Brutal
didn’t even begin to describe the tip between Belgrove and Evie’s apartment in
Knoxville, TN. Somewhere along I-26,
Cleo had decided once more to escape the poop and vomit-filled backseat and
leapt onto the middle console. Evie had
tried to shove her back onto the floor, but Cleo staggered onto the passenger
seat, placed her paws on the edge of the window, and cried mercilessly as her
head darted right and left to the rhythm of the passing landscape. Meeeeeooooooowwwww.
When she made her escape to the
passenger seat’s floorboards, Evie zipped onto the closest exit ramp and made a
mad grab for the cardboard pet carrier in the back. The thick stench of vomited, salty kitty food,
and the remains of diarrhea almost made Evie gag. She quickly pulled the carrier to the front
seat, grabbed the crying cat who was now trying to scramble under the front
seat, and drop her into the box. Easier said than done.
Cleocatra
had no intention of returning to the box and spread her feet wildly, claws
ready to cling to anything. Evie had her
by the scruff of the neck and she had heard that it was supposed to soothe an
animal—apparently it had no effect of this monster. Cleocatra’s back feet clung to the top flaps
of the box like magnets. Each time Evie
got one foot in, the other would manage to grab the top and pull herself out
again. What’s that phrase about something being harder than herding cats? Now, she was beginning to understand.
After
battling Cleocatra for what seemed like an eternity of déjà vu, Evie eventually
managed to slam the top of the cardboard carrier closed. The cat scratched wildly at the inside of the
box and, finding the hole she had created earlier out of the breathing hole,
poked her fluffy head through and cried.
Evie stretched the seatbelt around the box to stabilize it and once she
was relatively sure the box and cat were contained, returned to the
interstate. The box did little to soothe
Cleocatra, and it certainly hadn’t changed the odor of cat feces which permeated
the interior of her car, but it at least kept the cat in a single spot. Evie glanced over at her companion in the
passenger seat—the box with a head hanging out the side and a flower-shaped
pouf of long, flowing cat hair plastered against the edges of the created hole. Sadly, it reminded Evie of one of those cones
you have to put on a dog after they’ve had surgery and you don’t want them
chewing their stitches. Yup.
It’s for your own good. You just
don’t know it yet.
“I’m
really sorry, Cleo. You’ll be much
happier in there. You just don’t know it
yet.” The cat’s yellow eyes glared up at
her as they flew along the interstate.
She wasn’t sure, but she got the feeling that the animal was plotting
her untimely death.
They had
bumped along their journey for what seemed like the longest trip she could
remember. Cleo had protested her
imprisonment with subsequent diarrhea spells inside the box. At
least it’s that much less poop inside my car.
Late
that evening, she had pulled into her parking spot outside her apartment and
under the cover of darkness had quietly carried the filthy box up the flight of
stairs and into her cozy living room.
The smell wafting from the air holes in the box was sickening, and Evie
couldn’t imagine turning the poop-stained kitty loose in her house to track
that filth all over her furniture and carpet.
She
carried the boxed-up kitty to the bathroom off the hall and closed the door
behind her. She set the box on the
floor, started water running in the bathtub, and debated on how she was going
to manage keeping Cleo in the tub once she got her in there.
A cup!
I need a cup to dump water on her.
Retrieving
a plastic cup from under the sink, she drew a deep breath and opened the top of
the carrier. Cleo wasted no time in
leaping for her first glimpse of freedom.
She landed all four feet on the linoleum and desperately tried to make a
run for it, her four feet sliding helplessly like a cartoon character. Evie snatched the cat and whirled her into
the tub, Cleo’s back legs twirling through the air like a child on a spinning
tire swing. The second Cleo’s feet
touched the puddling water she leapt for the side of the tub.
“Oh no
you don’t!” Evie laughed as she forced the cat back into the water. The underside of Cleo’s tail and hind legs
were a solid mass of hair and feces, and as the water climbed higher, a brown
cloud began appearing.
What on earth have I gotten myself into!?
Cleo
repeatedly tried to climb the tub wall, but her claws scratched and slid
harmlessly while Evie dumped cup after cup of water across her back until she
was nothing but a bag of bones and dripping fur.
“There’s
really not much to you under all that fur, is there?”
Cleo’s slitted
yellow eyes slid up toward Evie’s face, but the cat had nothing to say to
that. Evie continued dousing the feline
with water, lathered her up with a tiny amount of human shampoo (Never in my wildest dreams would I have
thought I needed cat shampoo), and drained the disgustingly brown water
before refilling the tub with clean water to rinse with.
“Can I
let go of you for just a second? Are you
going to stay put?”
Evie
carefully lifted the hand she had been using to keep the cat pinned to the
floor of the tub. Cleo’s slitted eyes
glided toward the wall, and off she went!
She leapt straight up, over, and onto the bathroom floor slinging soap
and suds along behind her. She landed in
one big sloppy mess and darted behind the toilet before Evie even had time to
react.
“Cleo!”
she screamed. She spun on her knees,
soaking her jeans, and whacked her head on the corner of the cabinet as she
dropped to her hands. She rubbed her
forehead helplessly and winced at the sharp pain that was now throbbing in her
skull. Dang cat!
“Come
here, Cleo,” she coaxed gently. I just HAD to get a cat.
“Let’s get you rinsed and dried
off.” The bubbly cat inched backwards
away from her grasp. You’re soaking the wall and my landlord
doesn’t know I have you in here.
