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Straight from the Horse's Mouth

How to Talk to Animals and Get Answers

New World Library

The Reluctant Psychic

In his strange, not-quite-human way, [Adam] is constantly reminding me that real magic doesn't come from achieving the perfect appearance, from being Cinderella at the ball with both glass slippers and a killer hairstyle. The real magic is in the pumpkin, in the mice, in the moonlight; not beyond ordinary life, but within it.... It is a quality of attention to ordinary life that is so loving and intimate it is almost worship.

— Martha Beck, Expecting Adam

Rodney Speaks

I was as skeptical as any sane person would be that morning, fourteen years ago, when I loaded Rodney, my cat, into his carrier to take him down to the holistic veterinary clinic where a psychic was seeing animals. I was having some problems with Rodney that my regular vet couldn't help, and I figured, why not give the psychic a shot? It seemed a little goofy and I felt a little foolish, but what did I have to lose? No matter what, it was sure to be good for a laugh.

I thought at the time, as some of you may think now, that the psychic business is either a hokey sideshow act or a solemn, mystical affair, full of incense-burning gypsies and weird witches with crystal balls. Boy, was I in for an eye-opener.

Gladys, the psychic, wore no heavy eyeliner, no gold hoop earrings or jangling charm bracelets. She was less gypsy fortune-teller and more midwestern grandmother. Were those ketchup stains on her shirt? I was perplexed.

When I extracted Rodney from his carrier and put him down on the cold metal table in front of her, he didn't howl like a triggered car alarm or jump off the table, his usual reactions at the vet's. Instead, he sat perfectly still and quietly scrutinized Gladys. He actually seemed startled to see her. She returned his gaze.

"What are you doing?" I whispered to her.

"I'm talking to him," she replied flatly.

You've got to be kidding! I wanted to yell. No incantations? No sweeping arm movements? No speaking in tongues? My curiosity won out over my skepticism.

"What does he say?" I whispered.

"I asked him what his favorite food is and he says chicken."

Good guess, I thought. True, Rodney gobbled up quite a bit of fresh chicken, but what cat doesn't like chicken? Any ninny could have figured that out.

"Now I am asking him what his favorite spot in the house is," she said. Again, Gladys did nothing more than look at the little cat, who returned her gaze, nonplussed.

The answer must have come to her quickly: "He says he likes to sit on the back of an orange chair that overlooks a window. A chair in the den."

"That's exactly right," I gasped. When Rodney was inside the house, he planted himself on the back of the peach-colored armchair in the den.

"The window in the den overlooks the yard with the little white dog," Gladys said.

"What dog?" I asked.

"Across the street from your building is a little dog behind a fence. Rodney likes to go over there and tease that little dog. He walks back and forth in front of the fence to make the dog bark."

I cast a fish-eyed glance at him. There was, indeed, a small white terrier behind a fence across the street, but I never dreamed Rodney went over there. "You torment that dog, do you?" I snarled at him.

"He's very full of himself," she continued. "He says women are always commenting on the pretty yellow markings on his head. He loves women. He's been told that he's quite handsome."

My jaw made a nasty clattering sound as it hit the linoleum floor. My boyfriend's secretary had been visiting our condo only the weekend before, and she had made a huge fuss over Rodney. She had praised the three little stripes on his head and used the very word handsome.

I took a deep breath and cut straight to the punch: "So why does he go door to door caterwauling?" I asked.

"He only howls at the windows where there are other cats. He thinks that if he calls them, they will be able to come out and play. He's lonely."

The answer was so obvious, I felt pretty foolish. Not once had it occurred to me that he was meowing not at the neighbors, but at the neighbors' cats.

"But ... but ... how can I make him stop before we get kicked out of the condo? I can't bear to keep him cooped up inside, but when I let him out, he screams," I whined.

"Get another cat. He's lonely. He doesn't want to be the only cat," she snapped. She had no way of knowing Rodney was the only cat at home; nonetheless, I wasn't thrilled with her prescription. One cat seemed to be more trouble than I had bargained for — the little furry foghorn had already gotten us booted out of our last apartment; now the homeowners association in our new condo threatened to give me and my pint-sized Pavarotti our walking papers ... again. How was I supposed to consider a second cat?

"Did you know your neighbors feed him?" she continued.

"What? What neighbors?"

"The neighbors with the two little girls. He goes in their house. Several of your neighbors let him in to be fed." I knew the neighbors with the two little girls, but I had had no idea they were having my cat over for dinner.

"That's why he hasn't seemed very hungry lately."

I cast a wary glance in his direction. Rodney had settled into a squat on the cold table. He was calm, he was smug, and there was no mistaking the expression on his little furry face: He was smiling. He was finally getting the best of me, as he always thought he should. By this time, the strangeness of the communication had worn off and I was asking questions freely, like a foreign ambassador with a really fast translator.

"Ask him why he pees on my clothes," I said.

