THIS IS RC

  This is RC. He is 14 years old. He first came to our house (loft apartment) in 2008. He was a stray in downtown Texarkana; not a kitten but slightly older, that we'd seen lurking around near the Dowd Building were the Groovetones used to rehearse. Don couldn't get him to come to him, but one of our daughters did, while we were on vacation in New Orleans and she was watching the dogs. She went out to walk them one day, saw this orange cat, took the dogs back in, and when she went back down to get the cat, he was sitting right by the Texas Boulevard door, ready to come in. He was done with being outside, and just made himself at home. He's pretty much been an inside cat ever since.

This daughter wanted to name him "Carrot," but he had this loud, grating purr you could hear all the way across the room. I was thinking he was more of a "Rusty," and not just his color - he sounded like a rusty motorboat. So...Rusty Carrot?

He was also extremely friendly and cuddly. When I took him to Dr. Martin's in DeQueen to get "fixed," I officially named him "RC." It suits him perfectly. When I picked him up the next day, they told me he was the friendliest cat they'd ever had in there.

He's a real "people person." Or cat, rather.

He's also a "cat's cat." He was a big mentor to all the othe felines who joined the family afterward. Tempi, his brother from another mother, Sophie the Weirdo, and Ingrid the Hutt, all fell under his tutelage.

Anyway...

All of our cats are indoor cats. After we moved to The Plantation, there were a couple of RC escapades out into the world, if a door wasn't shut soon enough. The sneaky bastard usually leaped the fence and slipped through a broken window in our neighbor's basement. (It has since been repaired under new ownership.) He would also ease through an opening underneath that same house. I can remember trying to herd him out of there numerous times. But he'd always come back. He'd be on the back steps or the front porch ready to come back in. He would ALWAYS come back. I guess he still had some of those downtown street smarts because he never ventured farther, and he always knew there was food out on the front porch for the feral cats. And the possums and the raccoons... Good motivator, food.

Let me also mention he's quite good at hiding indoors. I always do a "cat check" before we go anywhere, and once before a New Orleans trip, we couldn't find him anywhere. He was behind the TV cabinet in the living room. Just chillin'. 

Dude. Seriously?

He and Sophie are now relegated to the upstairs porch. They go in and out of a cat door, and have the luxury of both comfortable beds inside and sunny patches to lie in outside. They are separated from the downstairs areas by a makeshift barrier at the top of the front staircase. They have no access to any outside entrances.

Since Tempi died in February, RC has somehow mysteriously managed to get outside, not once but TWICE. At his age, (and weight - he's always been a big, chonky boy), there's NO WAY he could jump or climb from the second-story porch without hurting himself. We don't think that's what he's doing. All the sudden, he's just...not in the house. But we fill the food bowl, watch the front porch security cameras, and when we see him, we go get him and bring him in.

Well, however...last Saturday, RC decided to dodge the housesitter at some point. Don was in Forrest City with me, and then I went to Conway for a couple of days. When we were told he was missing, we monitored cameras all night Thursday and didn't see him. I contacted our neighbor, Cristy, who lives in the house with the previously broken window and she said he'd been on her porch on Wednesday. Her boys wanted to pet him but he wouldn't let them. This was good news because he hadn't shown on the cameras since Sunday, upon reviewing recordings. I knew he was still around. I had every confidence he was.

I returned to Forrest City from Conway and Don decided to go back to Texarkana earlier than he'd planned so he could cat herd. Just as he was pulling into town, I got a message from Cristy that RC was in her yard. She even sent a photo. When Don got to the house, RC was on the back steps ready to come in. And was quite vocal about it, as most orange tabbies are about everything. He's very talkative. He was either happy to be back in or mad he didn't get in sooner. I'm sure he totally blames us.

I've been told Sophie was not particularly happy about any of this either. She berated RC most of the night, so much so that he was hiding from her in Don's wardrobe, trying to be as quiet as possible. She eventually climbed in there with him, because they're pretty bonded since Tempi's gone. Maybe he's looking for Tempi, who got very sick all of a sudden, was taken to the vet, and didn't come home except in his little cat-shaped urn that sits on the nightstand in the guest room. He may have been attempting to live out some of his early adventurous outdoor days, but I don't think that worked out so well.

In conclusion, for almost two days we were a little anxious about this disappearance because we were both far away and neither of us could get home sooner to find him. Luckily, we had good people helping out in our absence. RC has lived much longer with us than he would have as a downtown stray. When his time comes, he deserves his own urn on the mantle with Jack, Kongol, Ted, and his best buddy Tempi. Also, that daughter who brought him to us, who wanted to call him "Carrot", is Cassie Riddle. He's technically her cat. Her son Gabriel loves him best out of all the Riddle Cats. They even like to FaceTime each other.

He may be just a cat, but he's a pretty important one. And he better keep his butt in the house.