The first person I remember meeting in the city was Charlene. Charlene had toxoplasmosis, she was literally a crazy cat lady. She had accumulated 8 cats since turning 50. I liked Charlene, she was interesting, she was a fantastic story teller, she had a kind heart, she made me homemade mac and cheese, and she would always treat me with a motherly tenderness that I will never forget.

Charlene lived in the apartment above me, I would always hear her speaking with her cats. She would have full on discussions with them. She told me that she spoke 4 different cat dialects. I assumed she didn't learn from Rosetta Stone nor Duolingo, no this skill was developed from years of immense first hand experience.

Charlene hadn't always been crazy about cats, she didn't own her first cat until she was 50 years of age. She was divorced twice; one left the country without any notice other than taping divorce papers to the front door. While the other ended up having dirty butt sex with a local Starbucks's barista.

A coworker of hers brought in a box of kittens one day and asked if anyone would want to adopt one, Charlene said her heart melted when she looked into the eyes of one of the kittens and just had to take him home. She named him Mosley after Sugar Shane Mosley, the champion boxer. She said she named him that because he was sweet like sugar and she had always been a lifelong boxing fan due to her grandfather being a once great professional boxer. He came to America without any technical skills, just the skill of fighting.

After Mosley, she adopted 5 more cats from the animal shelter and 2 she picked up off the street. She lured the street cats into her home with a can of tuna and a laser pointer.

Charlene loved all her cats but Mosley was by far her favorite. Mosley was not only her first cat, it was also the only cat she raised from a kitten. She brought him everywhere with her, and when I mean everywhere, I mean everywhere.

Charlene took Mosley to restaurants, hotels, sporting events, and even to the movie theatre. She would sneak him in by sticking him inside her Louis Vuitton handbag. I was quite honestly amazed by Mosley's behavior at home, and in public.

The first time I went over to Charlene's apartment for dinner, Mosley was sitting at the table waiting patiently for his meal. He even waited for Charlene to place a cat bib around his cute furry neck before he dug into his supper.

The first time I got to experience Mosley in public was the day Charlene invited me to go to the movies with her. She wanted to see the new Jennifer Lopez film and offered to buy my ticket. Once we found our seats, she pulled open her purse, and laying there right in between two Subway sandwiches was Mosley. She asked me if I wanted turkey or chicken, I said turkey.

Mosley sat calmly on Charlene's lap throughout the entire duration of the film. The two shared a bag of jalapeno kettle chips and some Mike and Ike candies. I think Mosley enjoyed the film because he purred during the most touching moments.

Whenever I would come home from the bars in the middle of the night I would knock on Charlene's door and visit her because I knew that she was always up at odd hours. She would follow the sleep schedule of her cats, therefore she was practically nocturnal. Charlene would keep me entertained, she would grab a bottle of cheap red wine and pour her and I a glass. We would play with her cats, and then she would make me mac and cheese. We would eat a bowl or two, drink more red wine, and talk throughout the entire crappy Netflix movie that was chosen that night by her cat Sir Piggly.

The way the selection process took place was Charlene would hover over the titles of the films and whenever a title piqued the interest of Sir Piggly, he would scratch the tele. Sir Piggly was quite the film buff and film critic, at least according to Charlene. The more red wine I drank, the more I agreed with her and Sir Piggly's critiques. She even went so far as to open up an IMDB account for Sir Piggly, and would allow him to review the films we watched. She would type the review of course, but the review was entirely the thoughts of Sir Piggly.

Charlene was an odd person, but I like odd. She didn't lose herself until the day Mosley died. Mosley got into some drano and poisoned himself, he died quickly. Charlene was hysterical, she was absolutely traumatized. She didn't ever recover from that.

She called me a few hours after the incident, I visited her and she was a babbling mess. She had Mosley's lifeless corpse lying there on her stained brown carpet. She attempted to close his eyes with her delicate fingers so that Mosley could look at peace, but peace was something that did not occur, instead, blood leaked through his eyes. Charlene was mortified, so was I.

A few days went by, and Mosley still lay unmoved on that stained brown carpet. His body and head started to swell to three sizes its original size. Flies began to circle him as if they were mini vultures looming over their rotting prey. This led her to make the decision of finally removing Mosley from the carpet, that was now imprinted in the shape of Mosley, and sticking him in her freezer, right next to the popsicles and frozen waffles.

After a brief discussion over the phone, I told her that she could not keep him in the freezer for any longer, she agreed, so she decided to take him to the nearest taxidermy office. She had Mosley cleaned out and stuffed to pristine condition. Charlene took him home and slept next to his dead and lifeless body for the next two months. She continued to bring him everywhere with her, and continued to serve him dinner as if he was still alive.

Charlene was no longer that same cheerful person, she became cold, and being around her was immensely distressing. She was unpredictable in a way that made me and other people feel uneasy. She lost her mind, she lost her heart, she lost her purpose. She first stopped caring for herself, then she stopped caring for the other 7 cats. She began to display serious schizophrenic tendencies and other alarming behaviors. She stopped paying the rent, and was evicted.

The last I heard of Charlene was that she was living on the street somewhere in downtown, homeless, throwing her feces at an Olive Garden.