A story I might tell Austin the next time he asks.

Neko, our oldest cat was sitting on the kitchen counter, right above the gas stove, blowing cigarette smoke out the window. She hoped we wouldn't smell it when us humans got home.

Unknown to us, our old, slightly scrawny calico cat had been chain smoking American Spirits since she was four (which is about 32 in cat years, I think). Whenever we would leave the house that cat would sneak out the back door, run to the nearest corner store and steal a pack of American Sprits. We never figured out how she got them out of the store, but I did get her to confess to me why she liked that particular brand...because the feathers on the front reminded her of birds. And of course, as a cat the feeling of sinking one's teeth into an object that reminded one of birds must have been exhilerating.

Neko enjoyed smoking even more after Tammy moved in. Tammy was also a Calico, about 5 years younger than Neko, in human years. In cat years, it was more like 40. Obviously, due to their extreme age difference of about half a century, they did not have a lot in common, and Neko resented having a younger and cuter cat living in her house. She felt it took attention away from her, which may or may not have been true.

For a long time, Neko had been able to hide her smoking from Tammy as well. Tammy has always been a large cat, prone to sleeping heavily and drowsing about in sunbeams. We have suspected Tammy of taking persription pain killers from time to time, based mostly on the empty pill bottles we have found under the bed or behind the toilet wherever we have lived. The prescription has always been written out to Inigo Montoya, which is why we have our suspicions, as Tammy always seems to pull our battered copy of "The Princess Bride" off our bookself and lay her head on it while she sleeps.

But back to Neko and her chain smoking. Neko has always been a good cat, at least to us humans. When she was younger, she would sleep in the bed with us, purring contentedly. She would entertain us with her feats of strength and agility, mostly having to do with small bits of string and some excellent darting too and fro. But as happy as she was, with this feline sort of June Cleaver life, Neko always had a soft spot for danger and intrigue and in general, a yearning to be cool. A yearning, we would find out years later, that started when she was a young cat (about 16 in cat years) still living in Texas.

She had been the runt in her family, always hiding from her overly agressive bigger brothers. She had a hard time getting enough food. Her mom was always too distracted to pay her much attention. So it was with with a sad and empty heart that Neko ran away from home to live at a nearby pizza parlor, where they always gave her scraps to eat and a clean bowl of water.

One day while she was half sleeping behind a cardboard box out in the alley where all the pizza delivery boys and girls hung out, Neko saw that the girls that got the most attention always had these small white smokey sticks hanging out of their mouths. Neko felt like she herself could do with a little more attention, so she snuck over to one of the girls and sniffed around until she found a new pack of cigarettes in an open backpack. Neko stole one and started to sneak away. But the girl saw her trying to sneak away and grabbed her by the scruff of her neck. "Poor kitty", said the girl. "Are you addicted to these things, too?"; and the young girl took the cirgarette out of Neko's mouth and lit it for her. She gave it back to Neko and they each inhaled on their respective cigarettes in a quiet kind of companionship. Neko let her cigarette dangle from her lower lip. Wow, she thought, I really needed that.

"Well cat", said the girl, "Who knew, you're as cool as me".

Yes, thought Neko. I am. And with dreams of coolness dancing in her mind like headless sardines, Neko scurried on down to the highway heading west out of Texas and hitched a ride to San Francisco with some Hippies heading to that fine city on their way to Burning Man. (This was back when Burning Man was cool, not all played out the way it is today). Neko declined the offer to travel on to Burning Man with the hippies, but decided to stay on at the apartment they had been crashing in while they were in San Francisco. It was quiet there. She was the only cat. The boy who lived there fed her bits of sushi and tuna. She enjoyed listening to the Velvet Underground on his stereo when he was at work. Because of this, the boy named her "Neko", which sounds similar to "Nico", but in fact means cat in Japanese. Neko felt cooler than ever with such a rockstar kind of name. She continued to smoke, mostly in private when the boy was at work. It made her feel connected with all the young, attractive women living in the Mission District at the time and this was important to her.

When the new cat, Tammy moved in, Neko's life changed, mostly for the worst. Tammy was younger, fluffier and more apt to cry for the humans's attention, which made Neko lose some of her confidence and spend more time on top of the fridge. Tammy had also developed an eating disorder at her old house, which forced her to binge and purge continuously, meaning that Neko would never get any food because it had either just been all gobbled up or barfed out by Tammy. She started to get thin. The new girl who had moved in with that nighmare of a cat noticed this and took Neko to the vet. The vet to Neko's immense surprise and relief, used a small water pic to clean out all the hardened wax in her ears. Over the years, she didn't even notice as her hearing slowly had faded away. Neko now had mixed feelings about this new living arrangement. The girl was okay but the cat was just a big downer, thought she.

Tammy was a downer for a whole bunch of reasons. Not only did she eat all the food and gobble up a lot of attention, she also disapproved of Rock and Roll and smoking. Neko always believed this was just an act, because just looking at Tammy with that long wavy light brown and golden calico hair brought to mind a certain Stevie Nicks concert Neko had snuck into before she left Texas. Tammy knew she was right, but chose to hide her own sordid past behind a charade of goody two shoe-ing it whenever she could. This included berating Neko about her counter-culture habits.

So Neko introduced Tammy to sleeping pills and the pleasures of drifting off to a good fairytale. It was Tammy's idea to get a fake I.D. unde the name Inigo Montoya, it just seemed so implausible that nobody could bring themselves to ask the fluffy Calico too many questions when she went into Walgreens to pick up her prescription under such a preposterous fake name. It just seemed like it would lead to way, way too much work and we all know those poor folks at Walgreens are worked enough as it is.

It gave Neko great joy to watch Tammy drift off each morning in a burst of sunbeams and pills. It gave her even greater pleasure to then go light a cigarette with the pilot light and smoke slowly while watching the leaves rustle from the window above the stove. It was to her chagrin when I caught her one day, being pregnant with our first child and prone to coming home from work at all hours due to doctors's appointment and just general all around tiredness. I banned her from smoking in our house.

We had all sorts of arguments. I told her that it could cause cancer in not only her, but in everyone who lived near her. I told her it would ruin her beautiful singing voice. She told me that I was out of touch, a "total square" and a worry wart. I told her if I ever caught her smoking in the house again, she would have to move on. Neko didn't bat an eyelash. She went and picked up her pack of smokes in her teeth and jumped out the kitchen window. We didn't see her for weeks. David, my husband and Neko's owner for the last decade or so was devastated. He didn't talk to me for a week. I almost miscarried because of the tensions floating around the house..

When Neko finally came back, we had a sit down where we tried to hash out a compromise. She had grown way to used to house living to kick it with the alley cats anymore. I couldn't live with David's angry judgemental eyes staring at me all the time. So we settled on a don't ask don't tell kind of policy. Neko would only smoke when we were not home and she would never smoke in the children's rooms. We asked her about the sleeping pills but she pretended not to know what we were talking about. So we said loudly in a voice that both cats could hear that if the new baby ever gets a hold of a bottle of pills, they were both headed on a one way trip to the glue factory. Since then we have seen less evidence of pill popping but continue to be ever vigilent for stray medication on the floor.

We pretend we don't see her from time to time, sitting up on that window ledge puffing away. She is old now (74 in cat years!) and we know we don't have much longer with her. She at least waits until all the kids are at school. And for that, we are grateful.



Promise to fix any errors or irregularities tomorrow!