He
was the least of the litter I got in March of 1997, a tiny black Bombay kitten
with two energetic brothers and two new “sisters.” They were all given to us as barn
cats to help control the mice we’d be facing as we prepared to uproot ourselves
and move to a forgotten corner of Northwest Kansas. And Bingo? Well, he was the
most forgettable of the Five.
The
oldest was March—so named for his birth month, a proud-looking Tiger cat with
beautiful striped fur and a commanding personality. He was my favorite among
the guys. He had a younger brother, the youngest of the litter, named Goatee—for a
tuft of white fur on his chin. Now, Goatee was not all there in the head. In
fact, if ever there was a cat you could legitimately call retarded, it was him.
But he was very friendly and loved to be close to people and his role model,
March, whom he followed about everywhere (like pesky younger brothers often
do). But March didn’t seem to mind, at least from what I could see. Those two
were always together.
Finally there was Bingo—so named for a single white
mark on his neck and another on his belly amidst his otherwise black body. He was
the forgettable middle of the guys (although they were all born on the same day), and the
most unremarkable. He was just sort of there, in the background, largely
unnoticed.
Then
there were the two girls: Scamper and Karla, two beautiful calicos from another
litter we got at the same time. They were all kittens when they came together,
so they grew up as siblings, and we simply thought of them as the Five.
Well
the move went smoothly, and we ended up in Clough, No-man’s land, Valley at the
beginning of summer after my 11th birthday. The Five took to their
new lives faster than we did, and it wasn’t long before they were depositing
mouse heads on the step like Aztec sacrifices. And when they weren’t hunting,
they were exploring. Out away from town like we were they could roam free, up
and down trees, through tall grass, wherever they wanted. Our closest neighbors
were two miles away, and the Five were born to live free.
Of course they loved it when we would allow them to
come inside the house. But because they were outdoor cats, and my parents didn’t
want them getting any ideas otherwise,
Well
as the year rolled on I developed a routine to try to keep things fair. In the
morning, even before breakfast, I would step outside and call to them:
Scamper-Karla-Goatee-Bingo-MARCH!!! And out they would come, boiling from the
holes in the garage like ants on fire. They knew what my call meant: first one
to the door got to come inside. And as the days became shorter and the nights
colder they wanted it more than ever.
It
was then that Bingo developed a strategy of waiting by the door before I even
came out in the morning. I would open the door and there he would be, yammering
for my attention. Well it worked for him a few times, and boy was he ever happy
to be allowed in. His purr was so loud it shook the walls, well maybe not
literally, but you could definitely hear it clear at the other end of the
house. He had the loudest purr of any cat I’d ever heard in my life, and I’ve
heard a lot of cats over the years. Maybe it was because he got overlooked so
much, but he was definitely appreciative of the times he got to come inside
with us.
Each
of the cats by then had begun to develop personality quirks. March was growing
into an elegant cat and very much in control of his movement. Goatee was the
humorous, lovable retard who couldn’t quite figure out how to groom himself
right. Bingo was loud and liked to eat popcorn. Scamper was sweet and loved to
cuddle. And Karla was the only cat I’ve ever known who liked to eat raisins.
She would swipe them from my desk while I was doing homework and even beg for
them when I was going for a snack. All in all, they were a wonderful bunch of
cats, and 1997 was a better year because of them.
But
good things have a tendency to come to an end before you’re ready. And that
winter the cats began to disappear. Karla was the first to go. I have no idea
to this day what happened to her. I went outside one snowy morning and she just
wasn’t with the others. She might have gotten lost in the snow, or she might
have been taken by coyotes in the night. But we never did find her. And now the
Five became four.
A
few weeks later March and Goatee disappeared together. Goatee I could
understand, he followed his brother everywhere, so if March was gone his goofy
brother would be gone too. But I never did find either of them. I’ve always
hoped that if they died that night, that it wasn’t to coyotes. Being eaten
would be a terrible way to go. But whatever happened, now there were only two.
Scamper and Bingo were alone of the original litters, and I prayed that they
wouldn’t be lost too.
