Denizen of the Month: Roy Del Rio AKA Roy Kat & Adore Strugglebus (Patreon)

On Cats, Dogs, Gingers, and a Most Excellent Rack

I was with one of my best friends in Chicago for the better part of August, before the Backening, so I thought I would present to you HER denizens rather than mine. (you know this friend! Kris McDermott, the unrealistically talented lady and beautiful wild kakapo who designs all the shirts in my merch shop! She also has her own amazing storefront full of my exact sense of humor, where she's giving 100% of her proceeds to Black Lives Matter Chicago because she is that wonderful kind of person every day.)

Also, I have scrolled all the way back up to say that this got RATHER long, because anything where I get to rave about cats AND my friends tends to do that, and at this point I've been writing it for AWHILE and it's actually the length of a monthly essay and I am still flattened and typing in a contortion you don't want to know about due to my back, so while I actually somehow managed to write something meandering amusing, and feel horribly guilty about not being able to get rewards out on time because of the pain, not of existence, but of soft tissue damage, I'm going to open this one up to everyone and it the essay for September. (Trek up tomorrow.)

You guys don't mind me warbling like an idiot about animals I like, do you? We'll be back in good form...as soon as my muscles decide they want to stop being such wilting Victorian lilies about everything. Come ON, you undercooked steaks, get WITH IT.

So thanks for hanging in there. Apologies, the body is stupid and easily upset. Back are such delicate snowflakes, am I right?

ARE YOU READY TO RUUUUMBBBBBLE? AND BY RUMBLE I MEAN PURR?

TIEM FOR CATZ BEBES.

SO. These cats and I, rather dramatically, go back a long way. All the way, in fact, since I drove Kris to the shelter to find a kitten (ONLY ONE KITTEN, as the famous last words always go) back in 2016.

It was the fanciest shelter I've ever seen in my life. All white and chrome and glass, every surface geometric, designed, full of natural light and good bones and on every gleaming urban professional surface perched, sprawled, crouched, snoozed, or squabbled cats of every color, age, sad reality TV backstory and disposition.

Frankly it looked like an Apple Store. Stand in line for your iKitten, humans, THE GENIUS BAR IS FULLY STAFFED. 

Almost as soon as we walked in, a tall, sleek pale ginger baby about six months old jumped--and I mean jumped--from one of the architectural plinths directly onto my tits. 

This was the Before Times, children, when, horror of horrors, most of us wore a bra every day.

So there was plenty of...er...landing pad for this boi to feel secure about. I staggered backward and totally without concern, curled up on my rack to sleep. Note: he seemed so sweet and quiet and calm and emotionally stable as he assaulted and then claimed squatters' rights over my cleavage. TRAGIC FORESHADOWING.

I walked around like that for awhile, bending slightly to make sure my torso wouldn't fail the little guy. I was sold on Mr. That Lady Is Good Because She Has Breasts AKA the Cat Incarnation of Philip Roth, but Kris wanted to see everybody.

And that's when this story gets upsetting. I did say it was 2016. It's so funny because I thought it was a bit of a shit time and it was May. Six months before the election, and 2016 was already gearing up to be a total dick to me.

I had come to visit Kris because she'd had surgery and I wanted to help with the mobility issues while she recovered. We'd planned KITTENQUEST long before, so it was less than 24 hours after my plane landed that I was boobily breasting around the place with a sleeping cat on deck. 

And when I'd left, some sixteen hours before what happened next, I knew my wonderful Golden Retriever Sage, who I 'd had since I was 23 and she was 7 weeks and we both lived in Japan, was sick when I left. I'd been giving her kidney medication after all, and cleaning up the many-times daily reason for that kidney medication. She was 13. I knew. I just didn't know how sick. I didn't know so entirely that when I left for my flight, I kissed her head and joked: I love you Sagey-Pagey please don't die while I'm gone.

That dog never did want to obey me, not one day of her thirteen years sleeping on my bed. As far as I can tell, the minute I was out the door, she looked around, asked: is mum gone? Cause she can't handle this. We all know she can't. So if she's safely outside the time zone imma peace out.

And that is how it came to pass that, while the naked savannah-reject (aren't we all?) and paler of the two gentlemen up there continued to grope me like the softest frat cat, my phone rang. On the other end was Heath, choking up as he told me Sage was gone. My baby. My little yellow doofus whose nose got lighter and lighter as she got older and licked all the black off. The best snuggler of all time. Manager of all my other animals and the lovingest friend. She had the silkies muzzle of all time. Of all time.

