If you want to live in New York City, plan to have pets; you can choose them if you want, or they can choose you. In my tenement apartment on the Lower East Side, a host of mice and cockroaches had chosen me. I lived about as slovenly as the next bachelor in those days, but lying in my loft-bed, trying to fall asleep to the symphony of scratchings and diggings going on in the kitchen, proved to be more than I could tolerate. I considered fostering a cat.
There are those among us who believe in no such thing as coincidence, but that something akin to Divine Providence is always answering our prayers, whether they were consciously uttered or not. If this is true, something of the sort was at work when my friend (the building's superintendant) knocked on my door to inform me of a litter of kittens newly born to a family he knew out on Long Island, and asked if I would be interested in adopting one of them. Immediately I said, "Yes."
Now, this business of our prayers being answered always carries with it a bit of a catch: namely, that although we always get what we ask for, it never seems to come in the form we had anticipated. After the appropriate interval for cats to wean, my friend called me with the proposal that I take in two cats, as they were the last in the litter, and the family refused to have one left alone.

Mercedes

I agreed, and only moments later he arrived at my door with two tiny handfuls of fur, and passed them over to me. I encountered love at first sight of these curled and sleeping beings, who occupied no more than a palm's worth of each hand: one all white, with two funny spots on her back and a patch on her head; the other white with a generous spillage of tabby sauce on top, like a tabby sundae. The spotted one I called Mercedes, and the tabby, Chevrolet.
These are, admittedly, odd names for cats. But once the cats came out from under the furniture, they lived up to their titles, tearing around the apartment like toy cars wrapped in angora mittens. Sure, they were cute; but, true to the maxim regarding beauty and the eye of the beholder, that cuteness was lost on the families of unwelcome squatters that had earlier threatened to overrun the apartment. Only a few days passed before I came home to witness a ring of half a dozen dead mice on the kitchen floor. I then savored that curious mixture of emotions familiar to many cat lovers: disgust at the spectacle of such carnage, and delight at the sight of little Chevy prancing all around them like a Lippizaner stallion, with alternate forepaws lifted high, as if to say, "How do you like me now?"

Chevy

I dare say I liked her very much. Now, whether it was she who had done all the killing, or had merely taken all the credit, only Divine Providence knows. Yet she always did what she could to please me; in that respect she acted more like a dog than a cat. In the weeks to come, she began to astonish me by playing fetch with bottlecaps. (She preferred the old-fashioned crimped kind over the aluminum twist-off variety.) More than once I had the occasion to observe her method; if the bottlecap lay open-side down, she would put a paw on either side of it, and manipulate it until it lay on its back. Then she would step on one side of it in order to cause the cap to cant upwards, thus affording her an edge to clench between her teeth. No matter how far the bottlecap had flown, or in whatever remote corner of the apartment, she would always bring it back, beaming with pride, and drop it at my feet, eager for another flick.
As she grew older, she gradually lost interest in the game, dropping the bottlecap further and further away from my feet, until she had completely outgrown the diversion. She had other ways of displaying her enormous affection, though. Nearly every morning she would practice a ritual conversation with me. She would close her eyes, and open her mouth wide to let out a short, "Eyow." By her look, it was as if she was saying, "I love you." I would respond in kind, by saying her name, "Chevy." She: "Eyow." "Chevy." "Eyow." And so on.

The Divine C. & M.

Animals can express themselves with a delightfully forthright matter-of-factness. And Chevy's vocabulary was by no means limited to "Eyow." She used a range of cat-words: an extended, whiney "reeeeeow" that indicated her desire to be let through a door; a terse Edward G. Robinson "meah," used as an affirmative; an "ehaow," which signalled irritation or disapproval, often accompanied by the shake of a front paw (a sometimes confusing gesture, as it could also indicate excitement); and a nearly soundless, wide-mouthed "eh" that served as a salutation or term of affection.
There were times when Chevy's affection became almost embarrassing to me. As much as she loved rolling in a warm sunbeam, she loved to roll in my dirty shirts, snuffling and groaning as if she'd found a pile of catnip in which to wallow. (I would always leave a dirty shirt out for her when I traveled without her.) She was crazy for my earwax. And, she even drank my bathwater. I didn't imagine it could get any more complicated, until one hot August day in the city, when I had been lying stark naked atop my sheets, emerging from a deep slumber to find Chevy slurping at my erect organ from the hilt to the crown. Now, that was a bit too much for even me. I howled with a combination of shock and amusement, and Chevy bolted for the far end of the apartment. Ah, sweet fatuousness of youth! To my relief, she never again exhibited her amour in such a manner.

