But I'm only a man.

It was my grandmother's grand plan, after the death of her husband, the grandmaster of the clan, to take the bulk of her remaining cash reserves and get the entire family together for one last festival of togetherness and celebration of their ability to get along in close proximity to one another without killing each other, and hopefully without saying anything nasty to one another, at least not directly to their faces. These reserves went into the hire of the Pacific Princess, the Love Boat, which took us to Bermuda, the Atlantic gem, for one full week. Rest assured, though, nobody could sleep from the racket of gossip circling the vessel during off-hours as everyone confided in everyone else how much they couldn't stand him or her or the other. Ah, my family. Really quite entertaining. Later stories, that's not the point.

The rest of the group filled the seven days with a raucous bout of unadulterated drinking, eating, swimming, snorkeling, chatting with underaged chicks on the boat, acting like bigshots, sending back wine bottles, commenting on how the last boat they were on was much nicer, and in the case of a few of those with weaker constitutions, throwing up. I myself admit to participating in some of this, although given the above list, you can probably guess which one in particular was my favorite. I'll give you a hint, my bill at the end of the trip was close to $300, and that's not even counting the gambling debts. Not that there were any.

But really, most of my time was spent (once I stumbled out of the Pacific Lounge, where my good friend what's-his-name always seemed happy to see me and start serving me daintily-garnished colorful drinks with girly names) on deck, in the middle of the night, while we were at sea, just gazing wistfully over the endless expanse of the Atlantic, as we sailed on. Fascinating, I thought, how quickly a computer geek from suburban Maryland can get on a boat and suddenly fashion himself Captain material. You had better believe I already had the script written for when I got home. I'm gettin' a boat, and I'm gonna sail the ocean blue for months upon end with nothing but cans of beans to eat and a combination of vodka and my own urine to drink to sustain me over the unknown challenges and wonders of the deep blue myster-

But I'm only a man. And a man has needs. One need in particular, I'm thinking of here.

I know it's the Love Boat, alright. I was all ready for a wacky, comedic romantic story to emerge, and at the end of an hour of madcap misunderstandings and consultations with the ship's doctor, I would end up smiling and kissing the night away with any one of a variety of attractive, single females no doubt roaming the ship. Unfortunately, in my case, the boat's single females were primarily of the "obese, seventy-year-old" variety. So if there was gonna be any fun to be had of that variety on this trip, I was going to have to take my bull by the horn, if you catch my drift.

One trick there, though. I was bunking with my mother and her husband. Certainly I can't do what I have to do while they're there, because that would just be too weird to continue living. And even when they weren't there, I still couldn't bring myself to give the old boy a good shake, because they'd be coming back any time, and somehow, they'd KNOW. And then everyone would go EWWWwwww, and everyone on the ship, including the obese seventy-year-olds would be talking about it during the sixth buffet meal of the day. So, that's out too.

So for seven entire days, I didn't so much as scratch myself. Aren't you proud of me?

But I'm only a man.

You had better believe that the day we docked, I had gotten the shakes bad, and even the obese seventy-year-olds were starting to look mighty tasty. As we got packed to head out, I had already planned the entire day around the glorious moment went I could get home and put me out of my misery. Ah, all the details! All the things that could go wrong! Make a list, make a list of the obstacles, and check 'em off as you get past 'em. Oh, ever closer.

Get called to disembark. Yes, that's my number, off the boat I go.
Get past the customs guy. He took such a cursory glance at my stuff that I think I could have gotten off the boat with an automatic weapon built out of crack cocaine, and he wouldn't have looked twice.
Find my car. I'm not much of a downtown city boy, all these streets look alike (and after Bermuda, they all look like public toilets.) It's one of these. Ah, there we are, "PARK". That must be me.
Get my car. After a few confused looks by the parking garage attendant, there was a spark of vague familiarization. "Ford Escort, right?" "No, Ford Probe." "Right, whatever." Eventually my Ford Escort/Probe was successfully retrieved, none the worse for wear.

Hard to imagine how things could have gone better to this point.

Find the road home. In downtown New York, the best tactic seems to be, "Go where the cars aren't moving." So I went where the cars weren't moving, and lo and behold, that was the line for the Lincoln tunnel, which would get me to the NJ Turnpike, where cars were also not moving, so everything was looking good.
Get home without crashing. No problemo. I turn into my apartment complex, cutting the corner as close as possible. Ah, sweet release, only moments away.

As I walked to the front door, I checked my mental list. Only one obstacle left, which was to make sure the cats were okay, since this was the longest they'd gone without me to this point. Six days, several times, but never seven. I hope they're not too pissed.

.

The foyer of my apartment is nothing more than an elevated square on a chessboard, off to the corner of the living room. This is where my cats greet me.

That is to say, this is where Sera greets me. Bennie is often too busy waking up, either from a pile on the sofa to the right, or from a pile back in the bedroom. Often it will take upwards of ten, sometimes twenty seconds for him to have the wherewithal to rise from his endless slumber and come out and greet me with his sister and start demanding food.

I opened the door, and there Sera was, screaming as always. Bennie wasn't around. He'd been getting pretty lazy over the past month, what with my various roller coaster trips and lengthy absences. Hi Sera, how are you. Bennie?

I dropped my bags, and went into the kitchen, where I always leave them an enormous bowl of food before I leave for more than a day or two, a bowl which is always bone dry and empty by the time I get back. I dumped out the stale, icky water which was left in the water bowl, and refreshed it. That's when I noticed that the food bowl was still about half full. Bennie still hadn't shown up, and it had been over 30 seconds.

This, in the cat ownership world, is what is known as "a bad sign".

It was time then to walk past the screen doors to the patio, and into the bedroom, the only other place he could be hiding. As I passed the patio door, which I always leave open about a foot so they can get out and smell the fresh air while I'm away, all I was thinking was, I sure hope he jumped off the balcony, and was out there right now having a wacky cat life, dating all sorts of cat strippers and taking all sorts of cat hallucinogens and sitting out on cat beaches all night staring up at the stars and remarking to all of his cat friends how the stars look like Hendrix songs. Please be gone. Because if he's not gone, then he's in the bedroom.

I turned the corner into the bedroom. Not there either. Thank God. I'll miss the old guy, but maybe he's having fun out there. (Sure, he was probably eaten by a dog the first night, but let me have my fantas-

I turned the last corner, into the bedroom closet, where their litter pan is.

There he was, fur tattered on the sides, taking a nap in the litter pan.

I comported myself pretty well through this whole thing, except for a very strange thing I did right when I saw him. I knew what was up. I knew the story. But I still went up and patted him on the head, "Bennie?", to get him to wake up. One touch brought me back to reality.

Poor, big fat Bennie, inspiration for my IF game Apartment F209, and countless other columns I've written, was dead. His peaceful pose in the pan gave me two reasons to be thankful. One, he looked like he always looked, sitting quietly, napping, waiting to be petted, and two, I couldn't see his face. And as I dug him out of the pan (much to the disgust and horror of his onlooking sister) and stuffed him into the plastic bag which would later consistute his coffin, I was very careful to never catch a glimpse of his face. I'll always have that face to remember in all its glory: big, wonderful, innocent, needy, loving. Even got a mouse pad showing it.

After several hours of stunned silence, I was able to get an appetite back. There was never any choice as to what feast I'd have to celebrate his passing.

So I sat there last night, with big plates of pork mei fun and spare ribs in front of me, and a whole hell of a lot of vodka, and said goodbye to my good friend, who I knew for only four years, but who I felt closer to than any human friend I'd ever had.