But
by Spring Scamper had followed the rest and vanished in the night after one
last snow storm. Bingo alone was now left: the sole survivor.
Perhaps
it was his uncanny tendency to hang out by the door and not wander far like the
others. Perhaps it was that desperate yearning to be noticed that kept him
close to home and safe. But whatever the reason, the one cat I took for granted
and overlooked became the one survivor who would accompany for most of the next
two decades.
Later in the summer of 1998 we moved to Junction City,
Kansas for my dad to begin another military ministry. Bingo came along and
transitioned into an indoor cat. We had him fixed, got him some immunization
shots, and declawed his front paws. You should never declaw a cat’s back feet,
by the way, because they walk on their toes and declawing those back feet can
nearly cripple them.
At
any rate, Bingo adjusted well to the inside life. And even without his front
claws he effectively tormented the bird, Cinnamon, and a friend’s dog named
Yoda. Bingo became very protective of his new indoors life and made sure any
other animals knew that this was his house. The sad part of that was he never
did make friends with other animals after the other four were lost. He spent
the rest of his life alone as a pet.
But
don’t let that get you down too much. He was very friendly with people, when he
wanted to be, and he had a wonderful life with us. He has been my cat through
many long years, and I wouldn’t trade him now for any other.
He was my cat when I got my first girlfriend in ’99.
He was my cat when I hit puberty in 2000 and we moved to Kansas City, MO. He
was my cat when I started high school. He was my cat when I decided to go for
my pilot’s license and fly airplanes. I got that in 2003 at the age of 17. He
was 6. He was my cat when I graduated high school with honors in 2004 and
enrolled in college at Calvary in the Fall. Lucky for me my dad was a professor
there at the time so I got to live at home. Now that was a weird experience. It
was like I was a part of the college life, but not. I remained just a little
outside, never quite a full part of the experience. In many ways Bingo and I
were a lot alike. He remained a loner among animals despite being friendly
toward people. He would often sleep next to me as I was doing homework
assignments, or sometimes he would try to grab the pen from my hand while I
wrote. Or he would jump on the keyboard while I typed. Always demanding my
attention when he wanted it, that was Bingo.
Somewhere
in that period he decided he liked earwax too. I don’t remember how he
discovered that, but he would get excited whenever he saw me scratching the
side of my head. Crazy beast!
Also
during that time we discovered that Bingo seemed to have forgotten being an
outdoor cat. I guess that’s understandable, it had been about 8 years by then
since he made the transition. But one day he got out of the house into the
backyard and then sort of panicked. He lay in the grass, eyes wide, and wouldn’t
move because the outdoors was such a big scary place now. Eventually we got him
back inside and he was fine. But that incident told us one thing, he never
would be an outdoor cat again.
In
March of 2007 Bingo had his 10th birthday. I was 20 (for another
couple months) and had now had him for half my life. I’d never had a pet for
that long before. My mom had had the bird Cinnamon for longer, but that was her
pet, not mine. My Dalmation Patch, yes named for the movie Dalmation, I’d had
for about 2 years. And I’d had other cats over the years as well, but none had
been with me now as long as Bingo.
Well, in late July of 2007, right after I got home
from a summer trip to Israel, my parents told me they were moving to Iowa. My
dad had taken a job as the pastor of a small church, and so I would finally be
moving into the dorm for my last year at college. Bingo, however, would be
going to Iowa with my parents since I couldn’t have him in the dorm. So in
August I said farewell to the three members of my family: my dad, my mom, and
my cat. And our paths diverged.
In May
of 2008 I graduated, debt free, and moved into an apartment of my own in a
suburb of Kansas City. I took Bingo back from my parents, and he became my
roommate. I’m not sure what the authorities would have thought of me rooming
with an 11-year-old, but he was like a brother to me by then, so I didn’t care.
Nor did it matter that he couldn’t get a job and pay his share of the rent.
Well
I spent the year working, playing, sleeping, and fighting an annoying
infestation of cockroaches. Bingo helped me entertain visitors, whenever I had
any, and life went on.
