Furry Little Best Friend

Roberto could be a big mean bastard if he didn’t like you.

But to me, he was a sweet boy with minty green eyes, grey with dark stripes and a no-bullshit attitude.

He loved chin pets, but you didn’t dare touch his tail for risk of his overreactive razor claws.

He’d fight off the racoons, possums, squirrels, and any other vermin that tracked into our yard and threatened his outdoor food bowl.

Some of his more violent scraps had left a scar on his cheek...a couple whiskers were left bent in the wrong direction.

He’d kill mice and leave them on the doorstep,

I’d call his name and he’d leap down from the garage rafters and rub at my legs and look up at me all proud.

He was my furry little best friend.

He was my furry little best friend

He followed me around town, day or night.

I took him up onto the school roof with the guys.

He purred and looked out over the night horizon as we sat there and sipped stolen beer,

Peaceful and calm.

Roberto and I both got older.

I got bigger and he got slower.

He’d wait at the edge of the yard for me to come home from school.

He couldn’t climb into the garage rafters anymore.

Just laid around the grass.

He even let the squirrels pass through unnoticed.

One day I patted his head before I left for school.

I accidentally touched his tail, but he didn’t even flinch.

“I’ll see ya later, bud,” I said, and ran for the bus.

When I came home he wasn’t in the grass to greet me.

I sat outside in the yard until the sky turned purple and black.

But I never saw Roberto again

I assume he wandered off somewhere,

Like many alpha animals do.

Maybe even climbed up onto the school roof for one last look over the horizon.

And died a peaceful death.

He didn’t need any hoopla, no funeral, no grave site.

Sometimes when I drive through my old town I think I see him...

Dashing across the baseball field,

Chasing down racoons,

Or climbing on the neighbor’s car

He doesn’t have a grave.

But he never needed one,

I remember him just the same.