A friend of mine shared a deeply personal story of tragedy and triumph via email recently. He’s a good writer, and usually very, very funny. This one isn’t really funny. It is long though. I got his permission to post it here. Names have been changed to protect the innocent… You might enjoy it, or you might want to hang yourself. Either way, you’ll feel something. If you want to contact “Kevin” just email me.

Enjoy Comirosymbolitragedy by Kevin Stevens:

I thought it couldn’t get worse.

On November 11 my girlfriend, Lisa–fed up with a few of my minor lies (and all of my major ones)–threw me out of the apartment. It was sort of like one of those Levi’s commercials where the guy’s clothes are scattered in the trees because the girl tossed them out of the window. Only the production values in my version are a lot lower. And so is my self esteem

Since then I’ve been living out of bags at my son’s house, my friends Jeff and Colleen’s house and the apartment of my friends Alice and Lucy.

It’s this last stop where my life train has slipped the rails of depression and careened spectacularly into the ravine of bleak comic-tragedy. I’m not 100% what comic-tragedy actually is. It’s some sort of technical term for a style of ancient Greek storytelling, I think, and it doesn’t really mean tragic in a comical way. Regardless, that’s how *I* mean it.

Tragic in a comical way.

And ironic.

And symbolic.

So what this latest pit stop has offered me is a bleak comic-ironic-symbolic-tragedy. Let’s call it comirosymbolitragedy.

I’ve been staying in Alice’s place since the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. She and her partner, Lucy, are in Europe celebrating Alice’s 50th birthday with golf trips all over Spain. They offered me their place and I offered to watch ailing cat, Fluffy. We’ll get back to Fluffy in a moment.

First, a word on the apartment: it’s a spacious one bedroom which they own. It’s actually quite nice. Babe Ruth used to live in the building. I’m not kidding. The building has a plaque and everything. The neighborhood is really nice. It’s 88th Street between West End and Riverside, but closer to Riverside. And at the low, low price of free, I’m happy to be able to stay here while I look for a place of my own. More on that in a moment as well.

The problem with Alice and Lucy’s apartment is that it’s on the ground floor on 88th Street. It’s not that it’s particularly loud, it’s just that the blinds have to be drawn 24/7 to keep people from looking in. So it’s like sitting in a windowless box, which is what I did alone, all day, every day, from Thanksgiving through Sunday.

The only respite was my continued and desperate apartment search on Friday afternoon. Right now I’m trying to get in a place in Riverdale that’s right off the 1/9, but–here’s the kicker–no one wants to rent to me because my credit is in the dumper. Why is my credit in the dumper? It’s a long story, but as Will Farrell once put very eloquently in the Harvard Class Day speech a couple years ago, things will go swimmingly “as long as you pay your taxes. And don’t just take a year off because you think Uncle Sam is snoozing at the wheel because he will descend upon you like a hawk from hell. Let’s just put it this way. After some past indiscretions with the IRS, my take-home pay last year was $9,000.”

So here I am, wallowing in self-pity, brokenhearted, homeless, having my ass handed to me at work on an hourly basis, getting more and more stressed with each passing day, finding myself unable to relax when I go back to Alice and Lucy’s because the windowless box thing is getting to me.

And then there’s the cat.

The cat is old. Really old. Like she may well be the protocat: the first cat to walk the Earth, worshipped feline of ancient Egypt, feared harbinger during Napoleon’s snow-clogged retreat, riding a tank and holding a General’s rank while the blitzkrieg raged and the bodies stank. I mean this cat is *old*.

A few months ago Fluffy–a.k.a., the Fluff; a.k.a., Fluffers; a.k.a., Fluff-n-puff; a.k.a., a dozen additional and equally cloying sobriquets–took very ill. Alice and Lucy were sure she was about to die. They did MRI’s. They did x-rays. They poked. They prodded. They found nothing. There were no polyps, lesions, tumors, growths, viruses, mold spores, tendencies to vote Republican–nothing. There wasn’t even a fever. She just seemed to be dying.

Then, a few weeks ago, she made a remarkable recovery. She had lost a ton of weight, but suddenly her appetite was back as was her crotchety personality. She was, for all practical purposes, her old self again. So, with their impending trip to Europe, Alice and Lucy found themselves making arrangements to have someone watch her, and there I was.

