Cletus: Ready to Strike – Photo: L. Weikel

Meet Cletus                         

Going on first impressions, just looking at him, you might think this cat is a total bad-ass, wouldn’t you? Just look at the attitude dripping from his glare at my iPhone. The closer I got, the more irritated his look, until I could sense ‘the claw’ was perilously within striking distance.

And he’s a talker. Sometimes I’ll be doing my own thing, putting groceries away or something similar, and he’ll be lounging on the rug in front of the cupboard. I’ll not be anywhere near him (or more importantly, his tail), yet he’ll mrrrrow menacingly just issuing a ‘fair warning,’ lest I get too close.

He’s a rescue, in a sense. My friend Andrea posted his photo on FB when she managed to rescue his screaming kitten-self from a thicket in the Philadelphia park she lives directly across a three or four lane highway from. She heard his wails from her house. Over the traffic. From the middle of a prickly bush.

When I saw his face on FB, something clicked inside. I knew him. And I knew he was meant to live with us.

About a year after we adopted him, I went away on a business trip. We’d tried to keep him indoors, but weren’t particularly successful. He would stalk our comings and goings, timing his strikes to the slightest opening and darting out – sometimes even feigning indifference or doing a deep fake now and again of heading toward the living room, when actually he was just waiting for the kitchen door to open wide enough for him to turn on a dime and launch himself through the slim escape hatch.

So when I was in Seattle and Karl admitted with a sigh, “Cletus got out,” I didn’t really worry. He’d won the skirmish, but I was certain we would win the war.

Walkabout

But he didn’t return home that day. Nor did he come when Karl called him (again and again) through the night.

Another day and night went by and Karl had to admit to me, over the phone, that Cletus was still on the prowl.

I hoped he would return when I got back. He did not.

I called and called to him, at all times of day and night. Karl and I called to him as we walked around our ‘usual’ two mile walk. Days soon turned into a week with absolutely no sign of him.

Every time Karl and I saw a couple vultures hanging out near our home, our hearts leapt into our throats. Were they feasting on Cletus?

I was a dutiful mother. I created “wanted” posters, papering the area and alerting the post office. A handful of people called at first. I checked out the sightings – most within a two mile radius of our house, a few even further away – to no avail. From everything they could tell me, they might’ve seen him, but when push came to shove, almost all the sightings disappeared before I got there.

I was morose. Karl was no better; he felt responsible, after all, since the cat had escaped during his ‘watch.’

A Month of Worry and Sadness

Finally, almost exactly one month to the day from when he’d made his Great Escape, I received a call from a person who thought she’d seen him hanging out near her barn. She lived about two miles from our house.

I hopped into the Grey Ghost and headed to the barn. Cruising back and forth a few times, I saw exactly the cat she’d spotted. Sadly, but easily to see for me, it wasn’t him.

As I drove home, dejected and on the verge of giving up, I came to a stop sign. This particular stop sign, I should note, is not even a quarter mile from my house. Looking both ways, I noticed a black animal trotting down the right side of the road (away from me) and in the opposite direction from our house. It was, as I say, trotting along on the side of the road. My first instinct was that it was a dog or a fox.

Then something said, ‘Clete.’

What the heck, I figured. I might as well check it out. The likelihood of this being Cletus? Nearly zero. After all, it was right around the corner from our house! Surely he would be heading home if it were him? (And surely he would’ve come home or found his way home by following our voices, since we called him every – single – day?!?!?)

Trotting Down the Road – A Fox? A Dog?

I pulled up to this animal trotting along the road and at first it didn’t notice me (Grey Ghost is a Prius, after all). But of course, as soon as it did, being a cat, it darted across the road in front of me, disappearing into a thicket of thorns on the left side of the road. I pulled over, put my four-ways on, and got out of the car.

As soon as I got out, I heard the growls. I knew those growls. I recognized that pissy attitude. I was stunned (but oh-so-excited!).

I immediately started saying his name and calling to him. He went deeper into the prickles. Finally, I made eye contact. Bingo. Crouching and calling his name, I apparently persuaded him that I was indeed his Food Provider. His ample tail went up. I was appalled. It was matted and burr-covered. But he came toward me, talking the whole way (but lost the growl).

He came right up to me and would not stop talking. Obviously, I knew it was him – in spite of how desperately skinny, matted, and pathetic he looked. I knew his eyes, most of all. His voice hadn’t changed much either.

Smothered With Kisses

I got him into my car and we pulled off the road entirely. He proceeded to smother me with kisses and little nips on my nose, my chin, my arms, my ears, all the while keeping up an incessant chatter of meows, as if to say, “MOMMY, is it really YOU?!” I kept asking him the same thing. Could it really be my Cletus? Right down the road, not half a mile from our house? My mind boggled at the good fortune of seeing him trotting down the road. Clearly, he was so inept at tracking or finding his way out of a thicket to make it home that, had I not seen him, he may never have come home again.

And from the looks of him, he was not a survivalist by any stretch of the imagination.

He’d lost about half his body weight in the four weeks he was ‘on walkabout.’ Not a candidate for the Incredible Journey award. I have to say, it almost seems like he had to go out of his way to fail to find his way home. He may have been stubborn or he may have been clueless; he was sure glad to be home now.

Since our reunion, which has been years now, we only let him go outside at night (to protect our many bird friends). We also figure he won’t run away at night; not sure why, but it’s proven correct so far. (Let’s hope he doesn’t get distracted one night and lose track of our house.)

So when you look at his bad-ass expression, realize that he’s all talk. Aside from the occasional growl or snarl, and despite the irritable swipe of a razor-sharp claw, he’s not the tough guy he pretends to be. It’s all an illusion.

(T-866)