Free Attempting Normal by Marc Maron

couch was ripped open and the stuffing was all over the floor, books were destroyed, the rug was partially unwoven, and the TV was on.
    I started talking about the cat crisis on my radio show. I was reaching out to cat ladies. Most big cities have a small army ofmiddle-aged, usually single, misanthropic women who live for cats. I needed help. Emails started coming in. Someone donated two cages for my apartment to separate the cats and try to socialize them a bit. A woman came over with syringes and we put gloves on and inoculated the four kittens and took them to the vet to have them fixed. Another woman brought over traps and I trapped the mother and the other kitten and fixed them. I was doing good.
    It was all I could talk about to anyone: on the radio, to my wife, to anyone who would listen. Cat tales. I think it actually may have bought more time in my marriage. I didn’t have the mental space for jealousy. I was running a small veterinary hospital out of my apartment.
    Needless to say, none of these cats was becoming any less wild and they all hated me. I was scarred and torn and discouraged. When I left Air America, I was confronted with the problem of what to do with the cats. I had done my best over the course of a few months, but now I was leaving New York and wasn’t so sure that I wanted to bring a pack of wild animals with me. I loved a couple of them, though, and became intent on getting LaFonda and Monkey to Los Angeles. I found a woman who liked feral cats to take Hissy. Meanie was a disgruntled loner. There was no one who could tame that cat. So I tricked him into a box and took him to the Yemeni bodega across the street. They said they needed a mouser. I brought Meanie down into the basement of the store. The owner, Tony, put out a can of food and I said goodbye. I thought I would see him again. I went into that store all the time.
    A few days later I went in to get some ice cream. I asked Tony how Meanie was doing. He said, “That cat is crazy. He’s gone.” I asked, “What do you mean?” He said, “He’s in Brooklyn with my cousin.”
    I took that to mean the same thing as “he swims with the fishes.” I don’t think Tony killed the cat but I’m sure he sent itback out into the streets. It made me sad but I knew the cat was fixed and probably happier.
    There was no way I was leaving Monkey and LaFonda behind. I loved just about everything about them and I needed them in my life despite the fact that they clearly had little to no interest in me. Much like the women I tend to fall in love with.
    Raising feral cats was something I was getting used to, but transporting them was a whole other box of horror. Mishna flew out and picked up Monkey. She said it wasn’t that big of a deal. But it was my job to carry the mighty LaFonda across country.
    I was terrified of LaFonda. I still am. She is nothing but a ball of muscle and claws. The only time she had ever been in a cage was to go to the vet to get fixed, and it took two of us even to get her to do that and one of us was a registered Cat Lady. Now I was alone and completely panicked and tweaked. I put on leather gloves, got my mind into a “by any means necessary” state, and approached the cat. I wrestled her to the ground and picked her up with both hands. She bit through the gloves and lunged at my face, drawing blood on my arms with her claws and biting through thick leather into my hand. When I finally got her into the cage, she shit all over it. All my cats do that. As soon as I get them in the cage they evacuate their tiny cat bowels as if to say, “Fuck you! Who wins now?” Once I got her secured I bandaged my face, arms, and finger. There were scratches up and down both of my arms. But I’d completed my mission: I had courageously wrestled the wild into submission like some primitive. I felt connected to a tradition of men who hunted and led tribes. I had my bags packed and my cat boxed and I headed to JFK Airport for my