Summertime in El Cajon, California and it is already afternoon with a hot sun and clear air. I’m bored and my chores are long since completed. I watched television but now all three channels are showing soap operas. I hear the work-up softball game in the field behind our house, but only faintly. The players are older boys from our neighborhood but sometimes they let us younger boys play.
I cannot see from our kitchen window whether just the older boys are playing so I pull my fielder’s glove and baseball cap from the closet and go out the kitchen door. I walk across the baked back yard and let myself through the loose fence wires. I half run toward the ball field – a bare dusty expanse chosen for its mostly level surface in a much larger plot of land.
I can see that the game has no younger boys and all the field positions are filled with players to spare. It’s a disappointment and some of the guys my age would make a stink and impose themselves into the game against complaints from the older boys but that’s not me. I sometimes think that if i oppose the will of older boys, then I won’t have the moral right when I’m older to claim authority and prestige that should come with advanced age.
None of my friends are here but there isn’t anything else to do on this boring day. I pick a bare patch of ground outside the first base line that’s not too close to any of the dogs lying around that obviously belong to boys on the field.
I like watching work-ups; every pitcher is an unknown; every pitcher has his own style and skill level. And when the ball is hit the fielder might bobble or drop the ball or the throw back to the infield off target but sometimes the fielder makes a great snag and fires the ball accurately and in time to put a runner out. And everyone is a coach shouting advice to the guy with the ball resulting in an unintelligible cacophony of voices. I get some satisfaction with every bad play since it makes me feel a little superior but every one of those boys can hit the ball three times farther than I can.
I notice something moving toward me. It’s Tam coming to join me. She’s picks a path around the sleeping dogs. I check out each dog in turn and all five seem to be slumbering and thankfully none have noticed Tam. Tam sits next to me and lets me briefly scratch her head before she ducks my hand, letting me know she’s had enough contact. Then without a pause she begins to wash herself as though it has ritual connotations. She is thorough and she is methodical, leaving not a spot unlicked or unscrubbed.
Tam finishes her bath and continues to sit upright next to me. The heat is bearable but only by the narrowest of margins. She looks around with her wide-set blue eyes, rotating her head, tipping her chin up, and taking in everything around us. I turn my attention back to the game as a new pitcher and batter take their places and the near-random chaos continues.
Tam is already nearing a sleeping dog before I notice she’s left my side. She walks straight up to the dog’s face and puts her nose right up to the dog’s nose and sniffs. Frightened that she could be attacked, I call to her but not too loudly hoping not to wake the dog. Tam perseveres and the dog’s nose twitches once then twice more. Its eyes open slowly at first then pop open wide as it reflexively jerks its head back from our family’s impertinent cat. Faster than eyes can follow, Tam lunges and rakes a paw of fastidiously manicured needle-sharp claws across the tender nose of the terrified canine and rockets away in a cream and black blur as the dog continues to back-peddle yelping in pain.
The blur of a cat flies directly at another dog about twenty feet away. Although the dog is awake due to the pained yelps, it is unable to react swiftly enough as Tam’s trajectory takes her to the dog’s back where the flesh provides her claws with traction to continue her phenomenal speed. This second dog spins and snaps but too late. It too yelps with pain.
I’m getting to my feet as rapidly as possible but it seems to take forever as I witness the unfolding scene. Unbelievably, our crazy cat blur is heading directly toward a third dog that is scrambling to its feet to meet the demon closing on it. At the last possible instant, Tam veers to the right to avoid the waiting jaws of the confused dog.
In just three seconds Tam has physically attacked two dogs and played chicken with a third. The field erupts with fierce barking that serves to embolden each individual dog and the five of them charge after the running cat as she curves back toward our home.
Boys shout at their dogs but not one pet cares what its master wants; the chase is on.
Tam dashes to the left through the fencing of our property and a cloud of dirt roils up as the dogs churn up the powder-dry ground turning left through the fence in pursuit. Well behind the dogs, I’m running as fast as possible and horribly frightened that the dogs will catch and shred our cat. Well behind me the dog owners shout at their dogs and leave their game behind.
Tam runs counterclockwise around our dilapidated 2-wheel trailer sitting against the fence that served to carry our belongings from Minneapolis. Tam could easily climb the stained canvas sides of the trailer and be safe on top. To my horror, she does not climb to safety and after circling the trailer I see she is not running nearly so fast and the lead dog is inches behind. Tam runs through another hole in the fence and turns right along the fence line. Behind her is a dog jam. The hole is too small for the dogs to get through quickly. The dogs in back slam into the leading dogs with yips and yelps but they emerge one at a time with vengeance in mind.
Tam pays no attention to me as I call for her to come to me for safety although I question how much refuge I can provide her from five determined dogs. Instead she continues westward along the fence past the Mahuren’s place and turn into the Jones’ property at a break in the fence as the lead dog closes in. A couple of the dog owners manage to reach the break in the fence before their dogs but are unsuccessful in slowing their ferocious feral pets.
Breathless and nearly in tears I reach the Jones’ property and see five dogs leaping and barking fiercely at Tam standing on top of the 2-by-four framework for an extension the Jones are building to their house. Tam’s back is arched and her hair stands out making her look larger and fiercer. She caterwauls and hisses at the barking dogs and bares her fangs. One by one the dog owners drag their pets away. Heart pumping, I try to coax Tam down as my world grows calm once more.
Tam is in no hurry so i climb the wooden framework but she retreats as I near. So I climb down and return to the field where the game has resumed, but without a couple of the boys who came with dogs. The remaining dogs are tied up with leashes or ropes. I pick up my glove and return to the Jones’ and wait … and wait. Tam’s hair is smoothed down now and she is giving herself a bath. She is thorough and takes her time, reaching every spot with her tongue or by scrubbing with her paws. After a long while, she finishes and easily descends tail first. She affectionately walks to and fro while leaning into my legs; her version of a hug. She hops onto the low concrete wall and – walking, pausing, and scampering – heads toward Patricia Lane, lazily crosses the Mahuran’s lawn, stops now and then to check out smells, and finally we get to our house where both of us quench our thirsts – she with water and i with Kool-Aid from the refrigerator.
Although it strains credulity, everything about the incident suggests she choreographed her moves in advance. Was it her solution to a boring day?