Comes back and tells me – “I got to tell you something….”

I’m right in the middle of writing – ideas all fresh and vulnerable. If I don’t get them down, they’re lost forever. That sort of thing.

“Not a good time,” I say.

“No, I have to tell you….”

I sigh, put down my pencil, and turn to face her.

“What?” I ask.

“It’s about the dog….”

“What about her?”

“It’s…Well…Ugh…Uhm….”

Uh-oh, not a good sign. I’ve learned that if what you have to say can’t be said outright, it really means you don’t want to say it at all.

Happy Nicky — before the scalping….

“I took Nicky to the vet,” she says.

“Yes, I know….”

“And the vet shaved her butt….”

I look at my wife. She nods her head, like I’m supposed to know what this means.

“And you’re telling me this because?”

“Well,” says my wife. “For the next few days, you’re probably going to see more of Nicky’s butt than you want to. Here – let me show you….”

She calls the dog over and leans down to grab her. But the Nicky slips away. I get off my chair to grab her. But she gives me the side step. I swear that dog knows what we’re up to. When we go left, she goes right – quicker than a bed bug. Got us going in circles, as the song says.

Finally, my wife collars her and turns her around so I can see her buttocks and – What the fu!!!

“Oh, my God!” I exclaim.

“I told you,” says my wife.

“What did that vet do to our poor dog?”

“I know….”

“She looks like a freaking baboon….”

My hand to God, it was almost this bad….

“Well, it’s not that bad….”

“This is a humiliation – the dog’s gonna get a complex. Everywhere she goes, people are going to see right up her ass….”

“It’s not my fault….”

“Well, whose fault is it?”

“I didn’t do it….”

“Why would you have the vet shave her ass in the first place?”

“I thought it was getting shaggy back there – she was shedding. And it was getting dirty when she poohed….”

“Okay, first of all, more details than I need. And second of all, dogs don’t pooh, they crap….”

“So, the vet gave her a trim….”

“It’s more like a scalping….”

“It’ll grow back….”

“How the hell am I gonna take her for walks – she’s gonna have to wear a diaper….”

I’m telling you – for the whole conversation, Nicky’s sitting there looking up at us like a spectator at a tennis match, with her head going back and forth watching whoever’s talking.

Fast forward several hours. I’m walking her. It’s dark – no one can see us. I pass a neighbor.

“Hello,” he says.

“Hey,” I say.

He pauses as we pass.

“Ugh,” he says. “Is there something wrong with your dog?”

“No, nothing….”

“What happened to her ass?”

Oh, brother….

This Monday marked the beginning of Week Six at camp and Day One of the Maccabi Games.

The Maccabi Games are pretty much the child’s version of the Olympics, with colors rather than countries competing. Orange, green, gray, purple, yellow, white, blue, and — most importantly — red, go up against each other in different events.

I’m writing this blog Monday night, so I’ve only been able to record the first day of the games. Which were pretty hilarious.

Teams were announced on Friday, which gave everyone the whole weekend to plan their outfits and come fully decked out in colors on Monday.

Alas, my group of second grade girls still showed up in whatever color they felt like wearing that morning. Which, for all but one girl, wasn’t red.

Thank goodness — just a few minutes later we covered them in face paint, duct tape, glitter, and anything else that would stick to them.

When I told a little red team boy he shouldn’t put duct tape on his bare skin because it would hurt when he had to pull it off he replied simply, “I’m tough.”

That’s how we roll in Red!

After each team covered themselves head-to-toe in team colors, there was the first counselor competition. Yes, we counselors also have to compete in random challenges, like “Face the Cookie” where one counselor from each team has to try and wiggle one cookie from his/her forehead to his/her mouth without moving his/her head.

We could have used him on our cookie-eating team!

If that sounds nearly impossible, that’s cause it is. Well, except for one counselor who managed to manipulate five cookies down his face and into his pie hole.

Then there was the T-shirt relay. Each team stood in height order and passed an official Maccabi Games T-shirt down the line until every kid on every team had one. Whichever team did this the fastest won. I’m guessing the camp director’s motivation for creating this game was a desire to quickly pass out those T-shirts.

Lunch break.  Yay – everyone wins!

