This is a story about Gus the cat. He was one of the most wonderful cats that ever lived. He died a few months ago, in July. This is the story of who he was, and how he lived.

My wife and I met Gus at an animal shelter in January 1995. He greeted us at the door with a loud meow and tried to get past us to go outside. He was one of the largest cats either of us had ever seen. He was an orange tabby, short hair, and looked quite a bit like Morris the cat from the TV commercials.

My wife and I had decided to adopt a cat. I already had one cat, a small gray tabby named Jezebel who had been mine since she was a kitten. My previous roommate and I both had had cats: my Jezebel and his Sybil. (Our hope was that if we named our cats after erratic women perhaps we could avoid dating them. Unfortunately, Sybil truly was erratic; she clawed the furniture to shreds and pooped in the bathtub.)

In late 1994, Sybil and Jezebel parted company when my wife and I purchased a condo on the far north side of Chicago. Jez was very lonely. When we arrived home after a day’s work, she acted as if she had been abandoned for weeks. We felt guilty. Jez needed a friend.

The animal shelter was an old Victorian house on Irving Park Road in Chicago. It was full of hundreds of cats of every shape, color, breed, and personality. Cats were everywhere. (There was also one unlucky dog who lived in the enormous house of cats.) My wife and I entered the animal shelter. Gus followed us.

We explored the nooks and crannies of this cat shelter. There were cats everywhere, playing, napping, eating, fighting, occasionally trying to get our attention. When we went downstairs, a cat tried to attack our hair from his hideout near the ceiling. Everywhere we went, Gus followed. When my wife sat in a chair, Gus leapt into her lap, and started purring loudly.

We decided to adopt Gus.

People may “adopt” cats, but cats choose people. Since I was Jezebel’s person, we wanted Gus to pick Karie as his favorite human friend. So after we got him home, I attempted to ignore him for a few weeks, while Karie lavished him with love. Jezebel hid under the bed for several days at first, emerging to eat and hiss at this intruder into her house.

It didn’t take long for Gus to work his way into our hearts. For a start, he wasn’t like other cats. Make a quick list of the traits that cat-haters cite when asked why they don’t like cats: haughty, arrogant, non-loving, diffident, mean…Gus was none of these. Indeed, Gus seemed to have the personality of a dog – he loved all people, strangers and friends. Countless times we heard, “I’ve never much liked cats, but I love Gus.”

Gus was gentle. He’d play with you, and sometimes chew your finger, but it was never a hard bite. He would let you do anything with him; you could pick him up and carry him around upside down and he would just purr. He lived for attention. He was like Will Rogers – he never met a person he didn’t like.

Everyone loved Gus, but Gus loved no one as much as Karie. When Karie arrived home every day, Gus greeted her at the door with a loud yowl. “Where have you been? Why did you leave me?” If Karie was watching TV, Gus was on her lap. When Karie went to bed, Gus slept on her pillow – indeed, he took most of it, being the large-size fellow that he was.

He was the smartest cat I’ve ever known. He knew how to open the doors to cabinets and crawl inside. When my parents visited us in Colorado after we bought a house, they investigated a curious sound coming from under the sink in the guest bathroom. It was Gus, curled up and purring. He gave them a plaintive “meow” that said, “What took you so long? I’ve been starved for attention!”

Karie and I often wondered where Gus had come from. We found him at a shelter, but clearly he was a cat who had grown up in somebody’s home, giving and receiving love. He was no stray alley cat who tolerated people; he loved people.

Gus lived for two things: attention and going outside. When we lived in Chicago, he would occasionally escape into the hallway of our building or onto the back porch. He knew we would chase him when he made these escapes, so after running to the end of the porch, by our neighbors’ apartment, he would lie down and wait for us to come and get him. While he waited, he would snack on their houseplants.

When we moved to Colorado and bought a house, we started to let the cats into the back yard. Jezebel was timid and would stay close to the house, ready to run inside at the first sign of anything scary. Gus, however, was clearly in his element. He would eat grass and weeds, hide under shrubs, and lie in the sun. He soon learned to jump the fence. When he jumped the back fence, he could visit the neighbors’ dogs, who barked and growled and yipped and yowled, which didn’t faze Gus in the least. If he jumped the front fence, he could visit our front yard, where there might be kids. He loved kids. After a while, he didn’t bother jumping the back fence anymore.

All the kids in the neighborhood knew Gus. He was he most docile, affectionate cat anyone had ever seen. Kids who had cats at home would come across the street to play with Gus in our front yard. If there were no kids nearby, he would wander down the street looking for them. It got to be a regular event: we’d let Gus run out the back door, and about 45 minutes later, a small kid would ring our front doorbell, struggling to hold enormous Gus, who was completely relaxed and purring loudly. Karie kept a jar of Tootsie Rolls by the front door to give to kids who brought Gus home.