When I arrived at the apartment last Tuesday I was greeted by Fluffy’ surprisingly loud “Mao! Mao! Mao!” and note from Alice. Here is a sample of a few of the more disturbing passages:

“[Fluffy] is definitely failing, though seemingly in no pain…She is, however, leaking pee around the house…The vet’s # is on the side of the refrigerator (Animal General). Hopefully you won’t have a problem, but the bottom line is, we don’t want to do anything extraordinary to save her at this point. No surgery, no chemo, no MRIs or other expensive x-rays, etc. We’ve done that and there doesn’t seem to be anything clearly wrong. She’s just getting old. And we’re prepared to put her down if necessary. But again, you shouldn’t have to get there.”

You shouldn’t have to get there.

Screaming her “Mao!” at me and leaking pee around the house is about all Fluffy has been doing over the last week. She enjoyed some turkey I had leftover from Thanksgiving, and she liked the tuna I had given her, but by Sunday night, she had kind of stopped eating. Monday she seemed to have stopped drinking. And when I came home last night, she had clearly not moved since I left her in the morning. She hadn’t used the litterbox, her food and water was untouched, and she was still curled by the radiator, barely showing any signs of life. I tried to force her to drink some water, but she wouldn’t take it. She was like an elderly person who just stops eating, you know?

Disturbed, I called her vet. You forget that vets are doctors. And that doctors are noncommittal in that frustrating lawyerly way. Here’s a bit of my conversation:

Doc: You can’t bring her into the clinic tonight because there’s no doctor. You’ll have to wait to bring her in in the morning.

Me: (sharp intake of breath)

Doc: Is that a problem?

Me: I have to be at work tomorrow. I don’t think she can wait that long anyway.

Doc: Well you can bring her in to the Animal Medical Center on York and 62nd, but you’ll probably have to wait a couple hours.

Me: Yeah, I have a little bit of experience with that place…

Doc: Of course they won’t have her history there. Me: Is there a way for me to get her history?

Doc: Well, you could bring her in tomorrow. You can do a drop-off appointment. Someone’s usually in by 7:30.

Me: 7:30 works, but like I said, she’s not drinking anything.

Doc: Hmm. Yeah. She might need IV fluids. It’s difficult to say without actually seeing her.

Me: So what you’re saying is I should bring her in to the Animal Medical Center to get her hydrated.

Doc: That’s definitely one of your options.

Me: I *know* it’s one of my options. I’m asking for your *advice*.

Doc: It’s difficult to say without seeing her. And they won’t have her history so they’ll want to do a lot of tests.

Me: Okay, I’ll ask again–can I get her history tonight?

Doc: There’s no one there tonight. They can fax it in the morning.

Me: But by morning they’ll already have done their tests.

Doc: Probably. It’s really difficult to say.

Me: Sure sounds that way. Okay. I’m going to take her in to the hospital. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.

Doc: You’re welcome.

“You’re welcome?” Doesn’t she know sarcasm when she hears it?

I tried again to get the cat to take some water, and failed once more. When I saw her try–and fail–to move herself that sealed it. I put her in her travel bag and took a cab across town. With all the activity, the cat was bit more animated so I thought maybe I was being paranoid and just misreading the cat for her advanced age.

As soon as I arrived, two doctors took her small history from me: she’s not my cat, she’s been sick, I don’t know with what, she’s really old, I have no idea, maybe 15, she hasn’t eaten or drank for two days, she didn’t move today, she didn’t use the litter box, her food was untouched. At the same time they did a quick evaluation of her, pulling at the skin behind her neck, checking her lips–who knew cats have lips?–picking her up and feeling her abdomen.

“We’re going to take her in back, and we’re definitely going to want to admit her,” said the one doctor, who’s name turned out to be Sarah.

I winced. “I don’t want to sound callous, but how much is that going to run me?”

“Well, we’ll want to do basic bloods, run a catheter, stabilize her a bit–she’s really dehydrated. Staying the night, the whole thing should run about a thousand dollars.”

“Gulp.” I actually said “Gulp.”

They looked at me in that non-judgmental judgmental way.

“I’m sorry. If this were my cat I’d have no problem with this decision because it’d be my money. This is my friends’ cat and I’m going to have to ask them to reimburse me.” I showed them the note from Alice.

“At the very least we should stabilize her,” said Doctor Sarah.

“Okay.”

“Let’s do that and talk some more once we run the catheter.”

After they took Fluffy down the hall I went and filled out paperwork. Even a simple form proved tricky.