After lunch my team took on the dreaded Yellow Team in a riveting game of “Everybody’s It.” The title is literal. Everyone runs around trying to tag everyone else on the other team. One of the red team players asked the all-important question, “What’s the point?”

When that clusterfuck concluded, we took on the White Team in the highly civilized game of “Stuck in the Mud.” That’s where two people from each team are “it” and once you’re tagged you have to stand frozen with your legs apart until someone comes and crawls under you, setting you free to re-enter the rat race.

I was in charge of waving the Red-team flag, which is apparently a lot harder than it sounds. At least, another counselor informed me that the flag wasn’t a Goddamn sparkler, and that I had to do a better job.

Well, excuse me!

Once time was up in that game, a team won by having the least amount of people still “stuck”. The officials counted those still trapped by telling all the kids who hadn’t been tagged to sit down. Of course, my team sat down whether or not they were still “stuck”. We won both rounds.

All the teams then gathered for a song/cheer competition as well as one last counselor competition. Rather than sliding cookies into their mouths, this time counselors had to stack five apples and have them stay stacked for five seconds.

Again, one counselor did actually figure out how to do this.  But, it wasn’t me….

The cheer competition is exactly what it sounds like. Each team tries to come up with the most creative way to continuously shout their team color.

Taio Cruz — Red Team for Life!

The song competition consisted of teams rewriting popular songs to make them about their colors.

Red: Dynamite-Taio Cruz

Blue: Party in the USA-Miley Cyrus

Orange: Baby-Justin Bieber

Gray: Tonight’s Gonna Be a Good Night-Black Eyed Peas

Green: California Girls-Katy Perry

White: Play That Funky Music-Wild Cherry

Purple: Dynamite-Taio Cruz (We had the idea first!)

Yellow: Party in the USA-Miley Cyrus

And that was just day one.

WHOSE HOUSE?

RED’S HOUSE!

Damn, straight….

By No Blaise

Editor’s Note: When she’s not leading her Red Team to victory, No Blaise is writing bits for The Third City, like this one.

In fact, while Jackey Pontone was ordering a Manhattan at the bar before dinner, he overheard Robby Waters speaking with the black man. “We know which way the wind’s blowin, man,” Robby said. “That’s why we’re the Weathermen.” Jackey Pontone thought it was nice that this strange young man wearing sandals with his tuxedo was getting into meteorology. Maybe, Jackey thought, these hippies aren’t so hopeless after all.

Um, Jackey, Not This Kind Of Weatherman…

Space

Robby Waters walks up to the dais and coughs into the microphone. He wears wire-framed glasses that make him look like the intellectual heir to Einstein or James Joyce, except few people here would know this James Joyce — What was he, some kinda movie actor or somethin’? Einstein, yeah, he was that guy with the frizzy hair, the psychiatrist guy, right?

And Robby Waters does indeed wear frizzy hair, like that psychiatrist guy Einstein. He begins his toast.

The World-Renowned Head Shrinker

Space

“I feel as though I’ve known Chet all my life,” he begins. “We met a couple of years ago at the first meeting of…, of….” He glances at Anna whose eyes implore him not to say it. He hesitates a moment more and finally finishes his thought. “… of a group of friends who, um, uh, like to talk about things going on in this world.

“From the minute I met him, I could tell that Chet was a real mahatma, man.”

Rocco Bianco leans close to Jackey Pontone’s wife and asks, “What’d he say?”

Diana Pontone replies, “I think he said he was a Momma’s boy…, or man, I dunno.”

Robby Waters continues. “Chet Michalski cares about the world. He cares about his brothers in this world.”

Anna’s Uncle Louie whispers to her Uncle Frankie, “I didn’t know he had any brudders. Where’re d’ey sittin’?” Uncle Frankie shrugs.

“Chet wants to make this world a better place, a place where the youth of America can grow up in peace and harmony, in health and happiness. We’re not there yet, man! It’s a sick, sick world!”

At this very moment, Charlie Solari and his wife, who are sitting toward the rear of the hall, near the restrooms, can hear Joey loudly retching in the men’s room.

“Assassination!” Robby Waters says. “War! Racism! Poverty!”

