In This Body: Cats & Dogs
“I love Jimmy for her display of emotions. She starts purring”
Our monthly column "In This Body" is comprised of true stories about sex, gender, the body, and love, written by Fiona George, for NAILED.
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Coaxing a cat through a doorway is a goddamn art. I’m not sure when I started interacting with animals more easily than humans. People have never been easy, though. I went from living in a pet-free studio building to being everywhere else. Moved back in with my mom, with her three cats, and Dingo.
Frankie had to be put down just before I moved back in and we went up into the woods to bury him.
Over at my partner’s house a few times a week, there’s three cats and the fishes and the fishes. Picking up cat sitting and dog sitting jobs. And when my friend’s roommate’s dog cuddled with me when I was coming down from an acid trip.
I remember when I used to come over to my mom’s to visit, it was like I didn’t remember how to interact with animals anymore. Stella, and Nancy, and Brian didn’t really act like they remembered me, but it’s hard to tell with cats.
When we first started sleeping together, for the first several months I was nervous around his cat because I really wanted her to like me.
Like my social anxiety had spread to the animal world.
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Stella ran up to the door but when I went to open it Dingo had a barking fit and charged the door. Even though it took like two seconds to calm him down, Stella froze. I got one leg out in front of Dingo and he’s not even trying to push past, the hand not holding the door open rubs behind his ears. Stella sits.
Okay, Stella, in or out? As if she’d give me a straight answer. She puts one paw in the doorway. It’s not a step because she’s still sitting. More of a gesture of intent.
Come on, kittykitty. Coo and babble. Clearly, she wants in but she wants to be convinced. Asserting her dominance. She pulls her paw back and looks away, out the gate.
You’re just fucking with me, aren’t you? At that point I consider stepping out for a smoke while I wait. My hand scratching at the back of Dingo’s neck right under the collar and his leg going ape shit and I love him for his immense joy.
Stella stands quick, at the sound of his leg.
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In the middle of the day I hang out at my Dad’s and hang out with his cats. He’s out of town and there’s whiskey and privacy and Jimmy and Dorothy. I can always tell that Jimmy recognizes me when I come over, even when it’s been a while. After I’m over there for a few hours, Dorothy will appear from nowhere. She hides.
Some cats seem to have the same social hangups as me, I love her for it. Jimmy is hanging out under the window in the kitchen nook. Jumping on the bar counter and rubbing up to a bottle of gin.
What the fuck, Jimmy kitty? I love Jimmy for her display of emotions. She starts purring when I say her name, when I pet her she plays rough—love bites, grabbing at my sleeve with her claws.
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The morning after a party at his house I’m not the only one who crashed in his room. Another couple is sleeping in his bed after he’s left for work, and I couldn’t imagine getting back to sleep on the floor.
I sit there for some minutes on the carpet. I can hear voices out the door in the living room. Probably, some people haven’t gone to bed yet. His cat is there and awake, too. On a spiderman pillow on the other side of his room.
We’re looking at each other and I love her because she is the personification of my annoyance at that moment. Ready for the party to be over and the people to be gone.
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When I went out to smoke, Jimmy joined me for a moment before running around the house to the tall wet grass. Left the door hung open for the cats when I came in. Right by the front door on the couch, I bundle up in blankets and full pajamas.
The air from the door stings cold.
On the other side of the kitchen, in the nook with Jimmy’s window, I hear the plastic blinds shaken. I jump and into the kitchen but it’s empty. The ceiling hangs low between the main kitchen and the nook, so I can’t see the top of the window, but I can see it’s shut and no one around to try to get in or out.
No cats either, but I dunno how they’d be able to reach the blinds anyway.
A couple steps forward, slow. Tight. I wait to see what I’m not seeing, because I know I heard something. The small windows got so many spider webs I don’t think it’s ever been opened or dusted.
Right in that entrance of the nook by the bar counter, I can see it. The top of the window. And the thinest tiniest claw feet of a bird perched on top of the blinds. It was a robin, all deep grey with its rust chest.
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Stella sits back down, but doesn’t move inside the house. In a second I understand. All that babbling and cooing for nothing.
I move to the back hallway and whistle Dingo along with me. He follows me in a second because I’ve been petting him for two minutes. After I lead him into the hallway and before I shut the door, I scratch him once more behind the ears; I love him for not being a stubborn cat.
Before I even turn back around, Nancy is inside. Like, for fuck’s sake, all she needed was a little privacy.
I love her for her dominance.
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I leave his room, still other people sleeping in his bed. A small group gathers in the living room, still some couch space left. I say good morning back and smile at lines about not going to bed, or still being drunk. I curl into a tiny ball in the corner of the couch while conversation makes white noise around me, close my eyes into half-sleep.
Sometimes, I just don’t get people.
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I talk at the bird. Say I don’t know how to help, you’ll have to fly out. The window beneath the bird has a screen screwed in, can’t open it. After a few moments the bird flies off it’s ledge—hits the dangling chord of the light—flies back and runs into the blinds—rustling them.
Good job, you just gotta fly a little lower. But we don’t speak the same language.
The soft sounds of paws on linoleum. Jimmy’s back under the window. No way to get up that high, but if there was a bird in the house; Jimmy wanted it.
Jimmy squirms when I pick her up but purring strong. I get her into my dad’s room, shut the door quick before she darts right through me. Tell Jimmy, it’s okay baby kitty, I’ll let you out soon. The sound of wings and blinds banging at each other from the kitchen.
When I get back, the robin is perched on a wine rack on the counter, in the corner.
Good job! You got lower down, now you just gotta fly out!
I really think the little bird was trying, like maybe it got it but just didn’t know how. Took off one more time from the wine rack, but got too high again and this time hit the low hanging ceiling between rooms.
This time the robin lands on the floor, at the back of the nook against the wall.
Poor thing. I don’t want to ask it to try again.
I don’t know how to help you.
If I could just open the damn window in the nook there. But I can’t.
I know that when you try to touch birds outside, they fly away, and if they can’t they’ll claw and peck at you. Fight or flight.
But, really, I couldn’t think of another goddamn thing.
Got a clean, red white checked dishtowel from a kitchen drawer. I moved slow to the tiny thing, thinking at any moment that it would go into flight, bang itself into every corner of the tiny space between us.
And I’d like to think that somehow the bird knew I was help, that I was on its side. Understood somewhat what I was saying. But honestly, probably it was paralyzed with shock when I picked the small body up, holding wings still beneath the towel.
And I know birds gotta have a faster heart rate than people, but I swear this bird must’ve had a pulse even faster than that. That its entire body moved with it. Could have been a small heart in my hand.
When I let go on the front lawn, the bird flies immediately to the tallest tree across the street. A long straight evergreen.
I wonder what just happened for that bird, if they just escaped me, or I just helped them escape.
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Read the previous "In This Body" column: here.
Header image courtesy of Dana Stirling. To view more of her photography, go here.