A cat of note that I knew and loved died Sunday. Squeakus
Maximus was singular, and I will mourn her always.
She had an epic full name, though she answered to just
Squeak. She came to me when I
lived in a large country rancher. I wondered whether and how she would adjust
when she went with me to a small downtown condo. Such a radical shift takes the
starch out of some animals. Not Squeak. Oh, hell no.
She loved life on Kiowa Street. I didn’t let her outside,
but she managed to maintain a friendship with the dog down the hall, sight
unseen. She raced to the door when he walked his owner by for his morning and
evening constitutionals, sniffing at the threshold and sounding her call.
She took to city living, sashaying around her place. She
liked to lick lotion off my hands, a ritual we honored each night. She came
when I called to her when I first woke, leaping on the bed with aplomb.
Named for a supporting character from “The Color Purple,”
Squeak was both catty and sweet, with a witty wildness about her. She was a flat-out
card.
When I moved to a house in a small town last fall, Squeak
came into her own. She won the heart of her feline housemate, a cat with a
reputation for standoffishness and dominance over other kitties. But like the
rest of us, Smusch could not long resist. Smusch—in late middle age—sometimes
rolled her eyes at and strolled haughtily away from the little black flibberjgigit.
But she loved her. We all did, every one who spent a moment with Squeak.
In her new digs, Squeak got to go outside for the first time
to explore. She was stuck up a tree for a weekend, but she came down when she
was ready. She sharpened her claws in the great outdoors and watched the geese
next door with wonder and disdain. And she grew. I don’t mean that she simply
gained weight. She grew in length from a petite cat to merely smallish, as if
she were adjusting to her new, bigger world.
My partner Deborah found her little body on the side of the
street Sunday morning after we went looking for Squeak. It appears a car hit
her. Her spirit, though, has since visited us a few times.
I woke Monday morning and called to her to jump on the bed
before I remembered she was gone.
In the movie, Squeak’s namesake leaves home to make her mark
in the jook-joint blues world. When we realized Sunday that our Squeak had left
us, Deborah said softly, “Squeak has gone to sing.”
Squeak, you have a place to stop and rest from your travels anytime.
We are so proud to have known you.
