Whiskers, The Origin Story

Being Whiskers

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Whiskers took it one step further in the community garden and became the self-appointed docent and resident ambassador until the day he had to leave for his own survival. The gardeners, at least the ones sensitive and cat-friendly, were in an uproar as they were attached to him, he was a garden fixture. He up and left them in the lurch one dark moonless night, no goodbyes, no dramatic walk-off, no last cry, just gone, a sad day for all when he just walked away.

We all feared the worst.

Gardeners by their nature usually do more talking than actual gardening. Like fishing or hiking, gardening is a soulful excuse to be one with the great outdoors, find friendship and solace, and a reason for being. To commune and connect. To find moments of transitory peace and tranquility amidst life’s struggles, a salve. The gardeners shared this common thread with Whiskers and the rest of the cat conclave—and helps when we don’t struggle alone.

Throughout time cats have received a lot of attention. Their image has been carved inside the Great Pyramids of Egypt and painted on the fuselage of jets. They have been called everything from a clutter, cluster, glaring, pounce, and pride. Inaccurate literary embroidery notwithstanding, cat families are mainly composed of strong and diverse individuals, no two alike. They form lifetime partnerships for protection, friendship, and play.

As the gardeners toiled and talked, weeded and watered, planted and harvested, the calm of their sanctuary was interrupted by Whisker’s vanishing and they fretted. Whiskers had needed calm and the reason why he felt he had to go. Life had shifted like sand beneath his paws. Trouble found him and it walked into the garden on four furry legs. He couldn’t take it anymore, the pestering was unrelenting by the bully. The new cat broke the unspoken rules of the community. The time had arrived for Whiskers to leave the only home he ever knew, he felt he had no choice.

As days turned into a weeks, gloomy pessimism turned fatalistic about Whiskers.

The five-acre garden was home to the tight community of cats. Independent yes, but a friendly pack nevertheless. After a few weeks, whispers about Whiskers. It began to wane as it was difficult and painful visualizing the garden community without him. Many of the gardeners began feeling poor Whiskers might not ever be back. The Cool Cat never to return. It hit them hard. So I heard about later.

Yes, I admit, for a cat story this is running long but trust me I am getting to the point. Observation, description, plus telling his story takes time to tell. And where’s the fire? There’s no rush. Setting the scene and describing the saga provides necessary tidbits to help absorb the tale. Whiskers’ story needs some breathing room to stretch out and savor. Whiskers needs space. I need space.

One moment you had never heard of community gardens let alone the fact that many are full of cats that live there. And in the next moment, you care about a cat named Whiskers you never met and now are a bit concerned how his story turns out. It’s weird. Thank you for being onboard and caring! But it’s also the point (told you I would get to it) and that is:

Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean you can’t feel it. Visualizing is brain food for the spirit.

Anyway, I offered my two-cents to the gardeners daily kerfuffle and unrealistically held out hope. I opined maybe Whiskers had runaway for a while because he might be getting fed nearby or perhaps was adopted. He was a survivor and like a lot of cats they cover their bets, if they can, by soliciting back-up people to care and feed them in case their main people become unreliable. As people do, cats do, they adapt. Until they can’t.

Theories ran rampant, the rumor mill swirled with all manner of hypotheses. In the end, the general consensus landed on the likeliest reason why I disappeared. Witnesses stepped forward, new evidence was found confirming he had been under siege—harassed for months from the bully cat new to the garden.

I had to choose between whether to fight or take flight and I had enough fighting with that bully. Though I look tough and quite big, I am not a fighter, I don’t like it cause of my early days I was lost and little. I didn’t have a mom or brother or sister. I was alone with big cats in a strange garden.

He was dare I say, a pussycat. He went out of his way to avoid any fight or confrontation. He never hissed, scratched or lashed out at cat or human.

But the new bully saw the gentile feline  community pack that learned to live together as pampered, no longer street tough, a disgrace really. He took umbrage that the peaceful community lacked fighting gumption and felt an obligation to do something about it. His genetic survival instinct instructed him to be the new Alpha cat by dethroning the existing one, the mellow King of Cool. He had Whiskers in his sights. His inner brain equated Whiskers’ mellow vibe with weakness instead of strength. The bully had something to prove when all he really was proving were his days were numbered, he was not going to last, he would be expelled, not community garden material. He was a spirit breaker, not a spirit healer.

The community elders, cat and human alike, would not let one individual turn their oasis into a battlefield of plots, subterfuge, and anxieties. But it was too little too late. Too much talk and not enough action. Whiskers was long gone as the Alpha game had been played out.

The bully knew better but could not set aside his instincts. He used a shortcut to frighten his way into the garden. Intimidation and fighting was the only survival tool he knew. He wasn’t a lost cause, he was simply scared and projected his own fears. He didn’t know any other way.

I began feeling unseen, invalidated, lonely. I had enough abuse from the bully cat and no longer could wait while the humans dithered and failed putting a stop to it. They did try to trap the offender, but the interloper was too savvy to catch. And by then it too late, I was gone.

Then the gardeners tried something else to stop the bully cat from causing fights and disharmony. They stopped shooing him away, began feeding him more, talking to him, accepting him. And then divine intervention happened, he changed. The bully became tame. He came in close enough to be petted. No longer scared, he was no longer a bully, and found there was enough mana to go around.

