Sylvester

My husband and I were jolted awake one night by something hitting the screen on our bedroom window.

“What was that?” my husband asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes and checking his watch.

“Sylvester,” I said.

“It’s only one,” he said, “What’s he doing home so early? And what’s he doing on the window screen?”

My 15-pound Maine coon cat was hanging by his toenails from the screen on our bedroom window, his eyes roaming around the bedroom as though looking to see if we were inside and, if so, whether one of us would make a move to the adjacent bedroom and let him in through the patio door. But climbing out of bed at one in the morning to let him in, feed him, and wait for him to eat and be let back out when we had to get up at five had all the appeal for me of friending a grizzly.

Sylvester likes to roam outside at night—always returning home at exactly five at the patio door to be let in and fed. Why he had turned up four hours early this night—on our window screen to boot—I had no clue.

We never knew exactly what Sylvester did when he roamed at night. When I thought about it, which was seldom, I imagined him devoting a good portion of the night stalking tiny prey and running from dogs roaming at night, then spending the rest of the night making scary noises designed to scare the crap out of everyone and everything. We’d listened apologetically to more than a few stories (or, more appropriately, complaints) about his night wanderings from roused-at-night neighbors.

Sylvester is a rescue cat, not in the usual sense, but in the sense that by picking him from a barn litter, I rescued his siblings. I selected him because, unlike his scrawny siblings, Sylvester was quite rotund. It never occurred to me until it was too late that the reason he was so much bigger than his siblings was that he ate most of the food given to them. Nor did it faze me unduly when his ex-owner hollered no returns as I sped happily home with him sleeping next to me in a cardboard box.

Sylvester was such a cute little ball of black fur during his kittenhood. I had been completely smitten from the moment I saw him and continued to be so even as he grew to be the large Maine coon he eventually became. I had never owned an animal that small before or been so smitten with one, except a hamster once, sort of briefly, when I was a girl. But the hamster had met an untimely death when it escaped from its cage and our tomcat mistook it for a mouse.

My husband, however, wasn’t and had never been quite so enamored of Syvester. To Arnie, Sylvester was demanding. And while it was true that Sylvester didn’t cope well with behaving, I loved him.

I sneaked a peek at the window again. Sylvester was now gazing at the deck floor as though attempting to gauge how far he’d drop if he let go of the screen. It was only a one-foot drop; however, Sylvester, being rather wussy despite his huge size, seemed apprehensive about the drop.

“Don’t move,” I whispered to my husband. “Maybe he will think we’re not in here.”

Sylvester only howled.

Now, Sylvester, when hungry—which was always—can unleash a howl that rivals Sasquatch; a long high-pitched noise that goes on seemingly forever.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” my husband mumbled, throwing back the blanket to climb out of bed. “I may as well . . . “

“No. We need to be firm,” I said, placing a hand on his arm. “Sylvester is what is known as an alpha male. And I read somewhere that alpha males should only be given attention when behaving themselves.”

It was true. I had once read an article by a veterinarian who had spent years studying cats' behavior. She said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that alpha cats refuse to be told what to do and will insist on taking charge of practically every situation. While this was all true, the part about withholding attention when they misbehaved, I made up.

“And when is he ever behaving himself?” my husband muttered. He added a couple of strong words and something about having a busy day at work the following day, then plopped over on his side, pulled the blanket over him again, and tried to go back to sleep.

But we were both wide awake now, and we continued to lie there rigid as rake handles, hoping Sylvester would give up and go back to doing whatever he’d been doing before he’d plastered himself against our window screen.

“Arnie?” I whispered after a while, “Is he still there?”

“What do you think?” he answered, turning to look.

“What’s he doing?”

“He has a toenail caught up in the screen,” he said, using several strong expletives again.

I moved my head slowly around so that Sylvester wouldn’t notice I was indeed in the room until I was facing the window. Sure enough, one of his toenails had caught in the wire mesh of the screen, and he was twisting every which way to try to free himself.

Sylvester struggled a while but finally managed to wriggle free and drop to the deck floor despite the long, fearful one-foot drop and pad over to the patio door. But seeing that no one had climbed out of bed to let him in, he made a fast retreat back to our bedroom window, slammed himself up against the screen again, peeped in, and began howling.

Suddenly, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I sat up and doubled over in hysterics.

“What’s so funny?” my husband asked.

“Do you realize we’re hiding out from a cat?” I stammered between convulsions of laughter.

My husband responded with a chuckle. Soon, he, too, was doubled over laughing. Still laughing hysterically, he climbed out of bed and went to let Sylvester inside.