Cats Can Talk
by Amelia Kinkade
I was as skeptical as any sane person would be
that morning, fourteen years ago, when I loaded Rodney, my cat, into his carrier
to take him down to the holistic veterinary clinic where a psychic was seeing
animals. I was having some problems with Rodney that my regular vet couldn't
help, and I figured, why not give the psychic a shot? It seemed a little goofy
and I felt a little foolish, but what did I have to lose? No matter what, it was
sure to be good for a laugh.
I thought at the time, as some of you may
think now, that the psychic business is either a hokey sideshow act or a solemn,
mystical affair, full of incense-burning Gypsies and weird witches with crystal
balls. Boy, was I in for an eye-opener.
Gladys, the psychic, wore no
heavy eyeliner, no gold hoop earrings or jangling charm bracelets. She was less
gypsy fortune-teller and more midwestern grandmother. Were those ketchup stains
on her shirt? I was perplexed.
When I extracted Rodney from his carrier
and put him down on the cold metal table in front of her, he didn't howl like a
triggered car alarm or jump off the table, his usual reaction at the vet's.
Instead, he sat perfectly still and quietly scrutinized Gladys. He actually
seemed startled to see her. She returned his gaze.
"What are you doing?" I whispered to her.
"I'm talking to him," she
replied flatly.
You've got to be kidding! I wanted to yell. No incantations? No sweeping
arm movements? No speaking in tongues? My curiosity won out over my
skepticism.
"What does he say?" I whispered.
"I asked him what his favorite
food is and he says chicken."
Good guess, I thought. True, Rodney gobbled up quite a bit of fresh
chicken, but what cat doesn't like chicken? Any ninny could have figured that
out.
"Now I am asking him what his favorite spot in the house is," she
said. Again, Gladys did nothing more than look at the little cat, who returned
her gaze, nonplussed.
The answer must have come to her quickly: "He says
he likes to sit on the back of an orange chair that overlooks a window. A chair
in the den."
"That's exactly right," I gasped. When Rodney was inside the
house, he planted himself on the back of the peach-colored armchair in the
den.
"The window in the den overlooks the yard with the little white
dog," Gladys said.
"What dog?" I asked.
"Across the street from
your building is a little dog behind a fence. Rodney likes to go over there and
tease that little dog. He walks back and forth in front of the fence to make the
dog bark."
I cast a fish-eyed glance at him. There was, indeed, a small
white terrier behind a fence across the street, but I never dreamed Rodney went
over there. "You torment that dog, do you?" I snarled at him.
"He's very
full of himself," she continued. "He says women are always commenting on the
pretty yellow markings on his head. He loves women. He's been told that he's
quite handsome."
My jaw made a nasty clattering sound as it hit the
linoleum floor. My boyfriend's secretary had been visiting our condo only the
weekend before, and she had made a huge fuss over Rodney. She had praised the
three little stripes on his head and used the very word handsome.
I took
a deep breath and cut straight to the punch: "So why does he go door to door
caterwauling?" I asked.
"He only howls at the windows where there are
other cats. He thinks that if he calls them, they will be able to come out and
play. He's lonely.
The answer was so obvious, I felt pretty foolish. Not
once had it occurred to me that he was meowing not at the neighbors, but at the
neighbors' cats.
"But . . . . but . . . .how can I make him stop before
we get kicked out of the condo? I can't bear to keep him cooped up inside, but
when I let him out, he screams," I whined.
"Get another cat. He's lonely.
He doesn't want to be the only cat," she snapped. She had no way of knowing
Rodney was the only cat at home; nonetheless, I wasn't thrilled with her
prescription. One cat seemed to be more trouble than I bargained for -- the
little furry foghorn had already gotten us booted out of our last apartment; now
the homeowners association in our new condo threatened to give me and my
pint-sized Pavarotti our walking papers . . . again. How was I supposed to
consider a second cat?
"Did you know your neighbors feed him?" she
continued.
"What? What neighbors?"
"The neighbors with the two
little girls. He goes in their house. Several of your neighbors let him in to be
fed." I knew the neighbors with the two little girls, but I had no idea they
were having my cat over for dinner.
"That's why he hasn't seemed very
hungry lately?
