June 9, 2010; A Song for Skeeter

Sing a Song of Skeeter

Skeeter, oh!, Skeeter

Where are you going?

Fifty-three years today,

And still thinking of blowing!

You've big goofy ears

And a face that's all craggy,

You never drink beers

But your boobs are still saggy.

But despite the old body

And the mind that is flakey

Each queer that ain't gaudy

Makes your dick wakey-wakey.

So I pause to salute!

You: old, paunchy fellow!

Be wise, you old coot,

And try to stay mellow.

For today is your day

And you want to make trouble

But with your carcass this way

You could pop like a bubble!

So cheer just a little

Keep your eye on the goal:

Take me out for a piddle

And fill up my bowl.

I recited this to Skeeter himself and he said, "Thank you," in a choked voice. "Here come the water-works," I mumbled but he just pulled me tight to him until I farted.

June 6, 2010; The Abandonati

Skeet and I were taking our afternoon walk. It was glorious outside—perfect temp, tons of sunlight and there had been a hard rain which meant all those fucking wasp nests had been destroyed...I hate wasps. It was also one of those neighbourhood days where everyone you know seems to be outside as well. Babs and Ginger, the old biddy and Benjie, the floor mat up the street was sitting on his verandah with the two young men Skeet always slows down to look at (and who may be lovers or brothers or one of those weird configurations you read about in horror novels). The upshot was I was doing so much arse-sniffing and chatting that Skeet got tired of the stop and start and toddled us into an alley where there were far fewer 'hood-dogs getting in the way.

There, of course, we ran into Cleo. ("I decided to come down this alley," Skeet said, "because I know she lives here." I guess he can be nice, sometimes.) Cleo was not looking any the worse for wear. In fact, she looked rather magnificent. She had worked off all that apartment pudge which I used to like but which, gone, revealed a svelte, cat body where the tail was more than an appendage and what was under it was more that just a pair of orifii. My little kitty was turning into one hot mama.

And her smell! Glorious! Cat and garbage and street and trees and grass and a whiff of carrion on her breath. As we nuzzled hello I said, "You, sweet sexy thang, are now queen of the alley cats." She mewed appreciatively. Skeet sat down on a turned over garbage can so that he could smoke and we could chat. "So you're adapting," I said.

"The only bad nights are the rainy ones," Cleo said, "but we all get together under a balcony and cuddle and it's not too bad. Not looking forward to winter, though."

"Ask her about the screamer," Skeet said.

Cleo understood and said to me in Cat, "Sad story; that's Cordelia—"

"—yeej! Just the name tells me it's a sad story!—"

"—yeah; another case were the fucking owners spend more time choosing a name than taking care of the fucking pet. Again, two incredibly retarded people; she was fucking his best friend and he was fucking her best friend and her best friend was a guy. You don't get more stupid than that. When they broke up they took separate apartments and did not even discuss Cordelia's place in them." She hissed, gagged and hawked up something as if to punctuate the statement. Skeet looked at her concerned but all those alley noises just made her sexier to me—like a particularly hornifying biker chick. "Anyway," she went on, "she's new to the Abandonati—"

"—Abandonati?—"

"—That's what we call ourselves. The cats who get tossed when the masters move on. And Cordelia is one of us and she can't handle it at all."

"I know. We hear her all night, wailing away. And it's worse on rainy nights."

"Yup. She's pretty much a lost cause. No one can do anything for her and some people are trying but she always runs away from them; her heart is broken and she's a little mad from it. One day she'll just get hit by a car and it'll be just as well."

I sighed, turned to Skeet and repeated the story to him. He looked truly upset by it and said, "Some people are just fuckers—"

In Cat, Cleo immediately rejoined, "—you said a mouthful, Buddy." Then she went back to me and added, "There is one other thing you should know, sweetie. I'm out here now, and it's survival of the yadda yadda yadda etc. So we look out for each other and that means a lot of us don't like humans and most of us hate dogs. I've told them about you so you're relatively safe except around Slicer."

"There's a name," I said.

"And it doesn't tell half the story of how vicious he is—"

"—I can't imagine with a name like that he could be anything but vicious—"

She sighed and I felt a little stung because it was the sigh of someone who is trying to deal with the profoundly stupid. "No," she said as gently as her new street persona would allow, "his name before is a deep, dark, secret. He chose Slicer. And he'll kill you and him," she said tilting her head to Skeet, "and all of us if he's having a bad day. But he also gets us food and protects us in his own bizarre way. He's like the kingpin. So if you see him, don't fuck with him."

"I've seen him," I said. "Big, gray, matted hair—"

"—yup. That's Slicer."

"He nearly killed me." She tittered and it was a glorious, beautiful, cat sound. Then she said, "Now on your way. Don't worry about me."

"I worry about winter," I said, nuzzling her goodbye.

"Life goes on," she said, "or not."

That night, as I was in bed, curled up to Boo-Boo, I heard Cordelia shrieking away in the alley and I thought that, yes, sometimes it is better to be get hit by a car but, mostly, I wished the two cunts who had left her behind would be the ones under the wheels.

