Milo Is Dead! Long Live Milo!
Milo, 5, Echo Park
Milo tore into my life when we were both for all intents and purposes functionally insane. I was on my own after having been married for seven years, just long enough to itch. Milo was a teenager, roiling with rioting testosterone. So was I, only I was 35 years old, witha red sports car and a Harley Sportster. Milo and I had both by that time survived brutal abusive damage. Apparently Milo’s very early days were spent with an unstable teenager who did terrible things to him. For the rest of his life if you touched Milo on certain hot spots he’d whip and be clawing blood out of your arm so fast it seemed like he had superpowers. If basically anyone except me tried to pick him up they’d have their flesh mauled for their troubles. But whenever there were people around, Milo was always right in the middle of the party. And if you were friends with Milo and sat down, he’d hop right into your lap and curl up purring, begging for affection as only the wounded can.
When Milo moved in with me I was living in a spectacular Craftsman in the hills of Echo Park. The backyard was a huge wild jungle/garden, complete with a mini-waterfall, exotic flora, and lizards galore to catch and kill. It was truly a paradise for Milo. And for me. It was the first house I owned and I made it my own. Next-door lived a cat named Happy. Lex Luther to Milo’s Superman. There was a chain link fence between the two houses and they’d stand nose-to-nose for hours at a clip screaming howling, yowling bloody murder at each other. About once a week they’d square off in a steel cage death match. Milo and Happy, clawing screaming gouging growling like a couple of demon beasts, ungodly satanic cartoon sounds caterwalling out of a crazy blur of fur flying. Epic these fights were. Milo came out on top of Happy approximately 7 out of 10 times. But the damage inflicted when he did catch a beatdown was often quite horrifying. Patches of fur ripped out with exposed flesh sliced open blood oozing. A chunk of his ear missing. Cheek opened sometimes to the bone. Milo would stagger in, a wounded warrior, and find a dark corner to curl up fetal in. He’d sleep for about a week, and miraculously he would be healed.
My friend Larry moved into the bottom floor of the house. Larry and Milo became BFFs. Milo would hear Larry’s car coming in at night and run out and wait for him in the driveway. They’d watch SportsCenter together. That’s the kind of guy Milo was.
Milo moved with me when I lost my beautiful house in the hills of Echo Park. We slithered into the hardscrabble semi ghetto of Venice Beach, where you could literally satisfy your crack needs by leaning your head out the window and shouting, “Yo!” Those were dark days, but we survived. Milo and I we survived together.
Next up: Marin County, Northern California. Another paradise, with fruit trees blackberry bushes and families of deer who’d come trotting down from the hills into the backyard. Next-door was a young cat named Kitten. As soon as Kitten came of age, Milo resumed his fighting career. He’d just walk right into Kitten’s house and eat his food. Basically daring the young up-and-coming stud to take a swipe at them. These battles were just as epic. One time our beloved neighbor Ron tried to break up one of these fights and nearly lost an arm. But Milo was a step older and slower. Now Milo was losing 7 out of 10. He’d come limping in with his eyeball hanging out; paw shredded like raw meat; bloodied but unbowed. Same routine. He’d curl up in a corner for a week and emerge miraculously healed. This is where Milo turned out to be a bit of an American idiot. Again, not unlike myself. Even though he got beat up week after week, he kept fighting. Like he couldn’t help himself. Like he couldn’t stop. Like he was addicted.
Two half years ago Milo and I moved east, to New Jersey. Not quite paradise, but a great place to be a cat. He decided finally to retire from fighting. But Milo never lost his edge. So I wondered how Milo would react when my daughter Olive was born. Olive loves Milo. Sorry, loved. She’s 2 1/2 years old now. She was very affectionate with him, always. And even when she was clumsy, and fell on top of them, or grabbed his tail, or accidentally whacked one of his hot spots, he never lashed out at her like he did at everyone else. Over the last two months Milo has been disappearing. Vanishing a little tiny bit every day right before our eyes. Until he was practically nothing. It was like there was literally nothing of him last except his skin and his bones. But he got a lot of love all the way to the end. He died last night in what seemed like a peaceful sleep on his favorite lambskin rug. It is the end of an era. The world is a sad and less exciting place without Milo. Milo is dead! Long live Milo!
