The Ones We Couldn't Photograph

Not every cat made it into the book.

Some owners said no. Corporate policy. Fear of the health department. Not interested. Too busy. Come back another time. We understood. We left.

Some cats refused. They stayed in the back. They hid in the basement. They watched us from behind the lottery machine and would not come out. We waited. We dangled keys. We made the noises you make when you are trying to convince a cat to do something it has already decided not to do.

The cat did not care.

One cat in Chinatown lives in the back room. The employees tried to bring her out for us. We could hear her meowing. They were scrambling, moving boxes, calling her name. She would not appear. We exchanged phone numbers and said we would come back. We might. She might still refuse.

One cat on Second Avenue has been at his store for nine years. The workers wanted us to feature him. They were proud. But the boss is corporate, and corporate said no photos. We took notes. We did not take pictures. That cat will not be in the book.

One cat was asleep. Deep asleep. The owner did not want to wake her. We respected that. We got a blurry shot from a distance and moved on.

This is how documentation works. You do not get everything. You get what is offered, what is permitted, what happens to be visible at the moment you show up.

The cats who made it into the book are not the only bodega cats in New York. They are the ones who let us see them. The ones whose owners trusted us. The ones who were awake, present, and willing to hold still for three seconds.

There are others. There will always be others.

The book Bodega Cats of New York comes out this fall from Quarto Publishing. Visit bodegacatsofnewyork.com for updates and to explore more stories.