Bono

Chapter Eight

A ROCK STAR IN FUR

Caring for a cat is the first step towards self-healing.

Lydia was revving like a Ferrari. As we made our way toward Bideawee on East 38th Street she bounded ahead. I called out to her so we could stop and admire the UN Building. Poised like a cigarette packet against the shimmering East River, it’s the architectural equivalent of Don Draper. Though it has a sixties look, it was actually completed in 1952, proving itself yet another New Yorker ahead of its time.

Intrigued as I was to be visiting a big city animal shelter, I was wary of such places. When I was a kid, the animal pound was a dismal shed on the outskirts of town. A holding pen where unwanted creatures spent a few miserable days before being “humanely” destroyed, it reeked of death.

Besides, I was nervous about the cat. Even a placid one like Mavis might sense my reluctance and take it into her head to exact punishment.

“Is this it?” Lydia asked, stopping outside a modern, multistoried building smiling out across the river. The gleaming exterior couldn’t have been further from my idea of an animal shelter. A small, ecstatic dog burst out of the doors. With its ears pricked and pink tongue flying, it pranced joyfully past us, as if a wonderful new life had just begun. When the man attached to his lead caught my eye his smile broadened.

“She’s a fox terrier cross,” he called over his shoulder, as the dog dragged him up the sidewalk. “We’re calling her Gracie.”

Inside, a warm and spacious lobby bustled with benign energy. A security guard stood discreetly by the door. There wasn’t a hint of animal whiff about the place. Across the shining floor, a young couple sat holding hands. Their anxious faces reminded me of parents expecting their first child. When a woman appeared with a cat carrier in her arms, they looked up hopefully. Their smiles faded to disappointment as she walked straight past them into another room.

I could have spent the morning watching people meet their pets for the first time, but Lydia steered me toward a reception area. A smiling woman in her mid-thirties greeted us and introduced herself as Suzie. With her long ponytail and clear eyes, she beamed an almost angelic quality.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “You’re here for Bono, aren’t you?”

The only Bono I knew about was a rock star with yellow glasses, and there’d probably be a lot more security if he was in the vicinity. I began to explain to her that whatever a Bono was, we weren’t about to collect one.

“Jon’s excited, too,” she continued. “He’s our cat assessment manager.”

She whisked us into a small office, where a man sat bent over a desk. His oval face was framed with long dark hair. The softness in his eyes was overlaid with sorrow, or perhaps too much knowledge of what life can bring. His forearms were awash with ink. Tattooed people usually like to talk about their decorations, and I often use it as a conversation starter. But something held me back from bombarding him with cheap questions about the meaning of his art.

People who work with animals are often unusual, but I sensed something multidimensional about this man. Highly sensitive and attuned, he was a rare breed apart, a cat whisperer.

“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to Bono,” Jon Delillo said, smiling broadly.

The Bideawee people were lovely, but obviously misinformed. Clearing my throat, I repeated our story about coming from Australia to foster an ancient tortoiseshell.

Jon beckoned us to follow him across the foyer through two sets of doors into what amounted to an indoor cat jungle. A three-leveled scratching tree was entirely occupied by felines—a tabby, a ginger, and a pure white cat with eyes that were different shades of copper. I stepped over a large gray and white gentleman dozing on a mat in the middle of the room to say hello to a green-eyed calico crouched inside a carpet tunnel.

Then I saw her. Mavis—our Mavis waddling toward a food bowl. Plump and barely able to move, the foster cat was about to enter my life.

“She’s gorgeous!” I said, but nobody seemed to be listening. I figured the staff were so accustomed to people gushing over their wards they were deaf to fawning noises.

A few other cats slid into my peripheral vision. A couple of hefty felines similar to Mavis dozed on top of carpeted poles. Several more stared out from nooks. Two teenage tabbies curled together in a yin and yang circle.

A young woman sat in the corner with a lean tuxedo cat nestled in her lap. She introduced herself as Sadie, one of Bideawee’s army of volunteers. Whatever its age, size, or color, every animal seemed content. Bideawee was clearly cat shelter heaven.

