for a long time i lived alone, but then i got a service dog. after a lot of training, the service dog came to live with me—except, the same day the trainers brought quincy, an orange tabby tomcat also showed up.
"you didn't tell us you had a cat!" said the trainers, both very upset (because they hadn't trained quincy to live with a cat).
"i don't have a cat," i said. "I don't know who this is."
the cat never went away. i named him poe dameron and he lived with me and quincy. they got along fine, in their own way.
we had our quiet adventures. poe was very cuddly but sometimes he just took off for a day or two. once he got into some paint.
after a while, i found out that poe dameron really lived across the alleyway, and belonged to my neighbor elizabeth's teenaged son, and his real name was PUMPKIN. but poe apparently didn't like the teenaged son (probably not least because he named him PUMPKIN), so he had come to live with us instead. elizabeth was fine with it.
the years went by and one day poe dameron crossed the rainbow bridge too soon. i took his ashes to elizabeth. we were very sad.
a few weeks later, she asked me to come over to see something.
it turned out that poe dameron had also lived with a THIRD lady, a few streets over. this lady, whom neither of us knew, was a painter, and she had made this painting of poe dameron. i don't know what she called him, but she painted him like one of your french girls.
"i think you should have it," elizabeth said, tactfully. "after all, he spent the most time with you." i was quite sure she just didn't want this hideous painting in her gabillion-dollar house, but i agreed.
the painting now hangs in the kitchen over my stove—not least because its brick-red frame matches my curtains. and because it delights me to see poe dameron every day, looking so fluffy and sultry, like an orientalist renaissance odalisque.
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