Clancy the First

It’s about a cat.

“Are you a cat person, or a dog person?”

A lot of people ask that nowadays. It’s a hugely important question. If the girl is cute, you should say, “Both.” Because maybe she’s one of those chicks who really likes cats. She will live and die with her cats before she will hook up with you if you hate her cat. But if she’s a dog person, you know she’s at least a little cool. It’s an indicator, because dogs are awesome. They are the extroverts of the animal kingdom. Dogs love it when company comes over, and they don’t care if the house is a mess or the bed’s unmade. Their loyalties run as deep as your bag of doggie biscuits.

That’s not what cats are like. Cats are a lot more like actual people in that they’re all different. I don’t like people, though, generally. People are dicks, just like some cats are dicks. Some cats are jerks. Some cats are sarcastic. Some cats are Republicans. So I’m not exactly sure about some cats.

Then there was this one cat.

The day we got Clancy was the first time I ever realized boys and girls had some kind of distinguishing physical characteristic between the sexes that made us so elusively different. It was ‘96, and I was four. My sister was three. We were outside a Wal-Mart and the SPCA was unloading some kittens. My dad asked the sun-burnt lady with no teeth if the wretched, pathetic looking one he’d chosen for us was a boy or a girl. She lifted him up on her lap and spread his skinny legs towards us so that Clancy’s pink little cannon was beaming straight at me.

My dad always told me how my grandfather would choose the worst looking Christmas trees from the lot because he felt bad that no one else would pick them. I think this may have been his general philosophy in choosing Clancy. Even as a kitten, Clancy didn’t have much going on for him in the cute department. His color looked like a bunch of autumn leaves that someone had just chewed, swallowed, and thrown back up. If I had to compare Clancy to a human, he would be nearest to a white Southern man of Irish heritage, the sort of guy who sits on his porch with a loaded shotgun and cusses at passersby.

I guess my dad kind of took this into account when naming him. Clancy kind of sounds like it has at least a wee bit of Irish to it. In the history of Martin family cat names, “Clancy” marks a turning point in my father’s nomenclature patterns. Back before I was born, my parents had a cat they named “Cow,” or sometimes “Kitty-cow,” just because it had big black and white splotches on it like dairy cattle. Previously to Clancy we had “Jordan” (because Michael had also been from Wilmington N.C.), and “Simba” (because Lion King was the shit at the time). “Clancy” was another, more obscure cultural reference — my father was reading a lot of Tom Clancy novels at the time — but all further cat names were no longer such. Instead, he went with the Irish theme. The successors to Clancy were “Murphy,” “Chloe,” and “Mickey.”

Clancy and Jordan were brief contemporaries, but Jordan perished in the aftermath of a hurricane, most likely to a snake bite. We put a little cross up for him by the development’s drainage pond. Simba was also around at the same as Clancy, and for much longer. I remember more about Simba in those earlier years than I do Clancy, probably because he stayed indoors. He had soft cold ears and I liked to pet him. Simba was alright. But for some reason we decided to make Clancy an outdoor cat. My father, I think, realized the horror of his ironic and benevolent selection and was trying to minimize its impact. Unfortunately, this ended up backfiring.

Not only was Clancy ugly, he had a positively hideous meow to match. This got to my father particularly bad. Since Clancy was an outdoor cat, he only came inside occasionally, to eat and hang out with Simba. When waiting at the door, he would unleash a noise from his throat that sounded like something between a roar and growl. I ended up calling them rawrls, in true onomatopoetic fashion. Later on, I’d joke it was just his strong Southern accent. The sound enraged my father so much so that I’m afraid to report I did see him give Clancy a few good kicks out the door. Whenever this happened, he would invariably remain outside only a couple of minutes before demanding entrance again with an event more pronounced rawrl.

The harshness of the North Carolina environment cost Clancy his first few lives, which is alright because those are really the ones that cats take for granted anyway. Not to mince words, but it made Clancy a hard-ass motherfucker. Once he came home with his face all clawed up by some kind of possum or badger, and my mom had to wash his face with a warm cloth every night until it healed. I’ve seen him stand down a rattlesnake outside my window like some kind of Indian snake-charming master. He was literally toying with it, dancing around and smacking it on the head. And for an idiot, Clancy was an alright hunter. In those first few years, the number of dead lizards and mice found on our porch must have decimated the local populations. I would watch him from the window through the entire hunting process; his stalking technique was like the wild cats on Discovery Channel. Of course, he also survived hurricanes Floyd and Bonnie, learning from poor Jordan’s mistake (be careful of the snakes that get tossed out in the open!).

Clancy didn’t show much sign of his future asshole-ness in those first few years of struggle. Even his pathetic self could muster up a year or two long grace period in which everything he did was kind of cute and thus forgivable. Things began to change though with our move back up north to the Adirondacks in New York. I almost felt bad for him. We both hated the snow, the cold crunch of which neither of us had ever experienced before. Just when he became a master of the Southern heat, his owners whisked him away from everything he’d ever known. I could relate. He was miserable in it. Our new puppy, Bella, was simply bounding about through the drifts, happy as can be. I was glad to finally have a dog. That got me through. Clancy grew more churlish.

