by Nichole Grzych

Created on: February 05, 2010

The shaking really couldn’t and wouldn’t stop. Heavy banging shot through the whole club. I tried to calm myself. Gunfire was really on my mind. It wasn’t really calming to think of all the things that were happening in my father’s yard down the street. I needed a companion. The club was too strange for the companion I was long looking for in nature. I went home and fell asleep.

The smoke from the bar lingered in my hair. I went outside to have a cigarette. As I opened the door many dreams passed through my mind. The wolverine at the doorstep with a hunched back reminded me that my dreams of lions in the yard in the middle of the night were preparing me for a brave surprise. I started clicking with my tongue as I crept up on the fierce animal.

“Meow!”.

It was a really cool looking calico cat. The dark tiger stripes and yellow eyes made me think of a black collar and sunglasses. I hurried inside and grabbed some cold left over tenderloin. The cat was really starving, scared, but somewhat clean. It was evident it didn’t have a home. It had one with me. My daughter missed her old cat and I missed the ones I had to get rid of throughout my life too.

My mother came home the next morning with a concerned look on her face. “Where were you at last night and what time did you get home?” she probed. I had to find out there was a gun shooting down the street at the bar I was just at the night before. Thirty shots were fired in the parking lot and a man was killed. The cat was my safety. I really did not think those gun shots were for real.

The cat continued to console me and remind me it was brave. I wanted to prove that it was not my safety and that the shelter was me. I let it outdoors in my car. We really became close friends. Tiger became its name. Tiger was all I would talk to about my deepest darkest secrets in my car. All I wanted to do was give her comfort. She was there for my daughter but nobody understood the bond that we shared.

Shelter really became a problem. Winter was about to come and the garage was the only place for the cat to stay. We needed no more animals in the house. I was leading the cat down an incredible journey path. Bees became a problem as I was protecting the cat so it could rest. I was bored and decided to get a nail file from indoors. The car door or window was always left open so that the cat could escape at its own time. I really did not know what to do when the police officer came knocking on my door to tell me that if I left my car door open ritualistically that my car would get stolen. I started to teach the cat new escape tricks.

One day I decided the storms became too frequent and powerful. The cat was now on hairball food with lots of nutrients. The day after a serious storm my mom came in with another serious look. I just knew the cat had to be safe in its home under our deck. “We got a letter in the mail for someone looking for the cat,” my mom said quizzically. She explained that she called the phone number on the flyer and found out the cat was allowed to live inside another home that let it inside during the storm. I had no worries. I just prayed mine and Tiger’s friend was nice enough to follow our plans. The cat really deserved it all.

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