One year ago today, Wilbur the demented orange cat moved in with me. He'd been working on me through the summer and fall - when he wasn't on location at Hog Island for the filming of The Crucible. He would walk around me in circles and hiss at the other cats if they came near me. The other volunteers noticed it too. "He wants you" they'd tell me.
I wasn't sure if I was ready for another cat yet. After Max and Ada died I wanted to wait until I was certain I wasn't trying to replace them but rather to adopt another being on its own merits. For its own self.
When I first started to work at the shelter, Jaguar is the one who caught my eye. Gorgeous long white hair. Magnificent except for his paralyzed tail stump, which was later amputated. He was sitting on top of the refrigerator when I arrived and raked his claws across my arm moments after I started work. I made an effort to get to know him - that's still going on. I knew Jaguar wasn't ready for a new human in his life. I also knew he wasn't right for me. But I continue to love him.
Wilbur came to the shelter after I'd been working there several months - nearly a year I think. He was apprehended by animal control on the campus of Gordon College in Wenham a fundamentalist Christian school - locally known as the "holy people college". He came at the same time as Clyde and some other large males. It was tense times in the shelter with all these big tomcats around. Wilbur would sometimes fight with Jaguar or others.
Whenever people would pet Wilbur, he would grab them between his front paws - claws out - and bite! He wanted to have a person of his own so badly he'd grip them and hold onto them for dear life. No one wanted to adopt this strange beast.
When I finally brought him home, he was so nervous every sound and movement spooked him. He wouldn't let me out of his sight. He had to be able to see me at all times. Whenever I boiled water for tea, he'd run frantically away from the noise of the tea kettle's whistling but not so far away that he couldn't see me.
He still bites. But we've gotten used to each other. He's wrecking my house, which I just had recarpeted a couple of months before he moved in. But little did I know that instead of paint and carpet and a whole redecoration, all I needed to make my condo feel like home was one demented orange cat.
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