Jackey Pontone wonders why they’re teaching this kind of stuff in meteorology class these days

Now Robby Waters is on a roll. He doesn’t notice that Anna has closed her eyes tightly and is biting her lower lip. He can’t be stopped even if Anna’d get on her knees and plead with him. He runs down a laundry list of all the evil, tyrannical, murderous, thieving, thuggish, racist, avaricious pigs who run this imperialist nation. Lyndon Johnson. Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford. J. Edgar Hoover. General William Westmoreland. George Wallace and Lester Maddox. William F. Buckley. When, at last, he gets around to indicting Vince Lombardi and George Halas, Charlie Solari can take it no more.

Now That’s Going Too Far!

Space

Charlie Solari, who has braved the McCormick Place inferno, who has climbed the stairs of the Hilliard Homes more times than he cares to remember, who has put out dozens of grease fires in those shitholes the Chinamen call kitchens, who has helped ambulance crews carry out the bodies of countless Skid Row winos, who has lived an exemplary professional life beyond reproach save for one time, once — that’s all, one time — when, for chrissakes, that strongbox was just sitting there staring me in the face and it was like my axe had a mind of its own, coming down on its lock, opening it and I saw the generosity of a loving God, twenty five goddamn thousand dollars’ worth of diamonds, and don’t I deserve it for all the filthy Chinamen and bums and shines I had to save from their own stupidity and, after all, ain’t this America where everybody, even Abraham Lincoln, can lift himself up by his bootstraps and become a rich man? And now this no good pinko, this hippie fag, this hopped-up little prick, he’s tellin’ me what the fuck is wrong with this great country? I’ll be goddamned if I let a little cocksucker like that tell me what’s wrong with my America.

So Charlie Solari quickly drains his bourbon, neat, and stands proudly and with the conviction of the only real man in this goddamned place with balls enough to tell off this little rich boy who’s still wet behind the ears lecturing us like we’re all idiots or little kids. He takes a deep breath and yells, “Siddown, ya goddamned little pissant!”

Robby Waters freezes at the sound of Charlie’s voice. As he stands motionless at the dais of the head table, he feels a rush of adrenaline. He feels as though his sandaled feet are no longer touching the Earth, or at least the faux parquet flooring of the raised dais. He leaps over the head table and dashes madly between the round tables filled with paralyzed wedding guests who watch as he takes a lunge at Charlie Solari. Charlie is as tough as nails and normally would pound a pissant like this frizzy-haired intellectual little homo Robby Waters but the warm butterscotch bourbon has altered Charlie’s reactions just enough so that when he takes a roundhouse swing at Robby Waters, he misses grandly and the kid is thus able to wrap his arms around the fireman’s waist and tumble with him to that faux parquet flooring, a tackle that would make both Vince Lombardi and George Halas proud.

As the two wrestle and a dozen men paw at them in an effort to separate them, Chet takes the microphone. “Peace, man! Peace! Let’s not fight! Please!”

Anna now pushes her plates and silverware aside and lays her head on her arms as if she wants to take a nap. Al is pacing and muttering, “This has gotta stop! Jesus Christ, this has gotta stop!” Tree sits calmly at table Number One and sips her whiskey sour, smirking. Eddie Halloran runs toward the brawl, eager to get in his licks but the sock of his shoeless foot slips on the highly polished floor and he slides a good ten feet before the back of his head hits the tile. All the muscles in his body relax and he begins snoring, his arms spread wide like Jesus’ on the cross.  Jackey Pontone’s driver reaches inside his suit jacket and fingers his holstered .38. Jackey catches his eye and shakes his head. The driver withdraws his shooting hand and resumes waiting, patiently. Joey opens the men’s room door, eyes the scrum and feels another wave of nausea wash over him. He retreats into the safety of the men’s room.

Rocco Bianco has run over to the pile of grapplers and stops short. Robby Waters is on all fours, his left arm around Charlie Solari in an unplanned half-Nelson. Robby’s hind end is pointed toward Rocco. Rocco appraises the tableau for the briefest of moments and concludes that Robby Waters really has a cute little ass. He exhales broadly, purging himself of his deepest secret, and steps up smartly to boot Robby Waters in that ass.

