Feeding the Cats

I found this essay I wrote in college.

Feeding the Cats

With the curtains drawn the room glowed with a golden orange hue.  The warm color seemed to make the room unbearably hot and stuffy.  The men had all eaten and were leaning back in their chairs satisfied and silent, each enjoying the moments of rest before returning to the hay fields to finish stacking hay.  My mother began clearing away the dishes from the table.  The entire kitchen was cluttered with pans and cooking utensils.  The clutter added to the oppression of heat, silence and stuffiness.  Mom scraped scraps of food off into a pan and stacked the dishes on the table.

“I’ll take the scraps out to the barn for the cats,” I volunteered.  She hated having all the cats sitting on the door step meowing hungrily and managing to be continually underfoot, so she usually insisted they be fed in the barn,  a task which I didn’t particularly enjoy doing because it was just an extra trip.  But today, I wanted out of the house and she was a little surprised at me but said fine.  As I picked up the pan and headed out the door of the kitchen, my dad called after me:  I stopped to listen.

“Hey! County fair isn’t too far away; if you want those steers looking like anything, you’d better get with it out there.”  His voice was a warning command, not a mere suggestion.

“Yeah, I will.”  I started on out the porch door.

“Hey!”  I paused again getting impatient and wanting to go on out.  “Why don’t you put your steers and my heifer in the pens.  Give them some water and a flake of hay.”

“Okay.”  I was a little perturbed at having a job to do when I went to the barn.  I wanted to just sit there and play with the cats.  I went on out the door towards the barn kicking the gravel as I went along, thinking to myself what a lot of trouble the calves were, wishing that brushing wasn’t one of those vital ingredients to a champion steer.  But Dad was the boss, and what he said went.

The barn was a special place.  The walls were made of cement blocks with large many-paned windows evenly -spaced all around.  A big hayloft and oats bin stretched the full length of the barn, making it a haven for sparrows.  The barn had a high wooden wall dividing it; the north part was a large open pen converted into a sale arena in the fall and a storage area for feed equipment.  The south half had an alley down the middle with pens lining either side.  It was quiet and airy, a slight breeze stirred the dust in the alley, flies buzzed and bounced against the windows.  I unlatched the gate to the pen where hay and straw were piled.

“Here kittykittykitty.”  Immediately cats emerged from everywhere, from on top of the hay, in holes left between bales, the hay loft, outside, just everywhere.  Meowing and standing on their hind legs, they begged to be fed.  When I set the pan down, they all stuck their heads in and made the pan invisible.  I went over to the corner of the pen and reached into a dark hole between two bales, sharp dried hay scratching my arm until I felt a warm furry ball.   Faint hisses drifted out of the dark hole as I intruded.  I pulled the kittens out one by one until all four were out blinking in the light.  Two were all white, one a tiger gray and the fourth black with a white streak on its forehead and white feet.  I lay down in the hay on my side, propping my head on my hand, and pulled the kittens up close to my body.  Awake, they were playful:  chasing after my fingers, attacking each other, tumbling and rolling.  Their fat little bodies and short legs made them clumsy and yet they would spring straight up in the air to pounce on each other.  I chuckled softly to myself; how much I enjoyed these kittens.  “Say, little one, come here,” I pulled the little black one closer rolling him over on his back, scratching his stomach gently.  He chewed on my finger and purred softly.  After playing with the kittens, little red welts appeared all over my hands and forearms where their tiny sharp claws had scratched.

The larger cats slowly finished eating the scraps and sat down to clean themselves, licking their paws and rubbing over their ears.  (I often wondered why their hair didn’t tickle their throat when the cleaned their furry coats with rough pink tongues.  I couldn’t stand to have a piece of hair in my mouth. )  Slowly the cats drifted around the kittens and me.  One settled down on my hip with her front paws curled under her, slanted eyes closed, purring loudly.  Another came close to my face, lightly touching my cheek with her tiny pink nose.  I talked softly to the cats, calling each one by its name, asking how its kittens were or if it had caught a ground squirrel that day.  It seemed petting them wasn’t enough, I had to talk with them and share feelings with each one.

I loved the cats.  They were clean and smelled good.  As I ran my hand down their silky coats that crackled with electricity, the cats purred with pleasure.  They would press against my hand as I scratched their ears.  The cats were independent, coming and going as they pleased.  I liked their arrogant manner that refused control and yet they freely offered their love to me.  In a sense, they were my people, my friends.

Being alone with the cats in the quite of the barn, I had no sense of time.  I felt we were enjoying and sharing together with no concern of what had happened prior to my coming to the barn and no feeling of urgency for anything to come.  Everything around me blended into one.  The cats, the barn, the flies buzzing in the quiet, prickly pieces of hay and the smell of animals were all a part of me, not something I could separate myself from.  There is a unique contentment and satisfaction found in being alone like that.  A warm feeling of happiness filled my body until it was full, not bursting, just full.  The vibrations from the purring cat’s body lying against mine soothed me into a floating sleep, letting my mind free from everything except a deep satisfaction.

The bouncing rattle of a pickup driving into the yard broke the spell of oneness and timelessness.  Suddenly realizing I hadn’t gotten in the steers and heifer, I jumped up leaving a bunch of sleepy-eyed cats looking after me.  Afraid that my dad would come to the barn and find the job undone, I ran the steers into their pen and the heifer in hers, slamming the gates after them.  Nearly tripping over my own feet, I ran to the hay pen and grabbed several flakes of hay, covering the cats with a layer of hay.  I tossed the hay over the fence into the hay boxes and scrambled off to get buckets for water.  Even on full force the water wasn’t filling the buckets fast enough; half-full buckets, I reasoned, would look like the cattle had been in a long time and drunk some of the water.  In my haste, I sloshed water all over my legs and shoes.  After putting the buckets in the pens, I took a brush and comb to brush up the steers.

As I began brushing one steer, I glanced out the window to see if my dad was coming.  I couldn’t believe it; the pickup wasn’t even ours-- someone else had stopped by!  I had done all that frantic rushing for nothing.  I looked around the pen and there sat several cats on their haunches on the fence looking at me.

“You think it’s funny don’t you?”  I laughed at them.  I went over to the hay box and plopped myself down to catch my breath.  One by one the cats came down, pressing their warm bodies against mine, asking for attention.