Though I liked Mavis, I was willing to be flexible. Really, any one of these noninteractive animals would be fine for us to foster. My reverie was interrupted when a black cannonball hurtled across the room. It propelled itself off the gray and white cat’s belly and scrabbled up a scratching post to snare a fellow lodger’s tail.

“You’re gonna love Bono,” Jon said.

“That’s Bono?” I said, staring at the stream of confusion the creature had left in its wake. The other cats narrowed their eyes, hissed, and switched their tails as he bounced past.

I wasn’t sure the creature even qualified as a domestic cat. It looked more like a miniature lion. Apart from his oversized head, shaggy feet, and feather duster tip of his ridiculously long tail, he was entirely shaved.

I made a mental note to tell Greg to forget visualization. This primeval bundle of energy was nothing like Mavis. Watching Bono bounce across the floor, I couldn’t decide if he was ugly or incredibly beautiful. With a flat, pushed-in face, he hardly seemed to have a nose.

“We’re all crazy about him,” Jon said. “You will be, too.”

Jon could say what he liked, but I wasn’t enthralled at the thought of having my New York freedom ruined by a hyped-up mini lion. A list of excuses was already forming inside my head. I could tell him I had an allergy to cats named after rock stars. Or that my ancient joints would crumble trying to keep up with a hyperactive maniac. Or that I could only consider taking on a vegan animal who identified as transgender.

“He’s adorable!” Lydia cried, crouching on the floor and clicking her fingers at him. “Look at those eyes!”

From where I was standing I could only see the back of his fluffy mane. He put his head to one side and stepped tentatively toward her. She spoke softly to him and extended her hand to touch his forehead. At the moment of contact he bounced backward across the room as if she’d given him an electric shock.

“We had him shaved because his fur was matted,” Jon explained, smiling fondly down at him.

When I asked how they’d managed to keep such a lively animal immobile long enough to be shaved, Jon admitted the grooming had been performed under a general anesthetic.

“Life’s stressful for him being the smallest cat around here,” Jon continued. “He has to spend around fifteen hours a day in a cage. The rest of the time he’s constantly fighting to keep up with the others.”

We watched the mini lion dodge occasional bats from larger cats as he pranced past their cages. Like big kids with a pesky baby brother, they had no qualms letting him know they were fed up with his boisterous ways. Squaring my shoulders, I started explaining this wasn’t the sort of cat I had in mind. But deaf to my protest, Jon launched into a heartrending backstory.

Like thousands of other animals, Bono had lost his home during Hurricane Sandy when it had struck New York in October the previous year. After being found washed up and bedraggled on Long Island, he had been taken to a municipal shelter. Though Jon didn’t elaborate, he gave the impression the cat’s future would have been limited in that place. When I prodded him for more information, he said all he knew was that Bono had been abandoned or surrendered. Both words struck me as incredibly sad.

Because of Bono’s friendly nature and beguiling combination of Persian and Maine coon, he was given a second chance. He was transferred to Bideawee in Manhattan, where he was more likely to find a permanent home. Jon reminded me Bono had been with them a full six months, which was a long time for any living creature to spend most of its days in a cage.

“But you said everyone loves him,” I said. “Surely someone will adopt him?”

Jon shook his head.

“People are always drawn to him, but when they find out he has chronic kidney disease they back away.”

A river boulder formed in my chest.

“Isn’t that something old cats get?” I asked, watching Bono glide across the room. With his Ugg boots hardly touching the ground, he floated like a ballet dancer. That cat couldn’t be dying. He was practically exploding with life.

“Not necessarily,” Jon said, his mouth set in a grim line. “We think he’s about four years old. That’s usually a good age for adoption, but we understand why people don’t want to take him. The treatment’s expensive and it’s going to end in heartache. Only a saint would give him a home.”

