I had a cat once named Patroclus. Patroclus was a big gray eunuch of a cat with gigantic paws, a belly that scraped the floor when he walked, and breath that always smelled faintly of rotting fish. All he did was eat and sleep and shit and lick himself, but I loved him dearly, because he was the sweetest soul I’ve ever met in my life. He never used his claws on me, never hissed at anything but the vacuum cleaner, never was anything but slow and gentle and patient. We lived together during the time when I was through with college but before I moved back into the cottage.
He slept on my bed at night, but during the day, in warm weather, he slept in the sun on the front porch of my house. He was a deep sleeper, too; strangers could walk up and rub his stomach and he’d never wake up, or if he did he’d just stretch and purr and fall back asleep. I think he thought of himself as a sunbathing, feline god, and the world was a wonderful place made exclusively to serve him, full of nothing but kind creatures with soft hands.
Anyway, one summer morning when I was in the kitchen washing the dishes I looked out the window just in time to see an unleashed, one hundred and twenty pound rottweiler charge across the lawn and sink its teeth into my cat’s throat. The dog flung him around like a rubber squeak toy, spattering blood, and Patroclus was dead before he even knew what had hold of him.
I grabbed the nearest weapon I could find, a cast-iron skillet, and flew through the door, screaming. The rottweiler dropped Patroclus in time for one lunge at me but I swung the skillet like a baseball bat and damn near tore its head off. It staggered off the porch and I chased after it and didn’t stop swinging until the ugly fucker was nothing but a red, matted pile of fur on my lawn.
If I’d had time to think I never would have done that, because the dog was just doing what dogs do to sleeping cats, and it wasn’t his fault that his dumb-ass owners didn’t have him tied up. But he killed something I loved, and he made the mistake of doing it where I could see him.
I cried for a week, and I never got another cat. I will not take the chance of getting attached to something else that’s too trusting and kind to take care of itself. If you’re sweet all the time, you’re eventually going to get your throat ripped out. Anyone who tells you different is a fool. Patroclus was the sweet one. Not me.