“I’m not
going to hurt you.” But I just might have a death wish before this is all said and done. She made a quick grab for the scruff of her
neck, but Cleo slithered out of her fingers and escaped around the other side
of the toilet. She skittered wildly
along the opposite wall, slipping and sliding the whole way, until she reached
the closed bathroom door. She reached up
and snagged the smooth wood with the claws of both front feet as she meowed
mercilessly for help! Her wild, yellow
eyes spotted Evie lunging for her and she detached herself from the door and turned,
using the doorframe as a launching board as she darted away. Evie caught her mid-flight and pinned the
scrambling, soapy cat to the floor. Cleo
grabbed at anything she could reach with her claws, including the skin of
Evie’s arms.
“Youch!”
Evie cried as she once more lifted Cleo into the filling bathtub. The cat’s back feet were splayed wide, every
claw ready to grab onto anything that was unfortunate enough to be close,
before she was plopped back into the water.
She slid around the tub like a spineless seal, splashing water
everywhere, but Evie was determined to rinse her whether she wanted it to
happen or not.
Meeeeooooowwwww, Cleo moaned as the
water that was repeatedly dumped over her head and slowly removed every trace
of bubbles from her fur.
“Finally,
Cleo!” Evie sighed. She used her free
hand to squeegee the water from Cleo’s limp fur before lifting her and dropping
her back onto the bathroom floor which resembled more of a kiddie wading pool
at the moment. She tugged on her towel
hanging just above them on the towel bar, and it dropped onto Cleo’s head. Evie scrubbed Cleo with it until her head
popped out from underneath. She shook
her head wildly in protest and her long fur looked more like porcupine needles
as the cat twisted out of Evie reach and crouched angrily in the corner. Her yellow eyes narrowed to mere slits as if
she was daring her to try and grab her again.
“Okay,
fine. You be that way. But, at least you don’t have to lick your own
poop back off your fur now. You should
be thanking me.”
Cleo
glared at her from the corner. Only the
very tip of her tail flicked up and down.
Evie imagined that if she had fingers she would have been drumming them
slowly across the floor.
She used
her foot to push the towel around on the floor to hopefully soak up some of the
puddled soap and water before taking a second to inspect the scratches Cleo had
left on her forearms. Only one had a
trickle of blood oozing out of it while the rest looked like perforation marks
in her skin.
“You’re
staying in here while I get everything else out of the car and you dry off some
more.”
Cleo
didn’t budge from the corner. She lifted
a white paw and began licking herself between bouts of shaking her head some
more. She only paused when Evie cracked
the bathroom door to slide out. Cleo
gave her one final glare before rolling onto her side, skillfully lifting her
back foot behind her head, and proceeding to lick the underside of her spikey
mass.
Her
jeans were soaked from the knees down, her arms were scratched to smithereens,
and she had a growing knot on her forehead from whacking it on the
counter. She must have looked like a hot
mess when she staggered to her car to unload her luggage and miscellaneous cat
accessories. She dumped the litter into
the box, filled the new food and water bowls, and tried to get her home ready
to welcome its first pet. Is there anything else I need? she
wondered. She snapped her fingers,
remembering the feathered toys. She
unpackaged everything and set them on the coffee table before cracking the
bathroom door to check on the freshly-bathed kitty.
“How are
you doing in here?” she asked as she carefully poked her head in. Cleo paused her licking to glare at the
intruder. She was still crouched in the
corner like an angry lion. In fact, she
even mildly resembled a lion by the way she had fluffed out her hair like a
mane. “I’ve got your food bowl and
litter box set up. How about we go check
those out?” she asked. She scooped Cleo
up before she had a chance to make a run for it. Evie carried her into the kitchen and dropped
the damp cat into the litter box. Cleo
landed, took two sniffs, and silently leapt out, scattering little litter
pebbles all over the floor.
That wasn’t a brilliant move on my part. Now I
have litter everywhere. But, at
least Cleo knew where the box was now.
The cat slinked around the room, moving from the kitchen to the
adjoining living room, sniffing everything and checking the place out. Sometimes, she would freeze mid-step, give a
couple of sniffs to a nearby piece of furniture, and then slowly slink to the
next thing. Cleo slowly moved around the
entire room before wandering into the hall and eventually into the
bedroom. After a few minutes, she slowly
came back to the living room, pausing once to sniff at the open bathroom door.
Evie had
plopped down on the couch to admire the redecorating she had done before
leaving for the wedding. She was still
pleased with the new arrangements on the walls.
The room felt fresh and new, but still had the wonderful balance that
put her at ease. There were few things
as peaceful as a quiet house, and she savored in it while Cleo explored her new
surroundings.
Cleo
eventually bounded onto the loveseat catty-corner from where Evie was sitting,
sniffed the cushions and pillows, and seeming to find everything to her liking,
plopped down and began cleaning herself again.
“Do you
like your new home, Cleo?” The cat
didn’t even flick an ear in her direction.
“Cleeeeooooo,”
she cooed. Still nothing. “Well, I’m headed to bed.” It was her getting up from the couch that
finally grabbed Cleo’s attention. Her
head shot up and her wide yellow eyes locked onto Evie as if to say, ‘You touch
me, you die.’
“Fine,”
she said, throwing her hands into the air in mock protest. “I’ll leave you alone.” Cleo stared her down the whole way from the
couch to the hall’s doorway where Evie flicked off the lights.
“Goodnight,
Cleo.” The only sound Evie heard was the
*lick* *lick* of Cleo’s sandpaper tongue repeatedly grazing against her long
fur echoing from the living room.
