A Second Chance

A loud bang awoke Fritz with a start. He lifted his head just high enough to peer through the bars and saw an overturned metal food dish and kibble strewn across the floor. “Such a waste,” he grumbled, turning over, and burying his head back under his towel.

“Get me out of here!” a high, panicked voice yowled from the next cage. “Get me out of here! I don’t belong here!”

Being old and a rather heavy sleeper, Fritz didn’t notice he had acquired a new neighbor. Lifting his head again just ever so slightly, he saw a young, orange tabby in the next cage, crying loudly and showing his teeth like baby kittens do.

One of the humans, the one Fritz referred to as the Angry One, came into the room so suddenly that Fritz could hear all his fellow-imprisoned cats jump in unison, feeling her intense, ever-angry presence. “What is going on in here!” she cried, gesturing to the food on the floor.

“Let me out of here!” The tabby continued to cry, now reaching a slender, desperate paw through the bars in a futile effort to plead his case to the Angry One.

“Oh, you poor baby, you’re scared, aren’t you?” The Angry One cooed as she knelt down and swept the errant food back into the bowl.

“You’re damn right I’m scared, you took me away from Frankie!” the tabby bawled, practically crawling up the cage door with those curled, desperate paws.

“No reason to waste food,” the Angry One replied with a strange calmness, sliding the bowl back through the slot in the tabby’s cage.

“I don’t want this, I want Frankie!” the tabby continued plaintively.

“HUSH UP!” the Angry One bellowed, smacking the tabby’s cage with a fat appendage that reminded Fritz of a walleye fish.

This frightened the tabby enough that he relented, and curling up into a ball in one of the far corners of the cage, he covered his face with his tail and quieted down.

“That’s more like it,” said the Angry One with an ugly look. She turned off the sun and left.

“Finally, some peace and quiet around here,” Fritz muttered. He stood, stretched luxuriously, rumpled his towel a little bit to find a cooler spot, and nestled back down for another nap.

“Hey – psst! Hey, cat next door, are you awake?”

Oh no, thought Fritz. Here we go again.

Fritz lost track of exactly how long he had been at the shelter, but judging by how many times the Angry One turned the sun off and on, it had been about five months. During this time, many other cats have come and tried to befriend him, but in a matter of days they would be gone, being taken out of their cages by happy humans and never to be seen again. No happy humans ever came for Fritz, however. They usually remarked on how old and tired he looked before turning their attention to the younger, more energetic cats. Much like this new tabby over here.

“Can’t you see that I am trying to sleep?” Fritz replied in a disinterested tone.

“There’s no time for that. I need to get home to Frankie.”

Fritz sighed and rolled over.

“Hey!” the tabby exclaimed, pawing at the bars that separated them. “Wake up!”

“Just be patient, child. There will be humans who come and take you away from this place. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen dozens of times,” said Fritz without even looking up. Maybe that would satisfy him and get him to shut up.

It didn’t. “No, I belong to Frankie! I must get back to him, he needs me,”

The cages began to wobble slightly, and Fritz immediately knew it was from that tabby’s pacing. It annoyed him terribly. “Would you stop with your incessant pacing? You’re keeping me awake and probably the others, too,” Fritz hissed.

“Hey, keep it down up there!” hollered Bruno, a black and white with bright yellow eyes who had been living in a ground floor cage for about a week now.

“See?” Fritz spat. “Now go to sleep.”

“I won’t sleep until you help me get out of here.”

This time Fritz didn’t reply, and instead feigned a loud snore.

“You’re not fooling me, old man!” Sticking one slender paw through the bars, the tabby began to bat at Fritz’s fluffy tail. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

Fritz could no longer stand it. “Fine!” he roared, jumping to his feet and rushing the cage bars with his teeth bared. “What will get you to leave me alone??”

The tabby smiled and flicked his tail back and forth in a satisfied manner, which only served to annoy Fritz more.

