Musician, teacher and aspiring (but mainly perspiring) writer, Mark is founder of Springwater Music Group -a clearinghouse, record label and public relations firm for the many projects, books, groups and artists he is involved with in Western Pennsylvania. You can visit www.springwater.com to learn more about Mark's projects or order his music and books. During off hours, Mark can be found happily watching the grass grow at his beautiful Somerset County home, Springwater Farm."

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Another stray has shown up on our doorstep. Although we already have five cats, my wife Beth feels a moral obligation to feed it and give it a name - Newbie.

After a week, Newbie is showing his true colors. He’s terrorizing our other cats and spraying everything in sight: the front door, the back door, the tires on my car, the garden gnomes. My wife calls our neighbor Karen and asks if she’s lost a cream and orange tom cat. “He’s not ours,” Karen replies. “He’s a stray and he caused a lot of trouble with our barn cats. If I were you, I’d just shoot him.”

Two weeks of spraying, terrorizing and late night caterwauling goes by. We’ve called the neighboring farmers, but no one claims Newbie and none of our cat-loving friends want him. Go figure. For a moment I flirt with the shooting solution, but then remember I don’t own a gun. “We’re not barbarians,” huffs my wife. As an alternative I concoct a plan to hide in the forsythia and, when he’s least expecting it, capture him with a perfectly thrown blanket. I’ll then take him to the animal shelter. “I’ve already called the shelter and they euthanize feral cats,” my wife says. “I’d hate to see him put to sleep.  I’ll borrow a trap and find a no-kill shelter.”

A few days pass.  My blanket scheme bags an azalea, a clump of daisies and one really stupid squirrel, but no Newbie.  In the meantime, Beth has found him a home: The Tiger Bright Refuge for Feral Cats.  “The owner’s name is Rosy.  She says she’ll meet you at the McDonald’s on Exit 3 of the Turnpike.”  “That’s over 100 miles from here,” I complain.  “You want me to haul a spraying cat 100 miles in our car to a resort for out-of-control kitties?”   “Newbie deserves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, just like you and me,” Beth retorts.  “Besides, it’s a nice time of the year to take a little trip.”

Beth’s also borrowed a Hav-a-Heart trap from her brother David and a much larger rabbit pen to act as the transport cage.  “Seems like a lot of trouble for a feral cat,” David says.  “Why don’t you just shoot him?”

After a day of withholding food, we set the trap.  It works!  Newbie, pinned within the Hav-a-Heart, goes berserk.  He attacks the steel with bared fangs.  He hisses, spits and howls like a banshee. “How am I going to get him into the rabbit pen?” I ask.  “Let him calm down,” my wife says.  “Then put the mouth of the trap against the mouth of the pen. He should run right in.”

Within a few minutes, Newbie is strangely calm.  He’s crouched quietly, surveying the situation.  Perhaps he’s seen the light.  Perhaps he won’t fight the inevitable.  Perhaps I’m a complete idiot.  When I position the two containers, Newbie instantly goes for the half inch of freedom between the mouths of the trap and the cage. He’s almost out before I grab him.  He yowls and claws me as I try to stuff him into the pen.  “He’s scratching my arm!”   “Grab his legs,” my wife says.

I reposition my arm, but Newbie twists and tries to sink his fangs into my gloved hand.   “He’s trying to bite me!” I yell.  “Shove him in!” my wife yells back.  Of course!  Why didn’t I think of that?

In the less confined space of the rabbit pen, Newbie is free to hurl himself about in a demonic fury.  The pen rocks.  Fur flies.  Realizing that he’ll injure himself, we throw a blanket over the pen.  Thankfully, darkness calms the devil.

Beth calls The Tiger Bright and arranges for the transfer.  After two hours of driving through the verdant rolling hills of Western Pennsylvania, I pull into the McD’s and park between two battered pick up trucks.  During the entire journey, Newbie hasn’t uttered one peep.

A woman who must be Rosy emerges from the green pick up.  Rotund and wearing a long skirt, cowboy boots and weathered outback hat, she transmits the vibe of an earthy-crunchy animal lover.  “We have over 300 cats on our 120 acre refuge.”  Sounds like hell for chipmunks, I think to myself.  “After we vaccinate them, we turn them loose in the forest,” she says happily.  I picture hundreds of feral cats lurking behind trees in a dark forest.  I lie and say, “Isn’t that nice!”

