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By Randolfe Wicker
I decided at that point in my life that I "hated" cats because they were killers. It was horrible to watch a cat 'play' and torture even a baby bird before killing and eating it. Life is ugly, isn't it? Well, one day my 'adopted' gay son, Willie, brought home a kitten he'd picked up on the street. I had a "family cat" whether I wanted one or not. I soon discovered it was a "Maine Coon" feline, supposedly getting its name from being "mistaken for a Raccoon by someone in Maine." Willie moved to Baltimore. I was left with "this cat" which we had named "Karma". I was stuck with owning a "cat" even though I "hated cats". I'd long ago discovered that people were divided into two distinct camps, "dog people" and "cat people." I was definitely a "dog person" and held those who favored cats almost in disdain. They preferred cats because they lacked the emotional stamina and depth the demands a "real relationship" with a "real pet" (a dog) required. Well, life is a process of learning and gaining wisdom. One night, in the late 1980s, I came home terribly depressed. Karma cat hopped up into my lap, happy to see me, and purred a joyous welcome. At least this little living ball of fur was happy to see me. I felt my spirit commence to rise.
Took her in to the Vet. $300 worth of tests later we learned that she had "acute diabetes". The X-Rays of her chest showed 'murky areas'. The tumor was possibly cancerous and might have already spread through her system. However, before anything else, Karma Cat's diabetes had to be brought under control. That would require giving her two insulin shots a day (before feedings). After that we could try removing the tumor with $500 worth of surgery. "But there is no guarantee it won't just come back." The woman Vet counseled. "And if nothing was done and nature was allowed to take its course?" Karma Cat would continue using piles of clothes or other convenient locations for her overly frequent peeing (caused by the diabetes), would become increasingly lethargic, and probably die of kidney failure within a couple months, the Vet counseled. "Two shots of insulin a day?" I answered. "It's nothing," she assured me, you just pinch the skin on the back of the neck and do it there."
I could bring Karma over. She would show me how to do it. The expense involved with the insulin wasn't very much. I seriously reconsidered. I called the Hoboken Animal Hospital again to talk to the woman Vet again. She wasn't available. "How do cats react to these shots?" I asked the receptionist. "Do they resist?" "Oh, yes," he volunteered, "they struggle like crazy, make a lot of noise, bite and scratch and everything." Karma was 13 or 14 years old. I started hearing endless horror stories from friends and customers who'd spent thousands of dollars and seen their pets die agonizing deaths especially when cancer was involved. An aunt of mine had suffered from breast and uterine cancer for several years. During her final stay in the hospital, the doctor had told the family she "was lucky because her kidneys had failed and 'death from kidney failure' was 'far less painful than death from cancer.'" "My cat had cancer internally," one visitor at my Greenwich Village Art Deco lighting shop explained. "He couldn't swallow because of the tumors in his throat. When he did, he just threw it up because the tumors in his stomach and intestine made him feel full. "You're lucky that your cat's tumor is not yet internal." Oh, the joys of caring for sick animals. I decided to let nature take its course, spoil and pamper her and when she seemed to have lost her gusto for life or seemed to be suffering, end it all. So much for those Vets! Well, after making a decision like that, you just go home and wait for the "ball to drop."
Her appetite seemed ravenous. Three months had passed. My bedroom, at least a six-foot area around the foot of the bed had become a garbage bag bottomed pile of newspapers that simply had to removed dripping with cat urine. If I had to live in a "kitty litter box" for the decision I'd made, it was fit punishment for "being cheap" or a terrible injustice for "being sensibly compassionate." This morning, the tumor on her chest was raw and had begun to bleed. My 14 year-old dog eagerly licked up this possibly-cancer-contaminated blood. As much as I'd come to love and be attached to Karma Cat, my feelings for her were dwarfed by my attachment to my dog. I guess I am still more a "dog person" by far. My dog, the last real living thing that treats me as the 'focus' of her life, simply defies description. I would rather die than see her die. And that is NOT an overstatement! Many people have said to me: "Dogs are better than people!" I have, reluctantly, come to realize that they are quite right in that assessment. But, back to Karma cat. That damn cat! How did I ever get stuck with her? What would the horror be like putting her to sleep? Those Vets are money-sucking vultures. They dodge the "real" issues and tell you "it is your decision" whether to "proceed with treatment or not." With an open bleeding tumor and another small one on the tummy, with the lungs sounding like they were being invaded, the "decision" to "treat or not treat" was "up to you"! Do these Vets, like regular human doctors, have a "pathological fear" of death? Well, I decided this little old cat, this animal who had actually become a part of my life, this little loving creature who had become in recent weeks so devoted and affectionate towards