When I mentioned to one of my students that I liked cats, she recommended I check out this new Cat Cafe in Kannai, Yokohama called Cafe Miysis. So I made my way over there today to check it out. I’ve always been a cat person, since childhood, but the idea of a bunch of them swarming around me just didn’t work for me. I imagined that it, for one, would smell like god knows what in the place, and that, once the novelty wore off, I’d be this black guy, sipping cappuccino in a room full of finicky cats and flustered Japanese.

And that did not sound ideal.

But, I’m so glad I went because I got to meet Neko…

Cats are cool, but Neko won me over. MY kind of cat. Not needy in the slightest. Just kinda strolled by me, sniffed at my cappuccino, gave me the once over and went about his business like I’d left the building, or was never there. He was like a street cat feigning domesticity for food and shelter, while refusing to play their game, and act all cutesy for お客様 (customers).

Not Neko…uh-uh.

He was a Boss! Didn’t show anybody any love.

Think I heard him say “I” too. As in self-awareness!

“Did I pet you? No, right? Then don’t be effin’ petting me!” he snapped at me with a glance.

I don’t know about him, but for me, it was love at first snub!

The rest of the cats were your typical かわいい (cute) fare, executing antics YouTube empires were built upon.

But Neko was the one who brought it home for me, actually took me back to a childhood CATastrophe that permanently traumatized me. And as a result I haven’t gotten too attached to an animal since.

*****

I used to have this cat when I was 11 or so, went by the name of Napoleon.

I loved me some Napoleon.

My Moms, though, she was not a pet lover…she was more of a plant person. You know the type. Our apartment looked like a greenhouse. You needed a machete to get into the living room, pruning shears to look out the window. Loved her plants. Wasn’t fond of cats, though. And was even less fond of mice, which prompted the Napoleon acquisition (from a neighbor whose cat had crept out one day and came back fertilized. The little pussy had a big litter though, and my neighbor wasn’t about to feed 5 more feline mouths, when she had 3 human mouths to feed of her own).

So Mom acquired Napoleon mostly for mouse patrol. And he was an excellent mouse exterminator. Used to play with the things until they died and then he’d present them to you, or leave their headless carcasses in conspicuous places like the kitchen, the tiled floor smeared by blood trails, entrails in the pantry. He was also pretty nifty with cockroaches. Sometimes I’d be awaken by his scaling walls in hot pursuit of these critters, and he’d eat them, too. Sounded like Doritos. Napoleon was no joke.

Everyday, I’d race home from school to play with Napoleon, whenever he’d deign to play with me, which was rarely. He’d be in the window sometimes, or standing by the door meowing when I arrived. But only when he was hungry, which was often, because my mother had 6 human mouths to feed and money was always tight. So while Napoleon had a shiny coat, he often had an empty bowl, and so was skinny as one of the neighborhood dope fiends.

Mouse hunting wasn’t always for play with Napoleon. It was for survival. So most often he could be found in the kitchen, a sentry stationed in front of an area he knew mice tended to emerge from, focused and disciplined. Nothing besides the sound of something rustling behind the stove, or the sound of the vacuum of air escaping from a tin can of 9-Lives when the manual can opener pierces it, could break his concentration. No string, no yarn, no balls or even loud noises could draw him away from his post.

My mother didn’t know anything about training cats, and neither did I. We just got a little box, put some litter or cut up newspaper in it and figured he’d figure out what it was for. Sometimes he did. But sometimes… Once a cat finds another place to do his business, wherever that may be, and leaves his scent there, well, he’s bound to return to that spot. And Napoleon had found himself a spot in the living room. I’d catch him in the act and, mid-bowel movement or urination, rush him to his box so the scent would be there too. But then his scent would be all along a path from the living room to his box. I guess that got confusing for him. Started doing his business along this corridor I’d created. Then my mother treated these areas with some industrial strength ammonia, figuring if Napoleon came a-sniffing that ammonia would give him a rude awakening and he’d find another spot.

And it worked!

But Napoleon chose the wrong damn spot!

I came home from school one day and started kissing the air for Napoleon. After a minute or so I felt bubbles of anxiety in my stomach.

“Ma, where’s Napoleon?”

“Who?”

“The cat! Our cat, Napoleon!!” She didn’t even know the cat’s name. He was forever an “it” to her.

“Oh, that. Fucking cat shit in my plant.”

“Really? I’m Sorry,” I said, contritely, feeling responsible somehow. “Well, where is he?”

“Fuck you think?! I threw it out!”

“WHAT!!??”

“Did you hear me? It. Shit. In. My. Plants! My plants ain’t cat toilets. They’re living things! They–”

I ran out the house and scoured the neighborhood. No Napoleon. I did so everyday after school for about a week, no sign of him. Then after a spell, I gave in to hopelessness and cried piteously.

“I Hate You,” I’d mumble under my breath when my mother was in my vicinity.

“What you say, boy?!”

“Nothing…”

“I know you didn’t!” she’d say, but I knew she felt guilty. (She’d eventually get another cat, to shut me up, but it was never the same.)

One day a couple of weeks later, I was out front playing Chinese handball with my boy, when in the courtyard in front my building, I spied a cat. There were MANY stray cats in my neighborhood, so seeing one was nothing special. Hell, not seeing one was cause for alarm. But this one looked familiar. I called “timeout”.

Chinese Handball

“Why, what happened?” My boy asked.

“That’s my cat…I think?” I told him what my wicked moms had done.

“That’s fucked up!” he said, laughing. “Shit, my moms would have thrown me out if my dog shit anywhere in her house!”

I crept closer. It seemed he was watching me with equal curiosity. It had the same color pattern as Napoleon, all black, with a little puffs of white around the paws. The eyes though…or rather the eye! Napoleon had yellowish-green eyes, two of them. But this cat had been gotten the better of in at least one fight. Maybe several of them.

“Napoleon?” I whispered, kissing at him, and I saw his ears fluctuate and the head jerk in recognition. Street cats don’t do that shit. That kissing sound means “DUCK!! here comes a rock!” Every cat in my hood knew that!

This was my cat! But, oh my god, he looked almost mangy, with wounds in his matted coat that had barely healed, like he’d been mauled by some alley-dwelling beast. This was horrible! I almost started crying in front of my friend, which I would have never lived down.

I tried to inch closer but he hissed at me like a rabid mutt. He probably blamed me for his eviction, I surmised. He hated me for not protecting him from this awful outcome.

“Go over there…on the other side,” I snapped at my boy. “I want to trap him this way. Don’t let him–”

“Are you outta your mind?!” my friend hollered. “I ain’t going nowhere near that thing! And if you know what’s good for you, you wouldn’t, either.”

“C’mon man, please?!”

“What you gonna do? Take him home and patch him up? Man, can’t you see that’s a wild thing! If that was your cat, he ain’t your cat no more. That thing ain’t fit for apartment life. You best let him be!”

My friend was right. I could see it in Napoleon’s remaining eye, the madness. Whatever he’d survived over the past weeks in the street had siphoned all the domesticity out of him. He was wild now. A survivor, sure, but to survive he had to go native. Part of me was proud of him, that a house cat could make the transition to street cat mostly in one piece.

That is, the part of me that wasn’t heartbroken.

This boss cat, today, brought all that back…