I am moved today to reply at long last to Topanga Alice who scolded me like a 5th grade teacher for not allowing our cat Ernie out of the house.
She wrote of the need for cats to romp and play among the pearlies everlasting and of the disgusting and dangerous presence of a cat box in the house.
It was an accomplished and compelling essay in quick contrast to my own throw-away prose, evoking the good life of cats out there and their desultory existence as house pets.
Litter boxes are especially anathema to Alice who notes that cat feces may be related to the herpes virus cytomegalovirus or "who knows what other creepy, insidious, microscopic mutant ninja, DNA-altering alien invaders that take over not only the litter box but multiply exponentially and soon penetrate every living cell in the house…"
Wow.
It would be better, I suppose, to allow Ernie to leave his doo-doo throughout the house in a less regulated manner rather than allow it to pile up in the confined containment of a cat box, even the new automated kind that sweeps the doo doo into a compartment underneath the litter.
But all of that aside, the reason I do not let Ernie out of the house is not so much the danger to him as it is the danger to the wildlife community itself.
Always on the alert to break out of confinement, much like those who once occupied the Nazi POW camps or the Russian gulags, Ernie finally did escape the house one day by, I think, bribing or threatening our housekeeper who comes every weekend and is wary of Ernie, avoiding him when possible.
It is not from unfounded fear that she leaves Ernie alone. He bites. When crossed or upset, he can sink his teeth into a hand or toe, drawing blood and, now that I know the word, leaving one susceptible to introduction of cytomegalovirus into the bloodstream.
Our gentle, but cowardly, dog Sophie similarly fears him and also for good reason. We have a second cat in the house, a jet black kitten we call Colfax, after a character in a novel I wrote a few years ago, which I based on a street in North Hollywood. Like Ernie, Colfax is jet black but sweeter natured than his bad-tempered friend.
Ernie feels that if anything ever goes wrong in the house it's the dog's fault. If Colfax should let out a squeal, joyful or otherwise, or if our young grandson should shout help while playing with his toy cars, Ernie streaks into the room, leaps on the dog's back and digs in his claws. The dog runs yelping through the house with Ernie on her back, releasing his hold only when we force him to or until he feels that he has taught Sophie a lesson she'll never forget.
The day that Ernie escaped, I heard a squealing then a yelping in the distance. It was the kind of sound that coyotes make when they capture a cat, and the kind of noise a cat makes who is in the jaws of old Wily Coyote. But when Ernie came in, he had coyote fur hanging from his mouth, from which I created the following scenario:
Ernie heard the cat squeal, raced to his rescue, leaped on the coyote, freed the other cat and killed or chased off the coyote and, if he killed him, possibly ate him. And that's the point of my reply to Topanga Alice.
If allowed the freedom of outdoors, Ernie would scatter the raccoons, terrify the deer, leave the possums eternally playing dead, roust the bob cats, cause mountain lions to cower in fear and scare the skunks into spraying wildly throughout the neighborhood. Neither owls nor crows nor smaller, cuter birds would be safe from our wildly-leaping cat, and I can't guarantee the safety of park rangers, traveling salesmen or unsuspecting pit bulls. We don't call him Ernie the Enforcer for nothing.
He was a Sacramento street cat which our daughter Cindy rescued, but then, possibly becoming aware of his hostile nature, gave him to us, knowing that I am the alpha dog in the family and possibly even more hostile than the Enforcer. He bit me only once, as opposed to the many times he has chomped on the hands of visitors and of my dear wife Cinelli, who loses her normally tolerant attitude when Ernie bites down, forcing him to keep a low profile for days. He purrs to disarm the person about to be bitten, nuzzles in close and snap! go the jaws.
Ernie is beyond fear. The other day a rider came by on a horse and Ernie watched them intensely until the horse trotted out of sight. I'm glad Ernie was inside. Neither the horse nor the rider would have otherwise been safe. Trust me, Topanga Alice. You don't want Ernie the Enforcer running free.
