1. I knew Dante was old, of course, but I liked to tell myself he wasn't that old. Many cats lived to be twenty or more; I had a met a few myself. But when, at the end of May, he started vomiting big puddles of water and was diagnosed with kidney failure, I had to confront the idea -- or rather, the certainty -- that, at some point in the foreseeable future, he would be gone. Except I couldn't bring myself to do more than speculate in a wistful, morose manner (and then try not to speculate, because what was the point?). It was spring: the azaleas and camellias were in bloom, the leaves green and trembling. When I brought Dante out to the garden, the fears materialized: would he live to see another spring? Like us, he had watched the garden grow and mature into what it is today. Or if not spring, would he at least make it through the summer to his sixteenth birthday (September 11, an approximate date we chose because it was 'easy to remember')? These weren't questions I had ever asked before, and I didn't want to ask them now. Except I had to because the vet, along with the kidney diagnosis, gave Dante two to six months. Nevertheless, I tried to convince myself that he (the vet) was managing our expectations, that Dante was going to be an exception. A few weeks passed and my confidence (or denial) grew. He was responding well to the daily fluid injections we were giving him; he put back some of the weight he had lost. He was going to be okay. I said it over and over, a mantra or a prayer. He had to be, not only for his sake, but for mine. I could remember a life before Dante, but I couldn't imagine one after.
2. In the early summer of 2004, the collective backyard behind the houses and apartment buildings on our block was bleak and chaotic: the house next door to ours -- a shell, four walls and no roof -- was filled with broken couches, rotting carpet, and car batteries; packs of rats ran wild over and through the fencing and across the telephone wires; dirty diapers and torn garbage bags festered in the concrete alleys. Stephen and I, in the early (delusional) stages of planting a garden, were, in light of the rat situation, talking about getting a cat; there were always strays wandering through the yards and we thought we might 'hire' one. Not to keep inside -- Stephen was allergic and we were both more comfortable with dogs -- but one we could feed and, during the winter, keep in some kind of miniature house or dwelling. It would be like having an assistant. The cat, we reasoned, in exchange for some food and shelter, would establish a territory in our garden and keep the rats at bay. We even bought a small 'dogloo' to prepare.
3. As it happened, one of my neighbors -- a handyman named Frank who was squatting in a garden apartment a few houses away -- was feeding a gray cat that the daughter of his neighbor had, for reasons I still don't know, named Dante. It was unusual for any of the strays to be named; most were like 'the big orange cat' that -- in Frank's words -- liked to 'chase Dante's ass' around the yard, but Dante was small and fast, too quick for the big, orange cat. I began to watch him from a distance; he was light on his feet; he walked with a comical little bounce, à la Pepe le Pew. He didn't seem bothered by the garbage or the rats or the chaos. He seemed self-possessed but not arrogant, friendly but not needy. I wondered how I was supposed to introduce myself to a cat, much less make an offer of employment. One legacy of growing up gay and closeted was that, since coming out, I lacked confidence in presenting myself to others; I felt judged by everyone (and, most of all, myself). Fortunately, Dante, unimpeded by human stereotypes and expectations, acted like a cat, which allowed me in turn to respond in a more genuine, humane (and human) manner.
4. One day, while sitting at the table at the back of our garden, I glanced up at our arbor and saw him looking down at me through the grape leaves. Unlike the other feral cats, he didn't seem skittish, angry, or frightened, but was rather curious and polite, like he wanted to join me, but not without an invitation. I went inside to get him a saucer of milk, which he lapped up after nimbly jumping down from the arbor. It seemed like a promising start to a relationship. I was far from committed, but for the next few days, whenever I went outside, he found me, or I found him. I felt a flicker of affection and excitement at the idea of my life taking an unexpected direction. Later that week, Stephen called me at work: 'Guess who I just met?' he said. 'One clue -- he's licking my hand.' Soon, the three of us were meeting outside under the grapes, where Dante sat on our knees and chattered at the pigeons as they flew in and out of the abandoned building next door. He began to wait for us, even when there were better places he could be, like the time he sat under the dawn redwood for the better part of an afternoon, getting soaked in a downpour, while we were out running errands. That night, we let him sleep in the basement.
