For as long as I've known him

He’s been like that for as long as I’ve known him. It’s going on 17 years now. When first I met him, he didn’t really growl. He certainly didn’t purr, not that he wasn’t pleased to be rescued. It’s just that he’s always been a little different. The sound he made when we met at the shelter reminded me of the engine brake on an 18-wheeler. It’s called a Jake Brake. We shortened it to just JB and hung the name on him. It stuck.

I stopped by the shelter just to look. Our luck wasn’t good when it came to cats. One we named Gus turned out to be epileptic which, of course, wasn’t his fault. It just meant that he came unglued at some very inopportune times.

Sam was melting in the rain on a deserted street corner when my children wished him into the back seat of our passing car. I don’t remember stopping, much less saying yes, but he was sure enough there when we arrived home and unloaded several kids, the groceries and a smelly yellow cat. He owned us for nearly two years.

Chato liked to sleep on top of the front tire of the family sedan. He was a might slow as cats go, and one morning when Dad was late for work, well ... it was a rough morning to be a cat. I hoped JB was different.

JB has stayed with us through two local moves, relocation across the Sierra Nevadas and another two moves within our new hometown. Most cats would have given up on us and found another free meal. That might have required effort, however, and he hasn’t been a great proponent of exertion, except when bare feet pass by him as he hides under the bed. Motivation is everything.

Like nearly every feline ever born, JB has never come when called and can’t be shooed away when you wish he’d leave. When we go for a family walk, he tails us at enough distance that we won’t mistakenly assume he has any affection for us. That would be so un-catlike. When we turn to see if he’s still there, he quickly rolls in the nearest dirt as though that had been his original goal.

More than once I’ve been halfway to work when a furry tail has brushed the back of my neck. Fellow motorists have, for the most part, been patient with my sudden erratic driving. It has likely been educational for them to practice defensive driving while the man in the car next to them has a heart attack, followed by a mad scramble and flying fur. Upon returning home, JB leaps lightly from the vehicle, tail held high, and struts away as though peeved to have been rudely inconvenienced.