The guy with the camera on his phone took another picture, so I turned and looked at him. I smiled.
I ain’t smiled like that since I took school pictures when I was a kid. I picked the laser background. It was cool as hell.
Truth is, I shouldn’t a’been smiling and drawing all that attention on my ass, but I c
ouldn’t help it none. I wondered if the picture taker (a blond guy in his twenties with a baseball cap on his head) would put it on that place where people put funny pictures up. I wasn't allowed on those websites no more, mostly because they always kicked me out of the libraries for lookin' at fake boobs online. I don't even bother with computers anymore—never liked ‘em anyhow--but maybe this fella will put me out there and I’ll be famous.
I smiled again, this time showing my teeth. I always had me some nice teeth.
I crammed one more hot dog into Kyle's mouth but I wasn’t sure any more would fit. His eyes were bulging out so far now that he didn’t even look like the real Kyle anymore. He looked like one of those paintings they do where they make your nose super big, and your ears, and sometimes your lips.
Carric-chures
I think they’re called.
The camera ke
pt flashing. It wasn’t too wise, in case you're wondering why I’m such a fuckin’ idiot in this story. People start taking pics of you, and then the police know who to look at after they find this fuckhead’s body on the curb, right next to his hot dog cart with my fingerprints all over it, all over
him
. That’s all some bad news for a wanderin' man, but I wanted to give this guy the funniest picture he ever did see. The world is cured by laughter. I believe that. So true.
I set my mind back on my unofficial world record.
It was tough, but I got one more hot dog past his teeth, probably because he had one slidin’ all the way down his throat, makin’ some extra room now. He slumped down by my feet, grasping at his neck. He let go of me completely, staring at the ground. His fingers twitched.
Somebody help him
, a lady with a pig-face and three chins cried out.
Another ask
ed,
Anybody know the Hym-lick?
Whatever the fuck that is.
Kyle f
ell on the ground, six or seven hot dogs peeking out of his mouth from all the way down that motherfucker’s gullet. I gave him a good kick in the ribs, and then I loaded up my gunny pack with all the fixings and dogs from his cart. I took to leavin' but on the way by, I smiled for the camera again. Them people were terrified of me, but I still posed for them proper. I would have signed my autograph if somebody asked me.
Hell, I was bound to be famous. Back then, I was. Not so much today.
So here I am, eating fake-ass hot dogs with Marianne.
What a road I done travelled.
I can't help calculatin’, I can get eight or nine of these rotten baby fingers in her mouth before she croaks. They're smaller than regular hot dogs, so maybe I can even get ten of them in. If there’s a will, then there’s a way, ya’ hear?
"Hey
, Marianne?" I ask.
She looks at me, licking away barbecue sauce from her finger while one of her cats licks
the thumb on her opposite hand. She’s really gross with them there cats, like I told ya’."Yes, dear?" she asks. I ain’t known her long, but I already hate it when she calls me stuff like that. Jesus Christ, spare me from this woman. Can you hear me Jesus? I swear I’ll kill her if you don’t change up her ways real soon.
"How many hot dogs you reckon you can fit in your mouth?"
She laughs at the question, thinkin’ me kinda silly. I don’t laugh. I like to laugh, for sure, but it don’t come easy. “You’re such a card,” she says to me.
* * *
Her house smells awful. I've made a big honker of a mistake coming here.
There’s c
ats everywhere, pissing on every bit of the rug, climbing on all the cabinets and furniture, making the whole joint smell like a litter box that ain’t been cleaned in three years. I don't even think these mangy little shits even have litter boxes. I think they just piss in Marianne’s bathtub. Or maybe they just piss in her mouth. She’s nasty like that.
When I first saw Marianne in that window, I thought I might be obliged to give her the old
in-and-out
like I’m known to do, and I thought I might even get some kicks out of it. But I gotta say: the smell of this shithole makes my soldier go all soft. I couldn't get hard in here if I had ten porno tapes blasting at the same time and I was being rubbed down by big-boobied Swedish girls with wet mouths and no Daddy-issues. It's hard to deliver the goods when the smell of piss is so strong.