Robby Waters and Charlie Solari are successfully separated. Five men hold Charlie back, their restraining hands nearly caressing him as if they are tending to the alpha dog. The five men who hold Robby Waters back are clawing into him. Some of them are pulling his hair nearly out by the roots. The neighbor cop, Sal Sanfillipo, knees him repeatedly in the thigh. “Try sumpin’, tough guy,” Sal whispers. Oh, how he wants this hippie piece of shit to try sumpin’. He wants it so badly he begins to feel the beginnings of an erection.

Chet is still hollering into the microphone. “This is what happens in a violent society!” he thunders. “Hate’s all around us! We have to overthrow the….”

His amplified voice is almost drowned out by catcalls from the crowd. “Shuddup!”  “Sit the fuck down!” “Stick that revolution shit up yer ass!”

Chet hollers louder into the microphone. “The forces that caused a white man to murder Martin Luther King, the forces that are responsible for the rioting, for the killing in Vietnam, for all the gun deaths in our inner cities, they’re right here in the banquet hall!”

Chet points at the prone Eddie Halloran. “There’s your corrupt justice system!”

He points at Mickey Finnin. “There’s your corrupt ‘representative of the people’!”

He points at Jackey Pontone. “There’s your criminal boss!”

At this, Jackey places his hand inside his crisp Ermenegildo Zegna suit jacket, brushing against his fresh Sulka shirt, and begins to finger the handle of his own holstered .22 until he glances at his good friend Al Dudek and thinks the better of it.

Al has placed his palms against his ears and appears to be on the verge of tears.

Al’s daughter Anna, not napping but actually deciding at this precise moment what the course of her life will be, lifts her head from her arms and joins her brand new husband at the microphone. Her hand covers Chet’s on the mike. She pulls the mike down toward her mouth. He grins at her as if she’s given him the greatest gift a groom can receive from his loving, devoted bride, one who, previous to this very second he really didn’t know. And now he believes he does know who Anna Claudia Michalski, nee Dudek, truly is.

“Please,” she says, and, like that, the pandemonium ceases, such is the power of a bride on her wedding day. Some 250 guests remain in their positions as if a good witch has cast a spell on them. They gape at her, in her virginal white, her six hundred dollar Margie’s Bridal Shop dress cleverly puffed to camouflage the four and a half month old swelling of her womb. She is positively glowing with that most fleeting combination of womanly beauty and girlish cuteness. Even Tree, who is half in the bag for the first time in her orderly life, drinks in the visage of her daughter, the same one whom she wrote off when she learned of the second pregnancy, and becomes misty-eyed. Al brings his hands together at his chest, almost a gesture of prayer, and thanks the God he has ignored for the past quarter of a century that his princess will bestow a redemptive coda upon this nightmare.

“This’ll Cover Up That Little Tummy Bump, Sweetie.”

Space

Anna scans the crowd. Her eyes hit upon the prone, spread-eagled figure of State’s Attorney Eddie Halloran. She glances at Jackey Pontone’s driver, that fearsome square block of a man with the cold stare. She sees the bouffanted wives of Galewood with their thick blue eyeshadow, their inch-long store-bought eyelashes, their dangling ear bangles, their painted nails, and their slender cigarettes. She sees her little brother Joey reemerge from the men’s room, pale as a hermit. She notices her new husband’s best man still in the clutches of that loathsome cop Sal Sanfillipo who, believe it or not, has grasped the lump beneath Robby Waters’ trousers and has twisted it, producing the most frightful grimace on the face of his victim. She sees Rocco Bianco, staring at Sal Sanfillipo’s hand clasping Robby Waters’ crotch and even from this distance, some 30 feet, she can see his tongue dart over his lips. She catches the glint of the pinkie ring worn by Mickey Finnin. And finally, she locks eyes with her father.

Mickey Finnin’s Pinkie Ring

Space

Al Dudek’s gaze implores her to right this madness. Poor Pa. Poor Al. Helpless to stop the ball he started rolling a couple of decades ago when he accepted the help of his brothers-in-law whose membership in the 42 Gang virtually insured the success of his new business. Poor Al. Poor Pa. Really a good guy but, man, so weak, so willing to sell his soul. Damn you, Pa!

Anna, the angel, Daddy’s little girl almost all grown up, takes a breath and with her hand still over Chet’s as they both hold the microphone, finally speaks.

“Fuck this shit!” she hollers.

