cat with feline epilepsy. She had to give him medication when he would go into seizures.

One day I was over at her house and we were having coffee. The epileptic cat, Barney, made a leap for the counter. He loved being way up on top of the cupboards to survey the landscape below. Mid-leap he went into a seizure and hit the floor. Beth ran for the medication and I just sat there not knowing what to do. He lay there, eyes bulging out, shaking violently. She popped the pill in his mouth and massaged his throat for it to go down. It took effect and he stopped shaking and slowly returned to normal.

　

I looked down at Arsenio and those eyes looked the same as Barney's did that day. So I said to him, "I think you're a Barney cat." I began calling him Barney and in the ensuing 50-mile trip, it stuck. It never did calm him down though.

　

I pulled into the parking lot and turned the car off. Not knowing if he would scratch or bite me, I was reluctant to put my hand down there anywhere near him. He was so stressed out. So I just sat there. It was a nice Spring day and the birds were flitting in and out of the bushes close to the car. Out of the corner of his eye he must have seen the wings as they flew close to the car. His ears perked up. I just kept talking to him, trying to coax him off the floor and up onto the seat.

　

In a matter of minutes he was on the seat looking out the window with his mouth opening and closing rapidly as he looked at all the birds. I reached over and petted him and of course, kept talking. After about twenty minutes or so, I decided it was time for him to go into his new home. I was ill-prepared for the battle within.

　

I picked him up and laid him on his back and petted his chin and belly and carried him into the house. He was looking all around as if to ask, "Where in the world am I?" Whitney was on the bed being lazy as usual. I put him down on the floor to let him go investigate his new surroundings. I suddenly got a glimpse into how the phrase "seeing the fur fly" came into being. Whitney came out of the bedroom and just pounced on him with no warning. There were miscellaneous yowls and running and, yes, fur flying. They had the hiss-fest of the millennium. They finally retreated from each other and decided to wait for another chance to get at each other.

　

I wearily sat on the couch and ended up falling asleep after a while. I wasn't used to being awake during the day. I had to go to work later and then they would be on their own to forge their alliance or declare endless enemy status. They would work it out. I was sure of it. I drifted off to sleep amid thoughts of kitty friends and happy cats.

　

I was awakened by the sounds of yowling once again. I sat up to see them glaring at each other over the food bowl. I went over to the counter and opened a can of wet food. I divided it equally and put the two bowls down on the floor - very much apart. For a time, the hissing stopped.

I got ready to go to work. Just before I went out the door, I picked Barney up and held him on his back and gave him some loving. "Welcome home, Barney," I told him. "Don't let her bully you." He purred as if he had been with me forever. Maybe he had been, in another life. Who knew? And off to work I went.

　

At 5 a.m. I came in expecting the whole place to be torn apart. Instead I found them both on the bed albeit in opposite corners. They both half opened their eyes and just closed them again. And then I remembered what my friend had told me long ago...

　

"You're nobody until you've been ignored by a cat." Well, I guess I had arrived.

　

... to be continued....