All kinds of smell, and they’re not all from cat piss.
She keeps making me these pukish green shakes that smell like the devil’s dick, sayin' it's some kind of special grass. Marianne says it will cleanse me and make my spirit sing. Can you believe that shit? My spirit sings plenty, thank ya’ much Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, no thanks to you Marianne, of the Jingle Bell Sweater Tribe. This bozo thinks that there's some sort of power in being kind to people. She said that shit--not in those words but that was what she meant.
"
I don’t follow traditional religions. My God is the propagation of absolute, unflinching kindness, and loving one's neighbor as one hopes to be loved themselves," she said to me yesterday. I was trying to eat some sweet potato crackers but having a hard time with it, what with them being hard as rocks.
“Yeah.
Me too, I reckon.”
And M
arianne keeps asking about What's His Name. Every time she starts running her mouth about it, I tell her that he’s out tryin’ to get help for us. I explain that he said he'll be back in a few days with fresh supplies. When I say that, she makes this scrunched up fucking face that makes it look like she's sucking on a lemon, kinda lookin’ like she don't believe me. This cat-hoarding ninny won't take me at my word and that sort of hurts me in a way that stings like
a summummabitch
.
I don’t let people hurt me for long.
I get to hurtin’ em back.
I woke up this morning and I said to myself, "
Self, you've gotta just tell her what happened. Tell her that you cut her neighbor real deep and he bled out all over the place. Tell her that you'll do the same to her if she doesn't get rid of the cats and clean herself real proper-like. Tell her that you'll do the same to her if she doesn't scrub all the cat piss out of this house, cause I'll be damned if I'm going to stay in a place that won't let me get a proper, manly stiffy-in-a-jiffy in m’pants
."
The worst thing of all about her: s
he keeps cuddling up next to me when I take naps.
I push her away,
because every inch of her smells like cat piss. I'm pretty sure they piss all over her when she's sleeping. Or maybe she just lets them piss on her all through the day, no matter what's going on. Maybe she just plops her sweater-wearin’ ass down on the carpet and calls them over to gang-piss on her. Anyway, she wants my Roman warrior pretty bad, but that ain't happening. I'm saving myself for somebody who doesn't smell like Nermal’s cunt, thank ya very much.
Zing.
I sleep in her guest room, which has all these Polaroid pictures of her cats on the walls
, licking themselves, strutting around with their backs arched up, eating cat food, or just cuddling up close to her face. How the broad doesn't sneeze twenty-four hours a day, I'll never know.
Me, I'm allergic.
I ain’t stopped sneezing since I came into this shithole.
This afternoon
, I let three of the cats out the window, since I can't get the front door open. She didn't see me do it. They kept trying to crawl back in, while I hunted through the mess of Marianne's hovel, looking for another meowin’ bastard to rid the house of. I kept pushing them out again, and then one of the brats scratched me real nasty-like.
Fuck that noise
, I said. So I grabbed it by the scruff on its neck and I buried its face in the snow. It fought for a few, but I think it sent a pretty nice message to the other kitties, cause they all went a'scamperin' in every direction. They had no interest in coming back to Marianne's piss-bucket-house after that... or should I start calling it
my
house? Bet your ass, partner, it's
my
house now, and it's time to clean all this shit up.
I'd guess she's got about twenty
cats. They all look the same. Not just that they’re cats, but that they all have the same color, that bein’ jet-black. She must have some kind of weird tick that makes her only buy black cats. Or maybe she don’t even buy them. Maybe they just come to her because they follow the piss smell from miles and miles away.
Just a little while ago
, she gets all worked up about somethin’: "Have you seen Cherry Pie?" she asks me.
"Who
’s Cherry Pie?"
