Goddamn Asshole Cats by David Novak

Goddamn Asshole Cats

David Novak

So.

I was telling a buddy of mine about this problem I got.

“You see,” I was telling him, “I got this problem. There’s this cat. And this cat, it’s living in the same apartment as me. It’s been living there for a long time, too, way before I bought the place.

“And this cat?

“It’s a real goddamn asshole.

“And not in the normal, everyday kind of ‘yeah, of course it’s an asshole, it’s a cat, all cats are assholes but at least you don’t have to pick up their shit.’ When I say asshole, I mean that this cat is a real, certifiable asshole. Because this cat, it attacks me all the time. For no reason. It starts every morning, right before my alarm clock goes off. It’ll jump up on my bad and scratch me right in the goddamn face. And it keeps on scratching me all day after that. I’ll be in the bathroom shaving, and it’ll take a swipe at my neck. I’m tying my shoes, it’ll jump up on my shoulders and start at the back of my head. I’m eating breakfast, and it jumps in my bowl of cereal, ruins that, and starts swiping at my face. In the middle of the night, I’ll be right about to fall asleep, like right on the cusp, and again, same thing. And this one time, I was on the toilet -”

“Yeah, I get it,” my friend says. “What’s the point?”

“Well, the point is, I’m tired. I can’t get any rest, I’m always so damn afraid. I’m at my wit’s end here. At the end of my rope, reaching the last straw, I’m -”

“Again, I get it.” My friend takes a sip of his beer and smiles at me, all reassuring-like, like he was the absolute expert on cats and asshole cats in particular. “So let me guess. You want to know what you should do.”

“Exactly.”

“It’s easy. Cat scratching you too much? Just get another cat.”

“Another cat?” I ask.

“Yup. Another cat.”

“As in a replacement for this cat, you mean?”

“No,” he says, “I mean, as in a second cat.”

“That’s all you got for me?”

“Well, what did you expect me to say?”

“I don’t know. To maybe get rid of that one cat I got there already?”

“What are you, crazy?” he shouts. “You can’t do that!”

“Why the hell not? It seems to make sense to me. I mean, (a) the cat is an asshole, (b) it scratches me all the time, (c) I don’t want it to scratch me, so (d) I throw it out the door.”

“Because,” he says, “because you can’t just go kicking cats out of apartments. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, that cat is part of that apartment. It was there when you got there and it’ll be there after you leave. Hell, I bet it’s even worked into your deed or lien or whatever, that that cat has to be there forever. Whether you like it or not, that cat is part of the history of that apartment. And you can’t just go tossing history out the door. And anyways, you do know that there’s a law written somewhere that says if you move into an apartment and there’s a cat there, that cat has the right to stay. Which means you can’t just go kicking it out. Legally speaking and all.”

“That can’t possibly be true.”

“You betcha it is. And even if it wasn’t. You still can’t just go on kicking cats out of apartment. Can you imagine if everywhere, people like you went and did something like that? You’d see cats just being tossed from every door, thrown up in the air like it’s some type of goddamn cat blizzard. And you know where’d they’d all go?”

“Out of my house?”

“No. In the street. Now that would be dangerous.”

“You know what’s dangerous? This one cat indoors. In my doors. Do you even know where it scratched me when I was on the toilet?”

“No, and I don’t want to know,” he says sipping his beer, washing the taste of that image out of his mouth. “If you think that cat is dangerous indoors, imagine a bunch of illegal cats outdoors. Christ, you’d have a goddamn illegal cat army, just marching up and down the street and scratching whoever they want, whenever they want. And they’d be eating people’s pet birds and lapping up other people’s milk and littering the street with fur balls. No, no you can’t have that.”

“I wish I could.”

He ignores me. “And think of the bad precedent it would set, too. If you kick a cat out, what’s next? Dogs? Well, dogs are more quote-unquote dangerous than cats anyways. Do you know that dogs bite more people a year than cats do? So what are you going to do? Kick all the dogs out too? That seems real practical,” he says rolling his eyes.

“Dogs?” I ask. “Who the fuck said anything about dogs? The problem is that cat, not some fucking dog.” “Alright,” he says. “Don’t get riled up or we’ll have to throw you out the door too. Just take a deep breath and calm down before you say something else stupid.”

“Alright,” I say even though, between you and me, no amount of breathing in the past has ever prevented me from saying something stupid. I take a deep breath. “Alright. Let’s just assume that you’re right. That I can’t kick the cat out because it’s illegal. And it’d be unsafe. And that it’d create some sort of illegal, street-roaming cat army. Let’s just assume you’re right there. Is there nothing else I could do? Like, maybe the cat just needs something. Truth be told, I never really tried to take care of the stupid thing. Maybe the cat’s just disgruntled. Maybe I just have to watch it a little bit, or hire somebody to watch it if I’m out of town. Or maybe I should get it more food, or some toys, or some kitty litter or something.”

