Catnip Mobster

            In the quiet days of my early adulthood, coming home from work meant the promise of a relaxing evening with a romance novel and a cup of chamomile tea. How I long for those moments! These days, leaving work is the first step in a series that lead to the discovery of awaiting disasters at home. Every afternoon I pause at the garden gate – what waits on the other side?  The mangled body of a crow, the discarded remains of yet another bamboo scratch post, tufts of cat hair lying around the yard, dead frogs piled at the French door, a note from an irate neighbor – not a single of these situations would surprise me. Every afternoon around four, I sigh, close the gate and start the clean up.

            Who, you might be wondering, is the culprit of this daily mischief? One year ago, I rescued a tiny orange kitten and made the promise to provide shelter and love to him for the rest of his days. Manicito, as I dubbed him, seemed to be the ideal kitten - he slept during the night, learned to use a litter-box quickly, and became fast friends with the household dog; yet within a few weeks, Mani started to misbehave. His antics began innocently – food snuck off the table when no one was looking, a few shredded shoelaces; after six months, shoelaces graduated to shower curtains. A year later, Mani’s crimes have landed him the status of local mobster.

            Taking a break from cleaning up the most recent crime (the complete annihilation of my favorite potted viola, I have to ask – why did the adorable kitten “go bad”?

Wherever the fault may lie, there is no denying that the adorable kitten I brought home has turned into a brawling tomcat, running rampant through our charming neighborhood with his loyal neighbor and sidekick Chancho*,  a fat black and white cat with a personality like Jack Black’s famous character Nacho Libre. Together they rule the streets, sneaking around from porch to porch, consuming all the food they can find in unprotected food bowls, attacking neighboring dogs, and generally causing as much havoc as possible while at the same time looking sweet and cuddly. It is a well-known fact on our block that any catnip, whether kept under lock or naively left sitting on a pantry shelf, ultimately belongs to Mani and Chancho – and ill tidings for the human or animal that gets in their way! Although their network may not cover as much mileage as the Mafia, this criminal duo stoops to levels of crime that would make the Godfather blush.

            Considering the company that Mani keeps now in his adult life of crime, is it possible that his delinquent ways found their beginnings under the tutelage of kitten-hood friends? His first companions were a sneaky dachshund and a stocky brown lab with a learning disability. Both of these companions had a somewhat dubious influence on the young kitten - from the dachshund he learned the art of con, while the lab taught him how to play dumb and make loud noises to get attention; for a young kitten, these new skills must have opened a whole new world of possibilities and experiences. Imagine the first time Mani successfully conned me into giving him an extra helping of tuna fish – what a rush of adrenaline that must have been! Rather than existing on the sole attribute of kitten charm, Mani now had a whole range of tools. What power!

*Cat’s name changed to protect his identity and to emphasize his weight problem, the name “Chancho” of Spanish origin, meaning “little piggy” or “little fatty”.

While it seems that criminal influence marked the rise of Mani’s own behaviors, it does not explain the origin of his inclinations towards crime; after all, the little orange kitten could have chosen to decline any part in the mischievous endeavors of his dog companions. There is no doubt that Mani willingly stepped into his a life of delinquency – so what else could possibly be the source of his inclinations?

For a moment, let us take into consideration the dubious background from which Mani took his place in life. He was born to a single girl cat with self-esteem issues, as evidenced by the quality of Mani’s father, a roving tomcat with a wandering eye and a taste for the open road. Immediately after the conception of his future children, this tomcat (whose name remains unknown) took off for new territories and fancy faces, leaving Mani’s poor mother to carry and deliver two tiny orange boys. Mani never met his father, nor did he spend much time bonding with his mother and twin – at the tender age of six weeks, he was torn from his family and introduced into a communist household, forced to share food and affection with the dachshund and the brown lab that became his tutors in criminal mischief.

It seems possible that the circumstances to which he was born, in addition to the characteristics passed on from both parents, limited his chances of normality from the very start. Yet how does this explain the continued expansion of his character and dabbling in crime that eventually led to his current condition? Two potential causes come to my mind and bring me great sorrow, for it is possible that I too am at fault for Mani’s devious ways.

First, at the age of four months, Mani tasted the herb that sealed his fate as an addict: catnip. His adoring and over-bearing adoptive mother (yours truly) introduced catnip into Mani’s daily life, strewing piles of green leaf in every corner and on every toy.  (As if no cat owner has ever made that mistake, right?)      Within days, the young kitten found himself using his skills of con and thievery to land himself unlimited access to my stash of catnip – to put it simply, he learned how to open a locked cupboard door. It is entirely logical to assume that from that day forth, his addiction contributed towards Mani’s criminal lifestyle.

Secondly, at the age of six months, Mani found himself uprooted from his familiar home and planted smack into the thick of a hipster neighborhood, where animal companions sit in Volkswagen engines on cold nights, fish their snacks from compost pits rather than plastic garbage cans, and accompany their humans to the local coffee shop. This was a strange world for the little orange kitten! In what is perhaps an assuming summarization of his feelings, I would say that Mani found himself in a position such as caused Machiavelli to ask, “Whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved?” -  the kitten had to either be a suck up or establish a strong leadership. While he has never read The Prince, Mani took steps to secure himself as a leader in the community that would have made the author proud. Within weeks of moving to the neighborhood, Mani had shown the other animals, by means of scare tactics and outright bullying, that he was to be feared. 

To gain their respect, however, Mani had to challenge the cat that owned the block – the enormous Chancho. Covered in battle scars and sporting a constant limp from years of substantial girth burdening his paws, Chancho posed a serious threat to the position Mani craved. To be fair to the cat, his humiliation in a show of machismo and brutality came about by a stroke of luck on Mani’s part: while wandering around the neighborhood on a snowy day, Chancho slipped on a patch of ice – in a flash, he found himself under the sharp teeth of the new arrival. Thusly robbed of his status and pride, the previously pompous cat found himself as right-hand man to the upstart. Mani had established his right to rule the neighborhood – change and challenge, it seems, served only to push the charming kitten into a full-time criminal lifestyle.

While all of these potential causes I have explored offer insight as to why Mani “went bad”, it appears that not a single one individually stakes claim as the sole reason for his behavior; yet together, they form a picture that allows me to understand how Mani became the mobster he is today. In summary, the seed was planted with his birth to a single mother and abandonment by a sleazy father; found root in the tutelage of his communist canine companions; sprouted in his addiction to catnip; and blossomed in the establishment of his power in his current neighborhood.

Thus understanding where Mani has come from, and the events that shaped his life, it is only natural that I question what the consequences will be for this little mobster as he continues his life of crime. Will he one day find himself shaking under a bush, hiding from the animal control lady, jonesing for a bag of catnip, lamenting the murder of his faithful sidekick Chancho over a lady cat? On the other hand, will the skills he gained as a young kitten keep him in the seat of power, luxuriously strung out on criminally acquired herb? Is there a hope for his rehabilitation?

As I ponder these questions, a movement outside the window catches my eye: Mani and Chancho, sitting on the woodpile, peering at a hole in the tarp covering the logs. Mani reaches a paw in the hole and meows loudly as he pulls out a bag of catnip…

       Only time will tell.