Blackjack the Cat
by David Barth
written November 20, 1995
All cats are special, but Blackjack was a very rare feline. He had a special personality that endeared him to us. Our relationship with him began in 1981
when Carol and I found him in The Golden Leash pet shop at Villa Italia mall. We had been discussing getting a pal for our six-month old black tiger shorthair,
Maxwell. In the pet store were several six-week old kittens, and Carol picked up each one. Blackjack seemed to be the most playful, so we bought him, carrying
him to the car in our arms. As we carried him through the Villa Mall, several shoppers stopped to admire our little black kitten.
Carol had known for several years that she would name a black cat "Blackjack." He was all black, but in bright sun, faint stripes could be seen on his sides. He
had very soft fur that looked unkempt when he was young. Initially, Carol didn't pay as much attention to him as she did to Maxwell. She thought of Blackjack as a
nice kitten and companion for Maxwell, but not as a special cat until one day when she was running up the steps to the bedroom. Blackjack ran beside her, leaping
up to touch her hand. In doing so, he touched her heart. For a long time he enjoyed running beside us up the stairs.
From that time on, he was Carol's special pal. Both cats learned to fetch foam rubber balls that we threw, but Maxwell's interest in fetching faded after a year or two.
However, for nearly fourteen years, until a week before he died, each night Blackjack brought several balls from the landing up to the bedroom, dropping them on
Carol's side of the bed and, sometimes, jumping to the bed to drop them on Carol's blanket. Each morning Carol would look for all the balls.
Being a small, slender cat, Blackie sought warmth during the cold months. He favored the heating duct in Carol's bathroom. When she took a bath, he used to get
a wild look, jump to the side of the tub, and watch the water. It interested him very much, but he never wanted to jump in. At night he would sleep on the blanket
covering Carol's legs. He would often sleep on my back until I would roll over and he would have to find some other warm place.
When Carol took socks from the dryer, and a few were still slightly damp, she would leave them on the top of the dryer. When Carol would return to put the socks
away, some of them would be on the floor, and sometimes halfway up the stairs, having been dragged around by Blackie. He did this only while he was young. He
liked to bite small items that would fit in his mouth. I have a mechanical pencil that has his teeth marks on it. One time he broke my headset microphone by biting
into it. I had left it on the floor, near the door so that I would remember to take it to the airport, and found that it was inoperative. I sent it to Telex for repair, and the
technician phoned to tell me that there were small teeth marks on it. I knew then that Blackie had been the culprit.
Blackjack seemed personable because he always looked up at us when we talked to him, almost as though he understood what we were telling him. Carol and he
began to talk to each other early in his youth. Either he or Carol would start a conversation, he giving a little "meow" and she answering with a word or two, their
little "talks" continuing for several exchanges.
Since Maxwell was Carol's cat, when Blackjack came to live with us, he was my cat. On their medical records at Anderson Animal Hospital, they were listed as
Maxwell Mikesh and Blackjack Barth. But over the years Blackie and Carol became so close that she had his name changed to Blackjack Mikesh, against my
futile protests.
Blackjack always responded to Carol, but he diplomatically gave me attention, too. Sometimes he would walk toward me, meowing for a pet or scratch, his head
raised, looking me in the eye. But Carol was his favorite. When she was ready to go to work, Blackie often bid her "goodbye" by rolling on the landing and looking
cute as she would pass by on her way to the door. He developed a retinue of adorable tricks just to keep her home a few moments more. He was always a clean
cat, and never gave us any problems.
Blackie, like all our cats, was given many pet names by Carol. Perhaps one of the most-used by her was "Muggins," the source of it, unknown to me.
Blackjack was never a fighter. He was always compliant, and took pills, medicine, and shots quietly. Just after we got him, we took him to a vet to get a shot. Carol
was holding him as he stood on the black surface of the counter and noticed with amusement that he was perspiring through his paw pads, leaving little damp footprints.
The only time he retaliated was on that visit. As Carol held him for his shot, the vet advised her that he might try to bite. Sure enough, when the needle went into him,
he whipped his head around and nipped Carol. That was the only time he ever bit her.
At Anderson Animal Hospital, his first vet was Dr. Albers. He said Blackjack was so easy to handle that he almost gave urine samples on command. His second vet,
Dr. Suro, and subsequent vets, even gave him an occasional cursory dentistry while he was awake, a procedure that would be impossible to do with most cats.
Perhaps fear kept him from fighting back, but the only time he ever retaliated was that first time he got a shot.
Carol sewed Blackie a little sleeping bag out of quilted material, about two and a half feet square. Although Blackie rarely slept in it, it was what Carol put him in when
she took him to the vet. He was comfortable in the bag, and when the vet was finished poking and prodding him, he would dive back into the bag for safety. When
Carol was within a half mile of home, he seemed to know they were close and stuck his head up to look out the window.
But Blackjack became ill early in life. Somehow his little body generated a lot of sand-like stones, some of which blocked his urethra. From age two or three, he had
to be given pills, one a day for seven days, then fourteen off. Dr. Albers predicted he would live to only eight years, a maximum of ten. It was Carol's loving care that
made him last all the way to age fourteen and a half. For the last year and a half, every two or three days, Carol gave him 150 ml injections of saline solution beneath
the skin to hydrate his poor little body. This fluid helped dilute the toxins in his blood that his kidneys couldn't filter.
At 4 PM on the day he died, he and Carol talked and he purred. He seemed normal for the condition he was in. He weighed only six pounds. He was resting after a
difficult bout of constipation that required a trip to the hospital the day before. At 6:30 Carol started to pick him up from the quilt to give him a hug. Carol laid him
back when he cried out in discomfort. Since Anderson didn't close until 7 PM, we had time to rush him to Anderson where Dr. Lutz and two technicians tended to
him. The technicians were unable to draw blood. Dr. Lutz said his heartbeat was weak and his body temperature was only 93 degrees, down from the normal feline
level of 102.
The technicians quietly left the room and Dr. Lutz advised us that transfusions could possibly extend his life a week or two, but we didn't want to put him through that,
and we didn't want to leave him in a cage at the hospital. Dr. Lutz was nearly in tears, as were we, when we thanked her and took poor little Blackie back home.
Carol tenderly carried him back to the sewing room in the quilt he had been laying on. He moved little, and we knew he was alive only by his breathing.
At 9:04 PM, his poor little body gave up the fight for life, and he breathed his last. Carol had her arms around him when he died. He was the most special cat we ever
had, and we doubt we will ever again know a cat as magnificent as he.
Now our lives will change, especially Carol's. For a long time she will hurry home to greet and pet her little black cat, then suddenly, sadly remember that he is not
there. No longer will she gently carry the little guy to the kitchen counter for his injection of solution. No longer will she say "pumpkin" and watch him lick his lips in
recognition of the word as she gets out a small helping of pumpkin, one of the few foods besides KD cat food that he could eat because of his kidney
disease.
He rests in a special spot in our garden, next to another special black cat, Felix.