Bono sprang on top of a scratching post next to Lydia. Adopting a classic pose for a few seconds, he reminded me of a sculpture overlooking a European square. I was relieved he could actually sit still. He dipped his head, inviting Lydia to scratch his forehead. I wasn’t looking at him so much as the effect he was having on my daughter. As she clucked and cooed over him, he was bringing out a nurturing side I hadn’t seen in her before.

Sadie lowered the tuxedo cat to the floor and crouched next to Lydia. The young women raised their hands for a tentative pat. For a moment it looked as if Bono was going to reward their adulation with a lick. But the cat sprang off his haunches and sailed away.

“I come here every day just to visit Bono,” Sadie said, looking after him wistfully. “He has a great personality. I’d love to adopt him, but the medical costs are way beyond me.”

When I asked if Bono had ever had a home, Jon said the cat was too socialized not to have lived with humans before.

“But he hasn’t had one-on-one interaction with people for a long time,” he added. “He’s going to freak out with you to begin with. Keep him in a small space like a bathroom for the first couple of days. Take it slow. Don’t push the relationship. He may hiss.”

It seemed our relationship with Bono was going to be complicated. As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, Jon added that the cat, who was almost certainly going to be a handful, would need medication twice daily. He scooped Bono off the floor, and held him in the same position Philip used with Jonah. Except Jon’s grip was tighter and the paws were tucked firmly down. He made it look a breeze, tilting the cat’s head back, prying the jaws open and popping the pill in. If we had any problems with the technique, he said, all we’d have to do is hide a tablet in a slice of fresh chicken and Bono would wolf it down.

“He could gain a pound or two,” Jon added, as Bono wriggled out of his grasp and darted away. “He’s a fussy eater.”

Bono certainly was a scrawny feline. His ribs were clearly visible under his shaved skin. His fur had a dull, lifeless texture of steel wool. Though his eyes were beautiful, they had an oily sheen that didn’t look healthy. Being so small and at the bottom of the food chain in the shelter, the cat burned up a lot of nervous energy, Jon said.

“He’s never going to leave this place,” he continued. “The best you can do for him is to give him a holiday, even if it’s just till the weekend.”

I asked how much longer Bono was expected to live. When Jon said about three years the boulder in my chest lurched and turned to butter. It was a tough prognosis for such a spirited animal. Any chance of negotiating my way out of fostering him had disappeared faster than a tom cat up a dark alley. Besides, Lydia was captivated.

“You can bring him back in a day or two if it doesn’t work out,” Jon said.

“Oh really?” I asked, trying to hide my enthusiasm for the idea. “He does seem a bit of a handful.”

“No, he’s not!” Lydia said, flashing me a disapproving look.

“He’s just a bit excited, aren’t you boy? We’re going to love having him.” Jon asked us to leave the room while he wrangled Bono into a carry case. It was a worrying sign. I wondered if a lasso was required.

Back in the reception area, we watched Sadie load Bono’s food into a bag. She explained that while he liked the crunchy dry stuff, it was important for him to eat the canned fish because it contained medication that was good for his kidneys. She added a bottle of pills, and handed me a soft, high-walled cat bed shaped like an igloo. I figured it had been carefully chosen for a creature who might want to hide from the world. Jon emerged from the cat room wearing a triumphant grin.

“Call me anytime,” he said, presenting Lydia with the cat carrier complete with passenger. “Let him run the relationship. Anything you can give him is more than he’s used to. Talk to him. The sound of the human voice works wonders. When we get feral kittens in, we often read to them.”

Not for the first time, I was humbled by the dedication of animal welfare workers. Reading to kittens indeed.

Jon seemed reluctant for us to leave the building with his beloved animal. I wondered if I’d be doing us both a service if I offered to let Bono stay behind. But Lydia was halfway out the door with the cat carrier.

“And remember,” Jon called after us. “He’s gonna be cranky. Keep him in a confined space for at least twenty-four hours.”

As Mrs. Lincoln said to Abraham on the way to the theater, this was going to be a laugh a minute.