Requiem for a Curmudgeon

Guernsey and Kiwi 2005 by Melanie Nerenberg


Guernsey never seemed to like me much. Wait. I have been told I start
speaking my thoughts in the middle and leave people wondering. Guernsey
is a cat- as evidenced by the photo above. He resides somewhere just
outside of Detroit with my friend Kiwi. Or he did until recently. This
story is going to sort of zigzag past and present like "Memento" Go with
it.

I met Guernsey in June of 2005 on my very first trip to Michigan. Being
from the East Coast I have always referred to everything from here to
California as "somewhere in the middle". And aside from some really cool
people (Hi Ann, Hi Cindy- Waves!!) it was pretty much all middle. It
didn't get very hot or cold while I was there, the grass never seemed to
be excessively tall, the sky was blue, but not too blue and aside from
some extremely large malls and the Starbucks seeming a bit thicker on
the ground there (this may be a bias based on my coffee addiction- my
feeling being that there are only 2 answers to "Would you like coffee?"
Those would be "Yes." and "Yes, please." In NYC it would be "Yes, NOW."
but I try and behave when visiting other states.) The middleness was
kind of soothing. Until I got to Kiwi's house. And I met Guernsey.

People like me- parents LOVE me. I get along with small children, even
when they are sticky and total strangers seem to walk away from a "first
encounter of the me kind" with at least a fairly good impression-
if they are able to keep up with the speed at which I speak. Guernsey did
not like me. Or so it seemed. From day one. Guernsey sat about a foot
from the door as I entered, I immediately discarded my suitcase and
dropped to the carpet and into "make friends with the pet" mode. I said
"Hiiii" and stretched a hand out in greeting. Guernsey stared right
through me to a spot on the wall. "He's old." I thought. "He doesn't see
me." He stood slowly and walked past my hand, so close that his white fur
ALMOST touched me, his cool gimlet eyes never turned in my direction as he
slithered along the side of Kiwi's leg. I made noises proven to be
irresistible to cats. Nothing. I reached my hand out again as he completed his
circuit of Kiwi's legs and sauntered back into the apartment. More nothing. He never
gave me a glance. I was stunned.


Throughout my visit Guernsey ignored me with the frostiness I had previously
only associated with Park Avenue matrons who had perfected aloofness
through generations of breeding. You could have kept ice cream solid in
the space between us- it was that cold. In my subsequent visits to
Michigan Guernsey and I never got beyond a barely tolerant co-existence. He was
never unfriendly and only once truly reached out to me. He hit me in the
head with his paw as I lay sleeping one morning- it seems, as Kiwi
explained, I was in his spot. The cat had a lead paw- he woke me from a
sound sleep- I thought I'd been slapped.

Guernsey had no front claws. It did not stop him. He lived outdoors. Climbed
trees and defended himself against the local cats, never sustaining any
serious injury to himself, all without the natural protection usually
allotted to cats with claws. The neighborhood felines learned very
quickly, Guernsey was not to be trifled with. He protected his home,
brought home the obligatory dead bird or partial rodent and lived his
life by his very own set of specifications.

Do not be misled- this was not a case of a cat that did not like people. I have always believed there are two kinds of cats- slobs, and snobs. A slob cat will lay all over you, never leave your side, or anyone else's, and sleep cuddled up
against you all night long. A snob cat is ever-distant, to everyone, and
deems it a personal favor to you when he allows you to feed him the $2
tiny tin of fancy food which is ALL he will eat, and then proceed to throw it up on the duvet that just came back from the dry cleaner. Guernsey was a
third kind of cat. A kind I had never encountered before. He was all
Kiwi's.

If Kiwi sat on a chair- Guernsey sat on Kiwi. If Kiwi sat on the couch
Guernsey lay across the couch next to him lengthwise so no one else could
even get close to Kiwi. At night, in bed, the pillow next to Kiwi's head
was for Guernsey- and if that pillow was occupied by anyone else, the
hours normally reserved for sleep were filled with a low... there's other word for it... grumbling emanating from the closet where Guernsey spent the night in a deep abiding sulk, the pitch of his complaints rising and falling as the night wore on. In the morning if the pillow usurper managed by some miracle to get any sleep at all, they woke to the slap of that lead paw. Personally, I learned to sleep with my head under the pillow blocking the sound and protecting my face, in which case Guernsey would bite my hand. He could be delayed, but never denied.

