Diablo

Diablo: Our Dearest American Friend.

Diablo is gray, he has green eyes, whiskers, and he walks on all fours. Because he was born in America, where even human males still get their foreskin ritually chopped off, he has no claws on his fore paws and he got a vasectomy. He mews and purrs, he likes cushions and sunny spots, but he hates vacuum cleaners and power tools. Diablo sleeps and dreams 18 hours a day and doesn’t do a damned thing. He doesn’t mark his territory by spraying and spitting, he just struts to his litter box. Diablo never takes showers nor does he need deodorant, but he always smells good. Diablo is 12 years old, so he’s catching up with me. But he doesn’t look like a 12-year old, because Diablo will stay beautiful whatever his age.

You guessed it. Diablo is a cat. And he should have been named Angelo.

We did not call him Diablo. His former Momma did when she adopted him as a kitten from a shelter back in ’93. Diablo was a Christmas gift. And he turned out to be much more than that.

I first met Diablo at his former Momma’s home in N.Y.C. I gave her weekly French lessons, and we got to like each other. I mean, of course, Diablo and I. He knew the day and time I was coming and waited for me behind the door. He never made real progress in French, but I myself did a lot in Cattish. We communicated somehow. Diablo was well taken care of, but he told me he missed something. He missed deep, tactile, organic love.

I hadn’t been around cats since I was a teenager at my parents’ home. I hadn’t precisely because I loved cats, and didn’t want to subject them to my egotistical life style. You’ve got to be with your friends. You’ve got to give them more than Christmas gifts. You have to give them your time.  So I have always hesitated at taking on too many friends, let alone of the furry sort.

I came to respect Diablo deeply. Although born in a Red State, he never voted for Bush.

B., his former Momma, had two cats. There was the pitch black Lily, too. But B. was American, born and raised, and the probable overdose of antibiotics ingested in her early childhood had rendered her allergic to cats. With the years, her allergies had worsened to such a degree that she had to medicate herself every day in order to stay around her cats. That’s why she couldn’t give Diablo that tactile, organic love he missed. She said it was worse with Diablo than it was with Lily, the other cat. But there was something else: B. had become committed to a man who disliked Diablo more than Lily. I can understand that. It’s the same with cats and humans. Those most loved by some often attract visceral hatred from others. Look at G.W. Bush vs. W.J. Clinton!

And Diablo didn’t like B.’s friend either. To prove it, he once peed all over the man’s professionally decorated, West Village apartment.

In the fall of 2004, B. was having her apartment redecorated, and while the man agreed to move her and Lilly to his place, he was adamant about not taking Diablo. So B. asked me to take care of him, and Diablo moved in with us for what we thought would be just a few weeks.

Diablo immediately became the complement of a loving triad. We gave him much of our time and tactile, organic presence. Reiko fell in love with him, too, and we let him sleep with us, which B. couldn’t do. From then on, the best moment of the day was when Diablo came to lie on top of Reiko’s chest, purring and licking both her ears in turn. We had less bedtime sex, but it’s always like that with a baby.

But Diablo was no stupid baby; he never threw tantrums, he never pissed or shat out of his litter box, he never woke us up in the middle of the night, he never tore anything to pieces, and he never spilled his plate. We could leave the computers on when he was alone and he wouldn’t even walk on the keypads.

Diablo was the perfect, unassuming revealer of emotion. We were hooked.

Before we moved to Paris, Diablo went back to B.’s place, now complete with brand new Ikea furnishings and that Chelsea gallery sort of art, all paint smears and spots. Maybe Diablo couldn’t find his old marks again; or maybe he didn’t like the new layout. Anyway, Diablo reportedly spent most of his days behind the door, waiting for our return. When we visited him right before leaving, we could see how he sulked. He would refuse to acknowledge our presence. That was not him. But we knew why. Friends don’t like to be betrayed.

After we had gotten to Paris, B. asked us to adopt Diablo. Reiko and I were ecstatic. We even chose our permanent home thinking of him. 

Diablo flew to Paris on a jet plane in late December, 2004. From the Midwest to New York, and then on to Paris; it was a long way indeed for a furry little thing once lucky enough to be taken out of an animal shelter. It did not take him more than a few minutes to get acquainted with his new home. Our friend Bernadette, who chaperoned him on the trip, says she felt that he knew where he was going during the flight. He looked happy and trustful.

Diablo, thus, happened to be a Christmas gift for the second time in his life.

A Christmas gift that we unwrap and enjoy every minute of every day.