There's a cat named Milo who runs the bodega on my corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and I think he's getting old.
For three years Milo has greeted me with total indifference, which is exactly what you want from a bodega cat. He'd be sprawled across the counter like a furry speed bump while Hassan rang up my eggs. Orange, enormous, unbothered.
But lately he moves slower. He doesn't jump up to the chip rack anymore. He just watches from his cardboard box by the register, blinking, like an old king who's seen enough.
I know it's silly to be emotional about a bodega cat. But Milo is a constant. In a city where my lease, my job, my friends, my whole sense of self is in flux — Milo is simply there. Every morning. The orange tyrant of Harlem.
I asked Hassan about him this week. "He's thirteen," he said, scratching Milo's chin. "Old man now." And something in my chest did a thing.
This is what nobody tells you about moving to a giant city. You think belonging will come from the big stuff — the career, the apartment with light. But it sneaks in through a bodega cat who doesn't care if you live or die.
My neighborhood is Milo. It's Hassan knowing I take my chai too sweet. It's the way the bodega bell sounds. It's these accumulated nothings that one day add up to: oh. This is home now.
I bought Milo a little pack of the wet food he likes. Put it on the counter. Hassan laughed at me. I didn't care.
Love your bodega cat while he's here.
Love,