Another Kind of Rescue

The other day I noticed that the small California house I'm renting looks almost exactly like hers, white with green trim. How could I not have picked up on this before? " I choose the rooms that I live in with care ," as the Leonard Cohen lyrics say. "The windows are small and the walls are bare." Maybe the similarity needed time to register consciously.

Care, of course, is what the half-wild black cat I befriended a few weeks ago needs. She keeps licking an open sore on her side, maybe an old fight injury. She won't leave it alone. I want to do something for her, but I don't know if I should go as far as medical attention, and I doubt Sore Side could be coaxed into my car. I've considered putting a collar on her, with a note. "Dear owner, if you exist: please take your cat to the vet. Please do so despite the likelihood she will get fitted with one of those humiliating plastic cones. She must quit licking her sores." But the note might annoy her owner, who'd lock the cat indoors. I might not see her again.

My lease doesn't allow pets. I could ask the landlord to reconsider, and offer him a bigger deposit. Money can make a lot of things right. Fuses, for example. "One day, if that penny melts, this house will burn down," my grandmother said.

Rather than alert the landlord, I could quietly keep Sore Side. I have moral grounds. She's been neglected; she needs a real home. One cat would be easier to hide than 35.

By now, we share a routine. When I get home, I stand in the street and jingle my keys. After a while, Sore Side detaches herself from the darkness and saunters to me. She squeaks a hoarse meow. Under my hand, her warm, dry fur crackles and sparks. We hurry inside.

The lure doesn't always work immediately. Sometimes I stand jingling my keys to no avail, like a Salvation Army Santa when everything is closed.