Jungle Jim
I’ve always believed in the Supernatural. I have this gut feeling that there are things going on in this world,(and possibly others) that cannot be easily explained in a text book or encyclopedia. When I was a girl, my mother died. To this day, I believe that I saw her in our kitchen one morning, walking past me in her nightgown as I sat there, eating Kix cereal. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but she looked so real that for a minute I forgot that she had died a few months before. Another time, when I was newly married, a black cat climbed up on the bed. I could feel its weight as it lay on top of my feet. It had brown eyes, looking eerily like my Mom’s eyes. My husband and I were young and not very well off back then. Policy numbers were played all over Brooklyn, and my aunt was an avid player. I told her my dream, and she looked it up in her ‘Dream Book’. Next to the words ‘black cat’ was the number 310. She played it for one dollar for herself, one dollar for me. The entire thing came out the same day, straight as a board, 3-1-0. I won six hundred, very needed dollars, which my aunt said my mother knew all about. I was about to give birth to her first grandchild, and we had no money for a carriage. I bought my son a Coach, at the time it was the Cadillac of carriages. Spooky stuff; but who knows? When I moved to Queens years later, after my divorce, my second husband and I had a backyard with a fence all around it. The children were grown by then, and we had no pets. I never liked dogs, having been bitten by one as a young working woman. He couldn’t stand cats, or so he thought at the time. We have a Tabby named Tiger now, but that’s beside the point. She needs a story all to herself, but not today. There were always plenty of stray cats around the yard. I was told that the elderly man who had lived there before us had owned a big, beige Tom cat. When the man moved away, he left the cat behind because he could not care for it any longer. The cat was very smart, and could fend for itself very well. Over the years, litters were born and raised in the backyard and almost all of them had stripes on them just like the Tom. they ranged in colors from beinge to black, with the predominant stripes. One day, while sweeping the yard, I saw a beautiful black and white striped kitten playing alone in the grass. He was so fat and cute that I tried to catch him. He eventually got to know me and my husband. We fed him, and even gave him the name ‘Jungle Jim’ because he was always climbing on things. There were eight car tires stacked next to a wall of the house. This kitten climbed them almost every day until he mastered them. the day he reached the top tire, he lay down inside of it and promptly went to sleep. It reminded me of the jungle jims in the city parks when my children were small. They twisted and turned, made of pieces of bent metal. thus, the cat’s name. Eventually, he would answer to it when I called him to eat. I loved that cat. I talked to him every day as if he were a human being. We’d both sit in the yard, enjoying the sunshine, and I would tell him things I’d never told anyone else. Jim would lie near my feet, looking up at my face, with an understanding expression on his face. The other cats would be playing around in the yard, jumping all over the place, but Jim would just stay by me and listen. One day, when he was still kind of little, he managed to climb a tree that was leaning against the roof of the garage next door. There were already a few neighborhood felines up there, all older than Jim. They were walking around up there, or either lying down in the shade of the trees that surrounded the garage’s roof top. Jim reached the top and strutted around the slanted roof, stepping on the shingles warily at first, then with a boldness only he could display. I watched from my window for awhile, then more pressing chores engaged my attention. Much later on, I heard my husband outside. He was speaking softly, coaxing. I opened the back door, to see him standing on a fence rail, his arm outstretched to Jim, who was at the edge of the roof. The poor thing was scared to death. After having climbed up, he was afraid to come back down again. for almost two hours my hubby talked to the animal until he finally walked across a little bridge my husband had made from a piece of tin. When he was safe again, Jim jumped to the ground and ran into our yard, and safety. That day’s events elevated his trust in us. From then on, Jim would walk around the yard with me, or my husband. He’d follow us to the end of the pathway, but never came into the house. I would try to get him inside on winter days, but to no avail. We had an exceptionally harsh New York winter that year, and my husband ended up building a lean-to for Jim. Of course, the other cats used it ,too, but it was primarily Jim’s house. I watched him grow over that period of time, until the spring of the new year brought a full grown male cat to my door in the mornings. He was beautiful. His furry coat was full and shiny from the vitamins I had sneaked into his food every day. He had distinct lines of white mixed into the black, forming patterns