It all started with a banana.

No, wait.  That’s not quite right.

It all started with Paris.

I’ve always wanted to write a story that started with Paris.  The Louvre.  The Seine.  Notre Dame.  Paree.

Ok.  Let me just clarify that I’m not in Paris.  My friend Myra is.  For Christmas.  And today is the first day that I’m going to check on her cat, Boots.  Boots Pierre.  I don’t know if he is aware of his full moniker.  Right now his only interest is in cat treats.

So I hang with Boots for a while.  Do the usual cat chores.  And as I’m on my way out the door, I notice a banana in Myra’s kitchen.  It is already spotty with brown over-ripeness, and I know in ten days time, Myra will come home to a smelly pile of mush with fruit flies.  I grab the banana and head to the alley behind the apartment building.

It is freezing.  It is two days before Christmas.  It has rained all night, and now the rain is turning to small droplets of sleet.  It’s about 20-something degrees with a wind that slices right down to the bone.  I’m just going to toss the banana into the dumpster and run back to my truck before I freeze to death.

And then it happened.  One of those life-altering events that you don’t realize is a life-altering event at the time, but later, you will look back on as a life-altering event.

A kitten trots across the sidewalk in front of me.  A wet, muddy, little kitten.
I hate this.  I hate sights like this.  It will haunt me for days, and I’ll be depressed and mad at the world for how it treats animals.  Nothing good can come from this.

I throw away the banana.

The kitten is watching me from underneath a parked car.  I bend down to see if I can reach him (or her), but it panics and disappears up into the engine.  Now I feel guilty because I chased it up into a car engine, and it could get killed.  I call it and call it.  I search all under the car, trying to see if I can catch a glimpse of it, but it’s one of those low-to-the-ground Camero-types, and I can’t get low enough with all the mud and rocks.  Damn sports cars.

After about 20 minutes I come up with the idea of coaxing the kitten out with food.  I go back into Myra’s apartment.  Boots looks at me like, “What are you doing back already?”  His look intensifies when I grab a handful of his food and head for the door.  I throw him some cat treats.  Now he doesn’t seem to care.

I’m calling the kitten, stepping cautiously, hoping not to alarm him.  Then I see him.  He is in a corner, up against the building.  He has made a bed out of a pile of leaves.  My heart is broken.  I have got to get this cat now.  It can’t spend the night in sub-freezing temperatures in a pile of leaves.

But now there’s a new problem.  The kitten sees me.  Now he (or she) takes off running.  Down one alley and across to another.  I drop the food and take off after it.  There are huge panes of broken glass everywhere.  Rotting wood, rusted nails.  I’m afraid the kitten will get hurt.  It’s cleverly dodged behind boxes and old doors, just out of reach.  Then my brain kicks in at an inopportune time.

You know when you do something stupid and look back on it afterwards, it’s much better than doing something stupid and realizing it while you’re doing something stupid?  It dawns on me that I’m standing in a dead-end alley in the ghetto.  I’m surrounded by debris, all of which could hide any number of assailants, bums, drug addicts, and persons of ill repute.

Kitty, kitty, kitty?

Thankfully, the kitten runs out of the alley and back to the apartment building.  Actually, it’s kind of sauntering back, mocking me in my failure.  It slips back under a car.  I pick up all the food and place it next to the car and back away.  The kitten comes out, nibbles a little, I take a few steps closer, it runs back under the car.  We do this dance for about an hour.  I can’t feel my thighs anymore.  I go back into the apartment to warm up.  Boots just looks at me.  I throw him some treats.

I’m back outside again, this time armed with a small box, as if I’m going to scoop up the kitten like so much butterfly netting.  The sports car is gone.  One less obstacle.  But the kitten is now under the second car.  It, too, is too low to crawl under.  Damn foreign compacts.

It becomes achingly clear that this is just not going to work.  What I need is a trap.  I can put it out and check on it in the morning.  It will be cold tonight, but I’ll have him (or her) for sure tomorrow.

I call a vet.  No, they don’t have cat traps.  I call the animal shelter.  They won’t have any until after the holidays.  Luckily, a farm and ranch store has some.  For fifty bucks.  So much for last minute Christmas presents.  Well, that’s my plan then.

I leave the apartment and make one more pass by the back of the building.  Both cars are gone now, and the kitten is sitting at the end of the driveway.  He sees me.  I take a few cautious steps toward him (or her).  He bolts.  But this time, without the cars for a hiding place, he heads to the closest spot: a hole in the side of the building.

I run over to him and EUREKA!!!  He’s stuck!!!  The hole is only a few missing bricks; he can’t go in any farther.  I reach in and wrap my hand around his little belly.  And he wraps his teeth around my little thumb.  I scream, he screams, we all scream for ice cream.  But I wrestle him into the box.  At last!  I finally make my way home.  Cold, wet, bleeding, but triumphant.

The kitten is not a happy camper the first night, but I have him in a large cage in the guest bedroom where I lay on the floor and sing "Feliz Navidad" to him.  It's the only thing I can think of to sing.  By the second night, he starts purring.  Perhaps he likes Jose Feliciano.  By the third night -- Christmas night -- he is reaching through the cage to be petted.  That or he is begging me to stop singing.  On day four we get a clean bill of health from the vet.  And we find out he’s a HE.  And I need to come up with a name.  My mother suggested “Tramp,” but I’ve always detested pet names.  Spot, Fluffy, Buster.  I turn over names in my head.  I glance at the sign-in sheet at the vet’s office.  Nothing very good there, except “Charlie.”  That’s a possibility.  Then later, when we get home, it hits me: Charlie and Tramp.  Charlie Chaplin, the little tramp.  Poor and alone, living on his wits, saved by love.  It’s perfect.  It fits.

So Feliz Navidad, Charlie.  And a Happy New Year.