I Believe I'll Go Back Home

When I left my father's house, I was filled with pride
I made a mistake and I done wrong, now I'm dissatisfied,
I believe I'll go back home,
I believe I'll go back home,
I believe I'll go back home acknowledge I done wrong. --Dock Boggs, Prodigal Son

So a week ago last Thursday we went up to Greensboro to see Libby's dad, something we do more or less weekly. We left about 4:30 PM and got home about midnight. When I walked up to the house I found the kitchen door ajar. I walked inside and could tell right away that there hadn't been a human intruder. Everything--all the stuff that jams our house--was still right there where we left it. What was missing was all the Houdahenians. One of 'em, probably Puzzle but we'll never know, messed with the kitchen door till it opened. Neither of us had double locked it, as one of us usually does. More particularly, I'd gone out the kitchen door and left it just clicked shut for Libby, and she went out another door. Then Mr. Puzzle got bored with life on the inside.

That's Kirby in the picture. I used the shot for a wanted poster I passed around the neighborhood early this week. We found him as a tiny kitten. Either he was a feral survivor of some horror, or some human had dumped him out at the end of the driveway. He was a tick eaten mess, starving and stunted. We took him in, got him cleaned up, even rescued him a second time when the so-called shelter decided to put him down after only a few days. He's a wonderful part of our home, really the sweetest cat you ever saw. He loves his new Houdahenian family too, all the big brothers, even the jealous Mokie, who always thinks someone or other is trying to get his. Kirby gives you head-knocks after each mouthful of kitty-bits if you lean over to him. He purrs when anyone is around. And though he finds looking out the window interesting, particularly when there's a bird or a squirrel in view, going out is the last thing he wants to do. He's been out, thank you.

But Kirby loves his brothers, and when they all went out last Thursday, free at last, free at last, I'm sure he followed along. Only the boys mamma, who gave birth to the boys in a little shed and then let us help her out, and finally herself moved into the house, totally feral and as capable a wild Indian as you could ever find, stayed inside. We started calling into the dark woods, into the dark night. Shortly Puzzle appeared. He was agitated, very fluffed up. Libby picked him up to bring him inside and he scratched her and me both wriggling to get free, but we got him in. A bit later an Wuzzy, his almost twin brother, black as night, also showed. Also fluffed up and agitated. Got him in. And momma came down from the bedroom. "What's up?" So that was three, and it was close to 2 AM, and quiet. We turned on all the lights, but Libby was feeling some despair. Sometimes it's easier to just assume the worst, deal with it. We both agreed that no one should be blamed about the door. I certainly did blame myself, but Libby's forgiveness helped some. Inside the house, the cats were all growling at each other, and Puzzle was letting out incredible screams we've never even heard out of him before. It was as though none of them were sure who they were looking at. Everyone was in deep survival mode, and all that veneer of civilization had melted away.

Another hour or so and Mokie came up. He's the dark grey brother, smaller, always a little jealous. He too was agitated and growling, but was easiest to pick up and bring in. And the good news was, nobody was in any way injured, bitten, whatever. Something had come through though, and scattered them. Still no sign of Kirby. We finally got to sleep, leaving all the lights on. We don't have a good situation for just leaving the door open. Likely doing that would find a possum or two sitting and shitting on the kitchen table come morning, and even more cat agitation. We were both very sad on Friday. It looked like Kirby had been lost. We both walked around in the woods. So far no sign of a little body, or even fur. In the evening, after dark, Libby was in the kitchen with the boys and Kirby came up to the door. The boys all hissed and growled. He ran away. This happened in a few seconds, before she even realized he was there. So the good news--the really good news--he was alive! Now we had to get him to come up again.

Libby found quite a lot online about missing cats. There's a complex MO, and some predictability. We went back and forth to town buying various supplies for the task. After a couple of days Libby got a decent spot light. We put a baby monitor under the house because we thought he might be staying under there--hiding I should say more accurately. We set the have-a-heart traps with canned salmon and anchovies, since we'd heard that odiferous fishy things would attract better. Shortly Libby was calling me from the back room. We'd captured a big possum. I drove him a ways down the drive and let him out into the woods. No more signs of Kirby. It was Memorial Day.

