Shortly after Meleline and I returned from Fafa Island and had dinner at home, I heard a kitten crying in the street. I opened our front door and meowed back, and without hesitation the kitten crawled through the fence, ran onto the front porch and into the house. White with patches of grey tabby markings, he established himself as the resident cat that very instant. He chose us, and we could not choose other than to honour his choice. He was tiny, probably a month old. Even so, the next morning, when Meleline opened a bottom kitchen cabinet and surprised a lizard, he scurried out of the cabinet onto the kitchen floor and into the kitten's mouth. The lizard ejected his tail as a decoy, which thrashed around with considerable ostentation, but to no avail. The tiny predator was not deceived. He ate the lizard first; not all at once to be sure, for it is the height of feline etiquette to play with one's food. It's not simply sustenance, you must understand, it's dinner and a dance. Following the main course of lizard, the cat enjoyed the side course of tail at his leisure. It was a sweet moment of revenge of the mammals. We lived under the feet of the dinosaurs for a hundred million years, but who's the apex predator now, pal? One big rock can ruin your career path, huh? Tough break.
We named the cat Dylan, in honour of the intrepid captain of the
Andromeda Ascendant. 'Atolomake Helu, a.k.a. Andromeda, was of course delighted. He lived up to his name. Having demonstrated a taste for the geckos that ran around our walls and ceilings at night, I had no trouble in training Dylan to watch the dinosaurs in the sky. But, Meleline and I really didn't want him to hunt out all the lizards in the house, who sustained themselves on moths, mosquitoes, and other undesirables. In any case, they were usually inaccessible to Dylan, who, wish though he might, would never master the art of walking on walls and ceilings. For the most part, they were Dylan's evening entertainment whilst Meleline and I watched Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Fortunately, Dylan's appetites were diverse enough to also include roaches, which, previously abundant, rapidly became an endangered species in our house, to no one's regret but Dylan's. The age of chemical weapons had given way to the most fearsome bioweapon that terrestrial evolution has ever devised. Within a couple of weeks, Dylan decided that sleeping with the humans all night was kid stuff, all right for an hour or two, but first there was work to be done; he established the routine of going out on patrol through the house. The dog may have his day, but the cat owns the night.
The cat owns the night
Animals take fright
Into this house he's come
He's made himself at home
He keeps himself well fed
While humans sleep in bed
The cat owns the night
There's a lizard on the wall
The cat's hoping he will fall
He's in the killer's eyes
Destined as his prize
He was once the Lizard King
Now he can't do anything
Lizard on the wall
Somewhere there's a mouse
The cat's searching through the house
He hears a rustling on the floor
Just around the nearest door
He pounces and he plays
Wouldn't want to die that way
Somewhere there's a mouse
Roach, you've got to stay away
You better heed what I say
There are places in this land
You don't want to make your stand
If you give this cat a chance
You'll be dinner and a dance
You've got to stay away
The cat owns the night
The cat owns the night
The cat owns the night
The cat owns the night
About a week after he came into our house, it became apparent that there had been one night that Dylan had not owned, at least not entirely. His head began to stink, and on closer inspection we discovered an abscess developing between his right eye and ear. From the pattern of the puncture wounds we guessed that he had been in a fight with a much larger cat. Perhaps it had been the very night that we had heard him crying in the street. Although it was rare to see a cat during the day for all the dogs on the loose, at night it was not unusual to hear the Mean Cats voicing their opposing views. Perhaps Dylan had been a little too adventurous for his tender age, and violence had found him around an unexpected corner.
During the next couple of weeks, Meleline applied disinfectant to Dylan's wound. Her patient was an active participant in his own recovery, gradually rubbing the fur away from the abscess so that it could be kept clean. I took a lesson from Dylan's behaviour when one drizzling afternoon of the mild Tongan winter as my bicycle flew along Matei'alona Road, the interaction of the slick tarmac and worn tyres resulted in my vehicle departing controlled flight. An area of forty or fifty square centimetres on my right knee was scraped raw and bleeding, although my other points of contact with the street suffered no damage. I picked up the relatively undamaged bike and headed home, where I showered the wound clean; however, it was obvious that it would continue to bleed for quite some time. I needed a patch job. I found an adhesive bandage, but before applying it, I shaved the surrounding area, more to reduce the discomfort of pulling the bandage away to apply a fresh one than to keep the wound free of hair, but both purposes were served. It was Dylan's idea.
Skinned knees and bit faces. Raising a baby cat bears some similarities to raising a baby human, although the objectives are more limited. Yet the learning curve to achieve those limited objectives is incomparably steeper; the cat catches on very quickly. The similarities are in the unpleasant setbacks: the bodily wastes deposited in the inappropriate places. During the first couple of weeks, whilst Dylan still preferred the comfort and security of a human bed, his brain was not yet developed enough to remember his cat box in the kitchen, and he would instead select a convenient place in the bedroom for a necessary occasion. During the day, on the other hand, his record was spotless. Another unfortunate turn of events occurred one night when I used a stick to drive a lizard off the ceiling and down a wall to the point where Dylan could reach him. Dylan had just polished an ample meal as provided by Ma, and he danced around with the lizard so much that he brought it and the dinner all up on one of Da's books. Da should not take his son hunting after a heavy meal. For Ma to call him Spillin' Dylan after that episode was less than kind; however, for cats have a great deal of pride.
Thomas Gangale's Song Lyrics and Free Verses
Thomas Gangale's Tales of Tonga
