Selected Lives of Fenwick Fogpaws

1

My first life was a disappointment when compared to all my others. It was short, and I spent most of it a lot wetter than any cat would like. I never found out exactly how it ended because whatever got me came at me from behind. Of course, the Fenwick Fogpaws of later lives would never be snuck up on, but first lives are pretty tough on a lot of cats. My “number one” is only worth a mention because that’s when I made my first attempt at understanding.

I was a little orange tabby street cat, never even got to be full sized. I thought rain was the only kind of weather, because that’s all there’d ever been since I left the litter. All the porches in my town had little roofs above them and I would scamper up the steps and shake my sodden paws when I needed somewhere dry. I knew that people lived behind the doors, and sometimes used the porches too for stamping heavy boots or fussing with umbrellas.

I tried to understand these folks, but I never guessed their patterns. Some seemed glad to see me and would coo and scratch my ears. Others swung their boots and shouted and sent me sprawling in the rain. I never could tell beforehand what would make one person nice and what would make another mean. Was it the color of their boots or the size of their umbrellas or the number of steps descending from their porch? My number one was far too short to figure out those kinds of questions, but it served well enough to teach me I should ask them.

3

For my number three, I was assigned to be a big black barn cat. I lived in an old dusty place with wood that needed paint and smells that told digestive stories. I spent daytimes skittering in the rafters, my dark fur blending into dim corners, my green eyes watching everything below. At night, I hunted the feed room, taking pleasure in my sharp claws and silent feet as I stalked the mounds of grain. 

A boy came to the barn in the mornings and the evenings. He pitched hay, filled water troughs and talked nonsense to the cow while he leaned his head against her flank and pulled milk from her udder. I eyed his every movement and kept from sight till he was gone. There was no way to know what kind he was.

But then one night the hunting was so poor I kept at it till morning and he came before I climbed into the rafters.

“I bet you’d like some milk, eh barn cat?” he said.

I pressed my body low against the ground. 

“It’s alright, kitty.” He moved carefully to set his stool and begin his work. “Here try a little,” he squeezed a jet in my direction. It smelled warm and frothy, pooled on the floor.

“Fine, I’ll look away if that will make you happy.”

When his eyes no longer rested on me, I lapped it up, then cleaned my lips with satisfaction.

I was ready when he came the next day. I left a headless mouse on his stool and waited to see if he would understand.

“Does this mean you liked your milk?” he laughed and squeezed another jet for me. 

After that, he named me Fenwick. He said it was his grandpa’s name and came from a long line of dairymen. Soon, I learned to catch the jets before they hit the ground and he would laugh and I would rub against his legs so he knew I wanted more. In those days, I thought I understood the boy with his gentle hands and kind eyes. I would bring him mice and he would always come to see me.

I didn’t know yet that there were “lasts” for everything. When he said the word, I still drank my milk and purred as if that day were no different. But he never came again. I looked for him whenever the door latch scraped, but the faces were always unfamiliar. I spent the rest of number three brooding in my rafters, wondering why he left and if he took the name he gave me with him.

6

Number six was a good life. I started as a kitten looking in a window. The people brought me into the warm yellow light, and I received my second name.

“He’s so fluffy!” the woman said, “he looks like a soft gray thunder cloud.”

“Or like Sandburg’s bank of fog on little cat feet.” The man replied.

“Oh, that’s so cute, we should call him Fogpaws.”

“If we name, then we’ll have to keep him.”

“It’s perfect. I’ve been thinking we needed a pet now there’s no one else in the house.”

We three understood each other. These people lived a cozy life, full of slippers and books by a fire and steaming warm drinks. I fit in perfectly on the arm of the recliner, or at the foot of the bed, or on the rug in front of the stove. Sometimes the man would chuckle when he pulled up the blinds overlooking the harbor. I loved the window sill, where I could sit back on my haunches with my bushy gray tail wrapped around me and watch the boats below move in and out.

“He’s being the poem again.” The man would say, and the woman would join us, laughing softly.

I never wanted to move on. 

All three of us grew older looking out that window. I was used to it by now—I’d grown old in some of my other lives—but the man and the woman had never done it before. I tried to tell them the creaking and the shaking was to be expected, but it didn’t seem to make them feel any better. I died first. It was on a clear day when the sun sparkled down on the harbor. I was cuddled in between the couple, warm inside their blankets when I got that feeling that number six was closing. They seemed to feel it too, and they seemed very sad. I tried to tell them not to worry, I had three more lives to spend. I would find them and we could do it all again. But the woman still cried as my body went limp and the old man closed the blinds.

7

In number seven, I was desperate. I tried to find my people. I was a rangy cat with tufted ears and legs that moved me fast across the country. I asked to have my seventh life start in my people’s town, but my request had been denied, even though I explained my promise to go back.

I was so distracted in my search that number seven almost became as short as number one. I got careless on the streets as I ran from window to window, and a truck with eighteen wheels ran me down. I was hurt and couldn’t move when the driver leaned over me, there at the side of the road.

“Whaddya run in front me like that for?” He grumbled.

I couldn’t even lift my head.

“I should leave here you know, or put you out of your misery.”

I mewled softly in agreement.

“Ah, heck,” he growled, “You’ll be dead tomorrow.” He picked me up and set me on the seat beside him. 

For many days I laid there, the engine rumbling beneath me. I remember the driver dropping liquid in my mouth and I remember when I finally felt well enough to peer out of the window. Cars flew past below me, and fields stretched out on either side, and I could see no hint of the harbor or the house that held my people.

“If you’re feeling better, I’m kicking you out next time I stop,” the driver said. 

He kept his word.

I ran into the night, flitting through the lamps that lit the parking lot. Nothing smelled familiar. I tried to catch the scent of my cozy home, but only smelled the musk of corn pollen and the acrid fumes coming from the freeway. By morning, I was at the trucker’s door again.

“Came back huh?” He yawned, “alright, if you wanna ride one more day, but I’ll kick you out tomorrow.”

 And that’s how number seven went. Every night I searched, and every morning he’d let me ride again. He never tried to name me, and I never would have let him, but we were both a little less lonely on the road.

9

I am telling you this story right before I start my ninth—there would be no way to tell it afterwards, of course. I don’t know yet what exactly will come, but this time, my last time, I get to choose what I become. I could go to the prides in Africa, or perhaps the cold and lonely Himalayas. Or I could choose to be a little tabby once again. Oddly, I can’t say for sure which I prefer. A lion or a fearsome leopard would be an honor, a fulfillment of every feline dream. And yet there is my curiosity. I still would like to understand. What is it about those people on the porches? Where did my dairy boy go? Why does being happy together make everything so sad in the end? Why does searching for what you want make it so hard to see what you have?

I have been warned that curiosity is a risky thing to spend your ninth life on, but I don’t know if I can help myself. So please, before I go, promise me that if you ever see a little orange tabby, or a black barn cat, or a puffy gray kitten or a long legged stray, you'll ask if he is Fenwick Fogpaws and you’ll tell him all you know.