5. By this point, we knew that, if we going to adopt him, keeping him outside was not only infeasible, but also cruel. Outdoor cats in the city have hard, desperate lives, and we already realized that there was no 'halfway': you either adopt a cat -- which means keeping it indoors -- or you don't. Though we were leaning toward the former, Stephen, more pragmatic -- and worried about his allergies -- insisted we take Dante to the vet before making a decision. I can't remember if we bought a carrier or borrowed one, but Dante, who on some level seemed to understand what was transpiring, let us put him into it. At the vet's office, he impressed the staff with his friendly demeanor -- 'you found him outside!?' -- and was promptly diagnosed with ringworm and a host of other skin conditions. He was sicker than he looked. They told us he was a 'Russian Blue,' which we thought sounded elegant and regal, not that we ever took the idea of 'breeds' very seriously. (Later, when we discovered that Dante liked to chase and stomp on (toy) snakes -- pinning them down with his front legs and stepping on them with his hind ones, we wondered if he might be a 'Korat,' a breed that originated in the jungles of Thailand.) He required a lot of medication. He had to wear a cone over his head to keep him from licking the ointment we put on his skin. I was very nervous when the vet told us that Dante also needed to take pills: wouldn't he bite if you were trying to jam something into his mouth? As it turned out, Dante never bit -- or scratched -- anyone, and he ended up taking pills his entire life to control a chronic respiratory condition that, if untreated, caused fits of breathless coughing. He suffered a number of ailments over the years: urinary tract infections, allergic reactions to vaccines, seasonal hair loss, and so on, but he was always a good patient. Living on the streets, it seemed, always takes a toll. Still, we made our decision: we weren't going to send him back.
6. At some point after Dante's kidney diagnosis, the following Tweet by Conor Habib caught my attention: 'The constant loneliness and alienation of being gay is something straight people will never understand, and fuck them for not even considering how their reified and unreflective blinkered desires are an act of selfish, stupid violence against us.' Reading these words, I felt validated in a way -- or seen, to put it in online terms -- but this validation, as I considered Dante -- who never left my thoughts during this period -- was accompanied by sadness and, to some extent, relief. For me, the alienation and loneliness began when I was very young, but for many years I was able to hide these conditions and the resultant anger from the world (and myself): my feelings were more unconscious than conscious. Coming out ended this state of delusion/self-delusion, but increased the alienation (and anger) I felt as I began to fully acknowledge the fundamental differences between myself and straight society, differences for which I -- and for the exact reasons stated by Conor Habib -- would always be judged and marginalized. During these early years of being officially gay, this anger -- along with its close relatives, pessimism and skepticism -- was the primary filter through which I viewed society; it was the reason I started a blog called The Gay Recluse. But as time passed and I became more conscious of this anger and the reasons for possessing it, I grew weary of it. There were other ways in which I wanted to interact with the world. I didn't completely relinquish the anger -- sometimes it's useful -- but I learned how to release or see around it, to find room for a range of other emotions that remind me that I possess a heart and a brain and whatever else it is that makes us human and makes life worth living. I also know that I couldn't have arrived at this point without Dante. By adopting him, by taking care of him -- and those who followed -- by learning to love him, I regained some of the humanity I had lost. Society had worked to make me feel less human, whereas Dante made me feel more human.
7. If Dante had been a different cat -- more temperamental or needy, the kind of cat that hisses and bites and scratches -- we might not have adopted him, and I might not have had these insights. We might have lost interest in cats. After all, the financial commitments are not negligible -- vets in New York are, like everything here, insanely expensive -- and Stephen didn't need the hassle of taking allergy shots. Cats are very good at cleaning themselves, but their hair gets on everything; they scratch the furniture, they vomit food and hairballs with alarming frequency, they have to use the litter box, which has to be cleaned out. None of this was exactly a surprise. Nor was it a surprise that they offer companionship, give and receive tactile affection, and move (most of the time) with inspiring flexibility, precision, and elegance. I'm not sure it's their intention, but they are mysterious, soulful creatures in a period of history when facts and lies dominate our discourse.
8. Much of what I admired about Dante could probably apply to most cats, but some things were particular to him, and these are things I want to remember. When he was young, running as fast as he could, he liked to chase a toy -- a little red and white mouse -- in circles around me as I sat on the floor. At the time, I thought all cats did this, that when we adopted Beatrice I would have two cats madly circling me, but, as it turned out, Dante was the only one. He was also the master of what we called the 'big boy pounce,' in which he would chase a snake or feather with a kind of bruising aggression that made even Elektra cower. For whatever reason, when he ate a piece of kibble -- even after he had many of his teeth removed (another health issue) -- he was able to generate a 'big crunch.' Stephen or I would hear the sound and say: 'Did you hear that big crunch? It must be Dante.' He never stopped loving milk, even though the vet told us it was 'junk food' for cats. He only needed a few sips to be content. He loved to find a spot of sun -- on a rug or a window sill, or outside on one of the creeping ground covers -- and relax in it. When we called his name, he turned around and looked up with an expression of curiosity and assistance, as if to say, 'is there something I can do to help?' Let's just say that he was a better person than I am.