As I watched Kiwi and Guernsey together an understanding developed. Kiwi is not the sort to talk about a single life after living so long married, with children. I am certain that, though happy in his independence, Kiwi was used to company. But in his new life he was never alone. Guernsey shared the space. The house was never truly
empty and Kiwi always had an ear, and company to watch TV with and a
warm rumbling purr from the pillow by his head to lull him to sleep. The
term constant companion is not precisely true. The company of humans
requires, even in the most comfortable, relaxed and intimate of
relationships, some work. You have to talk, explain yourself, consider
the needs and expectations of the other. Guernsey needed none of that.
Kiwi was all he needed.

As will happen in human friendships; Kiwi and I, him in the middle and me on
the eastern edge, fell out of contact. There was an occasional e-mail
but we were both living our lives. Every now and then, I would
e-mail and ask, not about Kiwi but about Guernsey- I knew that by
asking about Guernsey, I would know how Kiwi was as well. I received this
e-mail in reply one day:

"guernsey has gone deaf... he gets startled by sudden things, but I
think it's the vibrations in the floor that he feels.. he's also lost
the boing in his spring - he sometimes misses when he tries to jump up
on my lap while I'm working on the laptop - and he sleeps more than he's
up these days, too... I've taken to giving him wet cat food every day
to keep some meat on his bones; when I run my hand down his back I can
feel every bony vertebrae under his smooth coat...

but when he's sleeping on my lap with his head laying heavily on my arm,
his paw draped unceremoniously over my hand and his long, lean body
stretched across my thighs, warming them better than any electric
blanket ever could... or when I'm scratching his favorite spot under his
chin and he stretches his neck and face sooooo far out that we touch
noses, and he gently bites the very tip of my nose... or when he's
sleeping next to me - right by my pillow - and I feel a sandpaper kiss
on the side of my face...

that is the sound of one hand clapping... that is talking without
speaking..."

I guess all of it was to be expected at this point in the life of a 14 year old cat. My much beloved Mayo had been euthanized after a long illness at 12 years old and I felt my heart tear as the breath left his body. I struggled as to how to help Kiwi- as if I could- to deal with what I thought would come. Of course there was nothing I could do except - well- send a book. I actually mailed it to Guernsey- it was called "A Dance for Emilia" by Peter S. Beagle. A little tiny cat- sized book about an elderly cat who becomes possessed by the spirit of his owner's best friend. In many ways, many ways, it was appropriate. You should read it if you can. It was something I could do. I hoped Guernsey would read it to Kiwi- or maybe the other way around. If Kiwi could locate his specs.

A couple of months went by with no acknowledgement from Guernsey. I
sent an e-mail message to Kiwi- "Did Guernsey like his book?" I asked. I received this reply:

Guernsey went walkabout a week ago Saturday around midnight... I
was upstairs and came down to find a screen in a back window pushed open
and Half-Pint (Kiwi's demon baby cat, Shady) perched on the ledge,
half-in and half-out. I searched the house and Guerns was nowhere to be
found. I suppose he felt the need to re-connect with the outside world;
whatever his motivation, I knew he was gone. It aches a little less
each day.

I was...well, sad doesn't cover it. Kiwi is my evil twin, truly we share
a brain, and are occasionally both half wits as a result- but I read three
paragraphs into every single word he wrote and could feel the echoes of empty space
left by his long time friend. My heart ached. Walkabout for those
unaware is defined by the Australians as A temporary return to
traditional Aboriginal life, taken especially between periods of work or
residence in white society and usually involving a period of travel
through the bush. And by the British as A public stroll taken by an important person, such as a monarch, among a group of people for greeting and conversation. For Guernsey I imagine it was a bit of both.

