COMMUNITY COMFORTS
The Parc Ave. Cats stroll wherever they want to
As the saying goes, you don't choose a cat — a cat chooses you.
I live in the ground-floor apartment of a Victorian house on the west side of Parc Ave., in bagel heaven between St-viateur St. and Fairmount Ave. The back lane is busy with colourful Mile End neighbourhood traffic. On warm summer nights, the sounds of outdoor dinner parties are many (at least when there's no pandemic). Sharing the lane with the humans are the Parc Ave. Cats. That's what I call them. They are all cats belonging to someone. I know the names of some from the tags on their collars: Léon, a wide-eyed black and white male; Agathe, a tiny black short-haired female; and there's Rufus. He's a big grey short-haired polydactyl Russian Blue.
For the ones without tags, I just come up with the best-suited names I can. Louis is a shy, chubby, long-haired grey cat whose fur is perpetually covered in twigs and bits of leaves. Think Pig-pen. Bright Eyes is a dainty, colourful calico who only makes her appearances on sunny days. Archie is Rufus's nemesis: an orange and white rugged male tabby with chunks missing from his ears.
When I can, I work on my sunny backyard terrasse, where I can always find a cat sleeping in one of the empty cubbyholes. Usually it's Rufus. He lives in the building next to mine, in a third-floor apartment. Naturally, I put out treats for them. Léon and Agathe are a brother-and-sister act, real grifters, acting all nice and sweet until I give them snacks, and then they're gone. Louis rarely comes up past the last of the five steps leading to my terrasse, so I put out a few nuggets of Temptations on the last step and on the terrasse. If Louis doesn't hurry, Rufus won't hesitate to clean them up.
On warm days, I leave the sliding patio door to my bedroom slightly open, letting in the cool breeze. Along with the breeze coming in are the Parc Ave. Cats. Rufus made a big enough tear in the screen door for easy access in and out of my place. I don't mind the company of my feline friends, coming and going as they please. The meetings soon became a daily event, and something I found myself looking forward to, especially after the passing of my 21-yearold silver tabby, Moustache, earlier this year. Rufus seems to be the one lingering the most in my place.
When the days got shorter and the weather got colder, the Parc Ave. Cats would visit less frequently. I worked from inside, keeping the patio door shut. The cats no longer had easy access in and out of my place. Rufus quickly solved that problem by simply standing up on his hindquarters and pounding on the glass door until I came and opened it.
Rufus spends most of his days with me, just hanging out on the couch or the stool next to mine when I'm working at my computer. My evenings are now delightfully cosy. The stresses of the day instantly dissolve when Rufus and I curl up together to watch television. My colleagues at work started noticing Rufus on Zoom calls: “How's your cat?” I would answer as if he were mine. I was in total denial about my status as a catnapper. If I posted a Rufus pic on social media, friends regularly called me out in the comments: “He's not your cat!”
At about 4 p.m. Rufus hears his owner calling out for him, so I'll slide the back door open and he slowly makes an exit. Other times he just ignores her calls. Weirdly feeling like “the other woman,” I'll go out and let her know that he's with me. Solène, Rufus's true owner, is cool with that.
After dinnertime, Rufus is usually out prowling the back lane until the wee hours of the night. It's usually around 1 a.m. that I'm awakened to the sounds of thumping at my door. Rufus enters and curls up at the foot of my bed until morning. I'll get up and make breakfast for two, and our day will start.
One day, I got a text from Solène: “I'm worried. I haven't seen Rufus for three days!” I replied with a pic of Rufus stretched out on
I don't mind the company of my feline friends, coming and going as they please. The meetings soon became a daily event ...
my couch. The caption read: “The little prince is fast asleep.” Solène asked if I wouldn't mind keeping him for a week while she was away on a business trip. I thought: Sure! There wouldn't be much for me to do that I wasn't already doing.
One afternoon, Rufus asked to go out as usual. Only he didn't return that night, or the next. I found myself moving around the house quietly, so that I would be able to hear if he came knocking at my door. I kept hearing sounds. I would get up and go look, but it seemed it was only in my mind that I was hearing Rufus. I started thinking of the worst that could have happened to him. Surely the only reason Rufus had stopped visiting was that he had been run over, and he was probably lying in a ditch somewhere.
I would look sadly at the empty couch where he would sleep, the untouched food bowls and the strands of fur on my clothes. I hadn't realized how much I needed the comfort of something purry and furry next to me to soothe me during a time of such uncertainty. My place felt lonely and empty without the company of Rufus.
Early in the morning, two days after he went missing, I was sure that this time I wasn't hearing things: Thump, thump, thump — the unmistakable sweet sound of Rufus at the door. “Where have you been?” I asked him, expecting an answer. He meowed and rubbed his cheek against my leg as he passed me, heading to the kitchen for breakfast as if nothing had happened.
I bent down to give him a generous spoonful of tuna, which I had been saving for him. I noticed a small piece of rolled-up paper inside his collar. I unrolled it, and to my shock it read: “Am I a lost cat?” It also included a phone number. Leni answered the phone, and told me Rufus had been frequently hanging around her place. She lived on Hutchison St., further down the lane from me. She enjoyed his company, but was concerned he might be lost. I explained that Rufus's owner was my neighbour and that he wasn't lost.
I was filled with feelings of relief, followed by betrayal and confusion. It was unimaginable that Rufus, who was once so satisfied with me, would be as happy with someone else in another home. However, I can't help myself and still love Rufus, the cheating cat.