I cast a wary glance in his direction. Rodney had settled
into a squat on the cold table. He was calm, he was smug, and there was no
mistaking the expression on his little furry face: He was smiling. He was
finally getting the best of me, as he always thought he should. By this time,
the strangeness of the communication had worn off and I was asking questions
freely, like a foreign ambassador with a really fast translator:
"Ask him
why he pees on my clothes," I said.
"He doesn't want you to go away and
leave him alone. Peeing on your clothes is the only way he can express his
anger." This was too true to be believed. I had a promotional modeling job that
sometimes took me away for weekends, where I'd wear a specific uniform. When I
got home Sunday night and emptied out my suitcase, I'd pile all my travel
clothes on the floor, mingling my uniform with a week's worth of other dirty
laundry. Then I'd get distracted by other chores. Later I'd find the pile strewn
all over the floor. Rodney would have singled out my uniform from the pile of
laundry and peed only on it. Eventually I learned not to leave my laundry on the
floor, so he resorted to peeing directly into my freshly packed suitcase. That
way I wouldn't discover until I unpacked my bag in Palm Springs that everything
I brought was soaked and my uniform reeked to high heaven.
"He seems to
know the uniform I wear when I go away. How could he possibly know what clothes
I wear to work?" I asked.
"He just does," she replied.
"Why does
he freak out every time I leave? He even seems to be afraid of the dark. Ask him
why he has screaming panic attacks at three a.m. Ask him where he came from," I
urged.
"He says he lived in an industrial part of Van Nuys, where there
were a lot of strays. Men would put food out in the alley for the cats. There
were piles of cardboard boxes and machinery and a lot of grease on the ground.
He got shut up in the warehouse at night and was very cold and hungry. Howling
was the only way he could get fed."
"So, he really is afraid of the dark?
And he gets claustrophobic?" I asked.
"Only at night, he
says."
"Poor little guy," I cooed, and patted his head. This explanation
shone a whole new light on our dilemma. It couldn't have made more perfect
sense. I had found him in the North Hollywood pound, on feline skid row. The
little operatic kitten had serenaded me even as I'd entered the room. When I'd
peeked in his cage, his nose was so obtrusive, I felt as though I were looking
down the barrel of a shotgun. He wasn't my type. I was looking for Marlon Brando
in fur, not Woody Allen. But when I'd lifted him up, he made an unprecedented
move. He'd wrapped his minuscule arms around my neck, like two possessed pipe
cleaners. Reaching his tiny face toward mine, he had kissed me on the lips. It
was the most deliberate kiss I've ever received in my life. That's how the
little orange salesman closed me. Oh sure, he was just a loudmouthed,
needle-nosed, redhead, a common model I call the Honda Civic of cats, but he had
a certain je ne sais quoi.
"What does he think of me?" I
asked.
"He loves you. He says he loves his mother."
Lately he had
been showing some aggressive behavior around my boyfriend. If Benjamin touched
me in front of him, Rodney would frantically attack him and run out of the room.
So I had to ask: "What does he think of my boyfriend?"
Her response was:
"He's very jealous. He thinks he should have you all to himself. Sometimes he
wishes your boyfriend would just go away." Ah, I thought, I sometimes feel that
way myself.
After I paid the psychic the $35 -- a measly price for
turning my world upside down -- I reached out to put the little cat back in his
carrier, noticing that my relationship with him had already changed. I was more
careful with him than usual. He wasn't just a little noisy pet anymore. He was
an intelligent creature with distinct thoughts and feelings of his own, a
creature who could observe and act on his observations, a creature who could
reason.
In the car, for the duration of the ride home, the air was thick
between us. I had never seen Rodney so smug and pleased, truly tranquil for the
first time. He had finally gotten to say his piece, and I had witnessed the most
miraculous event of my life -- I had found a human being who could talk to a
cat. Frogs and whistles! What a world! Everything I ever believed had been
changed in an instant.
This article was excerpted from:
Straight from the
Horse's Mouth
by Amelia Kinkade.
Excerpted by permission of
Crown, a division of Random House, Inc. Copyright 2001. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without
permission in writing from the publisher.
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About The
Author
Amelia Kinkade has been listed in
The Top 100 Psychics in America. A full-time animal communicator, she is sought
by veterinarians, animal rescue organizations, and animal lovers all over the
world. Visti her website at www.ameliakinkade.net.
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