My late uncle Elio — a lifelong bachelor, crank and eccentric who died at age 95 — named the cat Pito, which in Spanish can mean whistle or penis, depending on the context and speaker’s frame of mind.
I’d like to think that my uncle meant the word in the former sense, because the cat came when he whistled. Knowing my uncle, however, the second meaning is not far-fetched.
Pito was a huge gray tabby. Not the friendliest or handsomest of cats, but friendly and handsome enough to my uncle, who raised it. How he got Pito was that friends of ours couldn’t keep it and offered it for adoption. And my wife Susan, with her knack for solving problems, instantly saw the kitten as the solution to my uncle’s solitariness, notwithstanding my argument that my uncle liked his solitude fine and furthermore disliked cats.
Naturally, true to his contrary nature and Susan’s propensity to prove me wrong, Elio immediately took to the kitten. He was then in his 80s and living in my late parents’ home, with whom he had lived since immigrating from Cuba to the U.S. in 1956. A peculiar situation, but Elio was a peculiar person. He never, for example, learned to drive, professing a preference for public transit. My suspicion, however, was that this was an excuse for his inability to pass the written driver’s test, which he took multiple times. But that’s conjecture on my part.
Before giving Elio the kitten, Susan and I had a vet examine and vaccinate it. We wanted it also neutered; only Elio threw such a fit that we forewent the procedure. His objection was that it was criminal to deprive a cat of its maleness, which in his view, constituted its very cat-hood. Come to think about it, this may explain his inspiration for Pito’s name. Despite a slight build, whimsical nature and certain charm with the ladies, Elio’s was a dyed-in-the-wool machismo and chauvinism.
Pito grew to be a large, rangy, bigheaded tomcat that roamed the neighborhood at will, using my uncle’s back patio as a crash pad and waystation for food, rest and recuperation between excursions. Elio was fine with the arrangement, so long as Pito showed up for meals and a little companionship. Theirs was a no-nonsense relationship.
Pito, unfortunately, would occasionally disappear for weeks at a time. Each time, Elio would swear that a car had killed Pito, thieves had catnapped him, or worst, a neighbor had eaten him, as he was convinced that some of his Haitian neighbors coveted cat meat. Pito, however, always turned up eventually, if the worse for the wear: fur matted, a gash here and there, one eye drooping, an ear chewed.
Tough cat that he was, Pito mended on his own best as he could, as Elio didn’t believe in veterinarians. Or didn’t so much not believe in them as he believed in letting animals be animals and nature taking its course. No doubt, his inability to drive and the difficulties of transporting a cat by bus played into his stance; had it even been possible to induce Pito inside a cat-carrying case. The point is that Pito never visited a veterinarian after that first time, nor ever got another vaccination or examination. Yet he thrived, if every year he grew scrawnier, scruffier and more scarred, as Elio grew crankier, quirkier and more contrarian.
We would see Pito on our trips down south to visit family and friends and check on Elio’s welfare. Pito would hang around the house, sleeping atop the picnic table in the back patio, dozing in the sunlit backyard, or crunching on lizards or birds that he had killed. A rough-and-tumble cat, he didn’t ask for, nor give, much affection. Which worked for me. Not being a cat person, I paid Pito scant attention. The one time I tried to pet him, he bit me. Elio claimed the bite was playful, but I suspected not. I never again tried petting Pito, although he would let Susan and our son Ruben pet him. So maybe the dislike between us was mutual.
When Elio died, it fell to me to sell the house and decide what to do with Pito, then 11 or 12 years old. Notwithstanding my near antipathy to Pito, I felt it was my duty to care for him during his remaining days, if only for my uncle’s sake. Too, the week we spent in Miami cleaning and preparing the house for sale, Pito and I made peace, or at least reached an understanding. One reason was that it fell to me to feed him. Another was that Pito had grown mellower and more homebound with age.
To fast forward, Pito lived with us the last two years of his life and came to be part of our family. I daresay I even came to feel a grudging affection for him and missed him when he died. Two memories stand out.
