He first showed up one evening while I was washing dishes. Out of the kitchen window, I saw him, suddenly (as he always appeared). He was staring at me. I stared back for a while, looked away, and he was gone.
The next time was during the night, a few days later. Nancy and I were on the couch in the TV room; both of us with our feet up on the couch facing each other. Suddenly, Nancy made a sound of surprise. She was looking over my shoulder and out the window. I turned around and saw two little yellow-green eyes peering in. He was back. And now he wanted in.
He showed up every day after that and we finally decided that this skinny little fella needed something to eat. We set out a bowl and he devoured it. Quickly. Purring loudly between giant gulps.
And thus he came to be known as Fast Eddie.
The name suited him in more ways than one. He went everywhere in a hurry. And he had the confident air of a con artist about him…something like a gambler’s charm.
Eventually, Fast Eddie made his way into the house, and once that happened he was part of the family: the first of several adoptions. He lived life on his own terms. He came and went as he pleased. He killed indiscriminately and impressively: birds (of course), mice (well, yes), moles, chipmunks (remember, it’s FAST Eddie), and flying squirrels (really!?). He was generous with his bounty, sharing willingly with his pal, Peanut. And he always accompanied us when we walked Peanut around the neighborhood, typically staying back about 20 feet, and keeping mostly out of sight. But at any point during the walk, if you stood still long enough, you’d see him emerge from behind a bush or out of someone’s backyard, making his way along roughly the same route you were on. At the end of the walk, he was always right there in the front yard, acting as if he’d never gone in the first place.
He and Peanut played hard, together -- extended bouts of predator versus prey. But Eddie had no fear of Peanut’s long teeth wrapped around his furry neck; he knew a gentle soul when he saw one. Instead, Eddie was known to tackle Peanut to the ground, taking her down like a gazelle on any number of occasions during their frequent mid-morning romps through the house.
When Spanky, a massive orange and white alley cat, and the neighborhood’s elder statesman, finally passed on after 19 years, Eddie quickly took his place as the badass of Edgewood Grove. His frequent squabbles left him with a couple of scars on his head, never on his behind (the sign of a fighter rather than a runner). Once, not long ago, confronted by an angry raccoon that attacked a neighbor’s dog, Eddie merely stared him down as he walked by (I think I even saw the raccoon pick up his pace a little when he went by Eddie, but I’m probably making that up).
Nancy said she thought Eddie imagined himself as a much more formidable predator: a panther, perhaps. And he certainly had the tools, if not the size. Never one to cuddle for long, Eddie found himself unwelcome on any number of human laps after deciding to sink his noteworthy fangs and/or his unnaturally sharp claws into some flesh. And I think he thought of himself as belonging to nobody in particular. Many is the Winter night that we let Eddie in only to get a strong whiff of wood smoke – evidence that he was spending some quality time in a house with the fireplace that we don’t have.
But that was Eddie.
Eventually, like many lovable scoundrels before him, living hard caught up with him. Eddie went missing last Sunday and after four days of waiting and wondering where he might have gone, I finally found the answer in the alley just behind our back gate.
He left us as he came to us: quietly and mysteriously.
