Eric has lived here for 25 years and is almost 80 years old. Kim has lived here for 13 years. Eric first lived downstairs and when he moved upstairs 2 years ago he discovered he had another room mate, the ghost of a woman. I don't know who she is. I never met her when I was living there and none of the other tenants ever mentioned her. Three people I know of have died in the upstairs flat, 2 men and one woman all of whom were elderly. Eric says the woman is an adult but not elderly. I think it might be my sister who died eight years ago coming back to the home where she grew up but who knows. Kim sees her also and at times is looking intently at someone or something. If you see Eric out walking he can tell you more about his ghost.
I asked Eric to tell Kim’s story and here it is.
The Old Lady of North Sixth Street
By Eric Coulson
I’m a fairly familiar figure to most of the residents of North Sixth Street. They have seen me coming and going from the big Victorian, for almost twenty-five years. However,there is another resident here who is, perhaps, less familiar. She used to be out and about most every day, but she has trouble with the stairs recently and seldom ventures out these days. Meet my house-mate, Kim!
Kim has lived here for most of her adult life. But that is only thirteen years, give or take. She first showed up in my backyard, along with several other strays, about early 1996. Ill–fed and a bit beaten up, a small section missing from her left ear and a nasty gouge down her nose, still, she was a pretty thing, with a double coat of short, thick gray fur interspersed with long, individual silver hairs, and a bright, white mask, bib and boots. In spite of her skinny, unkempt, rather forlorn look, a very attractive young feline.
Of course, I had to feed her. The other cats, a largely unattractive lot, bullied her off the food I placed outside, so I began to let her into the house to eat. She would take off as soon as the food was gone and that was fine with me. I didn’t want a house-mate or a pet, of any sort, and I certainly was not a ‘cat person’. I was retired by this time and didn’t need the hindrance to my travel plans that a house–mate would inevitably be. So, when she suddenly stopped appearing in my yard, I wondered and hoped nothing ill had befallen her, but was glad to be relieved of any long–term responsibility. Even more so when, a few weeks later, she made a brief re–appearance out back, wearing a new, bright blue, ‘owners’ collar and looking a lot cleaner and better–groomed. “Great,” I said to myself and the other cats that were still hanging around, “she‘s found a home.” They just sniffed disdainfully and I think I heard one of them say, “She was never one of us, anyway.”
Homeless and Pregnant
A few more weeks went by and then she appeared again, sans collar and obviously pregnant. She had, I presumed, been kicked out of her new home for being a naughty girl. Against my better judgment, I sighed and said “O.K. Come in” and off I went to the store for more Friskies, grooming tools, toys and assorted toiletries that go with a resident cat. It was at this point that I named her ‘Kim’. The cat at the farm where I spent a large part of my childhood was named Kim. She was a similar gray color, without the white bits, and was mostly an outdoor mouser, but came in at frequent intervals to have her kittens. It seemed appropriate and I have called her Kim, mostly, ever since. The cat, on her part, has always completely ignored the name and answers best to “Hey you.”
Who‘s in Charge Here!
Kim‘s status as a resident was still somewhat tenuous, in both her mind and mine, when in September, 1996, she found a nice, dark, snug place behind the shoes in my bedroom closet, and delivered her kittens. They were a pretty bunch for the most part, gray like their Mom but only two had her white markings and one was completely black and a runt. After a few days grace, I evicted the family from the closet and made a nice box-bed for them on the enclosed back porch. It was a nice enough place and one you would think a just–recent alley cat would be thankful for, but, apparently it was too close to actually being put out the door for Kim‘s peace of mind. That evening, I watched as, one by one, she carried her babies by the scruff of their necks, in through the kitchen, through the dining room and into a secluded corner of the living room. I had resolved to keep the bedrooms and living room as free as possible of the bushels of fur that I discovered my new guest deposited every day, so I picked the kittens up, marched them back to their bed on the rear porch and returned to my television program. A few minutes later I took my eyes off the television screen and watched as Kim, one by one, carried them all back again. O.K. So I did my thing. Five times we went through this Laurel and Hardy–like routine. Finally, I said, “Alright, if you feel that strongly about it.” A couple or so weeks later, when the kittens were a little bigger and stronger, without objection, she allowed me to put them out on the porch. I was learning.