We started walking the woods with the big light. I printed up wanted posters and drove around the "neighborhood" and gave them to folks he might manage to walk to. It seemed unlikely. Kirby had never negotiated a road, much less crossed a creek that was pretty full and flowing right now because heavy rains. Then, Monday night, Libby saw eyes in the trees. She got close enough to be pretty sure it was Kirby, but he was not willing to come to her even with treats, toys, etc. displayed for him. Even his little green rattly ball, which he likes to play with for a half-hour at a stretch.

We saw eyes again on Tuesday night, and this time just a little closer, out near the far wood pile. Deep into the night Libby put out a few kitty-bits in a bowl, just inside the shed door. Wednesday morning when she looked something had disturbed them. Could well have been more possums, who knows. Then about 6 PM last night we happened to look out the window and there he was, Kirby, sitting on the top step of the shed. We got my mom's old binocs. It was pretty definitely Kirby. After a bit, while we watched silently, he went inside the shed. Libby got some more bits and some chicken and followed. She went into the shed and shut the door. There was silence for a very long time. I sat on the porch and watched the door. I drank a beer. She waved to me to come down there. She was talking to him, behind a big table that was stored in the shed, leaning against some shelves. We got him a few familiar things, a cushion he likes to sit on, the green ball. She talked to him. He was purring so loudly that I could hear him from several feet away. As the evening fell we kept talking to him. We got a flashlight. About 9 PM Libby picked him up and we got him into the carrier and back inside.

It was pretty much over, except for a vet visit we'll have to make just to make sure he doesn't have worms, and to get the ticks off of him totally. He was tired tired tired. He checked out a lot of his familiar spots, ate, drank a whole lot, slept. He's sleeping in his favorite spot right now, approaching mid-morning Thursday. Mokie and Wuzzy are still jealous and unhappy. They either don't remember him yet, or were just glad he was gone. Mokie I think was in the latter camp for sure. "Why's he getting all the attenion," Mokie says. "I came back the same night. I didn't worry anybody. That fatted calf is actually in the herd I was tending, and was going to pay for my sophomore year in Tech school. WFT!"

Puzzle's ok. Same with momma. Kirby is sleeping in the spot that Mokie likes to sleep in too. The Houdahenian way is just what it is. Some say they're all a jealous lot. Others rightly point out that that is anthropomorphizing. Donald Trump would probably say I'm succumbing to political correctness. That would be another reason not to vote for a fascist.

Our hearts are light this morning. Our little yellow guy is back, safe. Ironically, he found his way to the same shed where his stepbrothers were born. Moreover, he can at his leisure point out to the three of them that he made it outside for a whole week with no help for anyone, not even momma. R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Is that too much to expect? I think they'll sort it out.

Falling Towards the New Year

We did make it through Christmas, and actually it was an excellent Christmas, with all the food and good cheer amongst our dwindling band, up in Greensboro. Work ended on a somewhat frantic note. We had a hurricane style rain on Wednesday last, which attacked our already battered driveway. Libby was aiming to head out and get a lot of supplies for her part of the Christmas cooking, but found herself instead bogged down in the driveway just as the serious upturn begins, where everything had turned either soft or deeply scoured. Usually we get stuck at this spot when there's a snow, not because of mere rain. So I took off early and got the mail and an extra large bag of cat food just in case, and got back home to find the Toyota just as she had described, and that's where I left it in the gloming, no reason to try to back up through the squish and hope I don't find the edge where a tree resides, wait till Christmas Eve. I did leave my truck out at the road side of the hill, so if we had to walk in and out we'd at least have some transportation once we got there.

The rains subsided some during the night. The local tv weather was dire, with flood warnings everywhere including where we needed to go. Christmas Eve arrived however, with just murk above and below, and no roar on the tin roof. Eventually Libby decided to venture out, and I backed the Toyota to a turn around I could see and drove to the house, so we were ready to pack things for Christmas Day assuming we could by then drive all the way to the road. Carrying Christmas out was in any event little better than heart attack territory, way too much stuff. When it snows and we're in such a fix, we've used a sled. No chance when it's mud and rocks. Either we'd go up to Greensboro empty, or we'd drive out. Libby went to Burlington to do the shopping she was aiming to do the day before. The clouds were so bad the Dish couldn't see the sat. That's pretty bad, particularly with no actual rain falling. I watched the Big Sleep again to pass the time. I hadn't recalled the pretty cabbie who helps Marlow follow that cab, and tells him to call her anytime but preferably in the evening, when she's not working. It was nice to think again of Doghouse Riley, an inspiration to all who try to keep a finger hold on the precipice.