Whiskers had lived most of his life in peace, loved by dozens of gardeners spanning over a decade. The diverse cat family had generally lived well together and stable as they were all spayed and neutered growing old together and thankfully not expanding.

Whiskers tiptoed around those he favored, bumping into your leg, working his claws into the soil in happiness, always excited to see his people. While prancing his happy dance, he continuously spoke, talking cat story non-stop by meowing, mewling, and chortling running it all together sounding suspiciously like he was stringing sentences together. And after a while, you understood that was exactly what he was doing. Communicating.

And just one of the reasons why his favorite pet parent, Chrissy, missed him the most, she understood him. The other gardeners referred to Whiskers as Chrissy’s cat. Always hanging around her plot, he lay next to her as she watered and weeded and patiently waited for a belly and head scratch.

One day, almost a month after his disappearance, Chrissy parked along the street adjacent to the garden. She rarely parked there but the usual spots closer to the garden were taken. She got out, gathered her garden tools and cat things and traversed the grassy play park next to the garden. It was fenced off and further barricaded from the garden with fallen tree limbs and brushy bramble.

I was asleep in a small drainage pipe, mostly anyway, you always had to stay alert to noises, any noises. I hid and slept here after I couldn’t stay in the garden. I had to eat mice and just about anything I could to stay alive. Nobody could see and I couldn’t go in the garden so I was hungrier than I ever thought I could be. But mainly I was sad. I missed my auntie mom. I would have liked to seen her one last time.

She heard him before seeing him, rushing from the heavy brush leaping onto the grass turf area next to the garden. Wheeling her tools and cans of food for the pack, Whiskers bolted across the grass like lightening. Whiskers was alive and well! Running full tilt like his life depended on it, and it did, he chirped and cried.

He had made sure she saw him as he flew toward her, he couldn’t be missed.

I woke up instantly when I heard her car and flew out of the drainage pipe.  It is her! It’s mommy!

Screaming, “It’s me! I am here! WAIT! SEE ME!!”

Enthusiastically chirping and purring, he kneaded the ground around her, leaning heavily on her. He didn’t stop chattering for a long time as he did from time to time but never with so much intensity while brushing against her as they reunited. She could feel he was thin, his skin had become leaner, it was tight to his body. His backbone more pronounced under her hand.

Needing more love than food at first, he was beside himself and then transformed into his old happy self as she set the bag down. She opened one can, then another. Though starved, he stopped in mid-bite, looking up at her showing his appreciation by gently rubbing against her leg mewling and purring. He then got right back to the buffet swishing his tail back and forth.

Whisker’s story is about determination and ingenuity. He knew when she would arrive as she was punctual. He knew the sound of her car. He also knew her regular parking spots, even the one she rarely used that day. He had taken note of her habits. Armed with Intel he waited in his hidey-hole hoping he would see her pass by one day. After weeks of waiting, that day finally came.

To clearly demonstrate his survival prowess, he led Chrissy to his new home so she would know how to find him. He walked in front of her excitedly talking up a storm looking back with luminous eyes to be sure she was watching him. He suddenly ducked from the twilight into the dark, disappearing in a flash. Within a dozen seconds he emerged with a mouse in his mouth and displayed it to her like a trophy pantomiming to her, “This is how I survived!” Then he trotted over to the sidewalk and slipped under the washed-out small drainage opening all crumbly with wads of small branches, debris, and leaves in front of the secretive entrance. Whiskers ducked inside showing her.

“This is where I live”.

Chrissy shined her light deep into the dark, small crevasse and saw it went so far under the street she couldn’t see Whiskers except for his tiny globes of iridescence. She straightened up and backed away from the entrance. A moment later he came strolling out and stood proud posing beside his new home.

“You are such a good boy, Whiskers, what a smart boy you are!” Chrissy said. She thought she would never see again. She cried quietly so nobody passing by could see.

Whiskers leapt over the tangle fronting the entrance and stood next to her. He got some more head scrunching and scratching. They were both at peace. He was a big boy now, almost independent, he was going to be okay, he was a survivor. However, being a people person, he still loved, missed, and needed his people. It was time to rejoin his community, his family.

Eventually, Whiskers began returning to the garden regularly for day visits as the bully transformed and had earned his way after finding his balance and humbly sought acceptance into the community by getting along. A new day of harmony befell the garden. But Whiskers was not at peace and could never feel like home. His visits coincided with feeding times but then he would hide as the bully didn’t change his stripes as he picked on Whiskers when people weren’t around to see it.

Whiskers again spending his life in a pipe and she saw him less and less. It was time. He had never let Chrissy pick him up until the day she picked him up and said to him, “it’s ok, you going home it’s ok,” He didn’t resist, it was time.

A week later after Whiskers was officially a house cat with a wild edge, a huge storm hit the area and the drainage pipe was clogged up, impassable and flooded. Huge mounds of sticks, branches, plastic, and debris were wedged against the curb and the pipe exposed under it left Whiskers hidey-hole a deathtrap.

Seen again, by one and all.

Such a good boy.

Read the prequel my post Meeting the Cool Cat