I couldn‘t keep them, of course. I put a cheap ad in the Mercury. A condition of the ad is that you will charge five dollars for each kitten. It‘s a great idea. It helps to sort out those to whom having a cat is a momentary whim and will soon tire of it and turn it out on the street. More important, it cuts out the vivisection labs that will take all the animals they can get but won’t pay a nickel for them.
A Sad Day for a Mother
In the meantime, I was concerned about the lack of development of that little black runt. I took all of the kittens to the vet so that he could see the difference in the siblings. He confirmed that it was just a runt and was, in fact, in quite good health. However, no–one wanted to pay five bucks for him. My son wanted a kitten and had first choice of the litter. He sportingly took the runt. While I was at the vet‘s office, I heard that his assistant had just lost her cat, so I gave her a choice. She took the prettiest, the one with identical markings to her mother. The others all went quite quickly, mostly to mothers with little girls, and I was left with that heart–breaking sound of a grieving cat calling her lost babies. After the kittens were all gone, there was that next trip to the vet to ensure that neither of us would have to go through the ordeal again. Curious thing about cats, whenever I‘ve had to take her to the vet for shots, check–ups etc., she always knows before I even get the travel box out.
It would be nice to record that Kim settled down and became a nice friendly house cat but that didn‘t happen. I think that during her short sojourn at that other home, they gave her a bath in the kitchen sink. Whatever the reason, she remains very fearful of the sink and of running water. For many years she was afraid of anyone that came in the house, including me. Only recently has she reached the stage where she will come up on my lap of her own volition, but only if I have the plaid car rug over my legs. I originally put it there to keep her fur off my clothes, but now it has become, for Kim, an indispensable part of the process. She is pretty chummy with Jackie, my landlady, but that was brought about by circumstances that could have been rather traumatic for her.
Home Alone
In 2004 I was informed I would have to move out while some major construction work was done. I did not have to move until work was actually about to start, which proved to be October, 2005. I moved into a tiny studio apartment across town for the three months the work was supposed to take. That was fairly traumatic for me after my spacious Victorian quarters.
I could not take Kim with me into the apartment, so I left her, along with all my furniture and belongings, at North Sixth Street. She had her food and water dispensers and a cat-door, I went in almost every day and my landlady was there every day, keeping an eye on the construction crew. Very little of the construction work involved my apartment and Kim seemed to endure it fairly well. Of great help in that respect was that Jackie spent time with Kim almost every day, grooming her, playing with her, she loved chasing paper balls, and, importantly, just cuddling her. By the time I moved back into Sixth Street, the three months had turned into eighteen and my cat had changed her lifestyle.
All through the first nine years of her residency, Kim had remained very much an outdoor cat. She came and went through the cat–door at her pleasure. Occasionally, she would be away a couple of nights, just to let me worry that she had been run–over or whatever. She would hardly ever condescend to sit on my lap and if I picked her up, would suffer me to hold her only very briefly. During the eighteen months of construction she had remained indoors almost the entire time, fearful of using the cat-door because of the workmen and their din. We have been back in Sixth Street for almost two years now and she remains pretty much an indoor cat. Dry Friskies were always her main food but I made the mistake of giving her Temptation Treats. She was very stand-offish when I moved back in and I was just trying to win her favor. They are supposed to be just that, a treat. Kim now regards them as her primary source of sustenance and stubbornly refuses to eat dry Friskies.
Growing Old Together
I suspect that her reluctance to go outside stems from her difficulty with the stairs, there are twenty-eight of them from the ground. She has to take a running start and gets about three-quarters of the way up and then limps her way up the rest of them. When she first arrived there was already a hint of a limp that seemed to be located in her hind hip. Over the years it has become a little worse although, all things considered, she is in fair shape for her age. Exactly what that age is will remain a mystery. Since she had her kittens in 1996, I would guess she must be at least thirteen. Are cat years the same as dog years?
I too have felt the pull of the years since my house–mate came into my life. The stairs are a bit of a problem for me, too. As I said, I never wanted a cat but then, I think of her more as a companion. I talk to her a lot and she listens attentively and occasionally favors me with a reply. Other than in reference to food, when she adopts a definite demanding tone, I have no idea what she is saying. She acts as if she understands me, but I think she’s bluffing most of the time.
If she gets up the energy to go out and you see her on the street, address her as “Kim”. She’ll probably ignore you, but she will know you are just being neighborly to a long-time resident.