“Your cage has the control,” said the tabby, gesturing with one paw at the long metal pole that ran the length of the top cages. It weaved through a small loop of metal on each cage door, keeping them shut. Fritz’s cage was at the end, and that is where the metal pole began. “If you just stick your paw out between those last two bars and bat that pole hard enough, both of us could get free.”

The thought of escaping the shelter never even occurred to Fritz before. When his human, an old woman named Mary, had brought him here, he figured he would just sleep away the rest of his days. After all, he had a good life with Mary, but the truth of the matter was that she was forgetting to feed him more and more, and at least the Angry One never forgot.

Fritz looked at the metal pole, then back at the tabby, and back at the metal pole again. It looked as if it would be easy enough to do. And it’s not like he had to leave, he could just free that tabby and not have to listen to him yowling ever again.

“Alright, I’ll do it,” said Fritz, his voice dripping with resignation so that the tabby didn’t get the wrong idea and think that Fritz was actually warming up to him.

“Oh wow, that’s great! That’s really great, thank you. And you’ll see – I’ll take you home with me so you can meet Frankie. Hey, maybe you can be Frankie’s cat, too. He’s a great kid, you see, and-“

“I said I would do it, I didn’t say I needed your whole life story” Fritz snapped.

“Sorry, I’m just a little excited, I guess.”

Fritz sighed and moved closer to the door of his cage. The bars were far enough apart for him to get some good motion in, and with just a few swift taps, the pole was pushed away from his door and halfway across the cage.

"That’s it! That’s it!” the tabby cheered. “Now keep doing it until I can reach it.”

Just a few taps later, the pole was now completely cleared of Fritz’s cage, and door swung open with a lazy creak. It was the first time in five months that it was opened, and Fritz wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

Ignorant of Fritz’s inner dilemma, the tabby was now quickly tapping away at the pole. He was able to get it clear of his own cage, just enough so he could open his own door, before it hit the opposite wall with a thud.

“That’s quite a high jump,” Fritz observed, looking down at the shiny, slippery linoleum that covered the floor. Their cages sat on top of two others, making them three cages up from the floor. It’s true that cats always land on their feet, but it is no longer the easiest thing in the world when those feet are now old and achy.

“Don’t jump, just leap!” the tabby replied confidently. And with one smooth motion, he leapt gracefully from the cage and onto the floor, his paws barely making a sound as he landed. “See how I did that?”

“I saw how you did that,” Fritz retorted. “But what I didn’t do was shed my old age to be able to jump like a young, virile cat such as yourself.”

The tabby chuckled. “C’mon, old man, you underestimate yourself!”

Suddenly Fritz thought of the Angry One. If she caught them with the cage doors open, who knows what she would do?

Finally fueled with the proper motivation, Fritz leapt. And while it didn’t hurt as badly as he thought it would, he still put on a performance for the tabby and winced a little upon landing just to prove him wrong.

“Let’s go find Frankie!” said the tabby triumphantly.

Since the door was never fully closed, it was easy for the tabby to use one paw and pry it open far enough for them to squeeze through. Once in the hallway, where the sun was on constantly, they followed their noses to find the quickest way outside. It didn’t take them long to find the human’s bathroom, and a window that was left cracked open. Using his deft paw work once again, the tabby pushed the window the rest of the way open. They climbed through it and onto an unkempt planter that sat just below it.

“I can’t believe it! We’re home free!” the tabby cried as he began to run down the street. “Follow me, I can find Frankie from here.”

Fritz did his best to catch up, but the truth was that it was quite some time since he actually ran. His legs were out of shape from months of sleeping in a cage with no exercise, so catching up with the healthy tabby was going to be nearly impossible. It was also nighttime, and Fritz’s vision wasn’t what it used to be, especially in the dark.

