by Rohana Chomick

Created on: November 03, 2008

I really don't know how old he was the day he appeared as if by magic in my backyard. He wasn't a youngster, that much was certain. His body looked like it had been "rode hard" and he had the face of an aging boxer. No doubt he had heard through the feline grapevine that I was a nice woman who was kind to stray cats and brought them into my house to feed and love them. So, I guess he decided to take a chance on me.

He walked on the earth like it was created of glass and should he break it, he would be beaten. Quietly, softly, almost on his belly, he would take a few steps towards me and then scoot back when he saw me looking at him. I took to leaving his food bowl on the walkway and, as I quickly ran up the back porch steps, I would turn to see him gulping the food while glancing at me to gauge my distance from him.

We danced this way for a month or so, until one day he came out of his hiding place under the azalea bush while I placed his food in the usual spot. He stood stiff in a fight-or-flight pose and I didn't move, both of us frozen in this strange tableau. I watched him step cautiously toward his food, scrutinizing me for any movement, any thought of movement, toward him. No stone statue had anything on me; I never believed I could be so still. He ate his food, quickly but without the fierce fear that had permeated the consuming of his other meals. A breakthrough at last.

As the months passed, the black and white cat I named Charley came to trust me. It took a year of me coaxing and cooing for Charley to finally understand that I wasn't going to whack him with the newspaper or wallop him with the broom, and he stopped scurrying away in a panic when he saw me with these simple objects. (I can only imagine what humans had done to him to generate such terror over a rolled-up newspaper and a whisk broom.)

Since Charley's abuser hadn't bothered to have him neutered, it was my duty to bring Charley to the vet to have the procedure done. Amazingly, Charley didn't react like the maniacal cat I was expecting when I shoved lightly him into the carrier, put him in the car, and drove to the vet's office. When Charley came home, I could feel a softness in his attitude toward me as a human. I think he knew that he had a home and no one in that home was going to hurt him.

The vet guessed Charley to be about 9-10 years old. Where had this tortured cat with the gentle personality been living all these years? Who was the monster who had whipped Charley with a newspaper and

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