The Two-Legged Creature Most Feared by Black Cats

by Tommy George

Friday, June 13, 2014. I long tried to make friends with a big black tom-cat that roams the farm town of Allison, Iowa. The animal and I never did share anything beyond a single, brief transaction, the outcome of which guarantees that our friendship now shall never be. Superstition has sprung up between me and Big Black Tom like prison walls that will not come tumbling down any time soon. Any hope of this was killed by the accidental connection between us: exchanged glimpses of the soul that lasted less than a second, but carved dangerous pits in both our minds.

Over Summer of 2014, my tom-cat had shown signs of coming closer. He would hang around, within eye-shot but always at a safe distance, waiting for the scraps of food I would eventually throw to him once he had moved an increment closer than the last food tidbit. In short, I was shaping his behavior by rewarding any narrowing of the breach between us he would make. I began feeling that with patience and technique, I might get him close enough to pet. However, my efforts were dashed to bits by a most unfortunate incident.

Big Black Tom was no dummy. He knew that a flock of delectable sparrows made their home inside the large, light-box “Hardware Store” sign that hangs on the upper-story front of the two-story commercial building in which I lived. My second-story apartment sat atop the rear of the building, accessible by a long wooden staircase in the rear that led up to a platform landing, onto which the exterior door of the upper apartments opened. At the time of this occurrence, we kept a tall ladder propped up on the second-story platform most of the time, leading up another story to access our ever-leaking roof.

I’m not sure how or when Big Black Tom realized that he could snag himself a fresh, hot bird dinner by getting on the rear of the roof, approaching the front-mounted light-box full of birds from behind, and taking their hitherto confident chirpiness by surprise. Although there were certain inherent dangers in the plan—namely me, the two-legged creature who seemed always to be around--he couldn't resist. He waited a reasonable period of time, I’m sure, before he crept up the 23 wooden steps from ground level to the upper landing. The ever-present steel ladder awaited the cat’s further assent from the platform, and he carefully began the climb that would top out at the very edge of the roof. From there, it would be a kitty cakewalk to the front of the building and fresh sparrow for lunch.

I believe that cats, like people, sometimes lapse into a state of preoccupation when a goal is within reach; for all of Big Black Tom’s animal cunning, planning, waiting, and dreaming of flying feathers came to naught—or more rightly put, collapsed--when building resident Tommy George (that's me) stepped out onto his landing unexpectedly. His eyes briefly met mine, for some reason scared the wits out of Big Black Tom, just a rung or two from the top of the ladder. The startled feline instantly took a flying leap from his spot on the ladder, back to safety--some two commercial stories (no less than 40 feet) directly below.

Equally startled, I saw his legs scrambling as he passed me on his way down, twisting mid-air, trying to align his fat-cat self for a four-point landing. But he hit the pavement awkwardly on only three, and ouch. I felt guilty as a hound dog as I watched Big Black Tom dragging himself slowly, painfully away from the crash site, birdless. He quickly disappeared to wherever it was that he holed up, and I didn’t see him for a month or more. Then I began to see him limping around town, pitifully scrawny and distinctly beta as opposed to the alpha male he had been.

Now Big Black Tom will never become my animal-pal. I have resigned myself to that fact, and all things considered, I can't blame him. However, he has spread the mew about me to others. When he and the town’s other felines see me approaching, they turn and run in the opposite direction--run for their lives at the mere sight of me.

Thus and so have I become legend among them: the two-legged creature so unlucky that black cats fear me, and cross the street to avoid my crossing of their path.

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