Thursday, 23 September 2004 | The rescuer

[written 9/22/04]

It wasn't necessary for her to tell me she didn't get many visitors; I could tell, by the way I was so carefully followed around the apartment by the twenty-nine sets of eyes.

She refers to herself as a "rescuer"; she fosters cats and finds them homes, when she can. Otherwise, they get added to her collection. In her pre-rescuer days, she told me, she had a more socially acceptable number—three—but even that was thought to be excessive. Tonight I brought her her thirtieth.

She's about 35 years old and lives in a spacious one bedroom Manhattan apartment that looks and smells completely normal, minus the furry creatures sprinkled around the place. They were everywhere—on every shelf and table top, beneath every piece of furniture, behind every door. Right after I walked though the door, a black long-hair pawed at my thigh as if I were a scrathing post, using painless disarmed weapons.

The cats represented every shape, color, age, and disposition, like poster children for political correctness. A third of them were related; a fourth, feral. "I've only touched that one once, when it was sleeping," she said, as she gestured toward an animal in the corner.

A few of them followed us as we walked through the rooms, but most just sat and stared, boring holes into me with their round cat eyes. Who is this visitor? I was a curiosity.

She showed me a few of the things they'd destroyed, and the places they'd taken over. One had sunken comfortably into her laundry bag; another had urinated on a coat that had been hanging in her closet. "This one is the reason I never go on vacation," she said, referring to the amount of money she had to pay for a particular cat's health. (She confessed that she spends about $100 per week on cat food and litter alone.)

I imagine that there are actually twenty-nine reasons she never goes on vacation.

When I thought I'd seen them all, she mentioned that there were probably ten more under the bed. I peeked under the dust ruffle, and, sure enough, roughly ten more sets of eyes glowed and blinked in my direction.

...

The stray didn't want to be put in the carrier, and I felt bad to force it against its will. It was quiet, though, even on the subway. It formed a ball in the corner of the carrier and looked around with wide eyes. It was to become the thirtieth.

Once we were in the rescuer's apartment—in the tiny, standing room-only bathroom with the door closed—the stray clung to me and rubbed against me, while growling at her new host. "She really knows you, doesn't she?" It surprised me, but it seemed to be the case.