My eleventh summer, as part of her doomed effort to keep me from getting a dog, Mom allowed me to get a kitten. Mom and I clashed instantly on what to name the little orange-beige thing. She favored "Peanut Butter," and I favored anything else.
"We could get his sister and name her 'Jelly!'" Mom squealed, delighted by her skilled wordplay. Then she cupped her hands over her mouth and pretend-called the names out the front door. "Peanut Butter! Jelly! C'mon!"
Using mere logic, I was unable to derail my mother's attempt to ensure that I never, ever got laid in my imminent teen years. Desperate, I veered spiritual.
"I can flip to any random book of the Bible and find a better name than 'Peanut Butter.' Why don't we let God decide?" Mom agreed. I flipped through the Bible and stuck my finger in at random.
Psalms. "Best, two out of three," I said.
Deuterotomy.
Lamintations.
Canticle of Canticles.
Jeremiah.
Jeremiah would never be neutered. This was elective surgery that my mother considered a luxury on the order of a boob job. This decision led to much misery for all concerned, none more so than our longtime vet, a frequent target of Jeremiah's unmitigated testosterone levels. After treating Jeremiah, the vet would manfully dab antiseptic on his face while he lectured Mom about neutering the cat. And then he would attend to Mom's and my wounds, too.
After one particularly violent visit, he grabbed my arm as we left the building. "It doesn't have to be surgical," the vet pled. "Just slide a rubber band down his tail, loop it around his balls, and wait for them to turn black and snap off."
As bad as the destination was, the journey was even worse. Jeremiah insanely hated riding in the car. No cardboard kitty carrier afforded any amount of protection. He's go through that like, well, claws through cardboard. Mom would be driving, and we'd hear the low, psychotic rowl emanating from the box, followed by the terrifying sound of a sledgehammer systematically testing flimsy cardboard joints for weaknesses. And then one of the rowls would non longer sound muffled, and we'd look in the back seat to find a bug-eyed cat bursting out of the corner of the box. And my mother would yell "GO GET HIM!"
Lamentably, it was my job to corral him and keep him restrained during the remaining six to seven days it took to get to the vet. I would lunge into the back seat, and it it was like my world was a blender and someone had hit puree. Those trips were a whirling blur of cat claws. I remember images of Mom screaming while driving, cat biting boy, boy pinning down cat, cat death-gripping Mom's head, Mom biting cat, cat driving while screaming. Fortunately, the vet always had antiseptic waiting.
Jeremiah and I both outlived Mom. She'd always said we'd be the death of her, and while I have no evidence of causality, I certainly can't disprove it. Alone at 17, I couldn't afford a place that would allow a cat, so I found Jeremiah a good home. Or rather, Celeste, my first girlfriend, did. I came home one day to find Celeste there but Jeremiah gone. I was upset.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I know you would have wanted to say goodbye, but time was..."
"ARE YOU OKAY?!" I inspected her face and arms for lacerations. "Did you use the carrier and the manacles?!"
"Huh? No. I just put him on the passenger seat next to me, and he curled up and slept the whole way."