The Land Behind the Stove

A few feline doings: There was the night I was brushing my teeth and heard a stunningly loud crash from the kitchen. This turned out to be Marvin knocking a substantial small oven (much bigger and heavier than the average toaster oven) off the top of the fridge while Duckworth looked on admiringly from below (and fortunately did not get crushed). Needless to say, this oven had a large ceramic plate sitting on top of it. If my downstairs neighbor was in her kitchen at the time, she’ll never forget that moment.

One day I saw Marvin lick Duckworth’s rearward orifice and then back away slowly with an expression that suggested the experience hadn’t been as pleasurable as he’d anticipated.

Another day, I found that my stove had unaccountably stopped working. It is a gas stove with an electric starter and the problem turned out to be that one cat or the other (i.e., Marvin) had unplugged it, which would have entailed standing on the stove itself and pulling at the plug. Of course, that seems like nothing now that it is routine for Marvin to disappear behind the refrigerator.

He started by going behind the stove. Prior to the first time he did this, I had had a conversation with their cat sitter (retiring from this line of work at the end of this year—wonder how much my cats had to do with that decision) about the mischief they might get into while I was at work. She said that if one of them got into a tight spot, he’d get himself out. So the first time Marvin disappeared behind the stove, I just waited. There was dead silence for several moments. Duckworth was freaking out, and I wondered if Marvin had somehow killed himself doing this, but in due time, he scrambled up and out from behind the stove, the first of many, many trips to the Land Behind the Stove.

Eventually I figured out that the stove could be moved close enough to the wall that he couldn’t physically get back there, which solved the problem for about a week. I had thought Marvin would not fling himself into the dark abyss behind the refrigerator. I was wrong. That behavior continues to this very day.

One morning, I emerged from the shower to find the kitchen floor spattered with blood, likewise the cutting boards, likewise the kitchen wall. I examined Marvin and could not see any injury, and he seemed to be in a perfectly good mood. Just as I was concluding he must have cut himself in some area that bleeds a lot but that the wound had already started to heal, he began to gush blood onto the living room floor.

In the end, there was blood from one of end the apartment to the other, literally. There was blood on the windowsill in the kitchen, as far west as you can go, and blood near the windows in the living room, as far east as you can go and still be inside, and many points in between, including on the bed slats, which I could see only by lying on my back under the bed.

I called the vet and arranged to bring Marvin in that afternoon; I had to call my boss at the last minute to say I had to take the day off work. I still could not spot any wound on Marvin, whose mood continued sunny. The vet immediately discovered that he had torn a claw entirely out of his back foot, along with part of the bone it was attached to. It must have been excruciating. I know that cats are supposed to be good at hiding their distress, but had always thought I’d sort of be able to tell if a cat was seriously ill or injured. Nope. There was not the slightest sign. The vet said the claw might or might not grow back in time; it has not.

The cats soon learned how to open the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and fling my toothbrush, etc., into their litter box below. One day while I was visiting Carol-Joy in Novato, we made an emergency trip to the hardware store so I could get a barrel bolt to keep the medicine cabinet door shut. Eventually, they figured out how to open that, so I added a spring latch, which they cannot open—I myself have difficulty opening it. Someday someone else is going to move into this studio apartment and wonder why so many doors, small and large, have extra pieces of hardware—nine as of this moment—affixed to them.