With that, she and Chet, hand in hand, run together out of the Nuovo Mondo banquet hall, adrenaline-drunk, a dead-on reprise of Ben Braddock and Elaine Robinson running out of the church in Anna’s favorite movie ever, The Graduate. But rather than board a bus in the northern California sun, Anna and Chet burst out into the chilly early April air, the sky still gray from the smoke of the smoldering West Side fires, police and fire sirens wailing in the distance, and clamber into their honeymoon limousine.

Chet pulls the door closed with a bang. The driver asks, “Where to?”

Chet and Anna look at each other for an answer. Neither has one. They giggle.

“Just go,” the respond in unison.

Anna’s Favorite Movie Ever

***

See you Saturday for the next installment of Black Comedy.

An old Chinese guy serenades me and the other waiting passengers by playing Silent Night on his violin. A drunk in a Cubs hat and T-shirt spits on the rail. The train finally arrives. The car I choose is crowded and smells like sweat and old cheese.

At this point, I’ve been in Chicago for about two months and public transportation is still kind of a novelty for me.

I’m from Colorado Springs, where trains only exist to haul in coal from Wyoming. I love not having to drive everywhere. I love the fact that trains come every few minutes. Tonight the train is filled with tired-looking travelers from the airport, kids heading home from parties, and people going who-knows-where.

At Chicago and State, a teenage boy—white as can possibly be—gets on alone. He’s wearing baggy pants, a backwards baseball cap, and bling in the form of a huge chain necklace.

Bling looked a little like Eminem….

I turn away and zone out, but it isn’t long before I hear somebody shouting. Talking like a “gangsta.” I turn back and realize that, yes, it’s the white boy with the bling. He reminds me of a lost puppy.

He’s asking a girl in a red miniskirt about her cell phone, and he’s not really making sense. He’s informing her that she’s been on her phone all day. The girl tells him to go away.

He switches seats and starts other conversations with similar results. Finally he stands and surveys the rest of the car. By this point I’m watching his every move.

His eyes alight on a morose-looking twenty-something guy with greasy hair and a goatee.

“Yo, dude,” says the kid. “Ya’ straight?”

Goatee guy looks up. “Yeah.”

And Goatee kind of looked like Johnny Depp — though not as handsome….

Longest pause in the history of mankind. The entire train car is quiet now.

“But, ya’ straight? Tell me, man.”

“You know, I don’t like people fucking with me,” Goatee says through his drunkenness.

“I ain’t fuckin’ wit you. I just askin’.”

Goatee sits there, looking straight ahead. He’s as still as ice. Then in a flash, he explodes like a firecracker. Jumps up and decks Bling — hits him right in the face.

And just like that, fists are flying….

Goatee and the kid run back and forth along the train car, hurling punches. Goatee pins Bling against the filthy floor, but Bling manages to slither up. The two of them roll and writhe over every available surface.

At some point their shirts come off , and they lock in some weird, hostile embrace. Cuts and bruises appear on Bling’s shoulders. They fall onto the seat next to me, and I shrink against the wall.

Bling continues to hold his own until Goatee starts slamming his head into the window glass. The remaining passengers crowd around the doors, waiting to escape at the next stop.

“Stop!” shouts one passenger, a fat matronly lady who looks like she wants to ground the pair of them from video games. She’s strangely calm. How many of these fights has she seen?

“Both of you sit down right now,” she says.

They ignore her. Blood gushes from Bling’s forehead.

As much as I don’t want to attract the pair’s wrath, I decide that I also don’t want Bling to die. Nobody else is doing anything. Am I going to be a hero? I get out my cell phone.

“Stop,” I say hesitantly. “Or I’m calling the police….”

It works right away. They stop fighting. Bling gets down on his knees. “Please, ma’am, don’t call the poh-lice,” he pleads. “I’m on probation. Have you called them already?”

“No.”

“Please, ma’am. I’m begging you.”

“Why don’t we get off at the next stop,” says an elderly black guy. The matronly woman nods. The guy takes Bling by the elbow and escorts him off the train at Granville. Goatee sits in the seat in front of me.

“I’m sorry about that,” he says.

I don’t reply. What kind of guy would beat up a misguided, forlorn, intoxicated 15-year-old?

