When my father was my age, he had a cat named Franklin that liked to poop in people’s shoes. I bring this story up because while my Aunt Ellen and Uncle Tony whisper their disdain for my father, loud enough for us to plainly hear, I think of that cat.

They lived in a two-story colonial on the east coast, he and his three older sisters. David’s parents agreed to take in the cat after he found it rummaging in an alley near the school. It was a calico and had a white splotch across its upper lip like a mustache. Yet for some reason, he named it Franklin after the black kid in the Peanuts comic strip. He can’t explain it now either.

It was a calm, affectionate pet. Rarely meowed. Didn’t eat much and didn’t scratch up the furniture.

Then the first pooping.

“Gawddammit, Ginny!” his dad screamed.

“What’s wrong?” mama asked, shuffling from the kitchen.

“That damn cat.”

“Franklin?”

“There’s crap in my shoe.”

“Oh, dear no.”

“For sure as rain, that cat crapped in my shoe!”

There was anger. Then laughter. And a meek form of analysis as to why Franklin would not just poop away from its box but inside a shoe.

“Your feet do stink, daddy.”

“That’s ‘cause I work for a living, son.”

Then the second pooping, in David’s shoe. And a third in his sister Maggie’s shoe. And a fourth and fifth and so on, all in various shoes in random pattern.

“David,” his father said, sitting down on the armchair near the front door, “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to get rid of Franklin.”

“No!”

“I’m sorry. This crapping thing is just too much. We’ve washed our shoes, mama’s put lavender oil in the soles, but for some damn reason Franklin don’t care.”

“But he loves us.”

“Sorry, boy. I’ll see if someone at work wants to take him.” And with that, his father started to put on his shoes, first checking for any poop. But when he began to tie the laces, Franklin bounced over to him, purring like a motorboat. His tail whipping side to side on the floor.

“Sorry, Franklin.” And he stroked him from head to tail, rose and walked out the door.

My father started to cry, and that’s when he noticed Franklin bounding over to the front window. Franklin watched his father walk down the sidewalk until he was clear out of sight. Then the purring stopped. Franklin jumped down, sauntered over to the remaining pairs of shoes and began sniffing and circling.

Someone at work had taken him. And my father cried for a week straight. It still hurts him to think about that cat. But it wasn’t until years later that my dad realized what the cat was saying to the family. Franklin loved everyone. He loved being with them. They saved him from the streets. And every day he watched people leave. Didn’t know where they were going or if they were coming back. So that poop was his way of saying ‘don’t forget me.’

And that’s why the thought of my father in that jail cell, looking at obscure new places to live, makes me want to poop in someone’s shoe. Or just get a cat.