Black Cat Escape

This is Spook, my buddy, whose portrait graces many of my enterprises. She's been with me since she was six months old, two and a half years. She's an indoor cat. She's always been an indoor cat. She's always been hostile toward this fact.

So while I was gardening, going in and out of the house a hundred times a day, one time she spotted an opportunity and dashed out behind me before I could close the door. I wasn't aware of her escape until I saw the tip of her tail disappearing under the shed. By the time I got there and got down on my hands and knees to look, no mean feat for one my age, she had slipped under the fence that separates our yard from a bit of waste land. And there she vanished from view.

Well, there's no way I could get under the fence. So I called my daughter, and she kept watch from the second story balcony and guided me while I ran around to the gate in the fence and started searching among the deadfall and the brambles, the thistles and poison ivy, the junk and garbage people always throw anywhere where they think they can get away with it. Some birds yelling their heads off and swooping around clued us in to where the fearless feline was crouching under a bush, utterly unnerved, hair all standing out on end. She looked like a furry football.

She bolted when I approached, ran about a hundred yards, and jumped up an enormous ash tree. About 30 feet up she stopped and finally looked back. Crashing through the brush, I tried to persuade her to remember who her friends were. Eventually, she came down. I picked her up and started for home. Tripped over some of the garbage. Fell and bashed my knee on a broken cement block because I didn't dare let go of the cat. She might not stop under a bush the next time.

Out the gate we went, and along the street. Big mistake. Our intrepid runaway is terrified of cars passing. She struggled to escape, but I hung on to her for dear life. She clawed hunks out of me. She did what all animals do when frightened; she peed. All over me. All over herself. She set up the most unholy yowling.

We met a neighbour, out walking with his baby. I don't know what he thought about the struggling cat, the wet, the stink, the blood, the noise. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't good.

Now you might think that after this adventure, Spook would be very happy to stay indoors. You'd be wrong. Then next time I went out, guess who was trying to slip out behind me.