Sunny and Mojo

SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO, I was married, living in Old Towne, in a house built in 1903, which later became a brothel when the neighborhood declined, or so some old guy told me one day. But the brothel era was 45 years ago, and I’m talking 1990, not 1960. Things were on the upswing in Old Towne in 1990.

Kathie loved cats, and this one skittish brat would come by now and again, and Kathie’d be still and patient and wait, not me. God, that weasely cat was skittish. Tiny and skittish, and way weasely.

One day we heard an odd and disturbing sound from somewhere outside and I was told to investigate, so OK. The sound came from our neighbor’s house, friends of ours. (He wrote for the Times; she was a pretty southern belle who sang like an angel. Saw her sing at the Coach House once. Years later, she called me, I dropped the ball.)

They weren’t home. Their house was old, too. So I opened the Wizard of Oz doors to their basement and descended with my flashlight. I found two dead kittens and two live ones, yammering from hunger, I guess. So we took in these two kittens.

Naturally, the weasely little cat soon came around, cuz she was the mom, though she was barely old enough—so said the vet who was nice and looked like Clark Kent and gave us lots of advice and freebies.

So I told Kathie, “OK, we’ll take care of these brats, but we’ve already got three cats, and we sure as hell aren’t keeping these three new ones! Let’s nurse these babies for a month or two and then find homes for ‘em!” Yeah, right.

We called the weasely cat “Sunny.” Kathie and Sunny were like a team out there, taking care of these two little brats. I made a nice big cage for ‘em, but I didn’t get close, cuz they were movin’ on, and, well, I just didn’t get close.

A few months later, I managed to find a home for one of the little brats. I had a student, Ken, who lived with a woman named Laurie in Rancho Santa Margarita, and they said they’d take one, maybe. So we brought 'em over there and Ken and Laurie fell in love with both weasels, and thus it was that Violet and Mojo came to live in Rancho Santa Margarita, which, as it turns out, is a stone's throw from where I ended up living.

Naturally, we kept Sunny. D'oh!

Later, Kathie and I split and off I went to live in Trabuco Canyon, and I took Buster the Magnificent Cat with me, plus Sunny, who remained skittish and weasely in the extreme, but loveable too. Buster later died, but I don’t wanna talk about that. (A nice gay couple bought our house and painted it like, well, an old prostitute, and the Old Towne Society gave 'em a ticket or something.)

Ken went off to graduate school and had many adventures. Eventually, he and Laurie split, and she kept Violet and Mojo. She moved someplace else.

Shit happens, boy, and you can’t figure it. Last spring, Ken, the new Ph.D., got a tenure-track job teaching Philosophy for Cal State San Luis Obispo, and so I gave him a party out here in the canyon, and waddyaknow, Laurie shows up, and my best friend Jan is there, too, and he notices Laurie.

So, long story short, now Jan is dating Laurie, and Laurie takes a trip to Hawaii, so, naturally, Jan offers to take care of Mojo and Violet, but Violet is all skittish and peevish, like Sunny, and so Jan gets to know Mojo, not Violet. The two become pals.

Laurie returns from the Big Island and recognizes that, like Kathie, she has managed to collect a crew of incompatible beasts (she’s got a dog, too), and so she tells Jan, “Hey, boyfriend, do you wanna keep Mojo?” and he’s a knucklehead like me and he says, “yes.” But he likes Mojo, who is a great cat, so why not.

So, tomorrow, I’m visiting Jan for his goddam birthday, and I plan to grab that Mojo and give him a big hug. And when I give him this hug, I’m gonna say, “Hey, dude, I’m your Opa, did you know that?”

Later, I’ll be home and Sunny will run around like she does, and she’ll get on her back and roll around on the carpet, as happy as a lark. And I’ll say, “Sunny Girl, you little weasel, your big knucklehead son says, ‘hey.’”