The Cat May Recover Yet

We thought the cat was constipated, but the cat was not constipated. I don’t know what the cat thought, other than that I could help him.

It is hard to say what the cat knows. He is aware of his name – “Kanki!” – but not that it came from “Hank,” which came from “Henry.”

I tell the cat that I came from Henry, too, a good man named Henry. There is no need for the cat to know that another man stripped that name for parts. I gave that man my last name, and he affixed “Henry” to the cat. The time came to repossess my father’s name. I go into the other room to talk about this, so the cat does not know what became of the man who was not good.

The cat knows his name is Kanki, and he exults in the existence of hours. If he is unconcerned with minor characters like the man with the wrong name, it is part of his larger project of unconcern. He is prince of the mindful, cloaked in a caftan of mindless. The cat finds lint, and he shrieks, strident until I stop to share the miracle. The cat pauses between bites to look in my eyes. Do I understand the magnitude of food? Kanki gallops because he knows it is earth’s first dawn. The cat has never seen a repeat of anything.

He has not been formally baptized, but the cat struts the curb of the holy. He was God’s art project, to use up leftover yarn and stuffing from ten completed cats. His eyes are three times larger than necessary. The application of fringe was overzealous, leaving him with a ruff that is half-lion, half tenured professor. A white ribbon of ice cream melts down his nose, ending sweet on his tongue. His whiskers are crimped into half-moons, extending his smile beyond itself. Born in a hoarding situation, to a species with no incest taboo, he is undersized. He is unconcerned because he knows he is enormous. He rolls onto his back to show the balcony squirrels his secrets.

Kanki lived two years before his first concern. His John Wayne walk stopped short, and he arched his back like a Halloween decoration. The cat’s default astonishment met anguish as he turned to me: “oh!”

Cats speak in “meows” both liturgical and vernacular, but Kanki has only ever said “oh!” He says the word as he presses his forehead against mine. He extends it to three syllables when he cannot find me in our 700-foot condo. He recited poetry the first time he saw snow, “oh, oh, oh, oh,” turning to me in ecstasy.

This was an “oh!” unto itself. “OH!” The cat’s body contracted. The cat was unfamiliar with pain, but he knew I would help. He had watched me turn pale and quavery and then pink again, with only a sugar discus in between. He did not know that it was a glucose tablet, or that I have Type 1 diabetes. He knew that I knew how to return to okay. He widened his eyes at the sight of my insulin pump, a boxy beeping animal with endless demands. He had seen concern, and he had seen it pass. 

The vet agreed that the cat seemed constipated, but he was empty except for air. “It’s gas.”

“He has always had an overabundance of the breath of God,” I acknowledged. The vet twitched her eyelids. Kanki confirmed my report with several “ohs,” blinking at the vet as though she were a seraph. 

“We can treat that with a high-fiber diet.” The vet assured us. “Do you think he’ll eat it?”

“I know he will.” 

The cat greeted the new kibble like manna. “Oh!” It was magisterial. The cat’s convictions were confirmed. He began a victory lap across the linoleum, only to stop short. “OH.”

The cat did not have gas, and the cat began to lose weight. When you are God’s art project, decorated with tassels left over from four cats, you look lavish even when thin. When you are Kankipanks, equipped with an “oh” beyond knowing, you inscribe infinity signs around your person’s ankles, even when you are tired. The cat still knew when my blood sugar was high, pressing cold melted ice cream into tears I did not mention to my mother. But the cat was dying.

“If the cat goes into cardiac arrest, do you want us to perform CPR? Check yes or no.”

The emergency vet had to ask this question, even though they knew everything from the size of my eyes. The emergency vet took the cat away, and my blood glucose dropped eighty points in ten minutes.  

I knew the cat was afraid, but not in the way of cats. Fear is most citric when unfamiliar. Kanki lived under the auspices of the silver lining. God had closed the final seam before the angels could insert standard-issue apprehension. The cat was created without the panic button stitched into everything else that came off the ark. I knew the cat was afraid, but not concerned. 