I continued to share the feeling of loss and wondered if Kiwi was missing the opportunity he might have had sit with his friend in his last days. As I ruminated, I became overwhelmed by the immenseness of Guernsey's last act. It was a breathtaking expression of true love and compassion- to walk away and spare your loved one the pain of your slow and painful departure. And it is the rarest form of love that knows, really knows, that in your leaving, your beloved will not feel any diminishment of feeling- no sense of abandonment or anger. Two beings who know each other on that level leave nothing left unsaid. The strength and certainty to do this is not an act you would normally attribute to a garden-variety house cat. This was no ordinary cat.

In truth Guernsey was a curmudgeon. Even Kiwi will admit that- with much love and affection. But in thinking about writing this entry I happened across something written by Jon Winokur for "Small Winery" magazine. It beautifully expressed, beyond the common "grouchy old man" definition, how true a curmudgeon Guernsey was, in the best possible sense. And why in meeting him and hearing of his grace and elegance in his departure, I was compelled to write this entry.

A curmudgeon's reputation for malevolence is undeserved. They're
neither warped nor evil at heart. They don't hate mankind, just
mankind's absurdities. They're just as sensitive and soft-hearted as the
next guy, but they hide their vulnerability beneath a crust of
misanthropy. They ease the pain by turning hurt into humor. .... They
attack maudlinism because it devalues genuine sentiment. ... Nature,
having failed to equip them with a serviceable denial mechanism, has
endowed them with astute perception and sly wit.

Curmudgeons are mockers and debunkers. .... They can't compromise their
standards and can't manage the suspension of disbelief necessary for
feigned cheerfulness. Their awareness is a curse.

Perhaps curmudgeons have gotten a bad rap in the same way that the
messenger is blamed for the message. They have the temerity to comment
on the human condition without apology. They not only refuse to applaud
mediocrity, they howl it down with morose glee. Their versions of the
truth unsettles us, and we hold it against them, even though they soften
it with humor.

This is for Kiwi. And for anyone who ever lost a best friend lacking in opposable thumbs. For Mayo... and especially- for wherever he walks now, though the writing of this would change him not one iota, for Guernsey.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

:) X

And a ps... from Kiwi


Guernsey was Wendy's idea, really. She saw him in a pet store window with three other kittens and he saw her and she melted down and... sold. It's ironic that he never really liked her very much. And he never really warmed up to the kids, either. Tolerated them, I suppose. Guernsey was all about Guernsey. He was this tiny little ball of white and black fluff with huge eyes and ears and a scrawny little tail, and in his mind he was bigger than life. Bigger than anything on the block. Certainly bigger than the chipmunks and moles and mice and other little beasties that lived in the yard, and bigger and badder than the other two (at the time) cats living in the house as well. I'm quite sure that they dismissed him as "all talk", but Guerns made it his mission in life to keep the yard safe for catocracy. The consumate patrol cat. Semper fi. Heaven have mercy on the poor creature that crossed his territorial lines; if he couldn't kill it, he'd damn well make sure it got the fear of catgod instilled within its very being. Not that he was physically intimidating: he was the smallest of the cats. The thinnest, too; you could have played his spine like a xylophone. However, he could do the puffer-fish-trick and make every hair on his diminuitive frame stand out - Looney Tunes-style - and when he got the snarl and hiss going you'd almost believe he was the real thing. Which is why it's funny that he took to me; I could see through his charade. I knew he was just a pussycat at heart, even when he got older, and I knew he was all about the show. I enjoyed it. I encouraged it. I used to watch him come to the back door with a decapitated mouse corpse in his teeth and I'd praise him and call him "the great white hunter" and make a big fuss over him and all... I think he liked it. And later, when I would be working at my computer or watching television, he'd crawl up into my lap, stretch his face up towards mine to nip me on my nose, start up his motor and then snuggle down to snooze with an attitude of pure contentment. The consummate housecat. I played into his little fantasy and I guess he played into mine: that everything was good and life was what it was supposed to appear to be.

2B1FL, bud. Always, Brooklyn.