The Summer of Mozie the Cat

Mozie moved in with us in the last days of chilly spring. He was a gray-striped cat who looked like millions of other cats you have seen curled on laps, sitting on sunny window sills, or rubbing against bare ankles. Mozie took no time at all to find just the right perch no matter which room he occupied. He had a presence unlike any cat I have known. Not a slinky “hide under the couch or table” kind of cat, but he made us think that HE was the one welcoming us into the room. Mozie was a “good cat.”
Spring became warm and turned into summer, and my husband’s long-dormant cat allergies resurfaced…what to do about Mozie?  Art was really in a fix; unable to breathe or sleep at night.
Mozie became an outside cat at that point and we prayed that he would be as streetwise as he needed to be to survive on busy Atlantic Avenue, where we live. As Mozie adjusted to island living, we noticed that he created a fan club, consisting of the beachgoers, neighbors and especially the chambermaids who parked in front of our house each morning. We would hear and see them as they greeted our friendly feline. He repaid them with loud purrs and switching tail. It became a ritual for all concerned.
In the midst of all this Mozie love, there was a very vociferous and unrelenting voice saying “Go back where you came from;” you are not welcome here!” It was the voice of the Mockingbird. Did you know that this lovely little singer can squawk so loudly that you can hear him almost a block away, with the car windows up? It IS so! Not only did the bird follow Mozie from the front to the back yard, but up and down the block.
Napping in the grasses became an opportunity for the angry bird to swoop down and disturb everybody’s peace. He was relentless and fearless. It was not a defenseless, clawless kitten he was attacking, but a well-muscled and agile hunter who had killed many a vole in the time before he moved here. Around our house the question became not “where is Mozie?” but “Oh, Mozie must be in the hydrangeas because I hear the Mockingbird out there.” He was like a GPS tracker fixed all on one object – Mozie!
All day long – squawk – squawk – dive – torment and Mozie was immune to it all. He seemed to ignore all that commotion going on above him, and around him. That bird spent the entire summer from morning until evening worrying good old Mozie.  We thought she must have been protecting a nest but after intense search we could not find one. The Kamikaze bird continued in attack mode while our third season of nesting doves produced two crops of babies and moved on serenely to the joys of parenthood.
Meanwhile, our Mockingbird from hell continued her assigned duty of Mozie harassment. I think she simply had a nervous breakdown; counseling seemed in order. Near the end of summer, Mozie became reckless in crossing the street, so he was sent to a cat vacation for his own safety to the quiet of offshore living.
All the neighbors and the chambermaids wondered: Where was our cat? Not the Mockingbird, she was convinced that all her scolding and diving had finally driven away her arch foe.
What credit she must have taken when reporting back to her friends. I can hear her bragging now. “I knew I could drive that cat away – it just takes persistence, and a no-nonsense attitude! You can’t relent even a little bit or they’ll take advantage of you.”
It makes me laugh a little bit to think of that cocky little bird feeling responsible for the exile of that brawny cat — something her sound and fury affected not at all.
Sometimes I feel like the Mockingbird, fussing and fighting with the world, and thinking I may have changed events or attitudes, and the world did not even notice I was there.
Patricia Hall 
From the Bible:  Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Proverbs 9:8