It all worked out and we made Christmas, and while Libby did late night cooking we even finished up the tree.

You can see to the left the little Hindu shrine we built to the Houdahenians, which some of the more pragmatic would recognize as a fountain waterer. They've enjoyed the tree, and have grown mature enough to understand that climbing into the tree is a fool's errand. We avoided the glass ornaments as we have plenty of non-breakable ones, including crocheted snowflakes from long ago, and a little picture under glass of the kid as a baby, her first Christmas tree behind her, which was long ago as well.

After we got back from Greensboro in one piece, and with the company of a gorgeous full moon and clear if fleeting skies, we enjoyed the last of the day at home, and no need of a fire either, as it's been close to 80 and we even got out one of the fans that get put away when October arrives. In the morning I got to the post office, where I found presents from the kid and her hubby, which we opened in front of the tree once the lights were turned on. Day after Christmas we also opened a normally closed passage--a window, actually, that is now just an opening from the bedroom into the upstairs of the cabin. This was Libby's surprise gift to the kitties, a new route around the house, and it was enjoyed more than anything else we gave them aside perhaps from the little feather birds which they tried to eat whole, causing enough concern for me to "put them up," as parents say often after Christmas. Since the window was opened, all of them have spent a lot of time coming in and out in one direction or the other. After we retire at night we hear in the deep dark the startling "plop" of one of them, jumping off a shelf and onto the loft floor beside the bed.

Yesterday, the last of the Holiday for me, my old friend Mike, who taught philosophy and then went into grading work, came out to study the driveway situation with us, and offered proposals and suggestions which I think we'll probably take up pretty shortly. The dreadful storm--they've named it Goliath--devastating New Mexico and Texas seems mostly aimed a bit further north and we're hoping it doesn't decide to give us yet another hammering. The driveway isn't cut, but if that were to happen we'd be in a real fix. For now we'll fill ruts with bigger rocks and perhaps some Quikcrete patches. We're almost to a New Year. The general agreement is that 2015 was pretty awful. The Dish did come back on. Now it's time to go back to work.

Houdahenian Blow Up

Last week Libby got me up about 2 AM. Mr. Puzzle, the king dawg cat, was growling at the others. They were all in the kitchen, where Libby was reading. When Puzzle growls it's a pretty sure sign he has caught a mouse. What he likes to do is play with it. He does not like his bothers getting in on the fun, and since they are equally attracted to the mouse, he stands his ground and growls. It's a kind of standoff, really. They can't take the mouse away from him, but he can't drop it either, and see if it runs or not.

I went in the kitchen and there was the described scene. I went over to Puzzle and tried to take the mouse, but he wouldn't let go and growled louder. I don't think he'd bite me, but still. It's a fairly fierce growl. I tried a few more times. He got tired of it and went back behind a set of shelves, still growling and with the mouse. I couldn't reach him, so I left him alone for a while. When I came back he was back in the middle of the floor again, circled by the others. This time when I got close he dropped the mouse. The mouse revived and ran off under the refrigerator. They all gathered around the refrigerator. I went back to bed. Mouse or no mouse, I had to get up about 5:30 for work. I hoped the critter wouldn't die under the fridge. These things have happened. A dead mouse, after a time, is not a happy thought.

When I got up, all the boys were in the living room. Puzzle was in the middle, mouse in mouth, growling. Apparently he'd either gotten the mouse out, or the mouse had come out on its own. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth and throw water on my face. When I came out and into the kitchen, Kirby, the little yellow step-brother who we'd rescued last year, was sitting by the mouse. The mouse had passed away. Kirby let me pick it up and I took it outside and tossed it into the woods. None of the Houdahenians actually saw me do this. Kirby was looking all around, thinking the mouse had taken it on the lam again. While I had breakfast, they all searched the kitchen. By late afternoon, when I came back from work, they seemed to have given it up. Puzzle jumped into my lap as I sat by the woodstove, as he does every evening. He stretched himself out, full length, along my legs, which were propped up almost horizontally on a stool. He stretched his front paws, which have very sharp claws, against my jeans, just barely missing my exposed ankles. He went to sleep that way.