From this point on I’m not surprised by anything the train can throw at me, literally or figuratively.

By Brenna Swift

Editor’s Note: Brenna’s last bit was Random City….

The teller of this tale is my man — the legendary Chicago soul singer Devin B. Thompson, aka Daddy D.…

Take it away, Devin….

“It’s a Sunday night around midnight, and we’re playing the Backroom over on Rush Street.

“I’m up on stage with my buddies Marqueal Jordan on sax, Lamar Jones on bass, Khari Parker on drums, Gerey Johnson on guitar, Tim Gant on keyboards….

“We’re playing Love and Happiness. I’m in the part where we’re going, `Love’ll make you do wrong,’ when into the club walks this big dude and he’s coming right at me. I’m thinking – `oh, no, did I rub someone the wrong way? Did I piss someone off?’

“The guys comes closer and I realize – It’s freaking Dennis Rodman!

The legendary Dennis Rodman….

“He’s wearing a baseball cap and a T-shirt and jeans and you can see the man’s in great shape. Like he could go step right back on the court and grab you ten or twelve boards.

“He keeps walking right for the stage. He’s pointing at me. I say, `C’mon on up, Dennis.’

“There are about forty people in the crowd – this is a small club, remember – but everybody’s on their feet making a ton of noise. Dennis gets the mike and immediately starts screaming – `yaahhhh!!’

“People are going crazy. He has them right where he wants them….

“He breaks the band down – like he’s had some experience dealing with bands – and starts in: `How ya’ doin’, Chicago?’

“Just between you and me — he may have had a cocktail or two by this time….

“He says: `I want to say, Chicago is a marvelous place. You wanna know what’s marvelous about this city? We live here, we work here, we play here, we die here – yahhh!!’ He starts screaming again.

“Meanwhile, the band keeps doing Love and Happiness, not missing a beat….

Joined the great Devin Thompson….

“Then he mentions LeBron James. The crowd boos. He says, `Man, LeBron James is my girlfriend.’ There’s cheers and laughter. Then he says, `You guys don’t need LeBron James. You don’t need Michael Jordan. You don’t need Dennis Rodman. You just need yourself. If you believe in yourself you can make it!’

“It’s like we’re in Church and the preacher’s Dennis Rodman!

“Then he says: `I got one last thing I wanna to all of you out there – Get up, get on up.’

“And right then and there the dude goes into James Brown’s Sex Machine!

“He gives me the mike. So I start singing the lead and Dennis plays the role of the foil. Like I’m James Brown and he’s Bobby Byrd. I say, `Get up.’ And Dennis says, `Get on Up.’ And I say, `Stay on the scene.’ And he says, `Get on up.’ And I say, `Like a sex machine….’

“Then we move into — `hey, hey, I feel all right.’ And Dennis is doing these pelvic thrusts. I mean, he’s really thrusting his pelvis. These girls – I don’t even know where they come from – but they’re all around the stage, shaking their legs and making goo- goo eyes at him. Guess that’s how it goes when you’re Dennis Rodman….

To pay tribute to the King of Soul — James Brown….

“And then – I’m not sure whose idea it was, or exactly how it happens, but the next thing you know we go into Prince’s You Sexy Mother Fu….

“Band’s jamming. Dennis is dancing. And everybody’s singing — You sexy mother f….

“Then he steps down from the stage and stumbles over a table and knocks over this guy’s drink. He gives the guy a hug and apologizes for knocking over his drink. But the guy doesn’t care cause it’s Dennis freaking Rodman!

“And out he goes. Leave as fast as he came. Posing for pictures as he walks out the door. Off into the night, searching for the next party.

“Up on the stage we’re looking at ourselves and we’re laughing, like — can you believe what just happened? But you got to figure it was no big deal for him – just another night in the life of Dennis Rodman….”

Editor’s note: When he’s not singing lead for the bands Chicago Catz and Rico, Devin Thompson co-hosts — with a certain Third City blogger — The Mighty, Mighty Benny and Devin Show on WHPK-FM….

Sun-kissed sky

Orange warmth

Pink breath

Ambiance

Filled above

A private love

Befallen upon us

Color-consumed clouds

Keep floating

Keep roaming

The sky is maddened with life

Its blue churning

Making anew

More colors

Until the sun sets

And the kiss

Is over….

