There are so many lovely and interesting things I could tell you about tonight. I could tell you how yesterday Ross and I drank two bottles of Imperial each and remembered sultry nights in Costa Rica, smelling the green air and slipping away into another world. I could tell you about each small plate on our table at the delicious dim sum lunch we had in Chinatown this afternoon, eaten in celebration of the new year and paid for with the ang pow my mother mailed me from Singapore, even though I have long since become an old married lady and should be the one sending my niece and nephew money (oops). I could tell you the names of all the books making a wonderful unread tower on my bedside table, like a small literary shrine next to where I sleep. I could tell you that Avi and I talked about renting a little apartment in the Barrio Gotico this morning, because this crazy Barcelona thing we’re doing really seems to be happening.
Instead I’m going to tell you what’s on my mind, which is a cat that’s almost certainly going to die tonight.
I was falling asleep on the couch this afternoon, so to wake me up Ross and I decided to go for a walk to the Point because it’s becoming a beautifully frigid weekend: perfect weather for looking at the lake. When we got there (stopping only briefly to share a chocolate croissant along the way), it was everything we’d hoped it would be. The sky was a strange and ominous tint of blue-green, like it was trying to become the sea. The water was vast and slow and, near the beach, covered in sheets of frozen ice that cracked and swayed as they broke. The city skyline was melting in the distance. The wind whipped. Hardly anyone was out on the rocks by the water. It was a cold, lonely landscape and we walked along the shore enjoying it immensely.
As we rounded the tip of the Point I saw something black stepping gingerly down onto a rock.
“Is that a cat?” I said. Wild rabbits live on the Point, but cats are very rare. Especially in the middle of February. I walked over to it, and it meowed. Then it tiptoed and hopped its way down to the rock I was standing on. It was a small cat, less than two years old by the looks of it, and entirely black except for a dusting of white on its chest and a tip of white on its tail, as if it had been dipped in paint. Big, shell-shaped yellow eyes. A slightly skittish air. The cat came closer and bounded away several times before deciding we were safe and submitting itself to our slavish pets and scratches. After a few minutes it was clearly our friend; it reared up on its hind legs like a bear demanding strokes, bit Ross very gently on the fingers as they slid past its nose, purred softly, and twined itself around us like an eel. I sat down on a slab of stone, and it put its front paws into my lap and bumped my chin with its head. It was a lovely cat.
In between delighted kitten-talk, Ross and I discussed the cat’s probable origins. It was incredibly clean and soft, suggesting it belonged to someone. It was friendly and not noticeably skinny. On the other hand, the cat didn’t have a collar like most outdoor cats do (at least the ones with responsible owners). It was also on the Point, on a very cold day, and clearly suffering from the cold. We could feel its back and tail shivering. And it put its feet down oddly. At first I thought it was injured, but later I realized that it simply wasn’t used to traveling on snow.
I suggested almost immediately that we take the cat in for the night, because I knew the temperature was about to drop to below zero. Even if it belonged to someone it was pretty clear that the cat was lost, especially after we walked back up to the road (the cat came with us) and it wandered to and fro, never getting very far from us, staring at the people and the buildings with an air of obvious confusion. Unfortunately, the Point is a good fifteen minute walk from our house, and when we tried to pick the cat up it squirmed out of our arms and growled gently (although it didn’t scratch or yowl. Honestly, it was the most adorable cat). As we attempted to get it to follow us home (a doomed endeavor, and we basically knew it), two couples out on walks noticed our shenanigans and stopped to confer with us. Everyone agreed the cat looked like a lost indoor cat. One woman suggested that perhaps someone had abandoned it. Everyone agreed (after trying to pick it up) that it could not be carried home. And everyone agreed that the cat would not survive the night if it stayed outside. It was a very concerned crowd; if only the cat had understood our negotiations.
Eventually, one of the couples said that they would go to their nearby home and bring us back a box so that we could try to transport it to our apartment. About fifteen minutes later they did so, and threw in a roll of tape so we could better secure the top of the box. You may be realizing by now that this, too, was not the most profitable plan.
To make a long story slightly shorter, Ross and I spent the next half hour attempting to get the cat in the box, a struggle made more difficult by the fact that
1) Ross did not have gloves on.
2) The cat had run back over to the rocks when a dog passed, and was now wandering up and down several different levels of slabs.
3) The sound of the box scraping against the ground freaked the cat out.
4) It was nearing 6pm, and getting dark.
After two near-successes (the cat jumped out of the box before we could close it), I took Ross’s wallet and left him watching the cat while I went to get some small edible thing we could use to help us tempt it closer to the box. I know that going to these lengths sounds absolutely ridiculous, but honestly, if you had seen that cat and you knew how brutal Chicago winter nights are, you would have done the same thing, allergies or no allergies. Unfortunately, while I was gone the wind blew the box across the ice, the cat freaked out, and it disappeared into a crevice in the rocks. By the time I came back it was fully dark, Ross’s hands were freezing and he was miserable, the black cat was completely invisible, and it probably didn’t want to emerge from its hiding place anyway because the wind was blowing so cold. No amount of grilled chicken breast from a Subway sandwich would lure it out.
We gave up.
As a result, that lovely, lost cat will almost certainly perish from hypothermia (which, fortunately, is a relatively painless way to go).
Don’t believe me? Look at where it’s sleeping tonight.
