talking out my ass

(written under the influence of william faulkner.)

some time ago, we took in a stray cat, a declawed, neutered black and white male we named binx after the human boy/cursed cat in the kid's halloween movie, hocus pocus. clearly, he had been some coddled lap pet cum street thug after having been dumped prior to his old family's move.

my soft-hearted wife had to put out some food for him, and the rest, as they say, was history. he assimilated well, playing much too roughly with pele, the idiot, and not taking any shit from pepper, the queen bitch. he felt an undying need to prove his "street"-ness by going outside any time we opened the front door to roll around in the driveway, mad-eye the birds, and come back in with tales of, "see? i'm still fucking tough. i'm dirty and skinny and i don't take no shit from nobody."

once we put in an automatic cat feeder to prevent him from waking us up at four a.m. insisting loudly that he was starving to death, he had to quit adding the "skinny" part.

tonight, while i am enjoying some black cavendish in a decidely mid-2oth century american style pipe and reading william faulkner's "a rose for emily" so that my wife can pass her english composition ii class, i hear a very angry, enraged bird, or something similar. slowly dawning into my concentrating, and mildy gin-befuddled brain like daybreak over a swamp, this noise increases. a mad, frightened, unhappy chirping/squealing noise that builds and builds. i realize it is getting closer. i realize that it is probably being drug against its will by sharp teeth and clawless black front paws.

"oh, good boy, binx! good boy!" i say my bullshit line like some panama-shirt clad fifties dad in a straw fedora patting his son on the head after shooting all the neighborhood mockingbirds with the bb gun he received for his birthday. and then, through deft sleight-of-hand, i disengage the cat from shrieking--what is that, a mouse? fucking huge!

of course, binx bolts back after the escaped prey. by now, my wife has broke upon the scene. i am explaining that binx has just brought some live, decidedly overlarge mouse to the front door to present as his contribution to the family, when the repetitive shrieking begins again.

all with "good boy"'s punctuated with smoke stack blasts of light grey smoke, as we again create a diversion for our cat that seems bound to prove he has not, in fact, "gotten fat" as we claim, but is still 100% "street." and then we realize, it's not a large mouse, it is a baby bunny.

well, of course, my wife can't have this. off again (third time's the charm!) binx goes to track down his prey, and bring it, chirping in anger and embarrassment, by its hind leg to our front porch. i don't laugh until later that the clawless, overweight, dirty thug cat is all the while getting his face kicked in by the other, unfettered, hind leg. this time, we are successful in rounding up the cat and locking him in a downstairs bathroom, behind a constant litany of "good boy, good boy! good job, binx, good job, buddy." while the baby bunny rabbit beats feet for somewhere safe.

and, of course, as you, the beloved non-existent reader might imagine, the wife cannot let nature take its course; she goes out with a flashlight to make sure the bunny has made a clean getaway, while i insist that if she fucks with it too much its own mother will kill it for smelling like a human.

the bunny has gotten away, sans human smell, or a big black cat anklet. binx, judging by the look in his eye and the lashing of his tail, is not buying my bullshit empty praise.

all in a day's work at the sardonic household.

darth sardonic.