“This is a different sort of cat.” The emergency vet, a Dr. Klag in a fatherly vest, knew more than he learned at the Montreal College of Veterinary Medicine. Dr. Klag offered me a fist bump. It took several seconds to remember that I had hands and fingers.

“I don’t know for sure that Kanki is a cat.” I should have said this at the front desk.

“I would concur with that.”

The cat had wrapped his capellini arms around Dr. Klag on the walk to the radiology room. The cat had stood at his full height on the table, surveying the room with “ohs.” The cat had hugged Dr. Klag “tighter than my teenagers will these days.” Dr. Klag wanted me to laugh but knew I wouldn’t. He fist-bumped me again.

“We thought Kankipanks had inflammatory bowel disease.” Dr. Klag sat on a round stool that started to spin against his wishes. 

I had spent two nights fantasizing about inflammatory bowel disease. I offered God my best trading cards. I know that is not how God works. I said I did not ever need to see Paris. I did not need a cure for Type 1 diabetes. I did not need to find a man different from the man with the wrong name. I did not need to remember my name. I just needed the cat to have inflammatory bowel disease. 

Kanki could become what they call a “Special Needs Cat,” like me. I would toast his prednisolone with my insulin. We would always feel a little off, but we would be okay. We would say “oh” at every opportunity. I promised to say “oh” more frequently.

“We thought Kanki had inflammatory bowel disease, but Kanki does not have inflammatory bowel disease. Kanki has FIP.”

In the alphabet soup of feline disease, you will find IBD and CRF and HCM. You will get confused between FIV and FeLV. But your spoon will clatter to the floor at the sound of these three letters. FIP is not a noodle you can chew. FIP is anthrax garnish. 

Feline Infectious Peritonitis is coronavirus in hell. It strikes a sliver of cats. They suffer until you mercifully “let them go.” It is the paperboy turned into a werewolf. It is death with an axe to grind. It is incurable and incompatible with everything my cat believed.

“I wanted him to have Special Needs for life.” I stared into Dr. Klag’s algae-green vest, since I had no interest in eyes. “I was ready for twenty years of pills and diarrhea and a good sense of humor.”

“Twenty Years of Diarrhea would be a good name for a band.”

I contemplated reporting Dr. Klag to some board of ethics and possibly also Interpol for making jokes at such a time.

“Angela, what if I told you that this is good news?”

I had to look into his eyes to see if I could actually discern the presence of demons. Would they be flying like bats, high fiving around his pupils?

“Angela, FIP can be cured.”

“Oh?” I was out of words. I was out of glucose tablets. 

“We have COVID to thank.” Dr. Klag spun unintentionally, then fist bumped me for no apparent reason. “They researched the stuffing out of all kinds of coronavirus. They found that there are treatments that can cure these cats. They’ve saved thousands of them in the last three years.”

I spun even though my chair had no wheels. “Why doesn’t anyone know about this?”

“It’s not FDA approved.” Dr. Klag groaned. “I can’t prescribe it, but I can put you in touch with the secret people who can get it into your hands.”

“Secret people.”

“Pretty much.”

“And it will cure him. Completely.” The human brain is not capable of moving this quickly from despair to victory.

“Almost certainly.”

“And he will be okay.”

Dr. Klag fist-bumped me. “As much as any of us are. But, yes. No ongoing symptoms.”

“So, I’ll be the only Special Needs Cat in our condo.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He didn’t need to know. “Thank God for secret people.”

“Indeed.”

I told Kanki about the secret people. I told him he was going to get four pills for eighty-four days, and I would wrap them in provolone. I told him I had rescinded my offer of giving up on a cure for Type 1 diabetes. I told him that we’d survived the man with the wrong name, so FIP would be a piece of crabcake. I told him there are always secret people. I told him we should never ask for too little. It is hard to say what the cat knows.

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