BUGSY BOBTAIL
I first met Bugsy when I came home early one spring evening in 1998. As I walked up my steeply-sloping driveway, he was walking down. I said something like "Pretty kitty", and he flopped down so that I could pet him. When I came in through the kitchen door, I told my girlfriend that I had just met a nice cat. She said, "Oh, that's Bugsy. He lives next door."
Bugsy was living with Lauren, her other cat, and several other college students. The previous winter, Lauren had found Bugsy living under her porch. When Lauren graduated in late spring 1998, she couldn't take him home. So, Bugsy moved in with us. At first, he would sneak out and go next door, looking for her. He soon stopped; I think he realized that the people and cat he had lived with were gone. Bugsy's pre-Lauren days are unknown to me.
On one of the of the first nights that he stayed with us, I knocked him off the bed while I was sleeping. The thud woke me up. Some cats would never forgive such a thing, but Bugsy just hopped back up, looked at me, and settled down. But this time, he slept between us, far from the edge of the bed.
Bugsy and I wound up being roommates when my girlfriend left town. They had been close, and he took his second abandonment in a few months hard. He would sit in spots where she usually sat, staring at me. He would go to the door; he seemed to want to look for her. So we did.
We went through the hallways & basement. We visited other apartments. We searched the grounds. After this, he settled down and became friendly with me. Perhaps he thought she was trapped or hurt, and couldn't get back in. And that I was too stupid or uncaring to look for her. After looking around, he seemed to conclude that she was just gone.
Bugsy became an indoor cat now, although he did go out on a leash. In the summer of 2001, he started climbing trees while on the leash! He was a great jumper, even though he only had an inch of a tail. I don't know if he was born that way or not; vets' opinion differs.
Bugsy was quite a chow hound. Once a friend was sitting on the couch reading and eating. She had a paperback book in one hand and a sandwich in the other. Bug started eating the meat hanging out the end of the sandwich. It took her a while to notice.
Bugsy would sit at the kitchen table and eat dinner with us. He had his own plate and when he was done, he would sit back. He would make eye contact, asking for more. He had very good table manners, never making a mess or getting on the table.
Despite (or perhaps because of?) his early life on the streets, he was one of the friendliest cats I have ever met. Despite the hard knocks he's had, including losing most of his teeth, he purrs constantly. He used to run around with a plastic ball in his mouth; after losing his teeth, he couldn’t hold it anymore. So we took to batting it back and forth.
Bugsy likes water. He startled me the first time that he followed me into the shower. I opened my eyes, and he was sitting on a ledge, out of the flow of water, but enjoying the spray. Since he didn't seem to drink much water, I got him a water fountain. Not only does he drink from it frequently, it's a favorite place to hang out. He likes to watch the water flow, and listen to it gurgle.
Bugsy Bobtail died on May 13, 2004. He died from cardiac arrest while receiving treatment for anemia caused by kidney disease.
I donated books to the Central Library in Syracuse, with bookplates in his memory.
Besides the love and companionship he gave me, his legacy is the care that I have given to the stray cats in the neighborhood. They began to come nearer as they saw me with Bugsy in the yard. Ironically, Bugsy always hated any attention that I gave to them. One cat would stare at him when he was in the window. When he went out of the leash, he took a dump right on the spot where that cat would sit. He stopped staring at Bug.
I miss my Bug-Bug so.