me, should not have the "torture of death from cancer" that we so "lovingly bestow upon humans." She fought like crazy against being put into the carrying case to be taken to the hospital. You wonder if she knew Dr. Kavorkian was awaiting her. Actually, her resistance to getting into the case made me all the more certain that chasing her around to give her a needle twice a day would be a living 'nightmare' for both of us. "Oh, it's just like the 'snap of a finger'," my old friend Jack, who'd put his own cat to sleep, assured me. "Just, be there and pet her and let her know you are there. They DO know!" Sylvia Rivera assured me. "From what you tell me," the secretary at the Hoboken Animal Hospital had counseled," Be prepared to bring her here and to go home without her." I knew the time had come. It was just very hard to make the "right" decision and to go through with it. The Hoboken Animal Hospital waiting room had three or four other happy animal owners. One had a giant, carefully coiffured male Poodle who was obviously the joy of her life. Karma Cat eagerly looked out of the three open sides of the case, watching curiously at everything that was going on. I looked in at her through the crossed bars of the carrying case. I thought of Karla Fay Tucker sitting on death row in Texas hoping for a reprieve. I felt like a heartless Governor George Bush, pen in hand, signing an arbitrary death warrant. We waited and waited. Finally, we were directed to a small room with a metal examining table on one side and a sink on the other with only one small blue antiseptic vinyl chair for sitting. Inside the room, we opened the case on the metal examining table. Karma Cat would come out, arch up her back while being petted and then retreat to the safety of the case. We must have been there for over half an hour. It seemed like eternity. I felt like I'd been left sitting on "death row" but someone had stopped the clock. Finally, the big brusque male Vet arrived with an assistant. They read the charts. They examined Karma Cat, finding a second tumor further down her tummy and after holding a stethoscope on her side announced that she seemed to have some "bronchial complications in the lung nearest the tumor. The Vet's first name was Ali. He had all the warmth and compassion of a Dr. Mengele. What was so disgusting was that he "refrained" from suggesting the obvious, that this cat should simply be put to sleep. "This is a decision for you to make," he declared, no doubt licking his lips at the idea of $500 surgeries, on top of other $500 surgeries, and endless prescription costs. I felt that this was just "a business" to him. He didn't care about this cat or whether it would suffer or not. He just wanted as much as he could milk me for! I resolved to tar this 'less-than-human' Vet with all the ignominy he deserved. "The other Vet told me that even if the tumor was removed, it would probably come back," I mentioned to the assistant after Dr. Ali "Mengele" had momentarily left the room. I was having doubts. You really don't want to "do it." "That's usually the case," the assistant replied, "especially with mammary tumors like this one." Tears were streaming down my cheek but slowly my vision commenced to clear. I had to/was doing the right thing. Well, what was it really like? Not so "painless" as some would want you to believe. They hold her down on the table with paw extended so they "can find the vein". The needle comes out, they swab with (I guess) a painkiller. Still, she "meows" in pain for a few seconds as they stick the needle in.
"She's still alive!" a friend who had accompanied me screamed out emotionally. "Just electrical impulses," Dr. Ali "Mengele" announces matter-of-factly. Still, you wonder. Her eyes are still open, the same eyes that looked at you with pleading affection just a few hours ago as you got out of the shower. Some small part of you has died. Just like your lover, your friend, and your mother. You realize that death is not sudden. It comes in parts. You die one section at a time. Each time a loved one, a pet, a close relative dies, part of you dies too. You look at those non-seeing eyes, eyes that looked at you asking for returned love. You feel like you are a murderer even though "intellectually" you know (hope) you've made the right choice. "You made the right decision," the young man repeated reassuringly as he wrote up the bill for $110 at the reception desk. You are happy to have found a human being offering emotional support. "You're better than the Doctor," I reply and he smiles. You leave the Hoboken Animal Hospital just wishing such "last acts of love-a-la-Kevorkian" will be available to us should we need or want them. We should be so lucky. Dear Karma Cat, forgive me, and may you rest in peace. I will never be completely whole again. You God Damn Fucking Cat!!! Randolfe Wicker is a distinguished pioneer of the gay liberation movement (1958). Immediately following his March 1997 interview on human cloning in GayToday, he founded the world's first pro-human cloning activist organization, Clone Rights United Front, located in Manhattan. 
© 1997-2000 BEI |
Karma Cat 
Maine Coon International magazine shows the popularity of this breed of feline 
Randolfe Wicker 
Then, she slumps down. Her little red tongue sticks out further than you've ever seen it before. Slowly, it is withdrawn in her mouth. A long minute or two later, her killer puts the stethoscope on her chest and tells you there is no longer a heartbeat. But then Karma Cat gasps once and then gasps again.