What To Do About Garfunkel

Maybe somebody will have an idea that hasn’t occurred to us yet. Garfunkel is out there screaming, as he does most of the time. The only thing that could get him to stop was when Cutie Pie, his brother, went out on the porch with him. So he’s missing his brother, on top of his general misery. Here are the facts:
Garf and Cutie Pie and the other triplet brother, Simon, were born on our neighbor’s porch. Yes, the Skanky Cat-Killing Neighbor, but back when it was her father’s house. He was a nice guy who loved cats and fed these and took care of them. When they were adolescents, they started coming into our yard. I made friends with them and had them all neutered and brought Cutie Pie into the house because he was gimpy.
Garf and Simon were inseparable. Then, a couple of years ago, we found Simon dead in the street. Garf started living with the people across the alley, who called him “Mouse.” We’d see him ever now and then. Two years ago he vanished for a couple of weeks. Those people had moved, and when Garf showed up, he was bone thin and could hardly walk. We think he got locked in the house when they moved out. We got him back in good shape, and then the neighbor started trapping cats. He got caught once—he still went over there, probably looking for the old man who raised him and his missing brother, Simon. I let him out of the trap, and of course the neighbor had a fit. Too bad for her.
We tried bringing Garf into the house. We thought he did really well—no fighting, using the litter box, no craziness. But then Lennie Lulu pointed out to us that Someone had sprayed on the side of the chair. And on our bed. The kitchen door. And ON MY DESK. Nobody who lived in the house had ever sprayed anywhere, ever.
That’s when we enclosed the front porch with chicken netting. He’d been staying on the porch all along, spending most of his time there when he wasn’t out hunting. When we enclosed the porch, we’d keep him there at night and then let him out during the day, figuring he’d be OK. But he got trapped again, and this time (you remember the video) she let him sit out in the trap in her backyard, yelling, until Animal Control showed up (I went over and told her that my cat was in her trap and asked her to let him go, and she said, “OK, just a minute” and went in the house and shut the door and then came out and took him in the house and kept him there until Animal Control showed up. They released him to me, but I had to go to court and pay $95.) So he’s been on the porch (8’ x 30’) ever since. And then The EGE enclosed the side of the house, with trees and grass, and he and Cutie Pie had access to that the last couple of months. It’s a nice little run—about 10’ x 30’.
But he’s miserable. We’ve tried herbal cat tranquilizers. We’ve tried Prozac. The only thing that helped was when Cutie Pie went out, and that helped only a little. The only time Garf is happy is when 1) he’s out roaming or 2) we’re out there with him.
The neighbor has turned us in to Animal Control for the yelling. Fortunately for me, Garf never yells when anyone is with him—duh:  he yells only when he’s lonely—and so the AC guy thought the neighbor was nuts. Little did he know.
1—If we turn him loose, the neighbors will trap him. The trap is set in their backyard.
2—We can’t bring him in the house because he sprays constantly. The only thing the vet knows that might help prevent this is Prozac (remember, he’s been neutered since before he was a year old). Giving him the liquid Prozac compounded by the pharmacy was silly—he drooled most of it right back out. And he still sprayed. And yelled.
3—I’ve worked at Animal Control and the SPCA, so I know how that works. Nobody is going to adopt an adult cat who yells and sprays. You can’t randomly give away cats, as the pit bull owners here will get free cats from the want ads and use them to “train” their dogs.
4—He adores us and loves lying in our laps, but if we’re outside the porch, where he can’t reach us, he’ll try to spray us—marking us, making us  his. If we take a chair out on the porch and come back into the house to get something, he’ll have already sprayed the chair by the time we get back. When he’s really frustrated, all he does is yell, pace, and spray. Like an OCD loop. Hence, I suppose, the treatment with Prozac.
5—We can’t put him in the backyard with the other cats, the four who live in The Cat Palace, because they’ve never been together, and Monk, the alpha cat in the backyard, is a tough fighter (of course all of these have been neutered since they were six months old).  There would be fighting, and then Garf would spray all over everything in the backyard, and then those cats would spray in retaliation, and everything in the backyard (the lawn chairs, the doors, etc.) would be covered in cat piss just like everything on the front porch.
I am, frankly, at my wits’ end. I’m here all day long with him, and he’s miserable pretty much all day long. If he’s quiet, I don’t dare go near the front of the house, lest I wake him up and set him off all over again. I find myself tiptoeing through the living room, trying not to make a noise.
I feel horribly guilty keeping him confined. My mother wouldn’t even keep cats confined to the house—she always had inside-outside cats, since she believed cats need to be outdoors. If I believed in life after death, I’d know my mother was really upset with me, preparing to haunt me until I set him free. I know he wants to be free, just as he was for the first years of his life. And he should be—he’s a good cat. I’m wondering if I should just let him go—if I should practice non-attachment and open the gate and let him come and go as he pleases. The neighbors will do their best to trap him, and then they’ll do whatever they do. But would that be preferable, for Garf, to being miserable and lonely for another 15 years or so?
I’d love to have the porch back—to be able to sit out there and to actually use the front door (I go through the kitchen and the carport instead). I’d love to find a home for him in the country—somewhere with other animals and people and kids, where he could be free but would never be alone. He loves people and gets along with other cats. He loves to hunt, and he likes to sit in your lap. If he didn’t spray dozens of times every day, he’d be a perfect little cat.
And, on a purely selfish note, The EGE and I deserve some peace, and some peace of mind. I hate feeling guilty every single damn day because I can’t make this cat happy. I hate not being able to use my porch, which I so adored. I hate that when the wind blows from the south, even with the windows closed, the odor of cat pee fills the house, just as if we never cleaned cat boxes. (We’ve suspended clear plastic along the wall out there, with hooks and grommets so it can be removed and taken to the driveway and scrubbed, but he’s sprayed every single inch of the porch). You see? It controls our lives. And Cutie Pie, the only one who could help at all, is gone. And Garf is yelling for him to come out, and it’s breaking my heart.