all around his body. His eyes were blue, and so intelligent sometimes it felt as if a human being was staring out at me. Sprint time brought on mating season, and Jim was the center of attention around our yard. Females came across the fence from other streets and houses to flirt with him nightly. He would strut his stuff for them, but when he picked his girl she came from another area. That was the only time Jungle Jim came inside our home. One Saturday afternoon, I had the back door open, cleaning out closets, setting bags outside for the garbage men. My husband called me from our living room door. When I got there, I was so surprised to see Jim and a lovely white cat sitting on our couch, side by side. They were looking straight at the television set in front of them. We did not move, and neither did they for a minute or so. Then, as if by signal, they both jumped down and walked out of the room together. We named her ’Wifey’. Jim and Wifey were always together after that day. We would see them lying outside by our door, or walking around the yard, playing and tousling with each other. Wifey never had a litter, but it didn’t bother Jim. There was a tiny kitten outside of our fence one day, and they adopted it. Jim took the kitten with him everywhere he went. He, Wifey and ’The Babe’ moved into the lean-to on a semi-permanent basis after awhile. I put an old comforter in there, and feeding bowls for them all. One night, we heard lots of yowling and fighting outside our windows. This was normal because of all those felines roaming around out there. We thought nothing of it until the next morning when we saw the aftermath of the fights. There were some old dogs around who traveled in a pack. We chased them away whenever they came near the yard, which was usually after someone had just had kittens. I don’t know how they knew, but they always did. This time, they had snuck up on the cats resting in the yard. Normally, the fence gate was closed tightly at night but we had had company and one of them had left it wide open. A few cats had battle scars, and one little black kitten was dead. Jim was always the best at everything; climbing, running, and fighting. I did not see him or Wifey and the little one, but thought nothing of it at the time. Jim had been into many scrapes before, even messing up the big, black dog next door when he had made the mistake of invading Jim’s space. That dog’s nose must have ached for a week from those scratches and bites. By midday, everything and everyone was back to normal, it seemed. Around four I heard a bump at the door. This was Jim’s way of knocking. He’d throw his body against the door, bumping it to alert us. When I opened that door, there was Wifey, with Jim lying in the dirt next to her. The kitten was sitting on Jim’s head, looking up at me. Jim was all messed up. He had bites everywhere. There was dried blood on his coat, under his neck and on his face. I called to him once, but he could not lift his head. I had never touched him before, but he allowed me to pick up his head with my hands. Looking at him, I ran into the house to get some water and rags. I fixed him a bowl of food, but he could not eat it. I went back into the house for something else, I forget what, and when I came back outside Jim’s face was in the bowl of food! He was so weak. I bathed his wounds as well as possible, with Wifey and the Babe looking on. Jim’s breathing was shallow, and he was making a tiny mewing sound. It broke my heart to see him like that. My husband came in from work, and we tried comforting the cat together. I went in the house to use the bathroom while my hubby called the animal shelter from the bedroom. Now, Jim could not move too well. I think something was broken inside of his body. But, when I got back outside, two to three minutes later- he was gone. Wifey, Jim and the kitten were not there anymore. I looked inside of the lean-to, thinking that maybe, just maybe he had strength enough to crawl inside but he was not there, either. We seached every square inch of that yard, then outside on the street. It was ridiculous because there was no way the cat could go so far that quickly in his condition, but we looked anyway. We searched until it was pitch black outside, finding no sign of Jim or his little family. Three months later, coming out to plant some flowers, I noticed an all white cat in the corner of the yard. It was Wifey. Just to be sure, I called her by name and she looked up, then ran right to me. A big gray cat came up behind her, staring at me through the lightest eyes I have ever seen. Wifey let me rub her fur, and all the while I was asking where Jim was. Of course, she never answered me. She had a new husband now. They stayed around for awhile, but by the end of the year I didn’t see her or her new mate anymore. Maybe there were too many memories for her in our yard. Who knows what a cat really thinks about. I thought about Jungle Jim, and the little kitten sitting on his head, licking wounds with his tiny pink tongue. Where did they go? How in the world did they get there? We never saw either of them again, so you tell me. THE END
Copyright © 2002 Pauline Annette White |