By Tom Poland, A Southern Writer
TomPoland.net
Summer 2022, St. Simons Island, I’m sitting around the pool when my niece, Harper, and her friend, Stella, ask me to tell them a story. I had seen a photo of a tuxedo cat smoking four cigarettes at a time. I make up a story about Karl, a cat with bad habits. “Girls, do the opposite of what Karl does and you’ll be fine.”
September 2024, I’m on my deck when a tuxedo waif strays into my back yard and begins eating a corn cob, not corn, a cob I’d thrown out. “That looks like Karl, the Kool-Smoking, Chain-Smoking Kat.” I brought out a bowl of spaghetti meat sauce. The cat ran away. Soon, the little waif returned and began eating. This ritual, eat and run, continued for weeks. Thus began a love story.
I began to leave food closer to the deck where I sat. One afternoon I grilled a salmon filet for Karl, as I called the kitty. I sat it on the steps. Karl ate, eyeing me all the while. I stood and Karl ran beneath the deck.
It’s mid-October. A chill’s in the air. It grew cold and I moved the food within a few feet of my swing.
Early November, I set out half a pork chop. In the midst of eating Karl stops and rubs against my legs. Karl, I see, is a girl. Soon she’d sit on the swing with me. Some nights she slept on it beneath an old sweater.
Mid-November, the first bitter cold night. I leave the deck’s sliding glass door cracked open. Karl walks into my kitchen, looks around, and leaves. Does she have a home? No, she’s in too bad a shape.
Early December, the weather is cold night after night. I go out most evenings to escape my home office. I cut a strip of decking board to length and prop my deck door open. She can come in if she wants. Finally, she comes in and stays the night. By now I am hopelessly attached to her. I get up at 3 am to see if she’s inside or on the deck. Nowhere to be seen. I call her. Nothing. I can’t get back to sleep.
Christmas approaches. By now she is healthier and her fur is glossy. Her eyes show no fear. They’re bright and clear.
A December afternoon. Karl approaches the deck. I photograph her and I swear she smiles. That does it. I buy a carrier and get her spayed, vaccinated, and chipped, $937, a Christmas gift to myself. Her official name? Karl, the Kool-Smoking, Chain-Smoking Kat. The vets love her name. Everyone does. I call her Kit Kat. We play chase, hide and seek, and she is my buddy. I’ll do anything for her.
Had a tabby wandered up that September afternoon I doubt I’d have fed it. I like to think my story about ne’er-do-well Karl saved Kit Kat from starvation, coyotes, traffic, something.
A year ago this week I had triple bypass surgery. It’s been a long road to recovery, harder than friends and family realize. After folks left me to myself, life didn’t seem that good anymore, but someone depended on me for everything. Kit Kat. When I look at photos of her when she was in such bad shape I feel like crying.
Today, we’re inseparable. She sits in my lap when I write. Plays chase and hide-and-seek with me, and loves nothing more than seeing me return from a trip. We talk, as hard as that might be to believe. The cat that ran and hid when I fed her cries when I leave now.
The girls have forgotten Karl the Kool-Smoking, Chain-Smoking Kat, as they should, being teens with their life in front of them. I won’t. I can’t. Kit Kat makes each day a joy. It began with a corn cob and ended with a home. I don’t have to say another word. The photos say it all.