Well, I kind of fugued out, my vision blurred, I just started sobbing and saying what, what, what are you talking about, she was fine.

Reader, she was not fine. She was acting very strange and Heath had been lifting her into the island taxi to take her to the vet when her kidneys gave in, she wet herself and most of the car, and passed in his arms.

I was gasping for air in a fucking animal shelter being told how my dog died. My first dog who was really my dog, the first thing I did when I left grad school, the best use of the last of my student loan money imaginable. 

Needless to say, the cat I was wearing as a kicky scarf did not enjoy this nearly so much as he'd enjoyed me letting him sleep on my personal cat-shelf and leapt away. I barely noticed.

I thought then (not right then, later, after I had drunk all of Chicago's gin) as I think now, that I'm comforted Sage had a good long life and saw so many sights, and died doing the three things she loved most: being held by a boy, riding in a car, and peeing on other people's things. (Oh she was such a fiend for boys, girls were fine but she was like a myspace boyband superfan except her fandom was ALL BOYS. ALL OF THEM. EVERYWHERE. THEY CAN BE IN A BAND IF THEY WANT OR WHATEVER IS THAT THE COLLECTIVE NOUN FOR BOYS IDK I CELEBRATE THEIR ENTIRE CATALOGUE.)

I was not so quippy about it then, though. I was destroyed. The shelter employees were not being paid enough to deal with my day, but turns out, somebody else was ON DUTY. Somebody husky and gruff and orange and FIV+, as it turned out.

Kris came up holding a much shaggier ginger kitten. That burly boi, pictured above, looked at me in all my distress, uncurled halfway from Kris's embrace, put a paw on my chest, and licked my cheek. He purred and headbutted my other cheek. 

We thought it was a sign. We asked the nice lady about his paperwork and she sadly informed us that this distant cousin of both Fozzy Bear and the Wheedle on the Needle was part of a bonded pair, and couldn't go to a home without his mate.

Who's his bro-for-life? We inquired. The lady pointed across the shining expanse of Macintosh products with whisker technology and, as though we were in a movie, there sat Mr. What That Chest Do illuminated in a shaft of sunlight.

And that's how Mr. Roy Del Rio managed to make the deal of his personal century and turn his life partner leaving him into a two-cat household over which they still rule.

And it was QUITE a deal because let the record show Roy has never shown me more than a 1/4 teaspoon of affection in his life since. He has no fucks to flick in my direction. I was there for THREE WEEKS this year and I gave him TUNA and he was like: bitch whatever just cause I kissed you once don't mean a damn thing now get out my way I need to growl at some ghosts in that corner.

I'd been introducing Kris to RuPaul's Drag Race that trip, and we were deep in season 6, so we named them after both our favorite queens that season, Adore Delano and Bianca Del Rio (whose real name is Roy). 

The Strugglebus part of Adore's name came by the end of the day when this little basketcase could not keep his woven shitshow under wraps any longer. The silent, sleek, comfycool long boy started yowling like a broken dryer possessed by the spirit of Yodeling champion Franzl Lang and/or an abused flute. 

He never stopped.

He still hasn't stopped.

Life is a real trial for Adore, and he needs you to feel his pain. Directly. In your eardrum. He literally sits in the middle of poor Kris's apartment, then the next apartment and the one after and probably at least one more, and now her house, screaming at nothing because existence is a prison and fuck your peace of mind, that's why. It's amazing. He also enjoys sitting on and interfering with your entire head, having a lot of anxiety about a lot of things, eating all the time and never gaining weight like the barely-held-together club kid he is, and basically using Roy as an emotional support animal despite being an animal himself.

Adore, and the bus he is always riding in, is highly relatable. Kris and I, both together and (mostly) individually, have spent a lot of time talking in Adore's internal voice. It's very niche humor, but A+ material. 

