Looky Back: San Francisco 1988. Charlie was a thin gay guy with black hair, manager for a time at Network Answering Service on Geary Boulevard. One day our operator Anita came to work with a small paper bag. Inside a kitty. Someone had abandoned it on the street; she’d found it near the bus stop.
It needed nursing, from a tiny bottle. I did that. But couldn’t really keep another cat at Network. We already had Rosie, who had founded Network, and Cosmo the wild refugee hitchhiker from Mendocino. So Charlie said he’d take her home, and named her Morgan.
Just a few months later …
Charlie got the bug to travel; and, giving away excess possessions, said he had some nice towels for me. He insisted; he arranged that I’d pick them up after he’d gone, a Saturday I think. I showed up at his ex-apartment. His ex-roomate led me in and said, “Here are your towels. And here is your cat.”
Mogo outlived Cosmo, moved from Network to Lyon street, where she and Rosie would block the hall so little Holly had to leap over them to avoid swatting with kitty claws. Mogo outlived Rosie, who just one day wore out, and could walk no more, sweet modest little thing. True of heart Rosie was, and uncomplaining.
Mogo moved to Marin and became a tough trailer-park kitty, where she and the new kid, Percy, formed a gang. Later, becoming genteel, they moved to upscale San Anselmo, and claimed to be members of a literary society. But of course they were just the same gang members.
One day in October 2000, Morgan wasn’t so well. The vet made some tests, gave her a cortizone shot. That day she came up on the deck, and just started talking to me. Talking and talking and talking. That night, for a time she was missing. I searched. Finally Adrienne spotted her. At great leisure, Morgan was rolling around in a patch of moonlight, taking a little moonbath. What a scamp.
But the test result was grim. She became unable to move around much, and lived only a couple more days. I would place her on a pillow near the window, but she lost interest. Finally, one day she went to the vet. Then she was gone.
Durn ol kitty.
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