Hank

The best boy

The first night we had Hank, after my brother and his then-boyfriend (now-husband) brought him home to our apartment in Brooklyn from the couple that was fostering him in Westchester, he slept in my room. Our other cat, Banjo, was a bit skeptical of his new friend and had spent the entire day hissing at him until he was hoarse. We figured he needed a break. Hank spent that night jumping on me and meowing, filled with exuberant kitten energy.

Hank, recently

Hank mellowed out considerably after that first night, but he always retained some playful quirks. He developed an affinity for bottle caps and if anyone opened a beer or a soda he would come running into the kitchen from wherever he was and sit down in front of you, patiently waiting for you to place the bottle cap in front of him, which he would then lick a few times before chasing it around the room until it got lost under a piece of furniture or he grew bored. Eventually he stopped the bottle cap thing and moved on to eating hair.

I remember the first time Hank tried to eat my hair. I was laying on the couch in the living room and he came up behind me. I felt a few licks and nibbles on my head and thought, haha, that’s pretty cute. After those few tentative bites, Hank took off, frantically chomping mouthfuls of my hair while I scream-laughed and tried to get him off of me. Because of the angle I was laying I couldn’t reach around to get him so I called out to my brother for help. He untangled Hank from me and from then on I was mindful anytime he got behind my head. Usually I’d let him get a few hair nibbles in when he wanted, but I used caution to prevent him from going full chomp mode.

hair eating attempt during an episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race

I used to joke that the reason Hank and I got along so well was because I hate picking up animals and he hated being picked up. While Banjo was content to be carried around like a baby by my brother in law (within limits), Hank did not want to be held. It was odd, because he was supremely affectionate and social—he would come hang out and have everyone pet him even during loud parties. His favorite thing to do was to plunk down on the couch next to us for hours. But he never really wanted to be picked up. And I somehow never got the hang of holding animals. I’m always awkward and hesitant and they can tell. If Hank was in the chair I wanted to sit in, I would contort myself around him and share the seat. I’d say it was because he was there first. When I did have to move him, I would sort of make my arms into a sling and pick him up around the middle, his little chicken legs dangling under him, like a horse or sheep being transported. To his credit, he always tolerated this indignity, as though he was aware that this was far more humiliating for me than for him.

Hank was a highly empathetic animal, an effect which was heightened by the little black stripes near his eyes that gave him a look of perpetual concern. He always seemed to know if you needed some comfort, and he was happy to provide it. I spent every breakup I’ve had with him snuggled next to me, purring.

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I was usually the last to leave the apartment since my work day started slightly later. Every morning, I would emerge from the shower and Hank would be sitting on my bed waiting for me. As soon as I spotted him, I would feign surprise and he would roll over onto his back so I could pet his soft belly. I would give him a dozen kisses and whisper, “you are my favorite creature, you are the best cat in the whole world, I love you, I love you, I love you,” inhaling the sweet smell of his fur.

Warm cat fur smell is one of the best smells. It is the comforting scent of freshly baked cookies mixed with something a little dusty and slightly musky. Something vaguely like vanilla and skin. I’ve tried to google various combinations of keywords to figure out why cats smell so good but never came up with a truly satisfactory answer. The most common response seems to be that cats are very clean, and perhaps there is some sort of enzyme in their saliva that smells nice to us, or their pleasant aroma is merely the natural scent of their clean fur and skin. I feel it must be deeper than that, perhaps there is a specific aroma chemical we could point to that explains the cat fur smell.

After they got married, my brother and his husband moved to their own apartment, taking Banjo and Hank with them. I moved into my own apartment that doesn’t allow pets. We lived close to each other though and I could get my Hank fix fairly frequently. A couple years ago they moved again to Durham, North Carolina, so I don’t get to see them as often. The first time I visited after they moved, I told my brother I was afraid Hank wouldn’t remember me and he assured me that was silly. Of course he would remember me—I’d lived with him for practically his entire life. Whenever I came to visit Hank would sleep next to me all night every night I was there. I knew he had missed me.

Earlier this week Hank was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma. The vet said he probably had about a week to live. When I heard his prognosis, in between bouts of weeping, I tried to memorize how it felt to pet his fur: the warm, slight glossiness of his back, the velvety feeling of the little spots behind ears. He died yesterday, in the afternoon.

I am very sorry that I wasn’t there for his last few days of life, but I am grateful that we got to spend time together relatively recently.

I will miss him forever.

My favorite creature,

My special little guy,

My Hanky doodle dandy, born on the fourth of July.