Roy, on the other hand, is the strong silent type. He is every inch the bear to Adore's otter, if you're up on your slang, despite being obviously a cat. He cares about food. He also enjoys food. His hobbies include food, food conventions (meals), food trafficking, running up vet bills, and long walks on the food. His soul is the soul of Pizza Rat and he will steal the shit out of whatever you're eating, he does not give a fuck what it is, it belongs to him and you stole it, how very fucking dare, he's never eaten before in his life because his life is TORTURE, let him have that goddamned turkey leg or whole-ass cake, it's HIS. Roy knows what he wants and he is AGGRESSIVE, he will just climb right the fuck into your Chinese takeout container, what are you looking at, not everyone has thumbs, fucking primate privilege thanks for coming to my FEDTALK YOU CRETINS GIVE ME THE MU SHU I'M DYING.

Can you pet him if you give him food? Sure, whatever, if it helps you sleep at night. He's in this for the loaf of plain fucking bread he knows you got.

Back here in 2021 we played food defense while watching Ted Lasso, which Kris had saved to watch with me because she is a True Keeley, and at this point it should be obvious that we started calling him Roy Kat and singing he's here, he's there, he's every fucking where, Roy Kat, Roy Kaaaaaat at his face, which Roy Kat absolutely hated and found disgusting, both personally and artistically.

Much as, I imagine, Roy Kent would.

I love these cats so much.  And not just because I maaay have kind of trauma-bonded with them! Humans are very weird with their feelings toward things with adorable noses! They thought they got adopted by two nice mums and then I left, so my existence confuses and unsettles them to this day! (They're actually both quite a bit more mellow these days than they were in their profligate youth on the underground DJ scene.)

Look at them up there, living their suburban picket-fence Pete and Chasten life in a big snoozechair. Absolute goals. Nothing but #bliss for my Secretary of Screamsportation and Chief Very Bribable Food and Drug Administrator. I included the other two photos to A. give a better view of their SCRITCHABLE FACES OMG but also B. though Adore is rudely bokkeh'd by my phone's portrait function, I love the blurry look on his face as he stares at Roy thinking SOON and Roy stares into the middle distance all no one can stop what is coming for my stubby tail. This mad child is my curse and my joy but real talk he's gonna bite my butt. idk might drown him in the water dish later. Life is full of choices. Futile ones. Is he still there? yeah, thought so.

While I was there in August, working on a Sooper Sekrit Projekt and being blissfully unaware that in a scant few days my back would be like lol watch this and decide to cease being a functional back for a month and counting, there they were, screaming and growling and begging for snacks and one time Adore marched into my room, turned around, emphatically and deliberately slammed the door shut behind him with one paw in a terrifyingly dead-on impression of a home intruder, pounced on my chest to snuggle, then realized the DOOR was now CLOSED and HE was now TRAPPED, and immediately started screaming because again, life is basically The Cube in this cat's tiny head.

One time Roy let me pet him without giving him human food first, so I guess you could say it's getting pretty serious.

It is a house of beautiful, 2/3 butch 1/3 The Cube ginger comedians over there in Chicago, and a Great Good Place. I'm trying to convince Kris to hang a sign outside her side entrance which looks exactly like a pub's door due to shape and light fixture and brickness, a sign that reads: The Three Gingers Tavern. Love Kris so much too. Life is rubbish, but some people are ok, and most cats. Sometimes you don't meet your high school girl squad til you're in your 30s. If you ever get to meet her--and you may!--I highly recommend knowing her. As another famous Chicagoan once said, it is so choice.

But the rubbish part of life always hogs the spotlight, demanding attention. 2016 wasn't content with getting Bowie and Carrie Fisher and American democracy, it had to kill my dog, too.

So my Sagey lives forever in the spring of 2016, but cannot visit the fall of 2021. Heath and my ex-husband, who was very close to her, buried her in the forest behind my house with a little headstone that says: Sage "The Worst" Valente 2003-2016. Also the Best. Grimm, her life partner as Roy is Adore's, followed right before I gave birth to Sebastian. My girls. 

We are made better by our pets, however long we have them. Their friendship is not less deep because it comes with an opulent fur coat. Writers and animals are natural companions--they're both deeply needy, eat trash, scream at imaginary things in their heads at all hours, both hate and love company, require regular grooming and lots of toys, knead stuff with their claws all day, don't mean to hurt you (unless you touch their snacks), chase tails/tales, amoral, anxious, surprisingly soft, think about violence way more than you'd be comfortable knowing about, and available for adoption at a shelter/social media service near you. 

And please--adopt, don't shop.

Thanks for indulging my kitty nattering, this has been Cat on Cats, the hottest one-episode podcast that never existed.