NAME? Kevin Stevens.
HOME ADDRESS? Good question.
HOME PHONE NUMBER? Oh Christ.
WHAT ABOUT ALL YOUR BOOKS? What? I don’t under–
YOU REALLY BLEW IT, DIDN’T YOU? Hey, this is none of your business.
HOW MUCH DOES SHE HATE YOU? I want to cry.
IRONIC THE DOCTOR’S NAME IS Sarah, ISN’T IT? I’m calling her Doctor Applebaum from now on.
CUTE ISN’T SHE? Stop it.
NICE EYES? I said stop it.
THINK YOU CAN GET HER NUMBER? I’m not hitting on her. Not here. Not when I’m bringing in a dying cat. Not when–no, wait, you know what? I’m not even interested. I mean, well, yeah, I’m interested, but I’m not interested. I miss Lisa. *My* Lisa. I’m sick to my stomach over this. I’m so depressed I can’t even muster a jerk off. By just about every measure I’m a failure: my job’s going badly, I’ve screwed up every long term relationship I’ve ever had in a really apocalyptic way, I’m barely a father to my son…I can’t even get a *home*. So just, just, just leave me alone already.
DRIVER’S LICENSE NUMBER? 400 705 235.

After I filled out the form, I sat and read. I’m reading Stewart O’Nan’s and Stephen King’s collaboration on this past Red Sox season. It’s called “Faithful.” If the irony gets any thicker around here I’m going to step in front of a bus.

“Mr. Stevens?” It was Sarah. Doctor Applebaum.

“Doctor–Applebaum is it?”

“Yes. Let’s go back where we can talk.”

We went back to an exam room where she told me that Fluffy’s problems were bigger than simple dehydration. Her pulse was weak. Her blood pressure was low. She only weighed three pounds.

“What are you recommending?”

“If we’re going to try to stabilize her, we’re going to have to get really aggressive. We’ve already run a lot of fluids and her blood pressure still isn’t responding. We couldn’t even draw blood from her, that’s how dehydrated she is. Her kidneys are probably failing…”

She practically said “dot, dot, dot” at the end of her sentence.

“Are you recommending we–” my throat caught. Uh-oh. This isn’t even my cat. I can’t start crying over this cat. I don’t have any bond with her. With everything going the way it is right now, if I start crying, I might never stop.

“Ehem. Are you recommending we put her down?”

“It may just be her time. I don’t recommend you take her home with you. She probably won’t last the night. She won’t be comfortable. And being aggressive seems counter to your friends’ wishes.”

She gave me a small pink consent form to perform the euthanasia. That dumb joke about Chinese children flashed through my head.

OWNER?

“It says ‘owner’ here. Do I put my name or my friend’s name?”

“What name did you admit her with?” Dr. Applebaum said.

“Mine?”

“Then put yours.”

OWNER? Kevin Stevens
SEE? SHE *IS* REALLY CUTE? What’s wrong with you?
NO RING OR ANYTHING? I’m not listening.

I signed the form.

“Would you like me to bring her in so you can say good-bye.”

That did it. Full fledged girlie crying. I shook my head no. “I’m sorry. It’s not even my cat.”

“I know. It’s hard.”

“Wait. Yeah. Why don’t you bring her in?”

She retrieved Fluffy and then left me alone with her. She gave me privacy, as she put it.

The cat wasn’t even moving anymore. Just laying there in my lap while I pet her. The crying wouldn’t stop. Doctor Applebaum came back.

“Do you need more time?”

“No,” I said, though it sounded more like “Ehnn.”

She took Fluffy from me, began to leave and then turned back to me. “Would you like me to do this here? So you can be with her?”

I took a deep, shaky breath and offered up an “Ohhhh.” After a moment I said, “I guess so.” I figured this way I could say I was with her at the end.

“Okay,” she said quietly, left the cat with me and departed to get what she needed.

Fluffy seemed to know what was coming. She waited patiently while I continued to pet her, and then the Doctor returned with two syringes.

“Basically, I’m just going to give her a massive dose of anesthesia. It’ll be really quick. Sometimes they urinate or defecate. And keep your hands away from her mouth as sometimes they start biting. Also, there may be one last wheezy, convulsive breath.”

I vibrated with dread and nodded.

She inserted the first syringe with orange liquid into the catheter and pushed the plunger. Nearly immediately, the cat put her head down, and rolled slowly onto her side. When all of the liquid was in, the doctor followed with a clear liquid. “I’m following this with saline because her pulse is so low, she might not circulate the anesthesia herself.”

