It's not his fault. He should've had better parents. We were busy tending to a house full of cats – the original one, the one we intentionally adopted (who came with a congenital health problem), and the later arrivals, the ones who, one way or another, adopted us.
He shows up one night in 2009, early summer. On our trek home from feeding the satellite colony, a tiny cat-shaped shadow stalks us. Freezes. Scampers away. Over the next few nights, he toys with us, flirting.
We are familiar with all the neighborhood cats (both pet and free-ranging), and this guy is definitely new. He knows enough to grab a free meal, but it's mostly that he's tantalized by us. He does not know how to survive outside.
He's got no street smarts. Dashing in and out of the busy-at-most-hours thoroughfare, he doesn't recognize the symbolic barrier of the curbstone, the urban version of border alert. He's rambunctious, handsome, and painfully cute. It's after midnight, and it's raining.
So of course we bring him in, even though we are already two cats over the line. We have to trap the little demon to do it, which tells us whoever is responsible for him has been not responsible – or worse. Hoping it will turn out to be true, we call him Beauregard.
Posted 30 Dec 2010