By Sharday Cage

Editor’s Note: Sharday’s last poem for The Third City was I Love You.

“Milo! Is that true?”

“Heh, heh. Now, honey, you know the children have hyper-active imaginations. We may have to adjust their meds.”

“Well, you just better leave that cat alone.”

“I wouldn’t dream of harming the cat. Besides, it’s probably not that easy to stuff a cat into a microwave.”

I don’t like or dislike cats. I am indifferent to them in the same way that they are indifferent to me.

I really want to like cats….

There is one cat, however, that is at the top of my shit list. His name is Otis and he is a sneaky, black-hearted, treacherous bastard with the soul of an assassin and the cunning of Meyer Lansky. He is a cat without scruples, remorse or a sense of pity, and I curse the day that the furry little fucker came into my life.

“Milo, I was talking to Cathy Ivcich this morning. She drove by the house yesterday while you were mowing the lawn and she said it looked like you were trying to run over the cat with the power mower.”

“You tell that slutty Cathy Ivcich to mind her own damn business.”

“Is it true?”

“Of course not, sweetheart. What have I ever done to make you think I’d do a terrible thing like that?”

“The children would be heart-broken if anything happened to that cat.”

“It’s a tough old world. Accidents happen all the time. A cat’s got to take his chances like anyone else.”

The day Otis followed my youngest daughter home may have been the worst day of my life. As soon as I spotted him I knew he was a stubborn, hardheaded bastard. For one thing, he wouldn’t take a hint. I yelled at him, threw rocks at him and squirted the fucker with the garden hose, and still he wouldn’t leave.

He hung around the back porch, mewing, purring, grooming his ratty fur, trying to pass himself off as some sort of respectable house pet. The kids put out food for him. The lovely Mrs. Milo set out bowls of water. In a couple of days he had weaseled his way into the household. And there was nothing I could do about.

“Mom! Dad tried to sell Otis to the guy who owns the Korean restaurant.”

“Nadia and Petra saw you talking to our neighbor, Mr. Choi. You were pointing to Otis and some money changed hands.”

“Heh, heh. I believe our darling children misconstrued the situation.”

“Why did Mr. Choi give you money?”

“He was, ah, paying off an old Mah Jong debt.”

But the thing is — you can’t trust them….

There are a lot of reasons to hate Otis, but the main reason I despise him is that he’s a stone cold, merciless killer. He kills birds, mice, squirrels, anything that he senses he can overpower. He doesn’t just kill them, he toys with them, tortures them and then he eats them, sometimes while they’re still living. Once or twice a week I have to remove the pitiful remains of some small animal from my back yard.

His favorite prey animals, however, are cute little bunny rabbits. Lincoln Square has been overrun by rabbits in the last few years and Otis has had his fill of the helpless little cottontails. At least twice a month, I find the partially eaten carcass of a little bunny rabbit in the back yard.

“Milo, I got a call from an animal shelter this morning. They said someone from this number called and asked if they were a no-kill shelter.”

“So?”

“When they said ‘Yes,’ the caller asked if they had the phone number of a kill shelter.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that, dear.”

The other day I was on the back porch, enjoying a whiskey with my morning cigarette, when Otis came trotting into the back yard, clutching a little bunny rabbit in his jaws. The bunny was still alive, kicking spasmodically and screeching, “Eek, eek, eek.” It was more than I could stand.

“You bastard!” I shouted, then ran into the yard, grabbed a trowel and chased the cat into a bed of hostas. He was pretty well hidden, but I flushed him out. He still had a grip on the bunny and ran for the shelter of the grape arbor. I caught up with the fucker, took a good swing at him with the trowel and, even though I missed, he released the bunny and ran off.

The bunny was in pretty bad shape. It sat there trembling for about an hour, then keeled over and died. I used the trowel to pick it up. I put the poor thing in a plastic Jewel grocery bag and dropped it in the garbage can. Streets and Sanitation would give the bunny a proper sendoff on Monday morning.

Otis was pretty proud of himself. He was lolling around on the back porch like an Animal Planet lion that had just done in a wildebeest. Enjoy it while you can, I said to myself. Your time is coming, motherfucker.

One of the days I’ll get you, that is, if you don’t get me first.