There is a dead cat on my neighbor’s lawn.
It is a young one, mottled gray and white tortoiseshell, probably killed by a car. It looks about nine months old. It lies on its side in the grass, not noticeably mussed, eight feet from the sidewalk.
This neighbor has a cat or two, but I don’t recognize this one. There are plenty of strays around, and plenty of un-owned cats who make the rounds of the outdoor bowls.
Zeke sees the cat. He cocks his head.
Zeke chases cats if they run. He is, after all, a dog. But if a cat comes walking up to him, he is as likely as not to sniff it joyously, wagging his tail, happy to be pals. Ten years ago he had a cat friend, Jet, who lived in the upstairs apartment. Jet once got into an argument with another cat; Zeke ran up barking and growling, and Jet dove beneath Zeke while the other cat hissed and fled. And then there were the feral kittens he helped us with last year. He just plain likes cats.
He is very curious about this unmoving cat. He strains at the leash, wagging his tail. But I am in a hurry. I pull him away and we head down to the park. Zeke hurries through his routine, unusual for him. He makes a cursory inspection of his requisite stations — the horseshoe pit, the squirrel oak, and lawn — and then hurries me back up the hill to the cat.
He approaches again, slowly, with tentative tail wags.
I decide to risk my neighbor’s wrath. I let Zeke sniff the cat. He wags his tail fiercely at first. Then less so, and then his tail droops. So do his ears, and then his shoulders.
He slumps down to the ground next to the cat.
A few years back he was accosted by a mastiff; a big, friendly, but nonetheless scarily aggressive dog a few blocks from our house in Richmond. Zeke was terrified. I chased the dog across the street, and then trotted to catch the end of the leash where Zeke was pulling it away in rather a hurry. The leash taut, Zeke looked back at me and uttered a sound of utter despair, one I’d never heard him make before. It was part howl, part bark, and part attempt to mimic human speech with an upward inflection. “Rrrr-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow?”
Lying next to the cat he looks at me and makes that noise again, the second time I’ve heard it in 14 years, this time with a resigned, downward inflection. I walk over to stroke his head. He groans deep and long, puts his muzzle down between his front paws.
“Poor kitty,” I say. “Come on, Zeke, let’s go.” He doesn’t move.
“Let’s go, Zeke.”
“Come on, puppy.” I tug at his leash. Nothing.
“Zeke, come.” I pretend at sternness. He lifts his head, looks at me for a moment, sniffs the cat again, and then settles back in with a sound half groan, half whimper.
I sit down next to him.
A plane tree uphill is losing its leaves. Big as dinner plates, they catch the wind and pivot, spiral to the ground. They crunch and skitter on the pavement. A Steller’s jay shrieks from a branch above, lands on a moving leaf, flies back to his perch with a worm. Zeke puts his chin on my thigh. The jay takes a long minute to eat his prize, tossing it upward and catching it, nibbling it an end at a time. The last bit swallowed, he swoops downhill and away in a cloud of scolding.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
Categories:
Recommended
Zeke
Pets
The Neighborhood
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