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I admit to having favored Chevy more among the two cats; Fate had dealt the litter's Runt card to little Mercedes. It is said that a special kind of love is necessary to raise a runt. With my chewed-up shoes, drooled-on lap and peed-on record collection, I had come to understand what was meant by that dictum. Yet she was lovely and sweet, and possessed as dear a heart as any cherub in heaven.
On a cold December evening, three years after I had moved myself and the cats to Colorado, alas, sweet Mercedes defected for unknown horizons. I scoured the neighborhood, put up signs, and checked the Humane Society daily. When at last a cat matching her description turned up in the Society's D.O.A. files, I sadly gave up the search.
I do not know to what degree her disappearance affected Chevy's emotions; some felinities are difficult for us humans to discern. Perhaps they discuss situations in ways undecipherable to us. Perhaps they possess a secret knowledge, understanding, or communication skill that we bipeds lack. Or perhaps their simplicity affords them a station that our greatest sages and mystics advocate: that of riding the tide of the ever-unfolding Now, neither hoisting the burden of the past nor anticipating the precipitations of the future, but simply accepting and living in the present. One thing I have noticed: cats spend a great deal of their time meditating.

Chevy & Jack

Chevy lived in harmony with a number of other cats in her lifetime, but I missed the way she would wrestle with her sister, rolling and tumbling in a ball, and rising up on hind legs to make a big show of teeth and fangs: all in utter silence, save for the flopping of their bodies against the floor. Never again would I play Nero to that colossal entertainment. Chevy would only run and hiss from the playful overtures of Jackman, (her step-brother?) unwilling to engage with one as young and large as he. (As long as he remained docile, though, she would lick him as if he were a kitten.)
Although she accepted some gentle strangers with warmth, and loved most people that I loved, Chevy remained reclusive, even skittish, with most people she met. Some folks never got to see what a demonstratively loving creature she could be. That is, until her life-changing moment: her "Outward Bound" experience.
It was summertime in Boulder, Colorado, as beautiful a time and place as could be imagined on Earth, when our idyllic life was threatened by the menace of the neighbor's cat, Claude. Now, Claude, a massive hunk of catness, behaved placidly toward humans but deplorably toward the cats. He used to terrorize them from outside the window; fierce howlings and spittings emitted from inside and out. Once he was even so bold as to enter our peaceful domain and corral our friends up to the second floor, while he glared and growled from the foot of the stairs.
Not many days had passed before Chevy simply decided she'd had enough of this nonsense. Like a seething shot of furry lightning, she tore across the front lawn at the bully, all hissing teeth and talons. I had to laugh at this furious spectacle: tiny Chevy hurling herself all-out at this monster twice her size. Yet the effect on him proved abasing; since that moment, he cowered from her presence. Her fury had won back her territory and, I believe, her self-regard.

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Chevy turned sixteen in 1996; I had joked that it was time to apply for her driver's licence. Late in the year, her health began to fail her. She gradually lost weight, and the consultations of two separate veterinarians proved unsubstantial. One vet had suggested that she may have developed tumors in her intestines: difficult to find, and nearly impossible to cure. I braced myself for the worst.

Her Green Eyes

I brought her up to the mountains, where I was planning to spend the winter. Her vitality was gradually fading, and I knew she would be dying soon. As many pet owners have done, I was forced to consider the grave alternative of euthanasia. Chevy saved me the trouble. She and I were alone in the house one night in November when she woke me up at two in the morning; I thought at first she might have needed me to carry her to the cat-box, but soon realized she had awakened me to say goodbye. I set her upon some fresh towels on the bed, moistened a washcloth and used it like a momma cat's tongue, stroking her fur down the length of her back. She purred.
Then she started into some labored breathing and howling. I tried calling the vet, but could not get through. There was nothing left to do but share the solemn moment. I went back to her side. She had calmed down a little, and tried to purr again while I stroked her and talked to her. After some time, I saw her paw relax, and knew in that moment she had passed over. Now it was my turn to howl.
I wrapped her body in one of my dirty shirts, and set the shrouded package on the frozen porch. The next morning I found a spot that could catch good sunbeams, dug a deep hole and buried her in it, with prayers, tears, and dried rose petals. I marked the grave with a large rock, and stood over it for a long moment, crying.

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Chevy had come into my acquaintance when I was 21; her lifetime chronicled my young adulthood, the burdens of which she eased with her unabashed and unconditional love. For that, I will always be grateful. She died as she had lived: with dignity, grace and love. I will miss her.

Under the certainty of Heaven, all we can be sure of is tomorrow.
When yesterday is already ours, what more can we ask?
- ELLIS PETERS