ROCHELLE and I watched as the vet and his aide laid Hansel on the operating table. The cat was on a drip, and the vet was checking out the intravenous connection. Satisfied it was good, he then took out the dextrose and prepared the serum that would put him to sleep; then he injected it. When he next readied the serum that would stop the cat’s heart I looked at Rochelle; then I left the room and returned to Reception.
Most of the pets in Animal House that night of Dec. 27, 2015, were dogs; their owners were there for nothing more than their regular checkups. Rochelle and I were there for different reasons: I to get my cat killed and Rochelle, from PETA, to assure me it was the right thing to do.
“He went well, Cesar,” she said after emerging from the Operating Room. “You did the right thing.”
It was almost midnight. Earlier that day Rochelle had been sending out frantic text messages asking me to return to Animal House after I agreed to have Hansel put to sleep as a result of his injuries. I had to be with him for the last time, she said, and assured me she’d be there for me. She then sent a GrabTaxi to pick me up at the office, and soon I was on my way to sign the cat’s death warrant.
Hansel’s troubles began on Dec. 22, 2015, the day he disappeared; it happened apparently after one of the workmen who had been doing some repairs on the house left the gate open, giving him his chance to sneak out. I noticed he wasn’t there when I checked up on him, his sister Gretel and mother Kris after waking up and before going to the office. I feared for him, and my fear proved true at 1:05 a.m. on Christmas Day, when I found him outside after I stepped out for a breath of fresh air.
He had been walking unsteadily, groggily, as if he might keel over any time; it appeared someone had whacked him. I instantly remembered what Rochelle had texted on the 23rd, when I told her Hansel had gone missing. “Get him in by tomorrow. Fireworks and firecrackers can disorient, frighten, kill him,” she said. “Stupid kids can torture animals just for fun.”
I scooped him up and took him inside, put him down in the outer kitchen where, for the first time, I noticed that his mouth and left eye looked strange. He drank copious amounts of water from the drinking vessel, and then ambled off and disappeared under the sink.
At 6:13 p.m. I texted Rochelle from the office and told her about Hansel. Then, around half-past 10, when I got home, she panicked when I told her I found Hansel sitting in the sala and appearing to be in great pain. Gretel was passing by just as I entered the room: she hissed at him but gave him a wide berth before running off.
Rochelle sent a GrabTaxi for me and Hansel and said she’d be in Animal House later to meet us. There we agreed he must be confined so we’d know what best to do for him, and on my way home, after thanking her for doing everything in her power to help, I hoped for the best but feared the worst for Hansel.
Rochelle texted the bad news in the early morning of Dec. 26—and right after saying a cat beater was on the loose in my neighborhood: “He has a fractured jaw and skull and three of his molars are damaged. Might have eyesight problems.” Thirty minutes later: “I’m sorry, Cesar, but I’m leaning towards putting him to sleep. He’s on a drip and the prognosis is guarded. He’ll be immobile for weeks, could be months. And the fracture may or may not heal after giving him the best of care.”
Hansel came into my life on Feb. 28 last year—the day he was born. Weeks before, a pregnant cat had started lounging at the gate outside and begging for food. I started feeding her, but a neighbor had me alarmed when she asked no one in particular when and where the cat would pop as she watched me feeding her one day. That meant the cat had no home, so on Feb. 27 I took her in. The next day she popped, delivering two kittens in a box filled with old newspapers in the outer kitchen.
I told Rochelle—a friend whose advocacy I’d been supporting for close two years—about the cat and her litter, and she wished me luck, said she’d help me get them neutered after about six months. She also texted me now and then to inquire about the cats, and eventually asked me when I’d finally get around to naming them.
I got around to doing that one Saturday—my day off—and for no particular reason named the cat Kris and her kittens Hansel and Gretel. It didn’t take long before I realized that Kris was nonchalant, Gretel shifty and Hansel spontaneous and friendly. Hansel was the only one who greeted me when I came home and sat on my lap purring while I relaxed in my rocking chair, and the only one to meow outside my door to get me out of bed before noon to go to the office. He was my buddy.