Bookends

This is Puzzle and Wuzzy. They got themselves up on the top shelf of a set of crockery shelves that are built onto our kitchen wall. I didn't see how they did it. Cats are climbers. Wuzzy was the one who climbed plumb up to the tippy top of a tree last winter, up to where he had no idea at all how to get back down. I can refresh your memory of this event. (Maybe he'll be reading this blog and also remember how it goes when you don't think ahead.)

Wuzzy's the little black dot up there amongst the branches. I've circled him in red. It looks cold and lonely, and that was in the morning after the long long night, which followed most of the previous day. He probably felt a little like Edward Abbey did that time he decided to explore the alternate route down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Or maybe like that moment when some character on Doctor Who was put into the machine which showed him literally his relationship to the rest of the universe. The man in the boom truck came much later, in the afternoon, cut his way to where he could actually get his boom up to Wuzzy, and then rescued him. Deus ex machina. Not really having a concept of money, Wuzzy didn't even ask about how all this happened to work out so well. He just came in, ate a lot, and went to sleep.

At any rate, as is well known, Houdahenians are climbers. You can google it. There are many websites featuring cat stairs and perches. And of course if you have shelves and furniture, you already have stairs and perches. Same deal if you have trees. But in these times the vets tend to recommend that cats don't go out in the trees, and so there's now a veritable industry of cat stairs and perches, to substitute for the ready made ones you already have. Because cats aren't much concerned with how to get down at the moment they decide (should it be "decide"--you call the evolutionary geneticists and get back to us) to go up. And I definitely don't mean to kid the wonderful critters we love so much about their tendency to exuberance. Mike Tyson has compared himself to a double-bred tumbler pigeon. Those lovely avians get so engaged with their tumbling that they often never pull out of their dives. It's best, Mr. Tyson says, not to breed two champion tumblers.

I've already written about the squirrels in the kitchen ceiling. Living in the woods as we do, this had been a battle for many years, and we've mostly won, except for one very difficult to reach place in the kitchen roof, which is going to have to be dealt with when it gets warmer. I won't go into the roofing stuff, but squirrels, hardy little bastids though they be, would just as soon be indoors during the cold months, and will put up with insulation in their ears and the sense that creatures are near who would like to eat them for a warm cot and some acorns. Thus it is we now have this vector of intersection, between the formerly wild domestic cat, and the still wild squirrel, separated only by some one-by ceiling planks once the cats can get up to the top shelf.

Yesterday the two big brothers were up there, as you can see. It seemed as though the getting down might be dangerous both to them and to the crockery. These two are the big cats. Little Kirby has been climbing up there and getting down by just jumping to the counter, with is about five feet or so. Same with Mokey, who's also fairly light. For the big boys it would be more of a jolt to their shoulders and perhaps internal organs. This doesn't mean that they wouldn't try the big jump. It'd be just whenever they "decided" they'd had enough of being in that particular spot. But I climbed up and passed them both down to Libby last evening, and as far as I could tell this morning, they hadn't been back up again in the night. (In the winter Houdahenians are attracted even more to the wood stove in the back room, particularly when they've been fed. Squirrels? They can wait.

Today I'm going off to buy some one-by-six. I can see a few places for kitty stairs. The snow's held off till next week and it's Saturday. I'll post a picture perhaps. Meanwhile, one other report from the real world. Driving home from work yesterday I saw four dead skunks on the road to town. They were separated by at least a mile each. I'd say we've never seen skunks in Chatham county before a couple of years back. They're very pretty little creatures, and it's sad to see that they have little ability to deal with vehicles. Maybe they can't see too well, or are distracted by whatever it is they're immediately interested in when the fatal car tops the hill. Whatever the reason, we must have a burgeoning population of the critters here. It's another reason to keep the boys inside. A cat could certainly kill a skunk, but there would be a price.