"He's my
chummy little
foo-foo
with the black face and the long whiskers." Yeah, that's what they all look like. And them shits ain’t chummy. “He looks like Clark Gable,” she adds, but that don’t help me much. Never heard that name before.
"I haven't seen it.
But you best believe I'll keep my eye out. I love these kitties as much as you do." Once I turn on that charming motherfucker I keep buried deep inside me, sometimes I can't turn it off. What I really want to tell her is that she and her cats are going to be dead soon, unless they shape up and get in line with my new vision for this here world we created around us. I'm looking to
settle in and settle up
, like I said a million times before.
"My sweet
, sweet Cherry Pie," she sort of moans beneath her breath, wringing her tiny hands together. Marianne is probably in her early forties. She looks like she'd be hot as hell, if she didn't live in Piss Plaza and if she stopped wearing those stupid sweaters (the last one had the whole fuckin’ alphabet on it, like she was seven years old or somethin’).
"Where oh where is my sweet Cherry Pie?" she calls out, sort of mewing like one of her cats now. People always say that folks start to act like their pets after being around them long enough.
Truer than true, I say. In fact, I bet she licks herself when it's time for a bath, probably starts with her bushy crotch.
Zing
.
She
’s up and moving again, still mourning, making another one of those awful fuckin' shakes for me, so I tell her that I am already well fed and I don't need any more. She insists on it though, as she wades through the cluttered kitchen, rinsing out the blender and sobbing over her kitten. I can see cat hairs clinging to the mouth of the blender, but those don't seem to bother her. I found a furball in the vegetable drawer the other day. Big old clump of hair, right next to the carrots and cabbages, sorta like it belonged there.
"Cherry Pie, where oh where have you gone
?" she mumbles to herself as the sound of the blender drowns out her despair. Good Lord, I can't take it anymore.
It never gets any better
than this. I’ve seen it before and I’ll see it again. This is as good as people get. This is why I'm a wanderin' man. One joker after another in this world, the way I see it. They all act the same when it comes right down to it.
"
Fuck
your Cherry Pie," I say. Them there words escape my mouth so quick that I can't snatch them back. I didn't want it to go down this way, but shit happens when shit is ready to happen, that's what I say. The dam is broken, so I hurl another cuss at her, “You make me sick, you fuckin’ twit.”
"Oh dear," she says, stopping the blender, turning to look at me with big moon
y eyes, unsure of how to respond to what I said. "That vile language. My kitties don't like swearing. Please don’t do that around them."
"Your kitties are fuckin
’ worthless. They should be drowned in the bathtub, every last one of 'em. I’ll do it for ya’, just say the word and I’ll make them screech and scratch til they sink to the bottom of your tub."
"Oh dear," she repeats, wiping her hands on a
dishrag. Looks a bit like she’s shakin’ now, sort of tremblin’ all over. She keeps cleaning her hands cause she’s so nervous. This gesture is the closest thing I have seen to her bathing herself like a proper human being. “Oh dear, you’re horrible.” She don’t sound like she’s all that convinced of that. Wishy washy as all hell.
"Wanna know where Cherry Pie is? I buried her in the snow. I drowned her in it,
actually, right outside your bedroom window. She fought like a fuckin’ tiger and now she’s dead." I’m not sure that the one I killed was actually Cherry Pie, it’s not like I checked her nametag, but it felt good to make Marianne upset, to break her down, just ‘cause I could.
"
My precious kitties," she says. I ain’t sure she actually even believes me. Maybe she’s in shock.
"
Here’s the plan, Silly Sweaters. I'm gonna kill all these here cats, and if you get in my way, I'm gonna kill you too. Got that?” I pause, waitin’ on a response to the question but she don’t give one. “And while I'm puttin’ my boot to these here cats, I want you to clean this house up like you ought to have done a long time ago, if you even know how to do it. I want you to scrub out all the cat piss, from top to bottom. If I can smell one hint of it, I'll cut you up into tiny pieces and flush you down the toilet. You hear me?"