“Nah. You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Listen,” he sighs. “It’s a cat. Cats do their own thing. That’s the nature of the cat, to be free. You can’t just go on taking care of cats when it’s the cat’s own damn responsibility to take care of itself. What are you going to do, take care of its every need? Baby it? Spoon feed it?” He shakes his head. “No, no. That’s bad all around. First, it’ll cost you too much money and you’ll go broke. Secondly, you’re going to make that cat dependent on you. And third, I bet you it wouldn’t even help anything anyway. You can help that cat and watch over it all you want. But if that cat’s got its mind made up that it wants to scratch your face off, then you best be damned sure it’s going to scratch your goddamn face right off sooner or later.” Now, truth be told, my face isn’t all that pretty to begin with.

But in terms of what’s left covering my head, it’s just about all I got left.

So needless to say, I was inclined to do whatever it took to keep my face where it was.

“OK,” I say. “So that’s your solution, then. Don’t get rid of it. Don’t help it. Just get another cat.”

“Just get another cat,” he repeats all smoothly.

“And why the hell am I getting another cat now?”

“Why else do you think?” he chuckles. “To protect you from the other cat.”

I was baffled. “Now how is one cat going to protect me from another cat?”

“Christ, you know nothing about cats,” he sighs. “Alright. Listen. You got an asshole cat in your house. Right? Well, if you have another cat in the house, then any time that cat – the asshole cat, I’m talking about – any time that asshole cat tries to scratch you, the other cat – the protector cat – it’s going to stop the asshole cat. So say if, hypothetically speaking, you’re taking a nap on the couch and that asshole cat tries to claw your eyeballs out or something. Well, that other protector cat is going to come and protect your ass and save your damn eyeballs.”

That made sense at first.

Until I really thought about it.

“How in the hell can I possibly rely on that other cat to save me?”

Again he sighs. “Sometimes, man, you just got to depend on the decency of other cats.”

“No, I mean – alright, hypothetically speaking, say if that other cat – the protector cat – say if it’s busy. Say it’s in the bathroom doing its business or say it’s roaming outside or napping or eating lasagna and complaining about Mondays or doing whatever it is cats supposedly do when nobody’s looking. Say if that cat’s not around, and the other cat – the asshole cat – tries to attack me. What do I do then? Or what if it is around? What if – hypothetically speaking again – what if that protector cat is actually around, but it’s not quick enough or strong enough to stop the asshole cat. What then?”

“Hm,” he mutters. “You might have a point there.”

“I thought I might.”

“You’ll just have to get more cats.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m being serious. The more cats you get, the safer you’ll be. You’ll have cats keeping eyes on other cats, and the minute one cat starts acting up, there’ll definitely be another cat around to help protect you.” “Now I’m being serious. Fuck you.”

“Well, you have any better plans?”

Like I said.

I was desperate for something.

So I thought about it.

I thought about what my options were. Or I guess, what my buddy told me my options were. I thought about how, for some reason or another, I couldn’t kick that cat out. And I thought about, for some other reason or another, I couldn’t try to watch the cat, or try to help it out.

And then I thought about the pain.

I thought about that cat jumping on me and digging its claws through me, tearing me apart, ripping open my skin, invading me, invading my being. And I thought about how the blood would just come squeezing out of me afterwards, and how it’d trickle down my arm or my leg or my face and how sooner or later it’d all end up on the carpet. And I thought about how dirty that carpet was getting, and I thought about how hard I had to scrub it to try to get the blood out and I thought about how no matter how hard I scrubbed, no matter how hard I sweat and no matter how hard I prayed, how I could never seem to really get it all out.

Because, goddammit, blood is really hard to clean after it’s stained something.

So I was desperate.

“Well,” he asks. “Do you?”

“No,” I reply. “I guess I don’t.”

So I had this problem I was telling my buddy about.

About this asshole cat.

And now, I got a whole new set of problems. Because now I have an apartment with a seriously dangerous bunch of pissed off goddamn asshole cats. And I don’t know why they’re so edgy and I don’t know why they’re so paranoid, or why they always seem to go after me, because now most of the time now I’m just trying to ignore them, trying to step around them without them ever noticing me. But I know at any minute, one of them is going to snap, and then another one will, and then another, and another one and another one and I know that sooner or later there’s going to be a goddamn cat massacre. So now?

Now I’m always still too damn afraid to get any kind of rest.

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Goddamn Asshole Cats was featured in the latest release of Vagabonds (Vol. 2 Issue 2). To read the full issue take a look at our archives page.