Haylea is going to freak – I’m sure of that. Whether it will be a good or a bad freak remains to be seen, but I can for sure expect a reaction.
I’m a city person – always have been. I was 13 the first time I saw a goat on a field trip to a farm with my Life Science class, and I remember staring into those mean-slitted devil eyes for a long minute before he reared up and made like he wanted to kill me with his weird, two-toed feet. At first we sort of communed, is what I’m saying, but he offered nothing but bad vibes that I swore I could taste at the end when the farmer let us sample fudge made from his milk.
I truly believe I was poisoned that day by goat malice, and the effects have never waned.
This thing’s different, though. I saw it by the road, just lying there shocked and staring, its eyes all pupil, its breathing ragged and fast. I think someone hit the thing and just left it, and I can’t see doing something like that. I also can’t see leaving it there dazed, once you know it’s a thing that’s suffering in the world and you might be able to help it.
The thing let me scoop it onto a pizza box I had in the car, and it just lay there on the grease stains, arms and legs splayed, its little tongue showing as it panted. I told it everything was going to be OK – I’d take care of it – and I stopped at the Qwik-In to buy it a couple cans of food. I got dogfood and cat food and tuna and some beans because I’m no zoologist; not knowing what it was, I didn’t know what it might eat.
Maybe Haylea will know, if it’s information she’s willing to share. Anyway, the thing was gone, I thought, when I got back in the car, but then I heard it panting and found it curled around itself on the back floorboard. So at least it wasn’t paralyzed or whatever. It had got itself fucked up, but maybe not permanently.
The thing’s long if it’s a cat, and it’s low on its little legs, and it’s kind of sleek and snaky – when it sleeps, it curls itself up into something like an ice cream swirl – but it’s got coarse fur that lies flat, meaning you can only pet it in one direction.
That’s how we ended up here, with him on my kitchen floor in a laundry basket that I put a beach towel on top. I don’t hear it breathing anymore. I mean, I can clearly see it’s not dead, the way it’s staring out at me – not goatlike with hate, but more with a what’s-next attitude.
Haylea has been saying my place needs a cat. She makes it seem like that’s why she won’t move in – no cat. The thing seems both better and worse than a cat, and in some ways exactly the same as one. It’s got cute, alert eyes that I guess you’d call beady.
I suddenly remember my phone has a visual search function that I don’t use much, and I realize that might solve the cat-dog conundrum. But what it tells me is I’ve found myself a stone marten, native to Europe, but with a small feral population in Wisconsin, nowhere near here. They’re about 20 inches long, check, sometimes with a peach-colored nose, check, and move by creeping, which I could believe, with a more angular head than the pine marten, which I don’t know what the hell that is, either. It’s got coarse hair, I’m seeing, and a white throat patch. There’s nothing not stone-martenish here that I see, aside from Indianapolis not being Europe or Wisconsin, but I’m not convinced.
It likes the beans. Stone martens, also called beech martens, are opportunistic eaters, I’m seeing, but they’re also fast as hell and “known for being secretive, acrobatic hunters,” which I won’t mention to Haylea when she finally shows up. It’s been three days, but I figure she’s about to bounce through the door, tell me she didn’t mean those things she said and she only scratched my face by accident.
I know Haylea could be nicer. One time she threw a plate full of food right at my head like a discus when I told her I didn’t like broccoli. It was a mean thing to say but not mean enough that I deserved a dent between my eyes that bruised and made me look like I was wearing purple glasses, followed by brownish-yellow ones. Joel from work said I ought to leave her. Love doesn’t involve flying kitchenware, is what he said, and it doesn’t leave bruises.
There’s a chance Haylea would love this thing. It’s also kind of beautiful, and it’s being pretty sweet, though the internet says they’ve been known to take down ocelots.
This other article says as a symbol, a marten invites us to embrace our hidden depths and explore our intuition. “It reminds us that true strength lies not in brute force, but in the ability to adapt and outmaneuver and find creative solutions to life’s challenges.” It can be a powerful ally in times of transition and uncertainty as we strive to find our own path, it says.
On the other hand, it might just be a very skinny cat. I text Haylea for maybe the hundredth time since she left to ask her please to come over because I need her opinion on something.
She’s in for quite a surprise.