9. Dante accompanied and to some extent guided me through all of the big changes I endured over the past fifteen years. He was there when I switched jobs three times. And when Stephen and I moved in together. And when we decorated and gardened and watched television. He was there as I went from someone who played music in a band to someone who used to play music in a band. He was there as I lost touch with old friends and made a few new ones. He was there when I started blogging, and then writing fiction. All of this might have happened without Dante, but if we hadn't found him, we certainly wouldn't have adopted Beatrice, and I wouldn't have learned how (for the first time as an adult) to cry and to grieve when she died. I might not have written a novel in which a pair of cats named Dante and Beatrice play a significant role in teaching a lonely, alienated (gay) man how to love and grieve and find a kind of music that's omnipresent and eternal for those who allow themselves to hear it. Without Dante, we wouldn't have adopted Zephyr or Elektra or Clio (and her six kittens). Dante was a forerunner, a leader and caretaker; his extroverted nature countered the mental silos in which Stephen and I spend so much of our time. Dante was not aloof or shy; he was always happy to see us, to talk with us, to let us know what he wanted and what he could give, which was everything he had to give.
10. One weekend at the end of July, for whatever reason, things fell apart for Dante (and for us): he refused to eat, he again started vomiting big pools of water, he spent his time either sitting next to the water bowl or in bed, where Zephyr -- as always -- kept him company. He began to drool, which in cats is a sign of nausea. We tried increasing his fluids; we coaxed him to eat, reverting to Fancy Feast (aka 'kitty crack') and nothing worked. He was disappearing. There was nothing else we could do. On Sunday, Stephen called the vet and made an appointment for Monday morning.
11. In some ways, the hours that followed were the hardest ones, the ones where time became oppressive and insistent as I ticked off the final landmarks of Dante's path: the last time he would enjoy the late-afternoon sun; the last time he would sit in his favorite chair; the last time he would hear the birds; and -- most painful to consider -- the last time he would sleep with Zephyr, who had spent his entire life sleeping with Dante.
12. I barely slept that night. I didn't want to squander the chance to be near Dante, to touch him, to reassure him, to feel him breathing and sighing, knowing that I would never get the chance again. At four in the morning, however, I made my way out of bed and went to the park, where it was barely light enough to see the silhouettes of the trees and behind them, the low clouds that look like mountains on the horizon. The air was thick with buzz of insects, punctuated by a few chirping birds. It was a natural world, a dream world, a death world; but it was also beautiful. I ran quarter-mile intervals up and down a hill, pushing my body to do things it really really didn't want to do, which along with taking us to unexpected places is maybe the most important lesson running can offer. I knew that I would have to rely on this kind of mental determination in a few hours, when the waiting would, inevitably, come to an end.
13. There are things to be thankful for as I consider Dante's final hours: the morning was cool and dry; for a little while, after he got up, he seemed a little better -- he walked to the garden -- before he retreated to the bed, where he sat with Zephyr as Elektra and Clio roamed around, perhaps detecting something unusual in the works. At least, I reminded myself, he was still home. After Beatrice, Stephen and I promised each other that none of our other cats would die in a hospital, and we kept our promise. It was something I whispered to Dante with the hope to comfort him and, of course, myself.
14. The buzzer finally rang. Stephen went downstairs. I waited with Dante and Zephyr on the bed until I received a text from Stephen: 'We are ready.' Perhaps, but I wasn't ready at all. But what could I do, short of stopping time? I picked Dante up and tried to convey to Zephyr that it was time to say goodbye, that this was the last time they would ever see each other. I'm not going to pretend: I don't think they knew. Cats are perceptive but in very different ways than we are, and this kind of foreknowledge -- and dread -- is beyond them. (I think.) Dante didn't resist; he was too weak, and too trusting. I carried him down to the garden, where I passed him to Stephen. The vet had the shot ready -- a heavy sedative -- which quickly made Dante very drowsy; after a minute or so, Stephen passed him back to me and I held him as his body went limp. The sun was glinting through the leaves; the water in the fountain was running; the sparrows chirping. Maybe time could stop. But then the vet said he needed to administer the second shot; we stretched Dante out on the table, where the vet gave this second shot, directly to his heart. Dante's green eyes remained open but in just a few seconds, after so many years, he was gone.
15. In the days since, the house feels oddly empty, quiet. I find myself looking for routines -- picking up the bowl for his morning cream -- that are no longer part of our lives; I expect to see Dante turning a corner or sauntering into a room the way he had done for so long, Zephyr one step behind. Zephyr has been calling and sniffing, while Elektra and Clio are pensive. Cats may not understand death, but they definitely understand presence and its opposite, which is absence. They know when their routine has been changed.
16. Stephen and I are coping in similar and different ways. We've been binge-watching 'Outlander,' enjoying the Scottish scenery and fast-forwarding through the interminable sex scenes. I've been busy with work, both the regularly paying kind and the kind that rarely pays. We decided to go on a long-planned shopping trip to the outlet mall/late-capitalism dystopia otherwise known as 'Woodbury Common.' The grief comes in waves; one minute I'm fine and the next -- while eating a 'froyo' at Woodbury Common -- I find myself on the verge of tears as I contemplate the next phase of my life. Like the cats, I'm keenly aware of an absence.
17. Back in the garden, I'm comforted by the idea that, as long as I'm alive, Dante will be, too. And when I'm not, I'll be more than ready to join him on a final trip through the glowing leaves.
