We wondered how the cats would weather the trip down and how they would adjust to the semi-tropics.
Seven
Though it was certainly not long ago, shipping pets by Railway Express was a far more plausible venture in the late forties and first half of the fifties than it is today. The cost of shipping two big cats in a big plywood crate with wire windows at either end was not exorbitant. You would cover the box floor with tom paper, fasten their water dishes and food dishes solidly into the corners, tack a sack of canned food with can opener to the outside, and glue simple feeding instructions to the outside. Railway Express would fasten a card to the crate upon which employees en route would write the day and time they were fed and watered, and sign their names.
The cats would ride from Utica to Florida and back in an average two and a half days and arrive in a state so mildly traumatic that a couple of hours would see them back to normal.
But each year the rates went up, and each year the train schedules worsened, and each year the men along the way seemed to give less of a damn about a pair of damn cats, and they arrived in increasingly worse condition until, finally, it became impossible.
So this, too, relates to the myth of our ever increasing standard of living. We live in a culture where service is increasingly slovenly, surly, and reluctant, where schedules mean less and less, where every species of life including the human animal is held in less esteem each year, where all the glossy gadgetry disintegrates at an ever increasing rate, where mediocrity in all things has become a goal — with all excellence suspect.
There is nothing mysterious, of course, about this accelerated decline. My sixth-grade geography teacher told us that the individual life was cheap and cruelly used in China because of the terrible population density of four hundred millions of them. Today we approach half that number in less than half the space, so that the mass insularity of the anthill is the inevitable result. Thirty-seven witnesses can watch a woman murdered. Millions of kids can learn group adjustment as if it were a commendable skill. Over half the humans in the world have no memory of World War II. In an acceleration of the technologies, it is cheaper to repeat experimentations than to conduct a search for previous results. As life gets ever more inconvenient, trashified, and irritating, it is possible to convince through electronic repetition the brand-new millions that everything is, in fact, getting better and better and better.
It is still possible to ship pets. One purchases an approved crate constructed of light metal. One drives the necessary distance to a major airport where there will be a direct flight to the major airport nearest the destination. One makes the air-express arrangements, confirms the loading, then phones someone at the far end to go to the airport and arrange to receive the animals. It is wise to get the proper tranquilizers from the vet so the animals’ response to extreme trauma will be dulled. And be prepared for heavy expense. This is yet another one of the conveniences of the jet age.
A pleasant voice over the telephone told us that a box of cats had arrived, and we drove at once to the Railway Express office in Clearwater, put the car top down, and loaded the rather fetid crate into the back seat. It mewed in a dreary way. Back at Acacia Street we set it down in the driveway, and I undid the hasp and opened it, and the cats arched out, blinking at the bright sun. Their first response, then and thereafter, was to find a place of dust or powdered marl and roll and roll. Then, as always, exploration was carried on in shoulder to shoulder formation. Always, after they had been in a crate together, or after they had been at a boarding kennel in the same cage, they tended to stay very close together for a period which related directly to the length of time they had shared confinement. It seemed to represent both habit and security.
And both of them would holler. They would walk around and, at intervals of two or three minutes, give a yowling and forlorn cry. We were never able to figure out why they did this. It is possible that when a wild feline moves to a new part of the forest, instinct requires this announcement of the new address, but one would think it might make prospective meals harder to catch.
We recall one time, one of the last times we had them shipped down by rail, after service had deteriorated badly. It had taken four days. One or both of them had been sick and had diarrhea. Their crate was horrid. I opened it in the driveway of our Point Crisp house. Geoff hopped out and with his lumpy, purposeful stride walked directly to our thick hedge of Australian pine, stuck his head into it, and just stood there for a long, long time.
After their tandem tour of the premises in Clearwater we introduced them to their kitchen corner where their first Florida snack was served, and then to their window. After much washing, hollering, investigating, they settled down to the long naps of tired tourists, sleeping so close they were in familiar contact.
There was record heat that fall in Clearwater. The cats searched for relatively cool corners. At times they panted audibly like dogs, pink tongues lolling. They ate lightly, drank often, and except in the cool of early morning, made no unnecessary movements. The big tree outside our bedroom windows was full of noisy birds.
We noticed that Geoff wasn’t doing very well. He became very unresponsive. He ate less and less. His chunky sides sagged until his backbone began to look scrawny and pathetic, and at times there would be a milky film over his eyes.
A veterinarian with an establishment near the St. Pete dog track was recommended to us, and we took Geoffrey there. The pleasant man examined him and asked us questions about him.
At last he gave his surprising diagnosis. Geoffrey was psychologically depressed. When cats become depressed they show what is called the third eyelid, a milky membrane that comes up from under the lower lid. He just simply did not care for Florida. He was homesick for a terrain he had found more agreeable. Recommendation: Give him a great deal of attention, coddling, affection. Try to keep him entertained. We had been respecting what we thought was ill health by trying not to bother him too much, and this apparently was further contributing to his state of depression. It further confirmed our own estimate of the complexity of these furry house guests to have what was apparently an eminently practical and businesslike D.V.M. tell us that cats in this condition will actually sometimes become weaker and more withdrawn and eventually die.
Old Turtlehead got unexpected benefit from Geoff’s therapy. There had always been a perceptible jealousy. From the beginning, if we paid too much exclusive attention to Roger, Geoff would trudge gloomily away. If we paid too much attention to Geoff, Roger — in exasperation — would bite him. So we all had the habit, if we patted one cat in passing, we patted the other if he was nearby.
Geoff endured the attentions for a time and then gradually became more responsive. He began to eat better. The third eyelid was seen less frequently and then not at all. He filled out again, and that lumpy pacer’s stride took on the purposeful porkiness of old. He found a good hunting area in an overgrown vacant lot nearby. He brought in a huge, indignant bluejay who, when released, spent a good part of the afternoon on a low limb screaming obscenities and evidently accusing Geoff of unfair tactics. Both cats filled the house with lizards. That was something Roger could catch, too, though not in the quantity Geoffrey achieved. Roger could never quite comprehend the standard tactic of the small green ones. When they would try to scurry away he would plant a foot on their tail. The lizard would keep on going and the little green tail would writhe for a little time and then grow still. He would stare at the tail, snuff at it, look at the lizard’s escape route, then cock his head to one side and then the other. Cats and dogs express bewildered curiosity in exactly the same manner.