In loving memory of my beloved cat Batman, whom I have not yet replaced up to this day.
He was born on this Earth one fine, summer day, underneath my Grandfather’s tick-infested bed. His mother is Coring, that venerable feline slut, who must have copulated with all of Singalong’s vast population of tomcats. She was our next-door neighbor’s cat, and everyone in our street, from the pathetic, middle-aged gossips to the isaw vendor, can recognize her a few yards away. “Si Coring, yung pusa nina Aling Sonia!” they would remark. Her lithe, nimble body was covered almost entirely in white, except for her dainty little ears and slender tail, which are black. She had a black vertical line on her upper lip, Hitler-style, as distinct as Cindy Crawford’s mole. Her mating cries were the best in the business, which can be heard a few meters away. She was the perfect specimen of feline allure.
On the day she was about to give birth for the nth time, I stood on guard before my grandfather’s bed, pacing back and forth as if I was the damn father. Several hours later, Coring gave birth to five kittens in an icky mess of litter, filled with all those sticky liquid from the sac. I stared in mortification. But Coring gave them the maternal lick of love, and soon they were spanking clean.
As soon as they were recognizable, I scrutinized her kittens like bacteria under a microscope. Of all her five kittens, one stood out from the rest. This kitten was a bully, slugging out his brothers and sisters as they frantically grabbed at their mother’s numerous boobs to suck milk. I decided at that very moment that I would make this little hellion my very own pet. After greedily sucking all the sustenance he can get, I lifted him up. He needs a name, I thought. I zeroed in on his features. Black and white, like his mother, but the color distribution is a bit unusual. His mouth and nose are white, but his head is covered entirely in black, including ears, like a mask. Bingo!
So I christened him Batman. Mother: Coring. Father: Unknown. Well, what do you expect from males?
Batman had a very traumatic childhood. My brother, incensed at the very idea of having cat hair all over the furniture, gathered the kittens and put them in a sack to throw them away. I let a hyena-like howl of protest. My kittens! But my brother was determined as hell. Finally, we reached a compromise. Batman can stay. So at a tender age, he was separated from his siblings forever. Mea Culpa.
After that, he had a terrible accident that probably left him scarred for life. My father was repairing the roof of the comfort room in our house. There was a gaping hole directly above the toilet bowl. How it got there, I don’t really remember, but at that unfortunate time, our toilet bowl was clogged, as in virtually unflushable. The accumulated dumps and other unidentified matter were suspended there in time – a pretty long time. Meanwhile, Batman was strolling leisurely on the roof. He must have been so lost in thought for the last thing I heard was a sickening plok! And suddenly, Batman was fighting for his life in the middle of the slush made of shit and pee and whatever else that was in there…No one would want to be in his position. So what did his loving mistress did? I looked at the suffering cat and thought, I’m sorry, my child, but I can’t exactly scoop you out of there, can I? It was only the timely intervention of my father that saved my cat, for he was the one who took the poor kitten out of his hellhole. His nine lives were reduced to eight. I stayed away from Batman for several days, imagining all the deadly bacteria clinging to his fur. And it was my brother, of all people, who gave him a thorough scrubbing just to wash the filth out of his hairy body.
Some owner I was.
Because of his hard childhood, Batman grew up to be a tough street cat. He became a handsome devil, his body lean and strong. He would prowl sexily along the streets, the feline equivalent of a gangsta and ladies man. He would always engage in street (cat) fights, scratching his paws out in the name of feline supremacy. Whether if it’s for pussy or a huge chunk of rat meat, Batman would refuse to back out from a fight. He was the man.
Speaking of pussy, Batman had a lot of them. Our neighbors were always complaining that Batman was always laying their meticulously groomed cats. I cackled. My cat was an insatiable kitty. Indeed, he was the one usually responsible for our street’s impregnated pussycats. When Coring gave birth, again, I was shocked to see that four of the five kittens looked like little Batmans. I was aghast.
You bad cat! I scolded him. You incestuous bastard! Batman just smiled lazily.
Of course, Batman wasn’t always a tough SOB. Despite all his shenanigans, he was a very loyal, very loving cat. Our house became completely rat-free during his residency. He didn’t use a litter box, he was too macho for that, but he knew better than to take a dump inside the house. During those cold, lonely nights, Batman would jump into my bed and snuggle with me under the covers. I loved him very much.
That’s why I was so shook up the day he died. Five days prior to that, he sat in deep contemplative silence on my windowsill, bleeding profusely. I woke my brother up and we found a huge rat, almost Batman’s size, dead in our backyard. We concluded that Batman got into a fight with the stinking rat and succeeded in killing it, but not before getting scratched in the eye with the rat’s rabies-filled claws. It was to be Batman’s last fight, for we found him days later, dead underneath my room’s kisame. His body was bloated and filled with maggots, so we suspected he was dead a long time before we found him. My brother and cousin had to remove some parts of the wooden floorboards and extracted him out carefully; one wrong move and his carcass would have exploded into their hands, spilling maggots all over.
Batman knew he was about to die, so he hid himself where no one could see him suffer. He died alone, without fanfare. I cried. My cat died with dignity.
I haven’t had another cat since then. But one day, when I was walking down the street, I was hit with a strange sensation that someone was following me. I turned around, and there on the pavement was a kitten that looked exactly like Batman. He rubbed his furry self against my legs, and then with a loud meow ran to chase a ginger-colored cat that was teasing him. Again, I cackled. My cat is watching me.
