I lived in Santa Barbara, CA at the time. It was August, 1985. An avid cyclist, I was returning from an overnight camping trip in Los Angeles County, about 65 miles away. I was about halfway home, in an relatively desolate area with farms and virtually no visible buildings along the major road between Oxnard and Ventura. There, sitting by the side of this busy 4 lane road was a little tabby cat, maybe six months old. This didn't look like the place one would expect to find a kitty, so I pulled the bicycle over to the curb to assess the situation. The cat ran over, climbed up my leg, up my jersey, sat on my shoulder, and started nuzzling me and purring. I made an instant decision, put him in my handlebar bag, and rode the remaining 33 miles home, aside from a stop to purchase a can of cat food at a shopping center. There I opened up the handlebar bag, whereupon the kitty made a beeline into an adjacent donut shop, crowded with people, and started rubbing against everyone's legs.

Havoc quickly became the boss of the household, and to his dying day could control all my other cats, some much bigger, usually with a glare although sometimes having to swat to make his point. He had personality in spades. Walking my pit bull, I'd often be several blocks from home and find Havoc running to meet us and be carried home. I found out that in his early years, he would go from house to house in my neighborhood for food, each of whom thought they were feeding a needy stray. He could purr for hours, even while not awake, and loved sleeping under the covers with me, oblivious to my pain and arm cramping as I remained in one position for hours on end to hold the wintertime blankets above him. He had a very characteristic way of running toward me with tail upright and curled forward; I regret that I never managed to get a photo of that position.

He had his share of brushes with danger - nearly getting crushed in a freak garage door mishap in 1994, and just a month before his death getting attacked by two Jack Russell terriers who charged up my driveway, getting some hair off his tail but no bites in the few seconds before I could race outside and save him. The first bout with FUS happened around 1989, and from then on it was bout after bout of FUS or UTI or various infections, which fortunately always responded to aggressive treatment although he never really was the same. But every time I thought "this is it", the treatments would bring him around, sometimes with a day or two of hospitalization. The last ten years or so, he would frequently spray all over the house, and even me on occasion, and I couldn't control him. The house smelled very bad, and this summer I finally had all the carpeting ripped out and replaced with porcelain tile. The old carpet, sitting in my driveway for disposal, reeked horribly several houses away. And what could I do, when most of the time he was a friendly, loving, purring cat?

He passed away suddenly - kidney function readings had been abnormally, but not dangerously high for quite a while. I came home from work and found him lying in the yard, covered with flies, and this time I knew that the trip to the emergency appointment would be the last time that massive folder would be pulled. Sure enough, the readings were off the scale, and his body temperature had dropped four degrees. It was time. He didn't quite make 18 years. I don't know if I'll ever have a cat with more personality.

On the way home from my yearly trip to Santa Barbara in December, I drove to where I had found him, to the best of my recollection, and scattered some of his ashes by the road.