Cat on the Lam (Lynn Kerstan)

A warm summer night. I had company. Conversation flowed like wine. And sometime during the evening, my sweet and very sheltered indoor cat took a runner.

The blame is mine. I hadn’t made sure the latch on the screen door was firmly in place. And by the time I knew he was gone, he’d found himself a hidey-hole.

The picture is from his younger days. He’s five now, a richer caramel color, and has grown into his ears. But Lymond de Sevigny, despite his fancy name, is easily spooked and utterly naive. His worldly experience consists of perching on his cat tree by the bay window to watch people, cars, and birds. His only significant excursion beyond these walls involved a vet and the snipping of body parts that left him meowing soprano. Ever since, if I so much as open the closet where the cat carrier is stored, he scampers off like the hounds of hell are after him.

When it comes to certain subjects, cats have long memories.

So I think his escape was an accident. But I can’t be sure. Maybe he just got itchy paws. Or he might have been recruited to the dark side by the next-door cat, Timmy, an alpha rogue with fight-bitten ears who rules the neighborhood.

We searched, my guests and I. But they had to drive back to LA, so I took my ineffectual flashlight and roamed the dark streets, kneeling to peer under cars, scanning the branches of trees, speaking his name calmly. Sick at heart.

But not in despair. I figured that in the quiet of late night, he’d gather the courage to make his way home. So I sat up, doors propped open, playing mindless games of FreeCell until dawn. The only cat to wander in was Timmy.

Friends gave advice. I followed all of it. Checked Animal Control and shelters. Printed flyers, encased them in plastic, and tacked them up on telephone poles. Talked with the neighbors. Talked to the bushes and the spaces behind dumpsters and the openings to the spaces beneath houses and apartment buildings. I’d been told to converse in a normal voice, so that’s what I did. I’d mention Lymond’s name, but didn’t call out for him. Not after the first day.

Besides, I have garish memories of the lady who lived next door when I was in the fifth grade. Whenever her cat got out, she’d walk the streets screeching its name: "Kittykatink! Kittykatink! Heeeere, Kittykatink!" I think the cat was too embarrassed to come home.

I started to feel embarrassed, too, wandering desolately from house to house, pretending to admire the gardens while I chatted up the bougainvillea. So I started carrying my cell phone, even called a friend or two. But holding it to my ear was tiresome. Then I found a headset in a drawer, left over from one of the many technology products I’ve bought in a futile effort to become a more efficient writer. Stuffing the unattached cord down my jeans, I now feigned dictating into a non-existent recorder while furthering my acquaintance with the shrubbery.

And always, I kept the night watch, doors open and candles lit.

On the evening of the fourth day, I hung up more flyers and made the cat-seeking rounds until twilight. By this time, hope was no more than a flicker in my heart. That afternoon, I had even checked websites of Abyssinian breeders. Faithless wench! But even worse was the prospect of life without a cat.

Anyway. Entering my apartment, which felt emptier than ever before, I headed directly for the wine cupboard and was pouring a restorative glass of pinot grigio when I heard a low, loud feline vocalization. An announcement, like a trumpet overture.

And there was Lymond, striding in my direction with a Where Have You Been look on his
face. He paused then, the way Baryshnikov used to do when taking the stage, graceful and powerful, his limber body poised for a leap.

Like the song says, "I thought he was a goner, but the cat came back."

He was, and is, perfectly fine. I suspect he found an enabler out there, or Timmy showed him the ropes, because he wasn’t hungry, thirsty, or dirty. He did bring company, though, an assembly of mutant ninja fleas that ate me alive until Advantage did its work.

And he has a knowing look in his eyes now, the recollection of mysterious journeys, the triumph of an adventurer who stalked the shadowy corners of Coronado and lived to meow the tale.

Welcome home, Lymond. Don’t do it again!