Rosy hands me a tiny plastic cat carrier.  “Unless you want to give me that rabbit pen, you’ll have to transfer the cat into this carrier.”  I feel like she’s just asked me to storm the beaches of Normandy.  “How am I going to do that?” I ask, dreading the answer.  “You’ll have to crawl into the back of your wagon and transfer him from the pen to the carrier.”  “You’re kidding me,” I croak.  “Just close all the windows and crawl in the back,” Rosie says soothingly.    “I’ll close the hatch.  If you hold the mouth of the pen against the mouth of the carrier, he should run right in.”  Yeah, I’ve heard that before.  “It’s not too late to just shoot him, you know,” I say.  Rosy stares at me blankly.  “Just joking,” I say lamely.

Anticipating the worst, I don leather gauntlet gloves and a long flannel shirt.  With a deep breath and a brief prayer to St. Felix, I reluctantly crawl into the wagon.  The back of the Subaru is hot and cramped.    Rosy closes the hatch; it clicks with a scary finality.  I squeeze myself between the back window and the rabbit pen, all the while holding the cat carrier.  There’s a huge difference between the size of the pen door and the carrier door so I strategically angle the mouth of the carrier to align with Newbie’s anticipated line of escape.

“Come on, Newbie.  Be a good kitty and get in the carrier.”  The enemy squints at me with steely eyes. The tension is palpable.   I slowly open the pen door.  Newbie just silently crouches.  Suddenly, with no warning and lightening fast speed, he makes a break for it and squeezes with surgeon-like precision between the pen and carrier.  So much for strategic alignment.

Now he’s hunkered down in the front floor by the brake pedal.  Trapped inside the confines of the car, I feel like I’m reliving one of the old World Wide Wrestling Federation “Cage” matches I used to watch on TV when I was kid.  I’m Bruno Sammartino and Newbie is George “The Animal” Steele.  Locked in mortal combat, will either escape alive?

I attempt to pacify Newbie with a “nice kitty” before I wildly lunge for him. I grab him by the scruff of the neck and yank him towards me.  He howls in protest and claws me frantically, shredding my shirt and my arms.  As I hear Rosie’s muffled voice yelling   “shove him in” and “grab his legs,” the thought occurs that I’ve slipped into some kind of temporal loop and I’m doomed to repeat this struggle for all eternity.

Alarmed by the thought, I shove Newbie towards the cat carrier.  He twists and somehow sinks his fangs into my gloved hand.  One of his teeth breaks through the rawhide and punctures the skin of my thumb.   As I force him into the carrier, Newbie splays his legs against its tiny opening, but it’s to no avail.  “Take that, you *!@!” I curse.  An adrenaline surge enables a final shove and cage door slam, and the deed is finally done.

“There, that wasn’t so bad,” Rosy says. My thumb is throbbing like the telltale heart.  “Don’t worry,” says Rosy cheerfully.  “I’ll keep Newbie quarantined for two weeks just in case he happens to have rabies.  And I’ll call the state health department.   We have to report all feral cat bites.”  I want to ask if crazed attacks by rabid cats are the norm in these parts, but I just grunt, “Gee, thanks.”

The woman sitting in the red pickup truck next to us looks up from eating her Big Mac and fries and slowly scrutinizes my tattered and bloody arms.  Still munching, she winds down the window and hands me a huge wad of paper napkins splotched with grease and ketchup.  “Here son, looks like you could use these.”

On the trip home my punctured thumb aches and my gashed arms burn, but at least I’m Newbie free.  I smile as I think of Newbie happily spraying trees and slaughtering hapless chipmunks in a dark forest far from me, but then frown when I picture the big scary needles on the rabies vaccine series I’ll surely need.

In two weeks Rosy will call and tell me Newbie is not rabid and I need not worry about a series of big scary needles, but this evening my first order of business is a precautionary tetanus shot.   It’s almost dark by the time I get home from the local emergency room.  As I round the bend in our driveway, I let out a howl of protest and despair. Illuminated by the back porch light, I can see my wife bending down to put food in a dish for a cat I’ve never seen before.