Fortunately, their destination wasn’t far. The tabby finally stopped at a street corner, where the large, square buildings turned into short, squat, pointy-topped buildings. The air smelled of onion powder and fresh laundry, smells that Fritz always associated with humans.

Once Fritz finally caught up, the tabby gestured to the house directly across from them. “This is my house,” he said proudly. It looked cozy enough to Fritz, with nice big windows to sun oneself in and a grassy yard for hunting mice. “I can’t wait for you to meet Frankie, I know he will just love you. He really likes cats, you know.”

With the biggest grin Fritz ever saw a cat have, the tabby trotted into the street, beckoning Fritz to follow.

Suddenly a bright, yellow light illuminated the tabby in an eerie glow that Fritz had never witnessed before. There was a loud rush of noise, and before Fritz could even call out, the tabby was hit by a big, loud contraption that continued to race down the street as if nothing happened.

Fritz did not even have to go look to see if the poor tabby had survived, as it was clear from the sight of his remains that he did not. Saddened and disgusted by the sight, Fritz cried out and raced across the street, unaware of the danger he was putting himself in by doing so. Finding an opening under the front stoop of the tabby’s house, Fritz squeezed his way in and hid.

The night passed with Fritz huddled under the stoop, afraid to venture into the world alone but also afraid to subject himself to the sight of the tabby’s lifeless body again.

When morning came, Fritz knew he had to decide. He couldn’t live under the stoop forever. Right as he was about to make a courageous exit, a cry from inside the house made him stop dead in his tracks.

“Oh no, Chance! Oh, my poor Chance!” It was the voice of a small boy. Fritz heard the front door creak open and felt the stoop rattle as the boy ran out to the street to look upon the corpse of his pet.

“Oh Chance, why did you run away?” the boy wailed. The stoop rumbled again as family members piled outside.

“Frankie, go inside,” said a soft, female human voice. “Paul, go get a garbage bag, please.”

The boy was now full-blown crying as the female cooed quiet words to him to try to get him to calm down. It reminded Fritz of Mary and how she used to comfort him when he would get scared of the rain booms. The stoop rattled again as the human named Paul did as the female instructed.

“We’ll have a nice funeral for him,” said the female. “We can bury him in the backyard so he will always be close by.”

The boy continued to cry and sat down on the stoop, his small figure casting a shadow over the slots in the stairs right above Fritz.

“It will be alright, honey, you’ll see,” said the female gently. “Breakfast will be in an hour.” Fritz heard her go back into the house, and the boy was left outside alone, still crying.

Fritz had never been a big fan of children, but the whole situation was hitting him in a way he never felt before. Maybe because he knew the tabby, or how fondly he spoke of this little boy, or how upset the boy was at the loss of that annoying, yet loving and devoted cat. Overwhelmed with these strange, new emotions, Fritz began to cry, too.

Almost as soon as Fritz began, the boy stopped. Oh no, I just gave myself away, Fritz cringed.

“Chance?” the boy asked quietly, his voice tinged with hope. “Is that you?”

Now, Fritz couldn’t live with the idea that this boy thought his dead cat came back to life. Seeing no choice in the matter, Fritz squeezed back through the hole in the stoop and revealed himself to the little boy.

The expression on the boy’s face went from hope, to confusion, to excitement. “Who are you?” he asked Fritz with wonderment. “Where were you hiding?”

“I’m sorry about Chance,” said Fritz, even though he knew all the little boy heard was “Meow.”

“You’re a pretty kitty,” said the little boy, extending his hand cautiously towards Fritz. “Were you Chance’s friend?”

Fritz craned his neck forward, so that his head connected gently with the little boy’s hand, as if to say “Yes.”

The little boy wiped his eyes with his other hand. “He got hit by a car,” he explained to Fritz, his voice wavering. Fritz let him pet his head and under his chin. He really was a nice little boy, just like the tabby – Chance – said.

Chance.

Huh, thought Fritz. How fitting that a cat named Chance gave me a second one?