"He doesn't want you to go away and leave him alone. Peeing on your clothes is the only way he can express his anger." This was too true to be believed. I had a promotional modeling job that sometimes took me away for weekends, where I'd wear a specific uniform. When I got home Sunday night and emptied out my suitcase, I'd pile all my travel clothes on the floor, mingling my uniform with a week's worth of other dirty laundry. Then I'd get distracted by other chores. Later I'd find the pile strewn all over the floor. Rodney would have singled out my uniform from the pile of laundry and peed only on it. Eventually I learned not to leave my laundry on the floor, so he resorted to peeing directly into my freshly packed suitcase. That way I wouldn't discover until I unpacked my bag in Palm Springs that everything I brought was soaked and my uniform reeked to high heaven.

"He seems to know the uniform I wear when I go away. How could he possibly know what clothes I wear to work?" I asked.

"He just does," she replied.

"Why does he freak out every time I leave? He even seems to be afraid of the dark. Ask him why he has screaming panic attacks at three A.M. Ask him where he came from," I urged.

"He says he lived in an industrial part of Van Nuys, where there were a lot of strays. Men would put food out in the alley for the cats. There were piles of cardboard boxes and machinery and a lot of grease on the ground. He got shut up in the warehouse at night and was very cold and hungry. Howling was the only way he could get fed."

"So, he really is afraid of the dark? And he gets claustrophobic?" I asked.

" Only at night, he says."

"Poor little guy," I cooed, and patted his head. This explanation shone a whole new light on our dilemma. It couldn't have made more perfect sense. I had found him in the North Hollywood pound, on feline skid row. The little operatic kitten had serenaded me even as I'd entered the room. When I'd peeked in his cage, his nose was so obtrusive, I felt as though I were looking down the barrel of a shotgun. He wasn't my type. I was looking for Marlon Brando in fur, not Woody Allen. But when I'd lifted him up, he made an unprecedented move. He'd wrapped his minuscule arms around my neck, like two possessed pipe cleaners. Reaching his tiny face toward mine, he had kissed me on the lips. It was the most deliberate kiss I've ever received in my life. That's how the little orange salesman had closed me. Oh, sure, he was just a loudmouthed, needle-nosed redhead, a common model I call the Honda Civic of cats, but he had a certain je ne sais quoi.

"What does he think of me?" I asked.

"He loves you. He says he loves his mother."

Lately he had been showing some aggressive behavior around my boyfriend. If Benjamin touched me in front of him, Rodney would frantically attack him and run out of the room. So I had to ask: "What does he think of my boyfriend?"

Her response was "He's very jealous. He thinks he should have you all to himself. Sometimes he wishes your boyfriend would just go away." Ah, I thought, I sometimes feel that way myself.

After I paid the psychic the $35 — a measly price for turning my world upside down — I reached out to put the little cat back in his carrier, noticing that my relationship with him had already changed. I was more careful with him than usual. He wasn't just a little noisy pet anymore. He was an intelligent creature with distinct thoughts and feelings of his own, a creature who could observe and act on his observations, a creature who could reason.

In the car, for the duration of the ride home, the air was thick between us. I had never seen Rodney so smug and pleased, truly tranquil for the first time. He had finally gotten to say his piece, and I had witnessed the most miraculous event of my life — I had found a human being who could talk to a cat. Frogs and whistles! What a world! Everything I ever had believed had been changed in an instant.

Gladys had handed me a flyer on the way out, for a workshop in animal communication she was offering that weekend. The first half of the class was to be a lecture on how interspecies communication works; during the second half, we'd practice on one another's animals, with the guardians there to verify information.

The Class That Changed My Life

We met outdoors in a sunny backyard furnished with picnic tables. Although it was a breezy spring day in Los Angeles, I spent the first two hours sweating and fighting the chorus of naysayers in my head. Even as I listened to Gladys, the demons of doubt rode me like a flock of scavenger birds on a rhinoceros's rump. Today I had given them a lot to talk about: What if I'm the only one who can't do it? I will make such a fool of myself. This is all impossible anyway! Why am I sitting here listening to this nonsense? Even if Gladys really can do it, I'll never be able to learn.

I fought my demons: So I'll make a fool of myself; so what? It wouldn't be the first time. I'll probably never see any of these people again anyway. I might as well try.

But while I was a nervous wreck, Rodney was calm and collected.

It didn't take long to notice that I was the only student who had brought a cat. The other six women who had brought their animals had brought dogs. Rodney waited quietly in his carrier by my feet under a picnic table.

The first volunteer was a big chow-type dog. The exercise went something like this: The teacher would call out a series of questions we were supposed to mentally ask the dog, and we'd write down the very first answer that flew into our heads.

The morning's lecture had been about telepathy, sending and receiving mental pictures. I had tried to absorb the idea, but it all seemed so abstract. I could have listened all day, but what could I do? I was tense.

