Clever Magazine, Vol. V, #6, Spr 03 "Sam " (www.clevermag.com)

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The Pet Pages...

Sam: Hemmingway Cat Extraordinare

by Pamela June Kimmell

I'm Sam, okay?

Pamela June Kimmell is a writer and artist living in Warrenton, Virginia. She's the Fiction Editor for "Epiphany Magazine: a celebration in writing!" and a member of Sisters in Crime. She's written three novels: two mysteries and a fantasy, and has had several short stories and poems published in popular ezines.
Website: http://hometown.aol.com/junekimm/myhomepage/index.html

Three and a half years ago I had the overwhelmingly sad experience of having to come to grips with helping my cat Eddy move on to his “next life”. He was a cat of undetermined age, which had shown up on my doorstep one day and moved into my life. Neighbors said a family who’d moved and left him behind had abandoned him. Something I still, to this day, cannot imagine someone doing.

But I am a cat lover and Eddy seemed to want to belong to me so he did from that day on. I enjoyed his companionship for eight years. His last year was full of medications and trips to the vet and ultimately the vet recommended we do the kindest thing and allow Eddy to slip into the endless sleep. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, but I knew it was best.

After a while, my husband and I decided it was time to make a trip to the local animal shelter and see about adopting another cat. So on a cold, frosty day in December, with newly fallen snow on the ground we went.

There were a lot of dogs available for adoption but very few cats. There were four adults in cages - all facing the back of their cages, curled up in sleep - but one cage held “something different”...one cage held one tiny orange and white kitten with big eyes, and six toes on each of his front paws. I was face to face with my first “Hemmingway Cat”. He was pushing a plastic ball with a bell inside around the cage, with not a care in the world.

The shelter worker asked if I’d like to hold him and of course I said “Yes!”. She handed the frightened little baby to me and after I said hello I handed him to my husband…..somehow the kitten knew if he won “the old man” over, he’d have a new home. Well his strategy worked because we told the worker we wanted to adopt him.

At the front desk, while my husband kept him entertained, I filled out the paperwork, they provided us with a cardboard carrying case and a bag of “goodies” including a collar, tag, and some food. The clerk told us the kitten had been found under a house and brought to the shelter - but that was all they knew. Then she said “He’s a Hemmingway cat you know. He will be quite a handful!” to which I replied “What is a Hemmingway cat?”.

That’s when I first heard of Hemmingways - or polydactyls. A special cat indeed. From what I’ve learned from other Hemmingway cat owners, they are often quite hyperactive, and ours was from the moment we took him home….well, actually it started in the car on the way home.

He screamed at the top of his tiny lungs non-stop! I finally took him out of the carrier and tried to hold him. No way! He climbed all over the car, still screaming the entire time. I realized he was scared - he’d only known the small shelter cage, and here he was in a moving vehicle going somewhere he had no idea of. Poor Baby. Actually not “Baby” - we already had started calling him “Sam”……

Three and a half years later, Sam still is very talkative, and races around all three floors in the house at top speed with fur puffed up and eyes dilated hiding behind furniture and calling for someone to find him….playing “catch” like a dog with his favorite toys….just a bundle of non-stop energy and fun.

He has a very unique personality - this I know because I have had many cats in my life and while they have all been unique in many ways, they have also been “typically cat-like” in most ways. Sam fits into no mold that I’m familiar with, and a mold only known to those of us lucky enough to be enjoying the wonderful world of Hemmingways.

I am a writer and artist, and Sam has been the inspiration of a number of poems, and has been a substantial character in one of my novels and a short story so far. He likes to be in my studio when I’m working. If I’m writing he’s either on my worktable, or lap, or resting on an empty shelf that I gave him in my art supply armoire. If I’m painting, he’s curled up on the couch watching or napping. He follows me like a dog wherever I go and waits for me to sit so he can hop up on my lap. He’s unconditional love wrapped up in orange and white fur, with extra toes and extra energy - in other words, he’s everything those of us who adore cats wants. What more is there?