As she promised, after six months Rochelle dropped by in a GrabTaxi one morning in August 2015 to have the cats neutered. She had earlier lent me a cage—she calls it a carrier—to put the cats in when the time came to have them spayed, but only Kris and Gretel were in it when she came over after Hansel, suspicious, eluded me while I was trying to cage all three for the trip to Animal House. She returned the two cats after three days along with a sack of cat food, three food pans and three cat toys. “Take care of them, Cesar,” she said.
I did. Kris remained nonchalant and Gretel wary, but Hansel grew bolder and increasingly assertive. Kris used to bully him and Gretel during their regular roughhousing, but around October 2015, when Hansel and his sister were eight months old, he turned the tables on his mom and eventually had her running off one day after she thought she could try the same stuff on him. He also started challenging the tomcat outside the gate that had started coming over to beg for food. Then he disappeared.
Rochelle defended her suggestion to put Hansel to sleep for the better part of December 26. But the next day she flew off the handle after I said I didn’t want to be in Animal House to see Hansel being put to death. “At the worst possible time you choose to be a selfish coward. Our intention is to make him as comfortable as possible given what he’s been through,” she texted. Later: “How nice and comfortable it must be being available only when life is a bed of roses.”
I apologized to Rochelle three times; then I told her we’d be able to put the paper to bed before 9 p.m., and maybe she could send a GrabTaxi to the office to take me to Animal House. “Thanks for coming to your senses. And thanks on his behalf,” she texted. A little after nine a taxi picked me up.
I waited a little for Rochelle. When she arrived someone led us to the cage where Hansel was, and when he saw me he meowed and rose to his feet despite his obvious pain. Soon, a vet came over and an aide picked up Hansel’s cage to take him to the operating room, and while Rochelle dutifully followed I dragged my feet; I wished I had wings to fly away from there.
I thought Rochelle had sensed my discomfort, but if she did she didn’t show it. Hansel was still on a drip inside the cage, and when they took him out and laid him on the table he reminded me of a rag doll. He stretched out involuntarily when the vet injected the sleeping serum, and when he readied the heart stopper I quit the room.
“Let’s go home, Cesar. It’s late,” Rochelle said after she left the Operating Room and joined me in Reception, and after assuring me that Hansel went well.
“I can’t thank you enough, Rochelle. I owe you a lot,” I said.
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“I do. You were a big help and you paid for everything.”
“I didn’t. PETA did. Any decent animal organization would’ve, but let’s go home. It’s late.”
I sat in my rocking chair when I arrived home and thought about Hansel, recalling how he meowed and stood up despite his pain when he saw me. It hurt me to see him go, but then I realized the relief made available to him to stop his suffering would not be available to a human placed in the same circumstances.
I recalled how he sat on my lap purring while I relaxed in my rocking chair. I thought about him during the bedlam on New Year’s Eve and recalled Rochelle’s admonition to get him in quickly after I’d reported him missing.
“Happy 2016 to you and those around you,” Rochelle texted at 1:20 a.m. on New Year’s Day. “May it be a year of great happiness, good health, and renewed hope.”
“Likewise, Rochelle. Thanks,” I texted back.
“How are the girls?”
“Kris and Gretel are okay.”
“Good. And now that you know that a cat beater is on the loose, don’t encourage either of them to roam, please.”
“I won’t. Thanks. I miss Hansel.”
“I know. But you put an end to his suffering. That’s an amazing gift anyone—human or animal—could ever wish for.”
“Thanks.”
“I think Hansel forgot he was in pain during the short time you were there.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll never forget how Hansel woke up once he heard your voice. Thanks for coming to see him—and sorry for calling you a selfish coward.”
Cesar Barrioquinto is a copy editor.