The Greatest Story Ever Told

Two weeks ago I told my Gotcha Day story in six-part harmony. In case you missed all or part of it, I'm reposting the entire edited piece and I've even added pics, including one of Mitzi! You can view my PetFinder page for the first time. Remember to hover over the pics for the captions. I've been getting requests for the entire recollection in one post and I do it all for my fans readers. Enjoy! Please note that all shelter cats named were real cats who have been adopted.

Dateline Spring 2005. A little kitten is born and abandoned in the mean streets of Jersey City near the mouth of the Holland Tunnel. The little kitteh is scared and alone and spends all her time looking for food and trying to hide from evil humans. One day, she runs into a big tabby who confronts her. She instinctively goes into attack mode. The tabby catches her paw in his teeth. She knows he’s different cos he didn’t bite down hard.

“Hello little goil,” he mewls. “Don’t run from me. I knows your story. I seen yo mudder get crushed by dat car. Da streets, dey be mean. I’m here ta offer protection. I is making you an offer youse can’t refuse.”

The tabby was Tuna R’son Kitty and that’s how this kitteh became a member of the notorious Alleys feline street gang. We thought our only challenges were to keep our distance from the po po and to free our territory of the rival gang, the Toms. No cats wanted to mess wid us. We was bad.

We’d hustle on the streets for some eats. Enrique—don’t call him Henry—was good at liberating meat from the corner bodega. When we needed a few bucks, we’d sell some bad nip that could kill you. Our specialty was burning out the Toms wherever they hid. They feared Tuna.

So we wuz patrolling; looking out for Toms and some food. Normally we’d knock over a delivery guy for some Chinese food but they’d all been warned not to deliver in our hood. I wanted some fried mice badly.

“Hey, Tuna, looka! Someone left us some noms!” It wasn’t fried mice but I was hungry. It wasn’t unusual for some good Samaritan to feed the local strays. With Jamal looking out to make sure this wasn’t an ambush, we started to chow down. Then we heard Jamal growl and saw him run. “Yo, Tuna, are we moving?” We were.

Tuna and I looked up to see humans and they had us locked up. I don’t know how we didn’t notice we was walking into a trap to eat. We threw ourselves against the side of the cage but even our sharp teeth and claws were no match for the steel bars. “TUNA!” I cried as we both looked for a way out.

The humans tossed placed us in a car like the one that hit and killed my cat mother and flung a towel over us. We started singing the songs of our people and plotting our escape. “Don’t worry, da bois will come looking for us,” Tuna said. “We just have to stick together.” I always felt safe with Tuna but I didn’t feel safe now.

We found ourselves at an evil place with evil smells. Then we was broken up. I didn’t have my Tuna to protect me anymore. I was taken in a room and interrogated by a human who probed every orifice of my body. I growled, hissed and spit. I was angrier than I’d ever been in my short life. I heard the word surgery and then I was thrown back in my cage.

I awoke from the surgery. How long was I out? Did I divulge any Alley secrets? Where was Tuna? Speaking of tuna, I was plenty hungry.

That was 10 years ago. A lot of things are vague after that. The hospital shipped me off someplace to sit in a cage. That place smelled like death. Would I spend the rest of my life caged up? I waited and was given a number and a date. I was feral and deemed unadoptable even at my young age.

We didn’t get too many visitors over on Death Row. The warden would come in, call some numbers and those anipals would leave, never to return. I listened for Tuna’s voice but didn’t hear it. Seemed like I was in there forever when the warden came in with another lady she seemed to know.

The other lady said they’d had an adoption event so she had some space for dogs and cats. I didn’t know what that meant. She picked two woofies and then came to look over the cats. I was hiding in the back of my cage. First she picked Jimmy*, a tabby who seemed to have some sort of head trauma. He ran around in circles. Then she pointed at Ashanti*, a floofy persian who was a real diva. HAH! She must have been an owner surrender cos she wouldn’t have survived a day in the street. Finally, the lady looked in my direction. “Why, this little one is gorgeous!” she cried. The warden mentioned that I was feral and that no one could get near me. “If you can get her into the carrier, she’s yours,” the warden said.

I climbed into the carrier to start my next adventure, still not knowing what became of Tuna or if I’d ever see him again.

I was in the car with another towel over me and I was once again screaming the songs of my people. The woman kept trying to reassure us that we were safe. We were no longer on Death Row. She said she was taking us cats to a place called Hillsborough that seemed to be a coupla hunnert miles away. We drove and drove and I wailed and wailed.

When we finally got there, I thought I recognized some familiar faces but I wasn’t sure. I wasn't sure of anything anymore except I wanted to return to the hood. It seemed like months since I’d seen any of the Alleys. Mahalo finally spoke up. “I is glad youse safe. We didn’t know where youse disappeared too.” “Where’s Tuna?” I managed to rasp though my voice was hoarse from screaming all through the long ride.

