I have a cat now

[Zengus]

My landlord used to put food out for a stray cat in our neighborhood. He stopped when it started drawing more cats. That was about 10 months ago

Most of the strays stopped coming within a week or so of no food. There was one who just wouldn't take the message. He's a calico (mostly black with some white patches) of slightly below average size, longish hair, has a twitchy and sharply-bent-in-several-spots tail that I suspect has been broken more than once, and crazy moon eyes that are always dilated and staring off into random directions.

He kept coming back every single day, sitting and wailing (there is not a better word to describe the noises this animal can make when displeased), for hours on end at times. My landlord and I and the other tenant in the building tried ignoring it, which did not work. I started chasing it out of the yard every time it showed up, at first taking some small amount of sadistic pleasure in the act that quickly turned to deliberation to scare the animal off for good, and finally amazement at the creature's stubborn, nonsensical resolve to annoy our household. Eventually it didn't even stay in the yard if someone stepped outside, it bolted the second the door started opening. General consensus was that it didn't even remember why it was coming here, it simply did.

Finally (after nine whole months!) of this, my landlord and I split the cost of a feral cat trap, lured it into the thing with some food, and took the animal to a shelter. I made it nearly all the way home before my mind was completely consumed by horrible scenarios involving the cat sitting in some weird cage, miserable and terrified for the two weeks it had to be adopted until it finally ran out of time and got gassed. No one was going to adopt this cat. It was old and strange, loud and sad looking (not in a way that is cute). It was going to die, and I would be the one who had sent it there. At least on the street it was surviving, even if it obviously wasn't happy. I went back.

I paid a not insignificant chunk of cash to get him a really thorough exit session with a vet and brought him home. He's about four years old, neutered already (and housetrained too, which makes me think he was actually someone else's pet at some time long ago), and does not have Feline AIDS or leukemia. The first week or so he was terrified of me but not other people, obviously remembered the many times I had chased him, shouted at him, sprayed him with water and whatnot. Finally he started to warm up (I am the foodgiver, also a couple weeks of being nice and safe in a place that smells like me probably took the harsh edge off of some of those memories). Now if I point my hand at him and call him he'll get up from any place in the room, walk over to me, and jam his forehead into my palm with all of his body weight behind it. When he wants my attention he'll walk up to me, stand on all four legs about two feet from me looking sideways, and try to go completely still (his composure is somewhat ruined by the way his already crazy tail starts spasming like an I-don't-even-know as soon as he goes into statue mode). If I keep ignoring him, he'll eventually cave and start assaulting me with his forehead anyway, until I in turn give in and start petting him. The other day while I was taking a shower for work, he sat outside the bathroom and started wailing almost as hard as he used to when he lived on the street. After a couple minutes of that he stopped, and then (presumably) got a running start and rammed the door with his head so hard that he made the damn thing shake (it's 9 feet tall, an old, solid oak door from a prewar building, painted over about fifty times so it fits the frame snug, and probably weighs a good forty or fifty pounds), and had an even more dazed expression than normal when I checked on him a couple minutes later. Sometimes he comes and lays down next to me while I'm in bed at night and starts purring so hard his whole body shakes, but he always gets up and leaves after a few minutes.

His name is Fat Charlie, and he is the best cat ever. He taught me something important, about persistence or letting people in or something, I'm not exactly sure what the message was. I hope I can take care of him for many years.

[Phantomgrift]

Fat Charlie sounds awesome and reminds me of this old gigantic tomcat my buddy had.
Thing looked like some battle-scarred monster that fought bears, but would melt into the biggest, albeit, ugliest, kitten the moment he was inside.

[Samurai]

You are a gentle soul to have that concern for a creature many others would have spared no further thought for, Zengus. I hope your cat repays you with companionship for, as you say, a long time to come.

[Xaenyth]

N'aww. I crai. You're a good human, Zengus.