Fluffy’s sides stopped moving. Doctor Applebaum checked for a heart beat. “She’s gone.”

More explanations followed. And more questions.

“What would you like to do with the body?”

“I don’t know. What are my options.”

“We offer cremation free of charge, but there’s also a private service where you get the ashes.”

“That depends on what my friends want. I can’t talk with them until morning.”

“That’s okay. You can take up three days to decide. Here’s a form that explains the Hartsdale service. In case you or your friends have any questions, here’s my card. You can have them call me.”

She handed me her card and the form.

“All you have to do is call this number,” Doctor Applebaum said, pointing at the form, “And tell them your blue card number. They’ll take care of the rest.”

BLUE CARD NUMBER? 83-41-96.

It couldn’t get any worse. And then I noticed a little further down the page:

SEE? YOU GOT HER NUMBER? I’m ignoring you.

kevin (12/1/2004)

**** Post Script ****

On Wednesday I contacted my friends in Spain. They were wonderful about the whole thing, but they were understandably upset. I, puffy-eyed and guilt-ridden about the whole event, continued with a call to the hospital to let them know that, no, my friends didn’t want the ashes. And I thought that would be that.

Later, while recounting the traumatic events to my friend over dinner my mobile phone rang. the display told me who was calling. The level of guilt I felt rose exponentially. It said, “Dr. Sarah Applebaum.” I had entered her number into my address book. Why? Why do you think? I never expected to use it, and I certainly never expected to see her calling me. How did she have my number?

Let’s talk about conflicted. As I walked home from dinner, I called into my voicemail. There was that anticipatory hitch in my breath as I awaited here message.

“Hi Mr. Stevens. This is Sarah from the Animal Medical Center. I wanted to let you know that I got your message from patient services that you were going to have Fluffy cremated. We’ll take care of that for you. I hope you’re doing okay. If you have any questions feel free to give me a call. Bye.”

So she must’ve gotten my number from the admittance form I filled out. As guilty as I was feeling about the thrill of her call, I now felt doubly disappointed. It was just an administrative call. Still, I appreciated her kindness and her professionalism. I called her to let her know as much.

I reached her voicemail. “Hi Doctor Applebaum. First please don’t call me Mr. Stevens–”

THIS IS GOING *REALLY WELL*, Kevin. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY NOW? MR. Stevens IS MY FATHER’S NAME? YOU DO THAT AND I WON’T LET YOU SLEEP FOR A WEEK. THINK. DEAD AIR. DEAD AIR, Kevin!

“–I don’t like what ‘Mr. Stevens’ sounds like. It’s so formal. Then again I keep calling you Doctor Applebaum so…”

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? THAT’S THE BEST YOU CAN DO?

Hey, if you think this is so easy why don’t *you* do it?

NO WAY MAN. YOU GOT YOURSELF INTO THIS. JESUS YOU’RE PATHETIC.

“…Anyway, I got your message. I just wanted to thank you for being so great last night. I spoke with my friends. I’m not sure if they’ll call you when they get back, but they have your card. So, uh, again, thanks, it was nice meeting you despite the circumstances and, uh, I hope you have a happy and safe holiday.”

I hung up and sulked back to my friends’ apartment to clean up evidence of the Fluffy.

That really, really should have been it. Until the next afternoon when I heard from Doctor Applebaum–can I call her Sarah now?–again. This time it was an e-mail, telling me it was nice meeting me too and if I wanted to get “a coffee or something” sometime, well, that’d be okay with her.

Now what am I supposed to do? I’d been feeling guilty and creepy because, as upset as I was with the cat and my life and the situation with my girlfriend, I was still attracted to this person. What does that say about me? Is it gross and opportunistic of me to be this way?

My thoughts shifted outward. Does she find me attractive? Did she maybe like the fact that I wept like a friggin’ pansy? Perhaps she thinks I’m very sensitive. Maybe she’s like one of those sex-crazed veterinarians I’ve always heard about–

WHAT IS THIS, PENTHOUSE FORUM? SEX-CRAZED VETERINAR– SMARTEN UP.

Sorry. Wishful thinking I guess. Maybe she’s just concerned about me in a doctorly way. Maybe this is something they have to do at the Animal Medical Center. Either way, I’ll find out tonight. We’re going for coffee. Or something.

kevin (12/6/2004)