Simba eventually left us in favor of new owners from down the street. It always felt like a betrayal to me. Had I not been good to you Simba? Had I not always stroked your cold, soft ears? Around the same time, my first girlfriend broke up with me. Clancy had taken to sleeping inside for the winter and he was my sole comfort in that night, curled up with me on the bed while I exchanged text messages. Normally I was abhorred by him and his matted, disgusting fur that was constantly shedding. But it was a small sort of companionship. My dog wasn’t allowed to jump up on the bed and cuddle with me. I should have known better than to fill the void with Clancy, for it was here that he truly became my nemesis.

It wasn’t rare for Clancy to throw up. He did it often, in big huge coughs and yacks. I think a lot of cats do this, but if you can believe me, Clancy’s were the worst you’d ever hear. He was a glutton, eating dry cat food until he literally couldn’t stuff himself anymore. Then, about ninety percent of the time, he would throw it back up only ten minutes later, creating a pile of vomitous cat food. The rule in our house was that whoever happened to stumble upon his coldly calculated vomit disposals first had to clean them. A lot of times that just ended up in all of us pretending not to notice a pile of throw-up, which would then get hard and stale and practically become a new piece of furniture. At the time though, Clancy’s puke was taking on increased ferocity, so much so that my mother was going to take him to the vet. Lost in my breakup, I forgot about this.

I woke up from troubled sleep to the sound of his retching and turned on my bedside light.

Not only was Clancy in the process of booting on my right leg, but my right arm had already been coated in throw-up. In that vomit — there on my arm — were long, thick strands of undulating tapeworms.

Needless to say, my stomach flipped. I lurched from bed like a madman on the fierce wings of adrenaline. The yelp I let out woke up the whole house. My parents thought I was being assaulted. By far one of the grossest things to ever happen to me. I couldn’t sleep for weeks remembering the way they were moving, so clearly still alive. That was the last time for a long time that I let Clancy sleep with me. My mother couldn’t stop laughing when she came in. My father was practical as usual, and pulled the sheets off my bed for washing. I sank to my knees with my head in my hands. I felt inundated, like everything was going wrong at once. My mother bent over to comfort me.

“If I could only tell you,” she said, “how many guys I broke up with in high school.”

My father grunted in confirmation. Clancy was lurking at the doorway still, relishing in his accomplishment. “Get the fuck out of here!” I screeched, earning a harsh look from both mother and father.

“Don’t cuss at the cat,” my mother warned.

My mom and my sisters always stood up for Clancy, no matter how annoying he got. They shielded him from my cursing. The death threats my father sent that cat’s way were legendary, but they always wanted him to stop — as if Clancy would care. If he could understand, I doubt Clancy would give a fuck anyway. But he was pretty rough around the edges, and wasn’t fun to hold or play with for the girls. So we got Murphy, a tame little orange cat from the pet store who they decided would be an indoor cat, to keep his edges soft. Clancy mostly ignored him, sending only the occasional hiss and growl his way to remind him that he was the alpha-cat.

After Murphy, my sister decided she wanted yet another one. This would be her birthday present for her 13th birthday. She was entering those early teenage years where a girl can discover she’s pretty and become a total bitch. It’s safe to say we didn’t have a great relationship at the time. My parents threw a party, then the next day she would go pick a new kitten from a friend’s litter. It was all very tedious, but I couldn’t help feeling bad for her when Clancy got hit by the car in front of all her friends.

To be honest, I was smiling the entire time. We heard the thump from the road. They all gathered at the window to see Clancy slumped on the double-yellow lines, the car long gone. My sister broke down into tears. The condolences of 13 year old girls aren’t particularly heartfelt or meaningful, but it’s not their fault. They just can’t sympathize that well yet. I’d argue some of them would never learn how to at all.

I certainly couldn’t sympathize with Clancy. He was old already by this point; it felt like it might be okay for him to finally pass. The guy who hit him had his girlfriend in the car. She made him come back and help us, the poor guy. My mother and I put Clancy into a little box and wrapped him in blankets. I still remember how he looked. One of his teeth was jutting out and he had big black tire marks on his fur. “He’s dead,” my mom was saying over and over. “For sure. He’s really dead this time.” His breathing was heavy and labored. That sucked, because I didn’t want him to suffer. At the same time, all I could think of was my bed of tapeworms. The time he pissed on my pile of clean clothes. When he threw up in my papasan chair. Every time he had woken me up at night with that disgusting rawrl. But we took him to the vet and they had a look.

All the fucker had was a bit of internal bleeding!

Clancy stayed a few nights at the pet hospital then made his triumphant return. I couldn’t believe it. Which life was that now? The seventh? The eighth? He was hobbled for months and I don’t think his leap was ever quite the same. Something happened in his hip, and now Clancy was truly very old.

