He wanders around the apartment looking for her. He yowls when I am reading on the couch. He yowls when I am eating at the dinner table. He yowls when I am changing my clothes getting ready for work. He yowls when I am taking a shower, and puts his paws on the edge of the tub, and looks at me, and yowls when I am holding a bar of soap in my hands. He yowls when I am sitting outside on my porch smoking. He yowls when I am talking to a friend on the phone. He yowls when I am washing dishes. He yowls when I come home carrying my bike up the stairs. He yowls when I clean his litter box. He yowls when I am sitting in the morning. He yowls when I get into bed. He yowls when I am standing outside talking to my neighbor, and we can both hear him, and he yowls when we are laughing at how loud his yowl is. He yowls when there is nobody around to hear him. He yowls when I tell him to stop yowling. He yowls when he looks for her under the bed. He yowls when he looks for her behind the door, or when he peeks he head up to see if she's on a chair, or peeks behind the stereo to see if she is curled up in the corner.
He is sleeping now. He does not yowl when he is sleeping. He does not yowl when I sit down to rub his ears or scratch his chin. He does not yowl when his mouth is full of cat food. He does not yowl when I give him a little bit of the food that I am eating. He does not yowl when I yowl at him. He does not yowl when he is laying on my pillow next to my sleepy head. He does not yowl when I pull the covers up to cover his cold and thin ears. He does not yowl when he is biting the hair behind my ears. He does not yowl when I take my shoes off and he rubs his head into the warm cavity where my foot once was. He does not yowl when I say, "Jinx man" or, "Jinky" or "Jiiiiinx" and smack him, like a man smacking a man, on the side of his sagging belly. He does not yowl when he is chasing a big moth or cicada that has somehow found its way inside. He does not yowl when I get up from sitting and find him still on the bed soaking up the warmth in the imprint of my body, and I mash my face into his neck and chest and feel him purring.
He is dreaming now. His legs are twitching and his whiskers are moving. It's hard to know what he thinks. It's hard to know what he knows. It's hard not to project what I feel onto him. It's easy to say, "I'm sorry buddy, it's just me and you now" but it's hard to actually live with this. Who will take care of the care takers? I love that question. There is no good answer to it. Only turn taking, and the unsettling reality that one creature cannot entirely be of one thing. That the roles we have to play are fluid. There is happiness somewhere in this understanding. Not here in these words exactly, but somewhere. How embarrassing it is to be so undone by a cat! I think sometimes to get another, to make this one curled up next to me stop yowling. But I think what I would rather have is a human. A warm one that I can make breakfast for, and say hello to when I come home, and sit with on the couch, in the silence of our respective worlds. One like Kitty Girl, who comes to me when I cry, or whistle; one who will let me kiss her behind her ears without a word passing between us. A sweet one to take of, to be taken care of.
