Pondok life of man, mouse and fierce little lion
I am afraid of my adolescent cat. Why? Surely I am the adult, bearer of supreme humanoid culture?
Please. What a joke. Cats rule, and we are tolerated at their leisure. The little baron and I, billeted in an exposed 8 x 6 former workshop outhouse, are living in a surreal, liminal world.
From my childhood in middle class East London suburbia, my former white privilege has, through choice and fate, led me to this humble brick-and-zinc shack.
Through a window with no handles and bound with tat, I look upon the ruin of promise.
My old house, Avonleigh, was decapitated by a ferocious pre-frontal gale whipped into a fury by a pathetic, dissipating high pressure system in the interior. That Conquistador wind came storming down the escarpment, channelling and funnelling through the vales, and literally tipped off roofs like mine.
There was great consternation, and cuzz Den quickly found me a nicely renovated farmstead up the road.
But I balked. I had come so far here, the tomcat baron and I. I was getting settled, strong Wi-Fi is coming this week and I saw promise in the simplicity of a small, lock up-and-raaid! Karoo man flat.
Cuzz was devastated. Why not choose the more comfortable path? Why live in a pondok? Because it is an adventure. I have all I need.
It is untenable and temporary, but isn’t that the essence of Covid life?
Am I not embracing this reality? People I know are dying and I am a chronic asthmatic, which Covid loves.
Out here, in isolation, I am in my den. It is a space I am making my own, one fettle at a time.
But I have become obsessed. With my cat. We have had cats.
In my childhood, Peter the Siamese would sit on the piano which rocked as my mother played beautiful complex classics and 1950s swing in King Edwards Road, Cambridge. Decolonisation was not a thing then. Past midnight the kitty would run up and down the keys, plonking away.
This, exclaims the Western rock star of cats, the tattooed, bejewelled lovable LA hipster and flatout marketeer, Jackson Galaxy, is called the zoomies.
Now when my tom arrived he was just a handful of fear. It showed in his big eyes.
Weaned too early, he was cast into the world of this giant in an enormous, echoing Karoo castle.
From 26 YouTube clips, I have learnt from the hilarious, theatrical cat master Jackson, who has hundreds if not thousands of followers, the story of my cat.
I am living with a little lion. No jokes. The tent. It is not mine. It is his lair. I am merely tolerated, occasionally allowed to stroke his head only when he is purring.
You say it’s cute when he lies on top of the tent, jumps onto my neck if I am sitting writing at my table, or lies on my jutting shoulder when I am sleeping? No ways. This little feline is merely seizing the high ground, like on a koppie or up a tree. This little feline is surveying his territory, keeping an eye out for invaders or nosh.
Simple, humbling truths, though my family say he really loves me and that I am the centre of his universe.
My booi is an instinctive hunter, he needs to practise, practise, practise. Hands are irresistible. They twitch, twirl, and wave, and move like ... a mouse or bird. The lion in my kitty, the “raw cat” stirs and then, Houston, we have a lift off! The nice little kitty is biting me.
My cat’s raw energy is the red-hot part of the Circadian, natural rhythm of his day. He needs to hunt, kill, eat. And then he will groom, and sleep. At this point, I might get a cuddle.
The trick, says the cat daddy, is to take away his food — no free feeding — and play with him.
So there I was rough stitching bizarre toys from gold, pink and blue trimming — you know, women’s stuff — I found in my mom’s sewing box. Friday night out for a 60-year-old I thought, as the gusting wind grabbed hold of the zinc above me causing the beams and metal to crick and groan.
Then I grabbed a thin lat and tied a piece of tough black nylon to it and tossed it out on the green gym mat which serves as the carpet for my kitchen sink (with pipes that end under the cupboard).
It was like a spotted grunter smashing a sandprawn on the drift of an Eastern Cape estuary. He leapt at it, claws out, he ran it down, he stood on it claiming his prey. It was gruesome to the imagination but an extraordinary revelation for a dumb cat owner.
And this interactive play-hunting had to be done until he was moeg, and then out came the food. Three times a day! It sort-of worked.
I also created some rof cat walkways, a scratch pole, a high spot, anything to get him away from lacerating the lair, because with temperatures hitting minus four, I had drawn over the heavier waterproof flysheet. One sharp claw and that would be the start of the end of our toasty, insulated bubble.
For two days we did this dance, and it seemed to work, though in his excitement and irritation with me for giving up the game and slumping in the couch, he came in for the kill and again sank those pinsharp adolescent fangs into my forearm!
There was a bellow of “negative reinforcement” followed by a proprietorial cuff. Utterly lost on the cat.
Last night I was again done. I collapsed into my camp chair with a glass of the finest red plonk, and let the baron romp in the scrub against the kudu fence around the lucerne field a few metres from my door.
At the end of the gloaming I went inside. Just let him play outside. A few minutes later comes a bashing at the door, I open and in prances the little man with a really large mouse in his jaws.
He is so proud, and puffed up, and proceeds to bat it about on the very same green play mat! It is still half alive! I am traumatised and phone everyone. There is a collective “whatever, this is what they do”.
But I do not cope, especially when my fired up little predator makes a run for the tent with his kill in his jaws. I gently shoo him outside to finish off his “balanced diet”, according to the bike prof.
Now, as I write this at 3.30am, the little lion king is snuggled in deep near my feet. He is satiated. I have enjoyed a lot of purring and lovin’.
But I am left pondering how my peaceful night in the lair is founded on the gory sacrifice of a sweet little mouse. Life’s unfair.
I am living with a little lion. No jokes. The tent. It is not mine. It is his lair. I am merely tolerated, occasionally allowed to stroke his head only when he is purring