Reebus

I can't believe I still have these two disposable camers floating around. I had forgotten all about them until the other day. About three weeks ago the lady at the top of the hill called me. Everyone on our street has a sheet of paper with the names and numbers of everyone on the street and of the two houses at the bottom of our street who are actually on another street, but face up our street. (They are honorary members of our street.) It's part of our neighborhood watch thing. She asked me if the white cat was mine. I got kinda defensive because I knew she was talking about Reebus. I said, "No he's not mine, but he's sort of the official neighborhood cat and everyone knows him and loves him." The lady who called me is "new" to the street and I thought she was going to complain about Reebus. I guess my tone was a little rude because then her tone got sort of rude and she said, "I just wanted to know who the owner was because he has been here a few days, not really moving and does not look well." Then I felt like an ASS and told her who the owners were.

Reebus had been a fixture in our backyard and front yard since the day we moved here. I've had countless "conversations" with him because he was very talkative. If you asked him a question, he would answer. Every winter, I put a box on the front porch with some sort of cozy cloth inside. I think he slept there almost every night. It drove our cats crazy. He spent a lot of time during this crazy rainy spring we had sleeping on the hood of my truck between storms. He was most often found sleeping on our deck. On winter days, he slept in the corner of the bench, on summer days, he slept in the shade beneath. He really liked the corner of our deck. He also liked to come to the front door and tease our indoor cats. I've already posted a picture of him that was taken a few years ago:


Reebus was the name that we gave him. If a cat's going to hang out in our yard, we figure we have the right to call it whatever we please. His official name was "Spirit," which My Sweetie and I could never say without doing an airy lisp, if you know what I mean. He belonged to my next door neighbors, "The Mullets." I call them that because the man has a seriously bad 80's mullet. They have another cat that I call "Toby," that is really named "Max." Anyway, I guess I was pretty much in denial about the whole thing, but I had seen neither Reebus nor Toby since that lady called my house. I don't think I'd ever gone two days without seeing Reebus in 6 years. My Sweetie wanted to know what happened, so the first time he saw Mr. Mullet, which was Monday, he asked what happened. Well, Reebus died. The second part of the story is weird. Apparently Reebus was the alpha cat of the outdoor cats and when he died, Toby had no one to protect him and was severely beaten by another cat. As of Monday Toby was still alive, but not flourishing.

I had just taken a picture of Reebus in May because he was sleeping on our lounge chair on the deck and he was lying in such a stupid position, I just had to take a picture. That picture is in one of those disposable cameras. Also in one of those cameras are photos taken from the Skybar at the Met. You'd think I would have remembered THAT, but what made me remember the cameras was Reebus.

I'll miss Reebus. I'm glad I took pictures of him over the years. Now I need to get those last ones developed.