Skeeter and I were watching—dull—TV and he asked me about my past. So I told him about the puppy mill and Frank and then about Frank's daughter and how I was abandoned in the middle of the city and found by the SPCA. He listened with rapt attention. Then there was a long silence. He finally said, "Don't you want to know about my past?" "Tell it to Mr. C." I said, still chafing at his disloyalty from last Sunday.
Meanwhile, it's April 1, it's spring and love is clearly in the air and I am trying not to be a fool about it. But my love life is something for the psych textbooks.
For instance, just when I started to ignore Ginger she started playing very close attention to me and, especially, to me and Cleo. She doesn't holler all over the neighbourhood anymore, about me doing the kitchy-koo with a cat, but she does whine and mumble obscenities when I pass by (that bitch has a mouth!). Cleo and I, meanwhile, have hardly seen each other the last little while. True, it has been rainy and cats are not known for their love of the wet stuff, so I guess she's been sitting inside, by the hearth (as I like to imagine her), her glistening coat catching the colour and light of the flames.
But the oddest part of my sordid little triangle (or quadrangle, I'd guess you'd call it now) revealed itself yesterday. I was walking with Skeeter who had just watched, the night before, another episode of the cocksucking Dog Whisperer and was in that zone—that strange Cesar place dog-owners get into when they've watched the guy and intend (at least for the next couple of days) to worship at his altar. It's when he's in the Cesar Zone that Skeeter treats me like a dog instead of someone who now converses with him and it pisses me off no end.
As we walked along this fucking German shepherd with a 'tude walked past and mockingly snerfed at me. No one could hear the snerf but me and I went ballistic. The Nazi dog walked on, giggling, and I strained at the leash to rip his throat out. This is when Skeeter, in complete Cesar Milan zombiehood, threw me on the ground and held me there so that I couldn't move. "Calm down!" he whispered angrily and I couldn't do much else except run in the air, my legs trying to get a grip of something so I could teach that fucking dog a lesson.
That's when I heard it, "LET GO OF MY BUDDY, YOU FUCKING MOOK!!!! NOBODY FUCKS WITH MY BUDDY!!!!" Skeeter and I looked over and there was Benjie, in full fighting mode. He was trying to come at Skeeter, but the little old lady who owns him misinterpreted it and thought he was coming for me. (She's a little lost, is the lady, as everyone in the neighbourhood knows that Benj and I are pals.) Benjie going batshit was surprising enough for Skeeter to loosen his grip on me and for me to get up and go over to Benj and say thanks and snerf a little conversation about what a tool Skeeter was and—Jesus! just how old is that lady anyway! He and the old biddy walked away and I came back to Skeet (by this time the fucking shepherd has turned the corner and there was nothing I could do about it).
"What the hell was that about?" Skeeter said.
"He was pissed at you and wanted you to let me go."
"Why didn't he just tell me."
"Oh, he will never speak human. Not while she's around. She already spends every waking hour dithering at him and it would be downright hell if she found out he understood her and could participate in the dither-fest."
Later, in front of the TV again, the two of us were mulling over the "news" that Ricky Martin and Sean Hayes were really gay. We both had a good laugh at that as everyone—straight, gay, animal, vegetable and mineral—had known about those two (and a good many others) for a long time. That's when Skeeter said, "So, what do you think of Benjie's crush?"
"Hunh?"
"Well, clearly he has a little thing for you. Look at him: he's the littlest, sissiest dog in the universe and he was ready to take me on 'cause I was messing with you."
"Hunh?"
"Think about it."
I did and it worried me. This had never happened to me before and I said so to Skeeter. "Don't worry about it," he said, "We queers are always falling for the straight ones. We get over it but it's still messy, messy stuff..."
That's when I said, "Okay, tell me about your past."
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