A piece of my heart

It’s been a week since my beautiful, pushy, loudmouthed mackerel tabby cat Aji was killed. She got out of the house last Monday night, and Tuesday morning my neighbor two doors down found her little body in her yard.

She was with me for just a week over three years—she appeared on my balcony the weekend before Labor Day 2005; simply announced her arrival and waited for me to do my part. Which I was happy to do—she was bright, affectionate, lively and curious, and she was much more entertaining than cable TV.

When I let her in, I informed her that once she joined the household she would henceforth be an indoor cat. She agreed, but of course she didn’t expect that I meant it. Besides—she was a cat. She was always trying to get out. And she was so fast—she could get through a door before it was barely open.

The thing about Aji was once she realized something was a portal—that there was an Other Side behind it—she just had to go through it and explore. Those clever little paws of hers could get so many things open—she’d open dresser drawers and pick out clothes onto the floor to make room for her to get in and probe. I had to Aji-proof closets with bungee cords. She once got the above-counter kitchen cupboard doors open and I caught her high-stepping among the Czechoslovakian crystal cordial glasses.

I once opened the hatch to the attic and made the mistake of leaving the ladder in place while I went downstairs to check on something. A few minutes later I returned to see her mackerel butt disappearing into the attic and I had to scramble to get her back out. I closed the hatch but left the ladder propped up in the upstairs hall, because I needed to do follow-up work in the attic. For days Aji would climb to the top and demand that I open up so she could go exploring again. She knew there was extremely interesting stuff up there and she wanted to see it.

She was also a leaper—no height was beyond her powers. From a standing start she could jump to the top of the lingerie chest (more than four feet high) without knocking over any of the perfume bottles. In The Rambler it didn’t take her any old amount of time to realize there was a two-inch wide ledge at eight feet around the living room. She got up there and pranced back and forth, looking out the windows and informing me she wanted to go out.

Of course I bought her bags of playthings, but it turned out she’d brought her own toy with her: she chased her tail. It was hysterical to watch that. Only a few weeks ago, in the corporate apartment we were staying in, she was on a window ledge with vertical blinds, whirling about with perfect balance, going in and out amongst the blinds after that pesky tail.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have moved her here—it was too unsettling, there were too many New Things to explore and The Rambler was just too small for her and made it too easy for her to get out. I opened the door and she shot out into the night. I’d hoped she was starting up a gang but would return when she found there were no bowls of kibble lying around for her. She’d done it a couple of times in Virginia, so I had hopes.

But this isn’t Virginia, and she didn’t last more than a few hours. And it took King County Animal Control three days to come pick up her little corpse.

My insides are sore—I feel as though my organs were scooped out and whatever’s left has been mauled. I keep doing the block-Aji dance—crack open the door, look around for her and get ready to shoo her away.

I know—I should have done a better job of that last week.

Turns out Aji was a big part of my support system here, and it’s just empty without her. There’s so little sign of her left—I didn’t take nearly enough pictures while she was with me; I thought I had years ahead with her. I've got a few paw prints in places where she wasn't supposed to be--the floors of the Rambler hadn't been cleaned in a long time before we moved in, and she left a trail of tell-tale marks on counters, the mantelpiece and other high places.

There’s still Pele, of course. But she’s not the cuddly extrovert Aji was. These days she spends most of her time under a bed because in her mind if she comes out I could scoop her up, stuff her in a crate and ship her somewhere. Fair enough.

I expect Aji’s poking into all the closets and drawers in heaven, and leaping up into laps and demanding pets from all the saints. She always knew how to make a place for herself wherever she landed. It’s a lesson I wish I'd learned from her while she was with me.