Mojo: Chapter Two: Brethren

My worker bee picked me up early in the morning and brought me down to the spca adoption center with the hopes of picking out a pet....

"You wont be taking one home today, today is just to look, to shop..."

As if picking a friend could be that easy, just go in and shop around for a while, get a FEEL for them. 

My heart twisted in knots as I stepped through the door, animals all of them, caged and wild eyed with anxiety or docile with jaded acceptance.  Every one of them desperately needing a home, some one to take them into there arms and love them and care for them. 

I don't know why I put myself through this... Going into animal shelters and pet stores and even going as far as to peruse the pet section of craigslist.  Kills me EVERY TIME.

Towards the back there sat a squat cage on a small platform, and inside where four young cats, all of them solid black.  Most of them came up to the cage walls and peered out, but far in the back one simply rested, the runt of the little with a small paper tag like a hospital bracelet reading "Mopsy".  As I approached her side of the cage she lifted her eyes to mine and what I saw melted me to the core.  Mopsy was not only the runt, but one of a litter of kittens that had come under horrible abuse.  She had gotten the worse of it, patches of hair had had to be shaved off around her under arms, her ears with thick with black gunk from ear-mites, and her left eye shone solid white with cataract.

"From an injury" the young female staff member said, and wouldn't tell me any more. 

When I extended my fingers to the cage she rubbed the side of her face lovingly against them and looked out at me, squinting and staring with that one good eye.  She had seen the wars, been through the ringer, been through hell and back, took a licken and kept on ticken.  Mopsy was world weary at the tender age of two, young even for a cat.  But something in the way she looked at me prompted me to ask that she be removed from her cage and brought to a small adjacent room for me to socialize with her. 

As she was lifted from her cage, she did not protest, simply went limp and allowed herself to be carried, though her eyes told a different story.  The good eye bloomed wide with terror and distrust of the woman who now held her and carried her along.  Her claws gripped her shirt as if expecting any moment to be tossed at the nearest wall. 

One in the room Mopsy was placed on the floor and saw me enter.  She starred up and me with that single eye and again her lids drifted into a mellow and relaxed squint.  A moment latter she rolled onto her back exposing her belly to me.  I got down on my haunches and stroked the fur there.  It was soft, like the inside of expensive slippers.  She purred with reckless abandon and again rubbed her face along my wrist and hand, marking me with her scent.  I decided right then and there that Mopsy would be my kitty, that the following day I would return for her, to take her home and into my humble home, and far more humble life...

Mojo: Chapter One: The Fuzz Factor

I would tell people that I always wanted a black cat named Mojo.  In retrospect, I have no idea why.  There just seemed some charm in the concept, in the name and the very idea.  In my previous apartment I was not allowed to have pets, and through various circumstances I had ended up in the basement apartment on King Street, which did.  Also: In this new environment, I was completely alone... 

So used to rooming with my brother was I, that waking up to an empty apartment seemed pointless.  I would sleep as long as I could and spent my waking hours either waiting for the phone to ring or sitting idle at my computer.  In the time between, however, I had made a friend.  Gabriel Richard was his name, a thirty something man that intermediately lived with his mother or in cramped section eight apartments and was strickened with nigh crippling obsessive compulsive disorder, had a love for queen and other classic rock bands bordering on obsession, and was blessed with a genuine attitude of kindness towards others that was refreshing in comparison to the bleak jaded voice of those who I had befriended in my past. 

When things went south with Ben, Gabe was there to pick up the pieces.  He helped me clean out the old apartment, separating me and Ben's belongings the way one would for a divorced couple.  Then came the task of finding a place to stay.  I had been terrified by the prospect of ending up in some sort of group home, and was gladdened when I found the spacious basement apartment on King Street.  The eccentric landlord, an elderly man named Dallas Wayne Crickenburger, was one part WWII vet, one part geriatric cowboy, add a dash of dementia, mix well, serve warm and friendly. 

It wasn't until after I had moved in that I realized the distance I had placed between myself and anyone who could offer me company.  Gabe was my only friend at the time, as there was some distance between me and my long-time friend/ex-girlfiend Rebecca, but he lived clear across town in Belmont and had to ride several buses just to bridge the gap between us.  He tried to be there for me, but nine out of ten days I sat alone in silence, silently begging for company that I was too afraid to seek out. 

So there I was, keeping tract of time by the passing of Tuesdays and Thursdays that marked the bi-weekly appointment with my social worker, at the time a friendly former punk rocker-turned mental health professional named Senna Magill.  It was she that reminded me of one of the major benefits to moving into that place, so far from removed any source of social interaction: Pets.

"You have to implement something I call the Fuzz Factor."  She told me in an official manner, with eyes barely concealing there loosely hidden mirth.

I took the bait.

"What is 'The Fuzz Factor'?"  I Replied, "I'm dying to hear this one."

She looked at me for a moment and her good humor finally broke loose and she cracked a wise-ass smile.

"I'm glad you asked!"  Was her sarcastic reply, "The 'Fuzz Factor' is a human beings innate love for all things fuzzy and cute used to combat mental illness or depression, kinda like a service animal for a blind person, only more fuzzy and with less responsibilities save for just being there and being loved upon."   

It clicked in my head like the hammer of a gun, ready to fire and finally accomplish SOMETHING towards feeling better, something about being less of a mopey bastard and more of a whole human being.  The Fuzz Factor, it made sense in the simplest of ways, I had always shown affection towards animals, especially cats, and I was now in a unique position to both own and provide for one.  I had the new apartment, the restrictions on my finances were being loosened and readied for me to handle my own money, and I desperately needed both the company and the affection. 

AND I already had a named picked out...

I would call this little ball of fuzz that I would take in, care for, and ultimately befriend MOJO.

And the stories we would live through would be GRAND indeed...