Joey
When Jason and I were in college, we would day dream about all the pets we would get in the future: a hamster named Otis, a beagle named Uther Pendragon. But when we moved to New York, our first apartment had a mouse problem and we decided we needed a cat, so one Saturday afternoon we walked over to the PetCo in Union Square and went to the rows of cats in the back who were up for adoption through a rescue organization called Kitty Kind.
I don’t remember looking for that long before I spotted a filthy grey cat with a name tag that said Joey from the Bronx. I think it was because he is grey and my childhood cat was grey - and also because he is an objectively beautiful cat - but I just knew he was the cat for us. The volunteer told us the tip of his ear was cut off because of frost bite. It was only years later that we learned that this was a blatant lie and that animal control tips the ears of feral cats to indicate that they’ve been neutered. It saves cats’ lives, but it makes it harder for them to be adopted.
And feral our boy was. When we got him he was severely underweight. We were instructed to feed him twice of what he would usually eat and he still stole food right off our plates. And not just the usual suspects. He devoured an ear of corn. Ate fried squash blossoms right out of the pan. Later in life, we would learn that he loved chickpeas, currants, and avocado. I used to joke about writing a sequel to Ratatouille, but calling it Catatouille. He was Joey the Gourmand, but he never forgot his New York street roots. We never let him have it, but boy would he have loved to drink coffee. He also loved pizza and soy sauce. We figured he ate a lot of them out of the garbage cans of New York City.
And he's a territorial little guy. If you are sitting in the seat he wants to sit in, so help you. He stalks and paws and eventually bites until you move. There has been more than one night where either Jason or I have been booted to the couch, so Joey could sleep in our spot on the bed. He's bitten more than one house guest. (Sorry, guys.)
But he also loves people. That first apartment in New York was on the first floor and the windows were just about eye level for an adult walking by. Joey would sit in the window and meow and pedestrians would stop and talk to him. There was a guy in the neighborhood who sounded exactly like Joe Pesci who would hold long conversations with Joey. When we moved up to Inwood, our neighbors told us that Joey was jumping from our kitchen window into their bedroom window. They didn’t mind him visiting, but they were concerned that he might not make the jump and fall the three stories. He was always back when we came home. If not for their note, we never would have known he’d done this.
Eventually, he moved from New York to Texas with Jason, where he graduated from hunting mice to hunting snakes. Tami Cat joined the family there and Joey got along with her fine, but when he came to LA and we got Archer, a whole new side of him came out. He loved that kitten from the moment he laid eyes on her. They became best friends. He groomed her, cuddled with her, played with her.
In the vein of L’etat c’est moi: La maison est le chat. Joey is House Rachowski and House Rachowski is Joey. When we got married, there were more stories told about Joey than about us. In his essay “The Youth in Asia,” David Sedaris writes that pets form parenthesis around our lives. They indicate different stages of our life. Jason and I were 22 years old when we adopted Joey. We had graduated from college less than a year previously. Jason was teaching high school. I was working for pennies at a talent management company. I had just applied to film school and was waiting to hear back. We were quintessential young adults. We didn’t even own a couch. And now we’re 36. We’re married. Jason is a lawyer. I've published four books. We own a house. Joey taught us how to be adults. He moved us from late adolescents to middle-aged. In a very real sense, I don’t know who I am without Joey.
And now he’s sick. Multiple organs are failing. We don’t exactly know why, but the procedures to find out are invasive and he’s not stable enough to do them. Sometime soon we will decide it’s time to say goodbye. It will be one of the hardest things either of us has ever done in our lives.
Joey Cat will always be House Rachowski’s dire cat, our bannerman. I am so grateful to him. I always will be.
He is better than any pet we imagined.
I don’t remember looking for that long before I spotted a filthy grey cat with a name tag that said Joey from the Bronx. I think it was because he is grey and my childhood cat was grey - and also because he is an objectively beautiful cat - but I just knew he was the cat for us. The volunteer told us the tip of his ear was cut off because of frost bite. It was only years later that we learned that this was a blatant lie and that animal control tips the ears of feral cats to indicate that they’ve been neutered. It saves cats’ lives, but it makes it harder for them to be adopted.
And feral our boy was. When we got him he was severely underweight. We were instructed to feed him twice of what he would usually eat and he still stole food right off our plates. And not just the usual suspects. He devoured an ear of corn. Ate fried squash blossoms right out of the pan. Later in life, we would learn that he loved chickpeas, currants, and avocado. I used to joke about writing a sequel to Ratatouille, but calling it Catatouille. He was Joey the Gourmand, but he never forgot his New York street roots. We never let him have it, but boy would he have loved to drink coffee. He also loved pizza and soy sauce. We figured he ate a lot of them out of the garbage cans of New York City.
And he's a territorial little guy. If you are sitting in the seat he wants to sit in, so help you. He stalks and paws and eventually bites until you move. There has been more than one night where either Jason or I have been booted to the couch, so Joey could sleep in our spot on the bed. He's bitten more than one house guest. (Sorry, guys.)
But he also loves people. That first apartment in New York was on the first floor and the windows were just about eye level for an adult walking by. Joey would sit in the window and meow and pedestrians would stop and talk to him. There was a guy in the neighborhood who sounded exactly like Joe Pesci who would hold long conversations with Joey. When we moved up to Inwood, our neighbors told us that Joey was jumping from our kitchen window into their bedroom window. They didn’t mind him visiting, but they were concerned that he might not make the jump and fall the three stories. He was always back when we came home. If not for their note, we never would have known he’d done this.
Eventually, he moved from New York to Texas with Jason, where he graduated from hunting mice to hunting snakes. Tami Cat joined the family there and Joey got along with her fine, but when he came to LA and we got Archer, a whole new side of him came out. He loved that kitten from the moment he laid eyes on her. They became best friends. He groomed her, cuddled with her, played with her.
In the vein of L’etat c’est moi: La maison est le chat. Joey is House Rachowski and House Rachowski is Joey. When we got married, there were more stories told about Joey than about us. In his essay “The Youth in Asia,” David Sedaris writes that pets form parenthesis around our lives. They indicate different stages of our life. Jason and I were 22 years old when we adopted Joey. We had graduated from college less than a year previously. Jason was teaching high school. I was working for pennies at a talent management company. I had just applied to film school and was waiting to hear back. We were quintessential young adults. We didn’t even own a couch. And now we’re 36. We’re married. Jason is a lawyer. I've published four books. We own a house. Joey taught us how to be adults. He moved us from late adolescents to middle-aged. In a very real sense, I don’t know who I am without Joey.
And now he’s sick. Multiple organs are failing. We don’t exactly know why, but the procedures to find out are invasive and he’s not stable enough to do them. Sometime soon we will decide it’s time to say goodbye. It will be one of the hardest things either of us has ever done in our lives.
Joey Cat will always be House Rachowski’s dire cat, our bannerman. I am so grateful to him. I always will be.
He is better than any pet we imagined.