Every neighborhood has one or two. Tough old cats that pick on pampered housecats and steal their food. Our girls have named the one around here Bruce. Our neighbors call him El Gato Malo, the bad cat. He is a grimy looking Black and White tomcat, the kind with a neck as thick as his shoulders and his face is pocked with battle scars.
Bruce fights with the neighbor's cats, but not ours. Our cats mingle with Bruce, and take no objection to him coming right into our open air kitchen and enjoying their food, or ours. Recently we woke to a package of crackers opened and munched on by Bruce. We have taken to using our oven for night storage of things which would have been placed on our open shelves. But there is Bruce.
Talking with a neighbor, I learned that Bruce has been a problem in the neighborhood for years. Twice, Bruce has been given a ride and dropped far away from here. Evidently he was taken as far as Parrita and it only took him three days to get home. Home, even without a family, Bajo Murrillos is his home. My oldest jokes that he must have a built in GPS.
When I was 14, my mom let me feed the strays in our apartment building on the condition that they stayed outdoors. At one point we had 13 cats. I remember befriending some of the scruffiest cats you can imagine. There is something different about Bruce. Like the dog Crispin's Crispian from the story Mr. Dog, Bruce is a cat who belongs to himself.
2 comments:
Amiga, you should contact AM Costa Rica. That online paper is sufficient these days to support TWO columns....all your writing is eminently readable and deserves a wider audience! Thanks for posting this one.
bill
I think I dated El Gato Malo in his previous incarnation. ha!
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