Patches

     It was a blisteringly hot summer’s day when he walked into my life.  Staring absently out the family room window at a discarded kitchen pan filled with muddy water in the side yard,  my chest tightened as I witnessed him first lap that retched water, then hone in on an abandoned paper plate full of leftover buttered bread crusts, which he hungrily gulped down. 
       He was big, and beautifully marked –a mishmash of a white background with various patches of greys and blacks, a long grey and black striped tail to match – and the poor thing was starving.   What awful hardships would drive a full grown cat to consume such things in the middle of a dog day afternoon?  I knew I’d have to be quick and I’d have to be especially quiet if I were to have any hope at all in saving this obviously suffering creature.  There was no way Mom would even begin to see the reality of the situation. 
       Mom had never been a cat person, and with having had four children by the time she was 23 and Dad working second trick, and adding in the next two children with Dad still on second shift, I guess we were all animals enough for her.  I’d have to be quick and crafty, to say the least.
       What ensued, however, could never have been predicted, much less planned, by a young teen girl. 
     Seeing no one near me at the moment, I raced through the family room and kitchen, yanked open the screen door and bolted down the cement back stoop, then stopped cold and began to stalk the handsome cat.  I inched closer, talking softly to it, eventually getting close enough to pet it.  It took an immediate liking to me, purring and rubbing against my legs.  I slipped into a nirvana of soft happiness as I lolled in its good graces.  
     I would name it Patches, good for a boy or girl, and really, what other name could possibly exceed it?  Visions of my very own, warm, soft, purring cat to sleep on my bed, come when I called, be my own personal pet swam in my fantasies. 
     Wearing nothing but my swimsuit, I started making surreptitious trips to and from the kitchen, likely slamming the screen door with each coming and going.  I began by hosing off the dirty pan, then washing it and refilling it with cold, clear water.  Then I got a clean paper plate and some kind of food, most likely lunch meat, but not the deli kind we all buy now, the squashed hot dog-like pre-packaged stuff, like olive loaf, we blithely consumed back then. 
     Exactly how it all unfolded is now a blur, but it entailed a discussion of a disgusting flea bag with God knows what diseases who was not to be fed or encouraged in any imaginable way whatsoever somehow running into the house when Mom wasn’t looking.   I certainly did plan that she would never, ever know this had happened.  I’d just quietly take care of it, after chanting, “I know, I know,”  to each of her diatribe declarations.  And, it would have worked, but for one unfortunate thing.
    The cat ran upstairs faster then I’d ever seen anything run before.  I followed in hot pursuit knowing time was of the essence as Mom would be on my heals in a flash if she noticed me gone and the cat missing.  I sprinted up the steep, narrow steps, grabbed the cat from behind, spun around to go back down and turned the cat to face me as I stepped forward to descend.   The cat was very heavy and I had him under his front arms with his legs dangling over the stairwell and my arms straight out in front of me.  Maybe it sensed we were off balance, or maybe the stairs and all that open space between them and us looked threatening to it.  At any rate, the cat suddenly lurched forward and sunk all ten claws deep into my outer upper arms.  Simultaneously, as the pain of being clawed hit me, I ripped his paws out of my arms and those long, curved talons did some damage.  I emitted a piercing scream and dropped the poor thing, whereupon it bounced down the stairwell, seemingly hitting each step along the way.
     Mayhem broke out putting my non-driving Mom into a frenzy.  I remember lots of shouting.  I think the cat left on his own sensing better odds outdoors than the hades he had unwittingly fallen into inside.  I know I somehow got taken to the emergency room, had my arms bandaged and undoubtedly received a tetanus shot, but the best part, the part I remember well, is the emergency doc telling my mother, “You must keep the cat around for at least 10 days, to make sure it doesn’t have rabies and I’d recommend you take it to a vet to have it checked out, just to be sure.”
     And that, is how I got my cat –my beloved Patches.