“Managing” Homer soon became my full-time job. It was my responsibility to set his appointments; thoroughly brush and groom him ahead of time, so that his coat would shine with a high gloss and without any pesky stray bits of fur that might dangle from his haunches and ruin a shot; to make sure he got plenty of rest before a shoot began; to keep us stocked up on the tuna, turkey, and toys required to keep him engaged, happy, and playful; to wrangle him from spot to spot as the daylight or whims of whoever was shooting him changed.
I had to pop open cans of tuna when they wanted Homer to raise his head and perk up his ears; to dip toys and crumpled pieces of paper and bits of sisal rope in the tuna oil when Homer’s interest in them flagged and he’d start to trot over to me. Why aren’t you playing with any of this cool stuff, mom? I had to gauge when it was finally time for Homer to retire to the sanctity of his cat tree for a quick, replenishing cat nap. I’d gently suggest to whoever was in charge that Homer really could use a bit of time to himself—at which point he or she would cry, “That’s lunch, everybody!” and the cameramen, the sound crew (if it was a video shoot), the lighting techs, the groomer and stylist, the field producer, and the field producer’s assistant would ask me to recommend a nearby restaurant. And would I mind terribly calling ahead for a reservation, since they’d need a large table?
It was my job to do all these things and more and then…to get out of the shot.
I used to joke that my name might as well officially be changed to Gwen “Thank You Now Please Get Out Of The Shot” Cooper. “We’d like to shoot Homer in front of the bookcase—he looks adorable with all those books behind him! Thank you so much [after I’d lured Homer to the desired spot with a cheerful, Come on, Homer-Bear!]…but could you move juuuuuuust a little to the left? A little more? We can still see part of your arm.” Or, “I’d like to get Homer in front of the window. He’ll be majestic with the Manhattan skyline behind him. Could you get him to…yes…perfect, that’s it! But your hair is so curly and it’s interfering with Homer’s light—could you maybe pull it back?”
Far be it for me to interfere with Homer’s light!
If Homer had been a different kind of a cat—a cat like Scarlett, for example—all the “managing” in the world couldn’t have made these shoots possible. But Homer had always liked attention, and the people who gave it to him. He was intriguing not just because of his blindness, but because he had real charisma.
That might sound like an odd word to apply to a cat. Charisma, though, is little more than the ability of some people (or cats) to make you feel—even if only for the span of a few minutes—as if you are the most fascinating thing going, the very person they’d been hoping to get to spend time with.
Homer had that ability in spades.
Every strange person who came to our home and crawled on their belly holding a camera before them—so as to shoot Homer at his own level—was one more friend for him to make, one more cheerful greeting for him to bestow, receiving a playful scratch behind his ears in return. Scarlett and Vashti ran for the hills whenever our apartment was thus inundated, but Homer could never get over how much cool stuff these people brought with them! Cartons and crates, lighting reflectors, boom mics, duffel bags for Homer to crawl in, around, and over. His nose and whiskers would twitch non-stop as he tried to process all the exotic new smells of equipment bags that had been on airplanes, in studios and out on location shoots, perhaps even (in the case of the crew from Animal Planet) in the homes of other cats.
The camera crews came to our home as a team of seen-it-all professionals, out on just another job—and an annoying one at that, because what could be more irritating (or less interesting) than working with a cat?—but they left as an adoring cult. Like my former boyfriends of old, who’d proudly proclaimed, Homer’s my buddy!, each photographer and videographer was convinced that he or she had formed a unique and special bond with Homer over the course of the shoot, that some magical thing had happened between the two of them during those few hours they had together.
Homer could make you feel that way. He seemed to know precisely when they wanted him to sit still as a statue and look majestic, to chase around toys in goofy, kittenish fashion, to run or jump or flip around on his back with un-self-conscious abandon, to turn his head shyly a little to the side, as if to say, I’m strong, but also vulnerable. Maybe he even did know. Homer was a sensitive cat, one who’d always paid close attention to the people around him. He had ways of knowing things that even I couldn’t account for.
Do you see this?, they’d demand. Do you see how he’s responding to me? Click-click, the camera would go. He’s a great cat, Gwen, a really exceptional cat. And then they’d remind me, for the umpteenth time to, please, get out of the shot.
I knew that I hovered. Part of it was my old over-protectiveness, which reared up again and was hard to suppress as I watched strangers cluster around Homer, amidst walls of gear five times his size. As for Homer himself, he was almost never nervous with all the activity going on around him. All he needed to find these unprecedented new experiences completely enjoyable was the knowledge that I was somewhere nearby. But with so much going on—with so many people and so much equipment crammed within the relatively small space of our living room—it was difficult for him to catch my scent if I wasn’t standing close. Speaking to him in a reassuring voice wasn’t a great option, as it tended to cause him to leave off whatever he’d been doing and head in my direction.
As soon as Homer wasn’t sure I was there anymore—when the horrifying thought that I might have left him alone with all these strangers appeared to cross his mind—then he was capable of being as uncooperative as any irate star. The fur on his back would start to rise, he’d twist his head wildly in un-shoot-able postures, nose in the air as he tried to figure out my location. I’d rush over to pet him and smooth down his fur. I’m not going anywhere, Homer-Bear. I’m right here with you. Thus calmed and restored to cheerful good humor, Homer would once again return to the work at hand as if he’d been born to do it.
And I, of course, would hasten to get out of the shot.
ALL TOLD, THERE were only perhaps seven or eight of these shoots, stretched out over nearly as many months. But they loomed so large with their strangeness and excitement that they cast long shadows. As the count-down to Homer’s Odyssey’s publication date began, and as the anxiety and anticipation continued to build, it was hard to feel that our lives were quite what they had been only a few months ago—although it was equally hard to say just what, exactly, they were becoming.
Some of these shoots were arranged by my publisher for their own purposes—two sessions in our home in order to get the ideal cover shot of Homer (as well as extras to be used inside the book itself), and one at an off-site photographer’s studio for additional publicity shots of Homer and me together. I talked about that one in the Afterword for Homer’s Odyssey—the near impossibility of wrangling Homer in an unfamiliar space, trying to get him to stay still long enough to have his picture taken. All Homer himself wanted to do was explore this new place and introduce himself to all the new people within it. It was so very hard to get him to sit still that, as I noted in the Afterword, eventually the photographer and lighting techs unhooked all the equipment from its various stands and carried it by hand, so they could follow Homer wherever he went. As long as I live, I’ll never forget the sight of a team of professionals—and one hovering stage mom—following along behind a blind cat in parade-like fashion, crying, Wait! I think he’s going this way now!