Window Kitties

Window kitties come and go. They are a big city phenomenon, mostly, but they probably exist in the burbs as well. Discovering suburban window kitties, however, is more problematical: it would involve cruising in a car or walking endless miles and peeking into windows as an unwelcome stranger. Cities allow us to peek into windows with impunity, and cats to peer out at us without censure.

One day these special cats are resting on a second floor window sill and following your progress down the street, the next they are somewhere else taking care of business: lunch, litterbox, or nap.

We usually don't know who they belong to, these window kitties. The owners are seldom seen with their paws on the sill next to their furry friends. They are behind the scenes, out working to support the litterbox, luncheon and nap.

There's something comforting about a window kitty looking out at you. It's through a window in winter and sometimes through a screen in the summer. It is someone who notices you walking down a New York side street when there is no one else around. Of course, they can't call for help if there's a problem, but window kitties have been known to meow a less-than-tentative hello toward faces they find familiar.

Not everyone likes them there, those window kitties, those finding them aloof and mysterious and impenetrable and their eyes piercing through to things that are too private. Many dogs have a goofy, friendly, street-level way of saying hello that's more immediate to a certain temperament.

Window Kitty One lived on a ground floor and vacillated between two bamboo decorated windows on West End Avenue. One could easily be at eye level with her when her eyes were open (usually not for long). But one day, the bamboo shutters covered with rice paper, were closed and Window Kitty One become invisible.

Window Kitty Two lived between Broadway and Amsterdam and you had to look up to her. Sometimes she'd mew hello through the screen because she was only by the window in the summertime. In the winter she probably had a warm spot somewhere inside.

Now Window Kitty Two is gone with her owner to some other place. Some other apartment. Some other city.

Tiger

Tiger mutters.

Tiger's not really his name because most cats in New York Chinatown don't have names. When we asked the wizened owner of the Mott Street pharmacy what the cat's name was he stared at us blankly for a moment then said, "Tiger." Tiger catches rats, so his name might as well be "Tiger" even if it's not.

"He catches lots of rats in the alley," the pharmacist says barely in English. Tiger is a lanky cat. His legs and body are too long and so is his nose. If you look down from above, his head seems almost as long as a puppy's, not flatish like most cats.

Tiger likes to sleep on an old, metal-frame restaurant chair that sits on the floor surrounded by lucky bamboo plants in front of the pharamacy counter, but he looks up when we walk in and meows a "hello" in proper 'cat.' After a stretch and a good chin scratch (chin held up agreeably for convenient scratch access), he will begin to mutter the day's business.

"Mwow. Mwow. Mewp. Mmmowp. Mmmowp." he says. "Those tourists walk in here looking for Lord knows what and nearly step on me. Mewp. Mmmowp. Mmmowp. Mowww. Who do they think they are anyway?"

We think that the Chinese don't feed their cats. They expect them to eat all the rodents they can catch. Mouse buffet or something. Tiger doesn't show the well-fed tummy of apartment cats.

"Mewp. Mmmowp. Mmmowp. And that little girl... . She bumped into me! Can you imagine? And giggling to her friends the whole time. Mooowwwwpppp!"

He's like an old vegetable stand attendant cursing to himself about those crazy "gwai lo" who don't really know what a water chestnut looks like before it's peeled.

Tiger rubs against my left leg and looks up expectantly.

"How's hunting? I ask him.

"Mewwwwwwwwwwwwwp. Moww. Mmmmmppp! I've eaten all the rats in the back already."

He has a long half-healed cut on his ear.

"The rat was bigger than him!" The pharmacist offers. "Real big! He's brave!"

Tiger washes his ear and rubs against my leg again.

"We've got to go," I say.

"MMmmmmowwwp. Grmmmowp. Mewwwwp."

One more well-placed chin scratch and Tiger jumps back onto his chair. He purrs in Chinese and mutters to himself about the tourists as he finds a proper spot on the worn plastic. In two blinks he is asleep. His tail hangs off one side of the chair, his too-long head and too-long neck dangle awkwardly off the other side of the chair as though the empty air was a pillow. He mutters in his sleep and dreams proudly about the vanquished rats.