The first involved his initial trip north with us. On the last day of our weeklong stay in Miami preparing the house for sale, we packed my pickup truck with everything of my parents’ that I wanted to keep. Pito’s transport, however, was not something I thought about, assuming that he would ride in the cab with us, a willing passenger. Only when I went to put him in the truck at the last minute, a freaked-out Pito bit and scratched me. Why it hadn’t occurred to me to get a cat-carrying case is beyond me, except that I was preoccupied with bigger issues than a cat’s transport. Or maybe it’s my nature to be clueless.
The point is that we were pressed for time (the final cleaning and packing had taken much longer than expected), a terrific storm was threatening, and we were anxious to get going. I also was in no mood to baby a cat.
Enter my aunt Isabel, Elio’s baby sister and a character all her own at 83. “Wait!” she said excitedly, and off she rushed to her house. Returning a few minutes later with a huge gilded parrot cage that she offered as the perfect solution. In hindsight, the absurdity of using a birdcage for a cat transport is quite obvious. At the time, however, given the circumstances, the cage seemed an ingenious and practical solution. And maybe a wee bit of me wanted to bring Pito down a notch and repay him for the bite and scratches. Unceremoniously, I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, shoved him inside the cage, and ignoring his loud and pathetic meowing and mewling, placed the cage in the pickup bed with the other stuff under tarp. And off we went, Pito’s piteous caterwauling trailing us.
Admittedly, mine was a cruel act. My only defense is that I was overwrought, out of patience, and didn’t want my nerves further jangled by Pito’s wailing inside the cab.
The thunderstorm struck almost immediately after we started and chased us out of town, complete with lightning, thunder and windblown rain. Some 50 miles north of Miami, once the storm abated, I pulled over to check on Pito. I’ll never forget the look he gave me when I peeled back the tarp. Pito cowered in a corner of the cage, damp and pathetic looking, his green eyes saucer-sized and set on me with a baleful expression that was parts bewilderment, indignation and not a little accusation. As if to say, how could you? I befriended and trusted you, and this is how you repay me, by stuffing me in a birdcage and nearly drowning me?
The poignancy of the look, reminiscent of Elio, caused me to lose it. Susan and Ruben will attest that I was overtaken with an uncontrollable fit of laughter that was parts hysteria, nervous breakdown and belated grieving.
Tough cat that Pito was, he survived the ordeal and quickly adjusted and adapted to his new home and country living, quickly taking to long exploratory walks of the surrounding fields and pastures. But mostly he lazed in the sun, his roaming days behind him, especially as arthritis stiffened his joints.
The second incident demonstrated Pito’s agility and inane hunting skills, even in old age and despite arthritis. Long suspecting that wild animals were eating Pito’s food at night, I peeked out the front window one late evening and saw a possum dining at Pito’s dish. Pito, meanwhile, was lying leisurely atop a large wooden storage box just outside the window, placidly watching the possum eat his food.
Incensed at the possum’s brazenness, I grabbed a handy golf club near the front door and stepped outside, intent on striking it a deathblow. Only lacking a killer’s instinct, I pulled back on my swing at the last second, delivering instead a glancing blow that merely knocked the possum sideways. Instantly, Pito pounced from his perch and pinned the possum down with both front paws, a tight bite around its neck. Each time the possum stirred, Pito growled and shook it by the neck. Until I heard what I thought was a crunch – the possum’s neck snapping? – and the possum grew still; its eyes shut and tongue out.
“Enough”, I said, trying to get Pito to let go so I could dispose of the possum Pito, however, wouldn’t relinquish his hold.
Deciding to wait him out, I returned inside to read. Curiosity, however, compelled me to peek out the window a few minutes later to see what was happening. Pito was resting back on his perch, the possum lying on its side. – But wait; was that a glint in the possum’s eye? Were its eyes open! In the instant it took me to rush outside, the possum righted itself, whirled and fled into the dark.Pito, meanwhile, eyed me contentedly from his perch, the picture of innocence. It made me wonder if I hadn’t been had; if Pito and the possum hadn’t conspired to play me for a fool, payback for his birdcage humiliation. Too fanciful, I dismissed the thought. And yet, I had to wonder, rascal (prick?) that Pito could be. (2018)