My sister still got the new cat. After the debacle in the road, my parents had asked her very gently if she wanted to go get one, even after what happened to Clancy. She did, and it was this ugly little runty female that my dad named “Chloe.” Even though it was her cat, my dad still insisted he take naming powers. I guess it’s alright though, because his names are pretty good. Chloe was going to be an indoor cat, like Murphy. She had a big kink in her tail and a flat face, with big green eyes. My sister loved her to death, but I just felt bad for that thing. It took every opportunity it could to get outside. It would dash out when we got the laundry off the line or got the mail and you had to make sure she came back in with you afterward. She wouldn’t really go anywhere; she was too frightened to be in the outside world. It was like she was a reluctant adventurer who, once she took the first step into the unknown, couldn’t quite keep going. One time I guess someone forgot to let her back in, and she disappeared and never came back. It’s my guess that some coyote or stoat got to her. After a few months, we proclaimed her dead. My sister was heartbroken.

Luckily, the next month, a rare hurricane struck New York. It felt like a vestige of our old life, a specter come back to haunt us. Of course, there weren’t the winds or destruction of those from the South, but it did rain a lot. In the floods that followed, a little kitten from down by the farm got separated from his litter and somehow made his way up onto our lawn. My dad, to please my reeling sister and mom, decided to take him in. Though he started his youth outdoors, Mickey would also be an indoor cat.

Clancy seemed to sense something different about Mickey than he did Murphy. He would clean Mickey under his paws and tongue, and rarely hissed at him. He made sure to let Mickey get his share of the desirable wet food before he took his. They shared that trial of outdoor life together.

Later that same summer, my parents went away on one of their weekend excursions to the lake with my sister, and I had the whole house to myself. After one of the parties, I managed to get a girl up to my room. The door was closed. The lights were dimmed. I put on some music from a specially curated playlist. It was on.

I hadn’t noticed that Clancy was there with us, sleeping beneath my chair. We had flung ourselves onto the bed and were tossing and turning with kisses. I’d waited so long for it The tight legs and ass that I’d been yearning for so badly were then spread naked before me. Surely, nothing could take me from the moment.

Clancy rawrl-ed. “What was that?” she said. To someone who had never heard him before, it could have been anything.

“Just leave him. That fucker,” I said, kissing her collarbone. Her breathing intensified as I worked my way down. I felt her hands go into my hair.

“Adam!” she sighed as I reached my destination. You know it’s good for them when they say your name.

Clancy would not be denied. He tried meowing some more. And more. But I refused to break the flow of what was happening. The girl wasn’t annoyed. She was distracted. I kept going and soon it was my turn.

Then she pulled my jeans down, and Clancy made his presence known.

The smell hit us simultaneously. Her reaction was to look down at my crotch in disgust, as if I had gone weeks without a shower or toilet paper. My first instinct was to defend myself, but the words got caught in my mouth, just like the stench. It was okay though, because it only took her a second to realize that this was coming from somewhere else. I did too, because I recognized that smell. Clancy, I thought. I rolled from beneath her and off the bed to look around, shackled by the jeans at my ankles.

Our clothes were hastily thrown about the room. Closest to the bed was her top and bra. Between those stood Clancy. In stark contrast to the pink of her clothes was a big steaming pile of dark brown cat poop. The girl shrieked. I was horrified. The clothes would probably have to be burned. Clancy was lucky I didn’t kill him on the spot. In the end, she just ended up laughing about it. The good thing was that she didn’t put it back on anytime soon.

That was really Clancy’s last hurrah as he entered his old age. It’s tough to say he fits the stereotypical conventions of aging cats. Murphy went and got fat, but Clancy never did. He didn’t let himself slip, a true outdoor cat in the new era of indoor cats. Soon though, his ninth life would finally catch up to him. He would always follow me inside when I got home from work. Now though, his rawrl at the door was reduced to nothing more than a guttural and almost silent croak. He drank more water than he ate food. His gait across the driveway was feeble and crooked, his limbs decaying like a drug addict. I was twenty-one, and he was seventeen. But Clancy was the elder.

I came home one day last summer from college and saw him perched on the porch rail. That was impressive, because it meant he had to jump up there. I hadn’t seen him do that for almost a year. His kingdom stretched before him, from the bushes behind the basketball hoop to the fields and apple trees beyond. The porch was his palace and the pine grove his castle.

I’d read about how cats intuitively know when their time has come to die. They resign themselves to it, go to some place quiet and out of the way, and lay to sleep. I wondered where Clancy would go. He got to choose his place to die, and he earned it. He survived the animal shelter against all odds. He had been through two hurricanes, and battled at least a few snakes. He had passed between the tires of a Dodge Ram. He had survived my father’s harsh words. In that moment, I hoped that I too would be able to earn my place to die as well, in a kingdom of my own. Like my dad, I took the opportunity to give him a new name and title: Clancy the First, I thought. The first king of this Northern kingdom. He disappeared a little while later, and when I returned home from school, he was gone for good.

So when a pretty girl asked me, “Are you a cat person, or a dog person?” I thought of him and his ugly ass.

“I like dogs. But cats,” I said, looking up and down the crowded bar, “they’re a lot more like people.”