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Blogs by Jean Sheldon
Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard 6/22/2007 5:17:45 AM
As I mentioned in another blog, my cat, Xena, and I, live by a school with a number of those metal classrooms. Some nights, when I look over there, after the kids and their parents are gone, it's like watching the Broadway musical of the same name. Cats lying on porches, twitching their tails or stretching to scratch their claws on one of the few trees. (This is New Mexico.)
One evening about four years ago, Xena came home with a rail thin, but very long, black cat following behind her. Black cat is ‘Gato Negro’, in this part of the country. She introduced him as Julio, because of the Paul Simon song, Me and Julio, Down by the Schoolyard.
Julio is a feral cat. Feral cats aren’t born in the wild. They are usually dumped by people and left to survive on their own. It’s no wonder they’re terrified of humans. For the first two years after we met, Julio would show up in the middle of the night and eat the food I left on the porch. If I even spoke to him, he took off or hissed loudly. As he put on weight, it was like having a small panther hiss at me. I had a lot of respect for those long, white teeth and claws.
The problem with leaving the food out there came when other cats started to show up for dinner. My budget isn’t that big. During a particularly nasty winter night, I talked Julio into coming inside to eat, but I still couldn’t go near him.
A year later, as I worked at the computer one evening, I felt something rub against my leg. I reached down thinking it was Xena, until I heard a hiss and watched Julio bolt out of the kitty door. That, I realized, was a very good sign. Through the next year, he would rub against me as he walked by, until finally one day, I put my hand down to pet him and he didn’t hiss. Since then, after he eats, he’ll sometimes lay on the floor inside the house for a while. Usually near the cat door.
Julio will always be feral, no matter how much love or food I give him. Even today, if I move too quickly he’ll hiss, but I’ve learned when I talk to him in a quiet voice, he calms down. Trying to help Julio has taught me an enormous amount about patience. I’m grateful to him for that, because these days, I find patience to be a major tool for survival.