One time, three neighborhood kids, two boys and a girl, decided to take Gus for “a walk.” Gus may have been dog-like in many ways, but walking on a leash was not one of these. The kids hooked up a leash, and then proceeded to drag him around the yard. When they stopped, he purred. Then the kids decided that it would be interesting to watch him climb the enormous cottonwood tree in our front yard. Since Gus was more interested in being petted than climbing trees, the kids thought maybe they should give him a head start. They began pulling him up the tree by the leash. At this point, any other cat would have freaked, but not Gus. He simply hung there by the collar, several feet off the ground, as kids exhorted him to “Climb, Gus!” I think he would have hung there until he was hanged if my wife and I hadn’t rescued him. We removed the leash, and Gus looked up at Karie with much love and purred.

Gus was full-grown when we found him at the shelter. As he grew older, he slowly lost his hearing. He stopped greeting my wife at the door when she got home from work because he couldn’t hear her arrive. Karie would go looking for him, and there he would be, asleep on a shelf in the linen closet. Sometimes he would be startled when she reached down to pet him, since he hadn’t heard her approach. But he always gave her a big “meow” and then started to purr.

Gus was the loudest purring cat I’ve ever heard. You could hear him purring on Karie’s lap from across the room. He purred on Karie’s pillow every night, until finally everyone fell asleep. When you retrieved him from a neighbor’s yard, and carried him, belly up, he purred the whole way home.

Karie usually goes to bed before I do, and Gus would always stay up with me. Jez would follow Karie to the bedroom and curl up with her, but Gus wanted to be where the action was. Before I turned out the lights, I would pick up Gus and carry him upstairs (invariably he would be asleep at this point, having grown bored of whatever I was doing). He lay still in my arms until I reached the bedroom, whereupon he would spring from my arms to the bed, and settle down on Karie’s pillow. Sometimes he actually settled down on Karie’s head if she hadn’t left him enough room on the pillow.

Karie is a musician. She teaches piano to a few of the neighbors’ kids. During many of these lessons, there were three on the piano bench – Karie, cat, and kid. She also plays French horn in a quintet, which occasionally practices at our house. Gus would sit in the middle of the circle, listening to two trumpets, trombone, French horn, and tuba. He would also manage to get orange hair all over the instrument cases.

My wife and I are both cat lovers. We both grew up with cats around the house. The one piece of love advice that Karie’s mother had given her as a girl was, “Look for a man who loves cats.” I scored big points when we started dating and I introduced her to Jezebel (it was lucky that Jez immediately approved of Karie as well).

Between us, we’ve lived with nearly a dozen cats. But there was only one Gus. We miss him terribly. And while we will continue to love cats, Gus will always occupy a special place in both of our hearts.

Jezebel, Karie, Gus

A few weeks ago, August 31, was the third anniversary of Princess Di’s death.

I know this because I read it on the Net, where I get most of my news.

“Princess Diana’s death was a milestone event in Net history, as millions of people flocked to the Web to share their grief by posting to online bulletin boards and building Web page shrines.” MSNBC, August 30, 2000

Whether historians will look to Diana’s death as an “Important Internet Event” on par with, say, the release of Netscape 3.0 is debatable. But it’s another issue that the MSNBC article brought to mind that I’d like to flog to a bloody pulp.

Here’s the thing that floored me. Why would anyone feel the need to expunge their uncontrollable grief over the death of someone they did not know, with whom they had no personal relationship, and who was a highly privileged, wealthy member of an archaic aristocracy to boot? It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong – I have nothing but respect for the person who was Princess Diana. By all accounts, she was kind, gracious, and worked for all the right causes. She was a glowing icon for the country of England. She was a wonderful mother. She was an outstanding role model for women everywhere. She even looked great in polka dots.

So when Lady Di smacked into a wall at 800 mph, it wasn’t like I wanted to throw a party or anything. Far from it! In the early hours, I followed the news and hoped that she might pull through. I cursed the paparazzi. I kept vigil by the TV for the latest developments from the police. I felt sorry for Will and Harry and even Prince Charles, the poor schmuck.

Later, I purchased the special Princess Diana memorial issue of “People” at the grocery store. (However, I did not purchase the collectible commemorative plate that they were hawking on QVC. Those things are pricey.)

Yes, I mourned her passing. No, I did not grieve.

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

Last year, it was America’s turn to grieve for dead royalty. John F. Kennedy, Jr. died in a plane crash near Martha’s Vineyard. It was regrettable, it was a real shame, and I felt bad for the Kennedy family who have lost so many in such awful circumstances.

But again, I did not feel any grief in John John’s passing. I did not know the man.

In fact, JFK Jr.’s death provided the ultimate example of the absurdity of mass public grief over the loss of public figures. In the days following his death, AOL presented an opinion poll in which you could vote on the following:

Which do you think affected the nation more?

