Alex

One Sunday after church, the pastor’s wife pulled me aside and said, “I have a present for you. Don’t tell your mom.” She then led me to her car, where she presented me with a tiny gray kitten.

I was nine or ten at the time, so I was all, “Awesome sauce,” but looking back I realize what a ballsy move this was on Mrs. M’s part. Guess it beats the hell out of sitting outside with a bunch of kittens in a box trying to find homes for them huh? I wonder if she forced one upon any other unsuspecting parents.  

We named the kitten Alexander the Great, for reasons I don’t remember, and called him Alex for short. That first day I was given the kitten, we had a potluck in the park after the service. Not having expected to acquire a cat that day, we didn’t have any cat food on hand, so he was fed melted strawberry swirl ice cream. We didn’t have the internet to tell us how wrong we were doing things back then, so we just did things. Wild. Whether it was because of this first meal with his new family, or just a predisposition to junk food, his two favorite foods throughout his life were ice cream and cheese flavored Dorito chips. 

We brought this little bundle of joy back to our home at the time, which happened to be a travel trailer that was 8 feet wide and 28 feet long. May I remind you that there are six of us in my family? Due to this, and a general belief on my mom’s part that animals are not meant to be kept in the house, he was supposed to stay out on our deck. 

Whatever practical ideas my mom had in the case, they were not good enough reasons for Alex, because he proceeded to meow pitifully and ceaselessly outside the door until we were forced to let him in to keep our own sanity. Later, we discovered he had repaid this kindness by treating the floor under our dresser as a litter box. 

A lot of animals came in and out of my life when I was a kid, but Alex was the only one I got attached to. This was scary, in a family that didn’t have a track record of keeping animals around for any real length of time. Still, I couldn’t stop it from happening. 

The whole family was fond of him. He was a fun cat, and full of personality. He also got big. Not fat, but large boned, and he weighed around 15 pounds when we decided to weigh him one time once he’d grown up. He was allowed to roam around outside as he pleased, and we’d often see him chasing the dog across our lawn. 

My mom trained Alex to go to the bathroom outside, rather than having a litter box. He would meow at the door to be let out, and scratch and meow at it to get back inside when he was ready to be inside again. My mom trained all our future cats that way too. Honestly, I’m not sure I even realized that a lot of people had litter boxes for their indoor cats until I was older. 

In the short time we had Alex, we moved our travel trailer from beside the creek, to a plot of land that a friend had. Eventually, we were able to move out of the travel trailer, and into a mobile home that the friend got for us which was set up on the same piece of land. We sisters were two per room, and they were not large rooms, but after sharing a tiny room with all four of us at the back of the travel trailer, it felt quite palatial. 

I’m sure Alex appreciated the extra room in which to have the zoomies. Like a lot of cats, he would often go wild in the evenings, and one of his favorite things to do was to pounce on our feet. He never did it in a way that hurt, but I was a nervous child who wasn’t fond of surprise attacks, so I would attempt to pull my nightgown over my feet when going about before bed, and cautiously peer around corners to see where the cat was. Sometimes a shriek from one of my sisters when he attacked them would let me know his location.

One night I had a dream that Alex disappeared. I remember going outside and calling for him frantically. I felt intense relief when he reappeared later that day. The strangest thing, looking back, is that I can’t really remember when he did finally disappear for good. By that time things at home had only increased in chaos, and I assume I was likely too consumed with other things to worry about my cat. That, or I just have a really fucked up attachment style, which honestly? Entirely possible. 

I know, that’s kind of a downer note to leave the story on, but sometimes that’s just the way it is when you grow up weird. What I will say is that however briefly he was in my life, Alex carved out a little space in my heart, and he lives there still. I’m happy I got to know him, even just for a little while. 

A note to the reader: Memories are fickle things, and while the stories I share are true as I remember them, that doesn’t mean they might not have errors, or even occasionally be entirely mistaken.

On a different subject, much thanks to my one paid subscriber (hi Mom!), and sorry for not giving you anything for your money for too long. I shall attempt to turn over a new leaf this year.