“Heh heh,” Mahalo laughed. “Did youse really tink bars could hold Tuna? He busted outta dat place. As soon as they opened his carrier at da evil-smelling place, he was gone like a shot. Hoinia picked him up and drove him back to da hood.”

“But what about you?” I axed. “I’ll be singing falsetto now,” Mahalo said. “don’t worry about this place. Dey feed you pretty good and pretty regularly. At night dey let us outta da cages so we should start tinking of an escape route."

A different woman came in and looked at me. “You’re a pretty little kitten. We’ll call you Kittee,” she announced. “After you eat and calm down, we’ll get some photos to put online. How does that sound?” I didn’t know what photos were so I hissed at her.

Click to biggify.

That was October, 2005. My mug shot went up on the interwebs. Was anyone really gonna see it and spring me?

Mahalo and I plotted but we couldn’t figure out how to bust outta that place. Besides where else could we get regular meals. If only Tuna was here; he’d know. One day someone came in and pointed at me. The shelter lady told her I was feral and wasn’t available yet for adoption. I saw my way out. I began washing my furs seductively. The new lady took me home, not knowing what she was in for.

I tried to escape from that lady’s place over and over. I bit her and she hit me and locked me in a room. Then I stole her phone to try to call Tuna. The next day I was back in Hillsborough. The days in the Hillsborough slammer turned into weeks and then into months. To me it felt more like a decade. Eventually, Mahalo went to an adoption event and didn’t come back. They had events in Hoboken once a month. Finally in January I heard through the grapevine that someone had filled out papers for me and I would be going to Hoboken for the adoption day. I wondered if this was the real thing or if they’d jilt me too. I was so over this place.

The day of my big showing, I wouldn’t get into the carrier. I snapped and bit at any hands that tried to coax me out of my cage. Needless to say we arrived in Hoboken fashionably late. It began at noon and we came in around 3 pm. I noticed Ashanti was there, positioned right near the entrance. She gave me ‘tude and I cursed her under my breath. I eyed the humans in the room suspiciously. There was R., the woman who pulled me from the first jail and a couple of couples. Did either of them fill out the papers for me? Who would be paying my bail?

I looked around at the few humans there and as I looked at my future peeps, I thought "Please don't let the old farts take me home! Look, he can hardly walk. How is he gonna play with me?" Of course I later learned he was going to have surgery in two weeks. I wondered if he'd be singing falsetto like Mahalo.

Then I glanced at the other couple. “Dear Cod, they're froggies. I don't want to live in France." When I realized it'd prolly be one or the other, I sulked in the back of my cage. I keep coming to these things, but I'll never be adopted, I thought to myself. Woe is the pussycat! Am I in here for life?

TW was smitten with Ashanti. She was trying to play with her; in fact, she didn’t even see them bring me in. Having already been nipped by Ashanti, Pop was over by Gunther, a huge 10-year-old Maine Coon, when he spotted me. "THERE SHE IS!!!," his eyes shouted with joy and love as he spotted the carrying case that I was in. I fought tooth and claw as they tried to put me in a cage.

Pop pointed me out to TW who came over for a look-see. For some reason, they hung a note on my cage that said "Play bites." I was being false advertised! I didn't play bite; I bit cos I was feral! It didn't seem to dampen Pop's spirits. Then Mlle. Frog came over and commented to TW how clean I was. I heard TW say "well, she's my cat. I filled out the paperwork for her and I'm adopting her. You can't have her!” “I guess I'll be going home with the geezers," I thought. Hmmm, maybe they live near my old hood and I can see da bois." Or will I be going back to Hillsborough yet again?

Mitzi UTB where she lived for 2 weeks.

TW was in a snit because they lost the adoption papers she filled out online. Then they confused her name with someone else's and told her they couldn't let her adopt. Meanwhile, Pop was of the mind that he wanted 2 cats. TW found a little black and white tuxedo who was still in a carrying case and thought she was sweet looking. She was 5 years old, female and small; the criteria they were looking for. She had come from a hoarding situation in which the do-good hoarder had 27 cats. When the hoarder was hospitalized, the cats were sent to various shelters. TW finally filled out the adoption papers once again and axed about taking Mitzi too. Would we get along? Better still, was she streetwise and could she help in my escape plans?

R. said they could bring us home to see if it was going to work out. They didn't have space to let us have a go get acquainted. There was no fight this time as they put me back in the carrying case. I was resigned to my fate. I was going home with the seniors; like it or not, I was going to have a FOREVER HOME. No more being kept in a cage. The seniors who I now call Pop and The Woman (TW) received the greatest gift of all when I came to live with them.

I lived happily ever after. And, I have a new posse around here. No, I don’t go out but we communicate through e-mail. There’s P-Kitty and Jamal and I even see Tuna from time to time. He broke free from two homes and now he’s living somewhere in our complex. He’s still the baddest kitteh I know.

Kittee aka Cathy Keisha—home at last

Coming soon: How I went from being Kittee to CK or how I got my forever name. Betcha can't wait.