Bono

She whisked us into a small office, where a man sat bent over a desk. His oval face was framed with long dark hair. The softness in his eyes was overlaid with sorrow, or perhaps too much knowledge of what life can bring. His forearms were awash with ink. Tattooed people usually like to talk about their decorations, and I often use it as a conversation starter. But something held me back from bombarding him with cheap questions about the meaning of his art.

People who work with animals are often unusual, but I sensed something multidimensional about this man. Highly sensitive and attuned, he was a rare breed apart, a cat whisperer.

“This is the best thing that’s ever happened to Bono,” Jon Delillo said, smiling broadly.

The Bideawee people were lovely, but obviously misinformed. Clearing my throat, I repeated our story about coming from Australia to foster an ancient tortoiseshell.

Jon beckoned us to follow him across the foyer through two sets of doors into what amounted to an indoor cat jungle. A three-leveled scratching tree was entirely occupied by felines—a tabby, a ginger, and a pure white cat with eyes that were different shades of copper. I stepped over a large gray and white gentleman dozing on a mat in the middle of the room to say hello to a green-eyed calico crouched inside a carpet tunnel.

Then I saw her. Mavis—our Mavis waddling toward a food bowl. Plump and barely able to move, the foster cat was about to enter my life.

“She’s gorgeous!” I said, but nobody seemed to be listening. I figured the staff were so accustomed to people gushing over their wards they were deaf to fawning noises.

A few other cats slid into my peripheral vision. A couple of hefty felines similar to Mavis dozed on top of carpeted poles. Several more stared out from nooks. Two teenage tabbies curled together in a yin and yang circle.

A young woman sat in the corner with a lean tuxedo cat nestled in her lap. She introduced herself as Sadie, one of Bideawee’s army of volunteers. Whatever its age, size, or color, every animal seemed content. Bideawee was clearly cat shelter heaven.

Though I liked Mavis, I was willing to be flexible. Really, any one of these noninteractive animals would be fine for us to foster. My reverie was interrupted when a black cannonball hurtled across the room. It propelled itself off the gray and white cat’s belly and scrabbled up a scratching post to snare a fellow lodger’s tail.

“You’re gonna love Bono,” Jon said.

“That’s Bono?” I said, staring at the stream of confusion the creature had left in its wake. The other cats narrowed their eyes, hissed, and switched their tails as he bounced past.

I wasn’t sure the creature even qualified as a domestic cat. It looked more like a miniature lion. Apart from his oversized head, shaggy feet, and feather duster tip of his ridiculously long tail, he was entirely shaved.

I made a mental note to tell Greg to forget visualization. This primeval bundle of energy was nothing like Mavis. Watching Bono bounce across the floor, I couldn’t decide if he was ugly or incredibly beautiful. With a flat, pushed-in face, he hardly seemed to have a nose.

“We’re all crazy about him,” Jon said. “You will be, too.”

Jon could say what he liked, but I wasn’t enthralled at the thought of having my New York freedom ruined by a hyped-up mini lion. A list of excuses was already forming inside my head. I could tell him I had an allergy to cats named after rock stars. Or that my ancient joints would crumble trying to keep up with a hyperactive maniac. Or that I could only consider taking on a vegan animal who identified as transgender.

“He’s adorable!” Lydia cried, crouching on the floor and clicking her fingers at him. “Look at those eyes!”

From where I was standing I could only see the back of his fluffy mane. He put his head to one side and stepped tentatively toward her. She spoke softly to him and extended her hand to touch his forehead. At the moment of contact he bounced backward across the room as if she’d given him an electric shock.

“We had him shaved because his fur was matted,” Jon explained, smiling fondly down at him.

When I asked how they’d managed to keep such a lively animal immobile long enough to be shaved, Jon admitted the grooming had been performed under a general anesthetic.

“Life’s stressful for him being the smallest cat around here,” Jon continued. “He has to spend around fifteen hours a day in a cage. The rest of the time he’s constantly fighting to keep up with the others.”

We watched the mini lion dodge occasional bats from larger cats as he pranced past their cages. Like big kids with a pesky baby brother, they had no qualms letting him know they were fed up with his boisterous ways. Squaring my shoulders, I started explaining this wasn’t the sort of cat I had in mind. But deaf to my protest, Jon launched into a heartrending backstory.