With the Bobcats

A robin lights on the mulch outside the cage. Both bobcats are suddenly still, keyed in, studying the bird with scholarly intensity. Just the tip of the male's tail twitches--no mystery what he's thinking.

They're playing, chasing each other, charging around their cage: through the hollow logs, over the branch, up onto the wall, then down. The male goes off on a tangent into the tunnel to the side cage where they sleep. He bangs the closed metal door--a hollow, reverberant Boom!--then emerges nonchalant a moment later.

A robin lights on the mulch outside the cage. Both bobcats are suddenly still, keyed in, studying the bird with scholarly intensity. Just the tip of the male's tail twitches--no mystery what he's thinking.

Their tails are short, exactly the length of the tails they used to give away at Esso stations to be shut in the little door over your gas cap so it would look like you had a tiger in your tank. Bob tails--that's why they call them bobcats.

The robin flies away. It's like the hypnotist snapped his fingers--the trance is broken. They're chasing each other again. Once around and the male gets close enough to tag the female with his paw: Gotcha! They slow to a loping, hobbyhorse stride, then stop. The female sharpens her claws on a hollow log. The male wallows in some wood chips near the entrance to the tunnel.

"Why bobcats?"

Maymont's bobcat liaison Fred Murray pauses, then stalks the issue. He circles downward through the underbrush of Vanishing Habitat, then negotiates the difficult terrain of Educational Mission.

"It was the day the farm exhibit opened," he says. "The first animals we put in were baby goats. A father came in--and started going into this whole thing with his children about how they were baby ponies!"

Murray's office is on the second floor of the carriage house at Maymont. There's a waist-high stack of elk antlers under the window. "Here at Maymont we mix species. I remember once there was a bull elk and a white-tail deer in one of the habitats. The bull elk is huge, it weighs maybe 600-700 pounds. The deer was a buck; it had antlers. The bull elk had antlers--different antlers. And what we were hearing--from the adults!--was: 'There's the baby deer and there's the daddy deer.'

"We chuckle at that and we are amused by that. But then you think: They really don't know."

"People bring things here to be identified. Most snakes that come to Maymont come in pieces. I have had snakes come to me separately in jars--different pieces of the snakes bodies were in separate jars--because of the snake myths that their bodies could magically join back together and come back to life!"

Bearded and enthusiastic, his hand gestures are vigorous, like he's waving away the fog of ignorance as he talks.

"Every snake that lives within five miles of a river is not a water moccasin. Every brown snake is not a copperhead."

Maymont strives to educate people about Virginia animals. Like bobcats.

"Look here," says Murray. "When I was writing the copy for the exhibition sign I called up Bob Duncan at the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to find out where the bobcats were in the state." He hands me a map of the state of Virginia with dots on it showing sightings. "Fred," says the penciled note, "it looks like they're everywhere."

"You wanna go see some cats?"

Up close, you can see the bobcat's spots. They have stripes and spots to blend in with the patterns of light and shadow in the woods.

The male comes over to where we're standing near the bottom of the cage. He rubs himself against the side.

"Listen--he's purring!"

Then he must smell cats on my jacket, because he drops his jaw the way my cats do when they smell another feline. Something to do with the sensing glands in their mouth.

A big paw emerges from the cage.

"Whoa!"

"Look at those claws!"

But the curious humans aren't as interesting as his games. He crosses the cage, then backs himself into a hollow log. He stays there for a minute, the way my cats do in a grocery bag, then charges out. The female is across the cage. He sets himself, twitches his rear from side to side, then springs.

The female avoids him easily. She doesn't want to play. She comes over to investigate the humans herself.

"Look at those gray eyes."

"She's purring too."

Two days later. This time I stand on the observation deck beside the cage. A group of children arrive, shepherded by three women.

"Tigers!"

Maymont's educational mission comes forcefully to mind.

"These are bobcats," enunciates one of the ladies. "They live in the mountains."

The children stare into the cage. It's a hot day. The cats are stretched out on the cool concrete on top of the wall.

"Kitty, kitty, kitty!"

"Meow!"

The cats ignore them. The children go on to the next exhibit.

A couple walks up. Suddenly the male bobcat comes to life, levitating up the side of the cage. The lady jumps back. Her companion laughs.

"You stay in thee!" she says. They stare a moment into each other's eyes.

The cat climbs sideways and down, monkeylike, back to the bottom of the cage.

"Oh!" The lady puts her hand on her chest. "He took me heart!"

The male ricochets once around the cage, laps some water, then settles back on the wall.

"It's a good place for them here." The man is leaning over the railing, looking down. "It's nice and cool for them under these trees."

With the Bobcats" was first published in the June 4, 1991 edition of Style Weekly.