• The death of John F. Kennedy, Jr. in 1999.
• The death of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

I found this to be ridiculous beyond belief.
Which do YOU think affected the nation more?

The death of the man who…

• Was voted into the nation’s highest office by the citizens of the United States of America.
• Was the first president born in the 20th century, as well as the nation’s first (and so far only) Catholic president.
• Challenged and inspired the nation to win the space race and put a man on the moon.
• Engaged the world’s most powerful military force in a war that tore the nation apart, a war that would be ultimately abandoned without victory.

Or the death of the man who…

• Was voted the “Sexiest Man Alive,” by the editors of People magazine (1988).
• Was well known for failing the New York bar exam twice.
• Started a magazine called “George,” where he “developed a reputation as an editor who took a ‘hands-on’ approach to stories” – then posed nude to increase sales and publicity for the magazine.

Look, I’ve got absolutely nothing against JFK Jr. – he seemed like a nice guy and he never ran for office, which he could have because he was a “Kennedy.” That’s big points as far as I’m concerned. But which affected the nation more? Give me a break.

MY SPECIAL TALENT FOR BEING A JERK REARS ITS UGLY HEAD

All of these thoughts about the idiocy of experiencing grief for the death of public figures left me feeling quite morally superior as I read MSNBC’s story about the third anniversary of Diana’s demise. “How can people grieve for someone with whom they have no real-world relationship?” I thought to myself smugly. “I’ve never done that. I can’t imagine that the death of ANY public figure would make me grieve enough to write a sappy poem, or maintain a memorial Web site, or…

Then I remembered Kurt Cobain.

KURT COBAIN?

I can hear you thinking, “Morally superior? You chastise us for grieving Diana, a princess turned humanitarian, a role model for children, a veritable saint who walked the Earth? You sick, celebrity-worshipping scum! You grieved over the death of a heroin junkie rock star (worth millions) who shot himself in the head rather than face up to the fact that he didn’t want to be a rock star anymore?”

Yep. That’s me. I grieved for Kurt Cobain like he lived next door. I guess I felt like I DID know him personally, since I’d listened to the words of so many of his songs. I felt like he was the voice of – well, not really my generation, since I never really identified with my generation of paisley-wearing, Polo-shirted, Whitney Houston-listening idiots. But I felt like he was the voice of those of us who never really fit in, the unfashionable, the nerdy, the people who were always picked last for sports, who would rather watch Brazil than Top Gun, who’d rather read an obscure book about depressed botanists than play golf, who dress funny, look funny, have peculiar ideas, and who will always harbor vast insecurities about themselves no matter how successful they grow up to be.

He was the anti-Mick Jagger. He was our hero.

Kurt Cobain was a terrible rock star. He didn’t really like being in the limelight, he wrote sensitive songs, he was a feminist. He weighed like 120 lbs. He wore cardigan sweaters and dyed his hair pink. He screwed up even when he didn’t want to screw up.

He was both sensitive AND dangerous to the establishment. These days you can easily find any ONE of these qualities, via Sarah McLachlan or Eminem, but nobody out there is doing both. And Britney Spears and NSYNC don’t even bother to pretend.

Yeah, he was stupid. He got addicted to smack and was obsessed with suicide. He married someone who LOVED being a star and was obsessed with fame. And although he had minimal obligations, the freedom of wealth, and the adoration of millions, he blew his brains out with a shotgun in his garage.

He could have done anything he wanted. He could have destroyed his guitars, divorced Courtney Love, and holed up like J. D. Salinger. He could have lived in a box in Montana, released bluegrass songs on cassette tape, and appeared in person only at the soup kitchen where he volunteered to serve the elderly homeless insane.

What a cretin.

But yeah, I grieved the day his dead body was discovered in that garage. I sometimes feel a twinge of regret when I hear “All Apologies.” I wonder what music he would have composed by now, and what music he would have continued to write as we both grew old. After all, he was a few years younger than me.

What a waste.

I GET THE PICTURE NOW

To all you Princess Diana fans, admirers, and mourners out there, my condolences. She was a great lady.

“All events have a half life. What’s interesting about Diana’s is how long her half-life has extended. In moments of really intense grief, in a culture where people have trouble expressing that grief with one another, an online service is the ideal center for people to express really deep and powerful emotions. This was national catharsis, that’s the point. We’ve seen this again and again since then.” Jesse Kornbluth, editorial director of America Online, as quoted by MSNBC, August 30, 2000

NOTE

I originally wrote this piece in September 2000. No other Rusty Brain piece has generated as much e-mail as this one, mostly from barely-literate teenagers who think I’m dissing their anti-hero, Kurt Cobain.

Feel free to continue sending me hate mail, but before you do, read the piece again. I liked Kurt Cobain. That was, and still is, the point.