The test questions were fairly rudimentary, the first being "What's your favorite food?" Gladys instructed the class to pretend we were the dog while envisioning an empty food bowl in front of us. Then, with our mind's eye, we were to visualize what we'd like the bowl to be filled with.

The answer hit me like gangbusters. I heard the words inside my head: Spaghetti and meatballs! I struggled to make a mental picture of a dog's bowl, but I could see nothing but a dinner plate piled high with spaghetti and meatballs.

A few moments of silence followed before Gladys asked the students what we "got."

Everyone else produced the more practical answers like beef, chicken, and kibble. My demons of doubt started to pick me apart: I must have just made it all up in my mind! I had to be wrong. Why was my answer so ridiculous when everyone else was so obviously right? I sank down low in my seat. Finally Gladys asked me what I "got." I mumbled sheepishly, "Spaghetti and meatballs."

The dog's guardian squealed. "Yes! That is exactly right! Spaghetti and meatballs is her favorite food! She ate a whole plate of it last night!"

That was nothing, my demons jabbed, just a lucky guess.

The next question was "What is your favorite toy?" I heard the voice again in my head — not the teacher's, not the demons'— this was a new voice introducing itself inside my brain, but I heard it distinctly. It was a woman's voice that said, I like to wear my red-and-white-striped hat. Instantly I saw in my mind's eye a candy-striped visor. I wrote it down.

The next question was "Do you have a job?" Gladys had said that many dogs, like seeing-eye dogs, were able to talk about their jobs.

The female voice said, Yes, now that Mother and Father are divorced, my job is to protect Mother and her house. I scribbled it down, chagrined and disbelieving even as I wrote it. In response to the next question — "Were you ever in love?" — the female voice answered emphatically, Yes, but I had to leave him when we moved.

At this point, during a pause in Gladys's instruction, I took the liberty of asking questions of my own.

"Where did you live?" I mentally asked her. Immediately I saw a mental snapshot of a trailer home with a huge pine tree in front. Pinecones appeared on the ground only inches from my eyes, as if a camera had moved in from a long shot to a close-up. My nose tingled with the fresh scent of pine needles. With this, I heard the voice elaborating on her own: He lived next door.

"Show him to me," I asked. Instantaneously I saw a flash of a big black Doberman, accompanied by a pang of sadness in my chest.

"Do you miss him?" I asked. Yes, she said. The teacher interrupted our repartee with another instruction.

"Ask her if she has ever had puppies." I didn't need to. The dog answered the question before I could ask.

No, I never got to have children. Mother got me fixed. I saw in my mind the scar on her abdomen from her own point of view, as if I were looking down at my own belly. I felt a sharp pain in my pelvis, followed by terrible soreness. The voice continued, I wanted to have children with my boyfriend. Again she showed me the black Doberman next door. I take care of the neighborhood cats instead.

Even as I wrote, wrestling with the outlandish impossibility of this conversation, I felt the feeling of sadness intensify.

Despite the rebuttal from my demons (You're making all this up. This is nothing more than your imagination!), the sadness engulfed me. My abdomen ached, my eyes welled with tears, and my left hand scribbled like a mad fiend. My silent interrogation had provoked a stream of answers so rapidly, I could barely get it all on the paper. I skipped whole words and pieces of sentences as I scrawled out several tear-streaked pages. Dabbing my eyes with one hand and writing with the other, I stole a glance to either side to see how the other students were doing. The first thing I noticed was that no one else had spontaneously burst into tears. The second thing I noticed was that the other women were jotting down one or two words at most. When Gladys called on us to stop, I was still frantically taking dictation from the voice while struggling to swallow the embarrassing lump in my throat.

Even if I could have rationalized a fictitious conversation and let my demons chalk it all up to my wild imagination, I was not prepared for physical pain, much less fits of strong emotion. The feelings of loneliness and heartache were almost overwhelming.

Letting all the other women volunteer their answers, I saved my comments for last. I was still prepared to make a complete ass out of myself when I started reading my notes to the dog's mother. My heart was pounding so hard, I could barely find my voice, but as I spoke, she confirmed everything I said:

"Yes, she wears a red-and-white visor. Yes, there was a pine tree in front of my former home in the trailer park! Yes, the neighbor's dog was indeed a big black Doberman! Yes, he was her best friend! Yes, I had to leave him behind in the divorce —"

This couldn't be happening! It was too easy! It was too good to be true! I silenced my demons and continued to read my notes aloud.

When I said the dog had wanted to have puppies with the Doberman, her guardian's eyes misted over. She felt her dog's pain.

"Tell her, 'I'm sorry' and 'I'm sorry I took her away from her boyfriend,' "she urged.

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Excerpted from Straight from the Horse's Mouth by Amelia Kinkade. Copyright © 2001 Amelia Kinkade. Excerpted by permission of New World Library.
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