Post-Apocalyptic Kitty

Shaddles was the best of cats. One time I brought her to Wasteland Weekend. I worried it would be too hot for her in her winter coat, and I didn't really have the slightest idea how she'd fair. But I had a feeling it would work out for the best.

Well, we got there and she dressed herself up in a red bandanna and a spiked collar while I made camp. Next thing I knew I looked up and my precious little baby was a hundred feet away across the parking lot, talking to a group of other punk PA kitties. Soon she came running back. "Poppa, can I go to Bartertown with my new friends? We want to see the fight in Thunderdome! Please?"

I gulped. My precious little baby, growing up so fast! It seemed like just yesterday that I'd tamed her and captured her and brought her home. "Yes," I said. "But no drinking. And stay clear of dogs!"

She was already gone. The day progressed and my friends showed up and we finished making camp and more and more people arrived and festivities began. Soon it was evening, and I weaved among hundreds of other wastelanders, all of us dressed in Mad Max-themed costumes, everyone partying like mad.

The evening passed in a blur and I staggered back to camp ‘round about midnight, pulled off my body armor and goggles, and fell asleep. I awoke later and felt a weight on my feet. Peering over the edge of my sleeping bag, I saw my baby. Dusty, smelling of campfire smoke, still wearing her red kerchief and that naughty spiked collar, but curled up against me — her Poppa! — and sleeping like an angel. I fell asleep.

When I awoke again it was morning, and she was gone. It promised to be a searingly hot day, so before I left to hit up Bartertown, I left a tub of ice on the cooler. When I returned, many hours later, I saw black fur floating in the now-warm ice water. I didn't see my baby all that day or evening, but when I awoke late that night she was curled against my chest, snoring gently and smelling strongly of coyote.

The next day Shaddles was again gone at dawn, and I again left a tub of ice out before I went off to watch Mad Max Renegade and trade a grenade for a stuffed ferret and buy a knife that was made out of a rasp and buy chainsaw leg armor and pretend to rob strangers at gunpoint and meet friends, new and old.

I spied her once, on the back of a giant black dune buggy roaring by. The vehicle was loaded with mohawked revelers and at least a dozen wild-looking housecats. Shaddles had little dust stockings on each foot and a cigarette in her mouth. They all disappeared into a dust cloud before I could say a word.

That evening, at sunset, I was kicking it in camp, drinking a cold Fresca Plus Plus, and I turned and there, in the distance, was my baby. She was sitting on the back of a coyote who was slowly walking across the desert sand out beyond the perimeter of the parking lot.

For a moment I worried —DOG! — but there was something about the two of them, the comfort with which she sat on his back, the relaxed way in which he walked, the way in which they were in no hurry and never would be, that set me at ease. My little baby, hooking up with a high-desert coyote. I have to admit, I was a bit proud.

The next morning the festival was over. We arose with the sun and broke camp and got the hell out of Dodge before the searing sky scorched us yet again. Shaddles slept for half the ride home. When she awoke, she asked if she could have a cell phone. "Yes, m’love," I said.

I bought her one the next day. and it rang all week. She’d go off and have her little meow conversations that I couldn't understand, and sometimes I’d hear a tinny yapping coming out of the phone and roll my eyes like fathers have since the beginning of time.

One night about a week later, we were sleeping, she and I, both warm under the covers, when her phone rang from over on the dresser. She didn’t awaken, and somehow her phone answered the call by itself. There was staticky silence, followed by muffled barking and scuffling. A butt dial. Then, a far-away, drawn-out howl.

I lay in the dark, listening to the call of nature call my baby. There was nothing I could do but remind myself that Shaddles was born in the wild and lived in the wild until I tamed her, so it made sense that her first boyfriend would be wild, too.