(You wanna see some cat stairs and perches: http://www.pinterest.com/hauspanther/cat-shelves/ )

Kirby Joins the Houdahenian Division

It's been some while since we spoke of the saga of the Houdahenians: a wild black momma cat first spotted in the dregs of winter skulking into a perimeter shed, a cautious investigation, three kittens discovered, and so forth. The boys are now cats, Puzzle, Wuzzy, and Mokey. Puzzle is damn near a panther, and confidently leaps from the loft directly into his cat perch, a crow's nest at the top of a rug-upholstered pole featuring as well an upholstered horizontal tube and a second lower perch. Actually, they all want that top perch, and take turns with it, some of the "turns" being fairly undemocratic, short-lived battles with sound. Puzzle tends to win, particularly if he's already there. I've yet to see him leap from the loft onto a current occupant, but it might and could have happened, as he is fine leaping from there onto my shoulders, lap, or head, as the thought moves him. He's also good at jumping up into the perch, with my legs or some other intermediate mount being a stage in the athleticism. He had best watch his weight if he's going to continue to enjoy all this flying about, and Puzzle is the one who will eat everyone's food, the guy who wants the last fry on his friend's plate in the commercial, and the guy who has no fussiness about his appetite.

Wuzzy is slightly smaller than Puzzle, and just as coal black. He's the most adjusted cat. He lets it all roll off his back. He likes the perch, but will get out of the way. He's the one who, back on New Years Day, found himself utterly stuck some 40+ feet off the ground in a small sourwood tree, the one who cried piteously from the tippy top branches, where he couldn't move, the one who got the tree guy with the big boom truck out on New Years Day to saw his way into our yard and close enough to ride the boom up to him and get him down--which he thought was surely going to happen eventually. We paid for that, as Wuzzy doesn't worry about this stuff we humans go insane about at the slightest provocation, "money." Wuzzy would not starve a 90-year-old military veteran who fought the genocidal-crazed German nation to make a cockamamie "point" about how making health care more affordable to more American citizens is in truth worse than the blight of American slavery. Wuzzy would if he cared to vote straight ticket Democratic, something now illegal in North Carolina, his home state, which he also bears no allegiance at all to. He was, after all, born in a little shed.

Mokey, Puzzle and Wuzzy's soft grey brother, was once the first born worrier, particularly on nights when momma was very late coming back from hunting, when it was cold and windy and the big white moon face stared into the shed window at all of them with a sinister smile, and branches scratched against the tin roof whilst they huddled together for warmth in the southwest corner. Mokey once ventured out, once climbed into my daughter's hair when she came to visit, and generally would walk up anyone's arm and ask for anything, while Puzzle kept his head down and looked away, and Wuzzy tended to have been dropped in some other spot by his mom, for reasons unknown. Now Mokey continues to worry, and to keep to a high corner, and to find food he liked last time tasting strange, and to cry for food until his people tire of opening new packets and just hope he'll get hungry enough to deal with it. In the dead of night, Mokey will climb into our bed and curl against my calf. He does not like, however, to be held and petted. Unless it is upside down, then it's really great for a while.

Momma, over time, became "EmmyLou." We caught her and got her neutered, and released her. She was a little panther then, and angry and wild, and vanished for several weeks whilst we put out food for her just in case, near the chicken house where she'd had the kittens. One day I saw her there again, eating. I moved her food up towards the house, and in a few days she was furtively eating on the porch. Next we tried putting the food just inside the door. She'd come in and eat, but scoot out if we came too close. For a long time she'd come in all the way to eat, with the boys chowing down in the living room, door closed. Then I'd open the kitchen door and she'd scoot out again. This was how all last winter went, and into the spring and summer. Eventually we had to catch her again for shot renewal, and after we'd accomplished that, we decided to keep her and all the boys inside, and she's fine with that and sleeps on the back of the couch, and speaks to us now and then, but will not allow touching,though she'll brush against your leg if you're preparing food, sometime.

Back in May I think it was, I came home from work one day and found, oh Jesus Lord, a tiny yellow kitten on the porch. He was wild and ran away, and starving. We got a have-a-heart trap and easily caught him with food. He ate and ate, allowed us to touch him almost instantly, and was shockingly thin. We didn't need any more cats. We had FOUR! We also knew that the boys would not like a newcomer, and might well kill a little critter that would look more like a rat to them. They were all hunters, and good at it. Cats mostly are not concerned with the ethics of killing things. Puzzle last spring brought me the head of a Cardinal, NC state bird may my sweet bird-watching mother rest in peace. Our population of lizards has drastically thinned. The squirrels moved quite out of the ceiling and have not returned. There are then, pluses and minuses.

