I remember Mom was somewhat amused by the note I left on the kitchen table. "I shot the cat, went to work- Mike" We used to leave little short notes to each other on the kitchen table just to know where people were and what we were up to. I remember her commenting on it years later as a note she still thought was funny in an odd way.
It must have been the summer of '73, I was taking classes at Muskegon Community College and working evenings at the phone company as a janitor. I came home from school to find no one home, but Tom our roaming big orange and white cat was still laying on the porch with his rear end and legs mangled from what must have been a car-cat accident which he didn't win. He was still alive and had managed to pull himself home with his front paws and had made it as far as the porch. Of course we didn't take him to the vet, people barely were taken to the doctor back then let alone take a cat to the vet. So someone put a little food and drink near his head and left him there to see if he lived, and that was the trouble, he did live. But in my opinion it was not a good life, he couldn't get up and walk and messy stuff was oozing out of his rear end onto the cement on the porch. To make it worse, you had to step over him to get into the house. But it was the oozing that really bothered me. He had been laying there a couple days or so and it just seemed to me that no one was taking this seriously and doing anything about it so I decided to be decisive and that I had to be the one to step up and do a mercy killing of the cat. I decided the best place for this to happen was in the field between the garden and the pine trees behind the house, Then I could bury him right where he died. I also decided the cat should die happy so I got a big chunk of hamburg out of the refrigerator for him to eat as a combination last meal and to keep him occupied while I shot him. The only gun I had available was my 12 gauge pump shotgun, the bad thing about that was it was a big gun for just a cat, but the good thing was if I missed the first shot I had five more shots before reloading. So somehow I got the cat, the hamburger, the gun and the shells all out to the field behind the house to carry out what I thought was a rather noble mission. Now in my mind I think I expected that when I shot the cat, he would take the bullet like a man, raise his head up and give me a look of thanks for putting him out of his misery then drift off calmly to sleep. Sort of like those cowboys died on Gunsmoke or Bonanza every week when the sheriff or one of the Cartwrights would have to shot some bad guy who knew he had it coming. I won't describe how it really went when I shot the cat because to this day it still disturbs me a little to remember that sight so I will just say the cat had more life to him than it appeared and it wasn't a calm and thankful death on the cat's part, which did ruin my self image as a mercy killer. So after the unpleasant task I buried the cat, left the note and went to work. No one complained about what I had done, at least I didn't see any notes about it on the kitchen table the next morning.