Then
in mid 2009 I lost my job and decided it was as good a time as any to move to
Iowa and see what my parents had been up to. This I did in August, finding a
lovely apartment on Main Street in Columbus Junction. The only problem was:
they didn’t allow pets. So Bingo moved back in with my parents who lived across
town. Interestingly enough, he didn’t seem to mind the car ride very much. He
stood right up in the passenger seat and watched the scenery go by with
interest!
Well
2009 turned into 10 and then 11 and 12. The years seemed to be flying by faster
now that I was an adult and out of school. I worked Monday through Friday up in
Iowa City, but my parents were close by, and I got to see them and Bingo
regularly. It was during this time that my dad began to really warm up to the cat.
He’d never been much of a cat person, always preferring dogs and making dead
cat jokes whenever he could. But something happened during that time period to
bring him around. Maybe it was Bingo mellowing out as he got older, maybe it
was his growing desire for affection (which had always been strong since he was
a kitten), or maybe it was just the fact that Bingo had been my cat for so long
that even now that I’d left home it was like a part of me was still around.
Whatever it was, the heart of that hardened cat-hater grew a bit softer toward
this particular beast.
My
dad even taught Bingo to do some tricks like sitting and shaking hands for a
treat. So to people who say you can’t teach a cat tricks, I have evidence
otherwise. My dad also enjoyed going cat-fishing. He would take his fly rod,
put a feather on the string, and cast it about the living room. Bingo would go
nuts chasing it around, and it was always good entertainment. Then when they
were done they’d often rest on the couch together. Bingo seemed to think he
made a good pillow, and if my childhood memory is any good, he was right.
But
as the years continued their unrelenting progress it became evident that Bingo
was growing old. He turned 17 in March of 2014, and we celebrated a long life
together. By now I could barely remember back to a time before I had him. He’d
gone through so much with us, lived in 8 different houses, traveled thousands
of miles cross-country from Kansas to Iowa and various points in between. But
now he was slowing down.
He took to drinking a lot and sleeping in weird places like the tub or
the bathroom sink. He didn’t even mind getting wet, which he’d always hated
before.
Then
one morning in July, we had a moment where we thought we’d almost lost him. I
arrived at my parent’s place early one morning to be greeted by my mom with
tears in her eyes. “Come say goodbye to Bingo,” she said.
“Why?
What happened?” I asked, hurrying inside. He was lying on the kitchen floor in
my dad’s arms, his eyes red and blood dripping from his mouth. He seemed barely
awake like he didn’t even know where he was or what was happening.
We
called the vet, who was out on an appointment but arranged to see Bingo that
afternoon. As it turned out, he had only lost a tooth, and it became infected,
which is what had caused the lethargic behavior and the bleeding. The vet
pumped him full of antibiotics and we took him home. He would live to see
another day.
But
he is not getting any younger. And I know now more than ever that my time with
him is limited. I hope to God for several more good years with my long-time
companion, but in the mean time, I write this, my memoirs of Bingo: the
once overlooked beast who stayed with me...
Postlogue Update:
Saturday,
11 October 2014, Columbus Day. Bingo has been getting worse all week. He is not
eating and is losing strength. He can barely walk and staggers when he does. I
took him to the vet and found out that he is going through kidney failure. At
the age of 17 ½ he is about the equivalent of an 85 year old human. The vet
estimated he wouldn’t last more than another week, so with a heavy heart I
agreed to let him be put down. It would end his suffering and let him rest in
peace.
My
friend Kevin arrived and helped me take him up to my parent’s old home and bury
him on the hill behind the garden. It felt really weird, laying him in the
ground. He looks so peaceful, curled up as if asleep, the most peaceful he’s
looked in a long time. I thank God for the time I’ve had with him and for
friends who care.
Goodbye
Bingo, my Binkster. Rest in peace.
He was down to 7 ½ pounds at
the end, from not eating. If I had one wish, it was that I could have heard him
purr one last time…