We took the little yellow kitten to our county animal shelter. We were told he'd likely find an adoption. Within a week we were told, when we checked, that he was due to be eliminated that day due to overcrowding. Oh Jesus Lord. Through a complicated process we rescued the little yellow kitten from this fate, and as well he achieved a name, "Kirby." He's a sweet one. He unfailingly purrs when picked up. He is a good eater, is healthy, athletic, and very uninterested in returning to the wide outdoors. For the boys outdoors was a playground, and they sometimes pine for it, sitting at a window and watching for any movement. If it weren't for the damn wild dogs that drift around the woods and have killed a neighbor's cat, we'd keep letting them out to play. And the deer ticks they would bring in. Instead, they are inside. KIrby is fine with inside. He knows something they don't. Outside it's cold and wet and very very very hungry. Inside it's warm and soft and interesting enough, and there's never a time when there's nothing at all to eat.

Kirby kept growing. We played a game of moving him from one area of the house to the other. The boys would be where he wasn't. Kirby was lonely, and more and more wanted to meet his brothers. He missed his family from long ago, whoever they were. We have no idea at all where he came from, but he does look like the father of the boys. Just sayin'. Finally a couple of weeks ago Kirby burst out of the bedroom and in amongst the others. He was not so much smaller than them now. He was about 6 times more energetic. He was annoying, but they had smelled him and knew he was here. He tended to chase them, not the reverse. He had the sense to lie down and exhibit brief submissive poses if they became overly annoyed. Then he'd jump back up and pounce on one or the other some more. After they'd eat they'd all tend to go lie down, Kirby not so far from the others. One night last week we saw Kirby and Wuzzy sleeping side by side in our bed. Of course it was Wuzzy. One time last week I watched Kirby annoy Wuzzy to the point of getting a growl and a whack on the noggin. Then they both spotted and hunted a bug, jointly. Brothers.

So it is, a rainy Saturday, October 12, 2013. Kirby is a Houdahenian.

[all photos in this post (c) Libby Hicks; EmmyLou chose not to be photogenic for this episode. A salute and thank you to the 81st Infantry "Wildcat" Division for their service. They were the first American division to wear a division insignia in combat. Much more about them can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/81st_Infantry_Division_%28United_States%29 ]

Mokey

'Mokey (at One and One-Half)

The other brothers, two big black beasts,
Eat, play, hunt, sleep. Puzzle, your box mate,
Still clumsy and headlong, will leap on a
Shoulder like it's a chair back, and down
Onto an unsuspecting belly, from his perch.
He'll nuzzle you, face to face, and purr at a
Touch, and go out and get lost in the woods.

Wuzzy, the little lost kitten, always in a different
Place than Mokey and Puzzle when we'd look
Turns out to be most perfectly a Cat,
He's calm, confident, happy.
He hunts, likes to eat but not needy, noble, lithe.
He doesn't get lost, but sometimes (we theorize)
Goes far away to see what's there. And he's the
One that treed himself on New Years Day, and
Got rescued by a very expensive boom truck operator,
Which he thought I think was just his due.

Mokey is the most attentive. He must have kept
An eye peeled, in those mysterious two months, the
First two, in the shed. Mother coming and going.
She'd tell him to watch out for the brothers, or
Maybe he just knew that was his task. He might be
The oldest. He might have a different father, judging
By his coat. Now he knows, when the light comes,
That there are little creatures stirring, and he must
Catch them. It's about food, it's about survival: for
Him, his brothers, maybe even us. He looks under
Everything, and climbs the refrigerator. He finds
A wrapped cough drop on a shelf, and picks it down.
He jumps on my keyboard, and has learned that
Just the tiniest flick of a claw
Will make things happen.

I think of him back in the shed. In the dark.
Mother has gone out to hunt. The wind blows
And the trees creak in the cold early March, late
Winter that is all he knows of life. His brothers
Sleep, snuggled together. He leans against them
For warmth. He watches the crack in the door.
He must be prepared. So it is every morning,
At first light.

Wednesday Update:

Write a nice poem elevating the little bugger to Homeric status and what does he do (see comments)? Immediately falls out of a tree like a silly squirrel. He did land well at least, and is fine, and last night snuggled all night against my leg without deciding I needed to get up at 3 AM. We still love him unconditionally.