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| Evacuation scene from White Noise (2023) |
We're spending the summer away from home in the far northeast, but we're not going into details about why with people. It's a favor for a friend and involves real estate and particularly making a house that has been repaired from severe storm damage a couple of winters ago livable again. There will be internet installed and I work remotely so no one need be the wiser. Because we will be away for so long, it's been decided-- the cats are coming with us. The cats originally came to us separately. Rizzo was a rescue (aren't all pets rescues? And prisoners?) We think he was two when we got him which makes him about 7 now. Blanche-- who was born in a feral litter in my daughter's college town two states away and was adopted by her-- is about 5.
Since moving in with us, both cats have remained indoors. Neither has shown any interest in expanding their turf beyond the front door. Both cats are affectionate and love a good lap lounging but neither is a fan of being picked up and held in the arms. Blanche has relocated a couple of times-- back to college once and home again for good at the end of it-- and grumbles about being transported but rolls with it. Rizzo on the other hand in only one visit to the vet developed a fierce opposition to being held in any way that impedes his access to a quick getaway. We had a dryer fire in the basement in December in which the house filled with smoke and the fire department had to be called. Rizzo was the first animal I saw as I was rushing to corral the family outside and in my panic I forwent the prudent care that I should have known would have been required in transporting him against his will to safety with the result that he wriggled out of my grip and scampered in all haste to higher ground forcing me to abort the rescue. With everybody else outside (including Blanche lying low in the car after being removed from the house under protest swaddled in a blanket), I was persuaded by calmer heads to let the fire department put out the fire, which turned out to be confined to the interior of the appliance, and give the all clear before I could go back inside to find him. He remained scarce until late into the night, even uncustomarily ignoring a dinner call, before he snuck down to his food bowl for a stealthy midnight meal. He remained aloof for days.
Knowing this about him, we had to strategize the move carefully. The mission was complicated by the fact that my wife, daughter and the dog would depart before the cats and me by a day. The trip can be expected to take roughly 12 hours of travel time, something we used to do as a matter of course but time's wingèd chariot has drawn near and constantly reminds us we need to break it up. The dog is a veteran of travel and knows the drill with hotels. Under no circumstances can I imagine letting the cats loose in a motel room. Rizzo would go under the bed as soon as the carrier door opened and we would never see him again. So while the wife, daughter and dog will make the trip in two days, the plan with the cats and me is a single straight shot with only the barest minimum of stops. There can be no other way. Unfortunately this means come moving day, I'm on my own getting the cats into their crates.
My daughter-- a preternatural folk veterinarian-- had suggested we try some kitty sedatives -- valerian root in a cat treat form-- before attempting to get him into his crate. I'd have to be desperate to give my cat a mickey. Remembering my failure last December at rescuing him from the fire I believed was consuming the house, I think I'm desperate, which is good enough for me. The morning of, I mix half a tranquilizer in with his morning treats. He's a bit of a gourmand. He sniffs the new foodstuff for a second and then chews it eagerly. I feel like a cad, but it works like a charm. While I load the car in growing heat, he curls up on the vacant dog bed almost immediately and sleeps like a kitten. "Piece of cake," I think prematurely.
As these things go, there is more to do than I expected, and I am the only one doing it. With the temperature of a heat wave rising, I run some errands, break down my work computer, load the pile of items that we had accumulated by the front door. I'm anxious about fitting the odds and ends I've been tasked to bring in my car along with the 2 cat crates and a covered litter box but with no other human passengers to worry about, improvised cargo space is luxurious.
Time to get the cats. The cat carriers have been out and open in the living room for 2 days in the hopes that they'll become just part of the background. Rizzo first. Thank goodness for kitty downers. I reach down to retrieve the form of his limp body from where it has been curled up like a shrimp on the dog bed since breakfast and lift. He is off the bed, entirely in my arms for the first time since his last vet visit. Suddenly his eyes go full lemur on me. In his groggy state he still manages to writhe and wriggle free. In the sloppiness of my hold on him he maneuvers his rear claws into my right arm to springboard off of it. The force projects him out of my grip and he is gone up the stairs. The skin on my arm is shredded. Shades of last December, but now I go after him.
