Jaxson

Oh, sweet bejesus!
Inquiring people drop their jaws to the floor, eyes widened, mouths agape, hands by their head,
not unlike the enactment of The Scream.
One of our foster cats had a psychotic breakdown, I explain
Their eyes scanning between my arms and legs, no doubt wondering where else the aftermath extends;
This looks bad, I offer, but it could be so much worse.
They nod in doubtful politeness, but oh I know.

*

Three sets of deep holes on my thigh, the swollen skin around it now rippling in colour:
purple and blue and green and later yellow and brown,
On its way to a complete rainbow.
Deep, long slashes on my calf and knee, front and back,
marking distinct flight plans.
Parallel irrigation ditches still caked with blood, start construction on one shin, continue to the other.
Beneath the visible, my belief is shaken:
what kind of feline behaviourist am I, if I couldn’t see it coming?

*

Jaxson the five-year-old tuxedo cat was our latest foster,
Brotherly towards the two younger boys: age 5 months and 10 weeks, Jaxson
grooms them, wrestles with them, and all three nap in a single pile.
He and the resident cat Chai were amicable:
some fanny sniffing, and occasional single-paw swatting, but never vicious.
With husband and I, he was quick to purr and headbutt, and regularly solicited
airlift to view his surroundings from the vantage point of our shoulders.
In short, he was gentle, curious, and loving – a complete sweetheart
until he wasn’t.

*

On that fateful evening, I was on my laptop wrapping up work
In my peripheral, I thought Jaxson was just playing with his foster brothers nearby
then I heard a distinctly different vocalization.
Jaxson is a chatty boy, but that particular howl sounded alarming, so
I got up to check on him. But the second I see him,
really see him, locking eyes:
his body language is all wrong, his pupils fully dilated and spewing fury,
he marched towards me with swagger and intent –
I took half a step back but understood: this is happening

*

No, it wasn’t a march, it was a ramp up to a pounce.
he lurched into my right leg, fangs into my thigh,
hind claws carved into my knee and shin as he dislodged his canine teeth to bite into new flesh
His body wrapping my leg like a blood pressure cuff tightening with razors and needles
repeatedly stabbing and puncturing, as if we are playing Velcro on loop.
Surprise overpowers pain
Chai, asleep a moment ago, flew off the bookshelf to my rescue.

*

She rammed into Jaxson, claws blazing.
Like a spinning ying-yang sign, the two of them zigzagged fang over claws on the laminate floor:
biting, scratching, bunny kicking, sounds I have never heard either of them make
They crashed into table legs, sliding doors, dining chairs,
Patches of Chai’s long caramel fur, stripped off by Jaxson, float in the air
like snowflakes in a shaken snow globe. In that second, I hated Jaxson.
I wanted to take a sharp object and whack him on the head
But they are moving too fast, my mind racing in overdrive
Fuck, fuck, fuck!

*

Husband rushed to the scene. Stop stop! He shouted.
Separate them! I shrilled back, feeling surges of panic shoot to my head
In the millisecond the two cats separated, he stuck a foot between them
as if trying to stop a closing elevator door.
Jaxson grabbed his foot: shred, shred, shred;
executing a barbed wire tattoo on his ankle and heel
Feeling pain, husband started twirling in place like a ballerina,
trying to shake the beast off, but to no avail.
I raced over with a thick blanket, fell to my knees to wrap the lunacy,
bracing myself for hand-to-paw combat. I nearly wrapped him,
then fell on my back at a pivotal second. Jaxson raged out from under the blanket,
locked his deadly green eyes with mine for the second time.

*

I saw it all happen, friends and neighbors,
in that split second,
with complete certainty:
this is when he will tear my face off, this is where he will end me.

*

His whirlpool green eyes, like the bottom of Grassi Lake, wild and clear
He leapt into the air, mouth open, fangs bloody
Time stopped, everything went into slow motion:
I saw his throat at the back of his open jaw, rows of incisors and the four canines
ivory with blood, will no doubt spear into my eyes
I raised my right hand to block my face,
and he took the offering with great pleasure!

*

He bites into my palm and thumb
Get the blanket, get the blanket! I shout to husband, block his sight!
I lean into the adrenaline and throw the 12-pound beast
clasped on my hand into the blanket.
Pain is beside the point. I have no bandwidth to feel it.
Husband covers the cat this time securing all sides.
Jaxson still growls violently, snarling and shredding the constraint from within,
while blood from my hands and legs and husband’s shin and foot gush into the blanket.

*

As we backed away from the wontoned Jaxson and closed the washroom door,
We heard boing, boing, BOING
He is repeatedly running into the spring doorstop,
followed by scratching on the door and the gap underneath, fast and furious.
The other three cats congregate outside the washroom door,
the two boys looking interested and confused, as if they wonder what they missed.
Chai’s bum radiates a faint aroma, she had peed herself during the fight.
I pick her up quickly to inspect her eyes, face, belly, back, butt and tail; relieved to see
no visible damage, but this surely has caused her trauma
I feel terrible for putting her in danger, and my love for her expands beyond
what I previously thought was possible.

*

As husband and I wash our limbs with water and peroxide,
our faces distort and contort involuntarily from the stings.
I draft a note to the shelter: we can no longer foster Jaxson.
The trust is broken.
I don’t see a way back from this.
I rewind and replay my memory, zooming in to look for
a plausible cause. But nope.
It was as if someone flipped a switch,
activated a sleeper agent.

*

I am bored! I used to exclaim, wanting a bit of excitement in my life.
This was exciting alright. 
But you don’t always get to choose your own adventure, do you?
I am thankful that Jaxson, although no small size, was still just a house cat
People on YouTube showcase themselves living with bobcats, servals and caracals –
much bigger, much more exotic, much more deadly, if their switches flip.
I am grateful that no eye was lost, or vocal cords ripped out, arteries severed
It really could have been much, much worse.

*

A few days later, news broke that an experienced outdoorsy couple and their dog, were
mauled and killed by a grizzly bear, deep in Banff National Park.
The news shook me in a way that’s beyond reason.
Deep in my dreams, I saw it happen:
Hovered in chest-high grass, I cringed, my eyes shut, heart in my throat.
My hand squeezed tight with husband’s. Behind and around us, the bear spray all used up.
Don’t look this way, I prayed and prayed.
Then my dog barked, no doubt out of a sense of protection.
No! I whisper, no, clutching the leash.
The bear turned toward us, in slow motion, marched over in four giant steps and raised her paw,
My dog leapt free into the air, snarling, bravely facing the thrashing palm.

October 2023
Toronto