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, no doubt, would get to be annoying in no time flat!

But, then there was Neko…

Cats are cool, but this one won me over. MY kind of cat. Not needy in the slightest. Just kinda strolled by, sniffed at cappuccino, gave me the once over and went about his business like I’d left the building, or was never there. Like a street cat locked into domesticity, refusing to play their game, act all cute for “the man”. 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!”

For me, it was love at first snub!

The rest of the cats were your typical かわいい fare…

Most were sleeping, some dodging the kids and chasing toys around and what not. Very charming and relaxing joint…

But is was the Boss that brought it home for me…actually took me back to a childhood CATastrophe, when I was traumatized. And I haven’t gotten too attached to animals ever since.

*****

I used to have this cat when I was 12 or so, went by the name of Napoleon.

I loved me some Napoleon.

My Moms, though, she was not a cat 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 adoption (from a neighbor whose cat had gotten out one day and came back knocked up and had a litter, and she wasn’t trying to feed 5 more tiny mouths, when she had 3 human mouths to feed of her own).

So Mom obtained Napoleon mostly for mouse patrol. And he was an excellent mouse procurer. 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 sometimes. He was also pretty nifty with cockroaches. Sometimes I’d be awaken by his scaling walls in hot pursuit of the doomed insects, and he’d eat them, too. Sounded like potato chips or 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, cuz my mother had 6 human mouths to feed. Money was always tight. So while Napoleon had a shiny coat, he was skinny as one of the neighborhood dope fiends.

Mouse hunting wasn’t always for play with Napoleon. It was for dinner. So most often he could be found in the kitchen, sitting in front of an area he knew mice tended to emerge from, focused! 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 decompresses 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 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. I guess that got confusing for him. Started doing his business in both places. Then my mother treated the area in the living room with some industrial strength ammonia, figuring if Napoleon came a-sniffing around there, that ammonia would give him a rude awakening and he’d find another spot.

And it worked!

But Napoleon chose the wrong ass 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!!”

“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 me 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. Shit, not seeing one was cause for alarm. But this one looked familiar. I called for “time”.

Chinese Handball

“What?” 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 dissected the fucker if it shit in her plants!”

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 white near 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 street 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. The kissing sound means “DUCK!! here’s comes a rock!” Every cat in my hood knew that!

Goddamnit, 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 cat-like beast. This was horrible. I almost started crying in front of my friend, which I would have never lived down.

I tried to come near but he hissed at me like a rabid mutt.

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

“You outta yo fucking mind?!” my friend screamed. “I ain’t going nowhere near that thing. And if you wanna keep your eyes and shit you best not 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 cat! If that was your cat he ain’t your cat no more. That thing ain’t fit for no apartment living. You best let him go!”

My friend was right. I could see it in Napoleon’s remaining eye. 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…