I find him in the largest bedroom. I realize I don't have any way to constrain him so I pick up a fleece blanket from the bed and come at him. He meows at me and dashes through the crack I've carelessly left open in the door. He outpaces me down the stairs and I have to hunt for him. I find him under a hutch in the dining room which as a staging area for several projects has become an obstacle course for me. I come at him with the blanket, lie to him, tell him I'm not about to traumatize him. With blood oozing from the wound he inflicted on me, I feel like a horror movie villain stalking a victim. He darts under the dining room table and is out through the kitchen way ahead of me. I need him to be back in that upstairs room with the door closed, but he's not about to revisit that scene. The pattern continues-- I hunt for him, calling his name, he ignores me. I find him under a couch or a table, I approach and he darts off again. After several rounds, I realize it's been over a half hour since I've last seen him. While I call for him I seal off as many rooms as I can after checking every nook and cranny within. I really need him to not return to the cluttered dining room but it has no doors that I can close, only open passageways to the living room and to the kitchen. On the living room side I lay a screen that has been needing repairs on its side with some chairs to prop it up as a makeshift gate. On the kitchen side I use a bicycle to block entrance and stack boxes around it to fill up the gaps. It's now been at least an hour since I've last seen Rizzo. From first attempt, the pursuit has been going on for 2 hours. Blanche has watched the whole thing, inscrutably. At one point earlier, with me approaching one of his hiding spots from one side, it seemed almost as if she were blocking him from leaving the perch he had found behind the drapes in the front window to try to help bring the ordeal to a close. Fire meeting fire. He merely turned around and slipped past me and that was the last I saw of him. I believe I could catch Blanche but there's no need to incarcerate her before her brother is under wraps. I'm taking a break.
I see that my daughter has texted me from New England to check on my progress. I fill her in and send her a picture of my bloody arm. I tell her I have no idea where Rizzo is. It feels good to share my failure. I try to envision a happy resolution. My mind is blank. My chair faces the fireplace and I have a horrible thought. What if he has gone up the chimney? We haven't had a fire in a long while. Did we close the damper the last time? Does it matter to a cat determined to escape a stalker? I'm too tired to check, but then through the thick chain of the screen I make out the white expanse of his chest amid the black of the fireplace. He has squeezed through the screen and is sitting among the soot staring at me. I almost don't want to destroy his perfect hiding place but time is wasting. I slowly approach but he slips past me again. Is he actually going upstairs where I need him to be? No, he's heading for the dining room. He is momentarily thwarted by my barrier, but only for a moment. He scales the screen and disappears behind some boxes. Now my barriers are just extra obstacles for me. He's now repeating hiding spots, though, so when I think I can at least corner him against the other, he simply breaks through leaving me with a hurdle to get over. By a miracle I see him enter the back sun room through its only door and I follow. I close it behind me and as it's a small room without a lot of places for him to go, I'm able to corner him and wrap him completely in the fleece. I carry him to the carrier and slide the whole bundle in. I've had him in this position before and he's slithered away when I try to retrieve the blanket but this time the blanket is staying in there with him. . The carrier gate snaps into place. I've got him. As he yowls his disapproval I turn my attention to Blanche. She starts up the stairs but stops before the top and turns to me. She hisses at me as I take her in my arms, but she lets me carry her to the carrier and place her inside. A very welcome anticlimax.
I have crossed off almost all of the items on my list, but I'm reluctant to cross off the last: Bring pen with you. The knowledge that the house will be empty for 2 months is weighing on me feeding into and off of all of my neuroses -- if any crucial item is left behind, it's entirely on me. As late as it has gotten, it's not getting any cooler out there. The cats watch me from their crates, meowing plaintively as I make trips with armfuls of the loose ends my fertile imagination has convinced me we would be sorry to be without. With my OCD played out at last, there is no more putting it off. I carry both cats to the car at once. I had envisioned them to at least be able to see each other, to allow them to share the ride for support, but there's only room to place them side by side next to their litter box facing forward each for their own lonely trip.
I return to the house to close it down for the summer. At last I cross the last item off the list and put the pen in my pocket. I lock the house and am on my way.
All is quiet in the back seat. I glance at the clock. 4:30. If traffic cooperates and I stop only for gas and restroom breaks I can maybe get to my destination by 2:30. The heat is overbearing and the sky is a sickening gray. Traffic seems to be manageable for the time of day. Just as I feel myself getting into the groove, the meowing starts. First Blanche with her usual heartbreaking adorable mews and then Rizzo with a series of guttural yowls I've never heard from him before. I apologize to them. I tell them it will be all right. You'll be there before you know it, I lie to them. Thinking of the phrase music hath charms to soothe the savage beast (or is it breast? Never mind!) I turn on my 14 hour playlist. First in the shuffle is the opening theme from Koyaanisqatsi. It seems to work some magic on them as they settle back into stunned silence.
It could be a long trip. Do I dare let them out to relieve themselves let alone to eat? I can't envision it. I look at the deep gashes on my arms, no longer openly bleeding. I think about the horror movie stalking scene I just participated in. How will it look to the public as I make my way through the crowd to the restroom with the arms of a bloodied monster? How many times in true crime stories does the murderer have tell-tale scratches like mine? I feel like a beast.
I am driving north. A weather advisory indicates an AQI exceeding 200, worse than yesterday. It's smoke from the Canadian wildfires. This is the furthest the cats have been from the house in years. So this is the world I am bringing them into. I am a monster.
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Postscript: The house we are in is small, rustic and mostly empty but it abounds in moths and other flying creatures, has a mouse or two and lots of windows for plenty of vistas on an exciting variety of exotic birds and wildlife. We have been spared a lot of the heat and Unhealthy AQI plaguing so much of the country this summer. The cats forgive me.
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