June 3, 2010; A Visitor Returns

I could smell the cigarette before I saw him.

"Snoopy!" he said, trying to get a rise out of me. The cigarette, like last time, was dangling from his lip.

"Hello, Cosmo," I said as I took my mid-night sip of water. "You're back."

"I'm going to be a semi-regular in the little series that is your life. Better get used to it."

"So I'm going to have to put up with that highbrow Dalmatian banter."

He snerfed, "I guess for any dog smaller than a weasel it would be highbrow." He sat down before continuing. "I've been sniffing around. The Boys are in trouble?"

"You called them the Boys too?"

"Nah, but I read your blog and it fits."

"Well," I said sitting near him, "First: when Boo-Boo isn't working he's talking about work—"

"—why do you think I never talked to him, even though I was closer to Boo than Skeeter; can you imagine all that yammering when you're trying to sleep! I don't know how you put up with Skeet's prattle."

"Well, he reads a lot and plays that idiot game—"

"—still doing the World of Warcraft thing—"

"—yes. And he likes his TV."

"He does," Cosmo said, yawned and puffed. I noticed the cigarette never got smaller. "So what's the prob, Snoop Dog?"

"You know how hard it is to train these people," I said. "The way they're both going I'm worried one of them is going to keel over. It's already going to be a pain in the ass with Skeet off to another operation and Boo talking about disappearing on his bike for a week. I don't know about you but I don't like to be ignored and when there's only one of them here, the chances are huge I'll spend a lot of time licking my dick."

At this, Cosmo spread his legs and said, "Check it out!" He had a nice pair of danglers. "You get them back in the hereafter."

"Niiiiiiiiice." Then I said, "So what do I do?"

"Well, Snoop, there really is nothing you can do. Things die and, let's face it, these two are on the fast track—they eat mountains of crap, they both smoke like chimneys, Boo has always worked too hard and Skeet too, when he was working, and then they wonder why they feel like shit all the time. But here's the thing, little feller: humans, no matter what, live way past their expiration date and chances are good they'll outlive you. Look at me! I was healthy as a horse!"

"Small comfort: I should relax because I'll die before them."

"Yup."

"Before you go—"

"—very subtle way of getting rid of me—"

"—well," I went on nevertheless, "I just wanted to know about the smoking."

"As I said, they smoke like chimneys and when I was there, and between baths, my white fur would turn a nice nicotine-yellow. I got into licking my fur and before you know it, I was hooked. Now I can smoke all I want and don't even have the cough."

"Well, that's something the Boys can look forward to, anyway."

Cosmo laughed strangely, "Oh, little man, there are precious few humans where I am." And with that, he was gone.

The ethereal cigarette smoke lingered in the air. When it was gone, I went back to Boo's bed and curled up in the crook of his leg. The apartment was very quiet until, very far in the distance, a dog howled: "G'night Snoopy!"

May 31, 2010; Literature

Since Skeeter got his Kindle he has been doing a lot of reading. But here's the thing: books still cost money, even electronic books, and he is poor, but he has found this website where he can download classics in Kindle format for nothing. So he has been reading the classics. Some of them are books he already read but "wanted to make sure I understood them the first time around" like "Madame Bovary." Others are books he read in abridged form when he was a kid like "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn"; the latter, he assures me, was much abridged when he was a child because there was no use of the n-word in his version and you hardly new Jim was a slave at all. He did note, this go-round, that Tom Sawyer, in the Huck Finn book, turned out to be a bit of a sociopath the way he tortured Jim—making him believe he was still a slave when he wasn't.

The upshot of all this, with summer here and all our programs in reruns, is that when he gets back from the clinic, swallows down his pain-killer and curls up with me on the La-Z-Boy, we no longer watch TV. He, instead, reads the classics.

Occasionally I ask him to read passages to me as I snooze. It's an odd, big world out there, in those books. I hated "The Jungle" because it was about people working in slaughterhouses and there seemed to be a lot of pity for the people but very little for the animals being slaughtered. I despised "Babbitt" because—let's face it—who cares about a Realtor and his affairs if they're not going to get into the fucking details (and by this, I mean the details of the fucking though—God knows!—I can't imagine a Realtor is any more interesting when he's fucking than when he's trying to sell you a house).

But it hasn't all been dull. He was giggling his ass off, one afternoon, and said, "You'd like this." So I ordered him to read from "Tom Jones"—some old book—and it was very interesting. The scene was some fight between two women in a little village and before you know it they were ripping off each other's tops and the writer described, in detail, how they slapped each other's tits and one of the women had really nice, ample tits. Like any red-blooded male I do love my cat fights, especially when you don't have to imagine them stripping each other 'cause the author gives you all you need.

Now he's reading "Anne of Green Gables." It's a Canadian classic (which probably means no one knows anything about it). Skeet explained to me that he had never actually read it; that it was read to him when he was in sixth grade by the teacher, a Mr. Fasano, who was great at accents and voices and had made hearing "Anne" a real delight (as he had also made "The Secret Garden" a joy—another book Skeet went back to on his Kindle).

I asked him to read from it and didn't quite get the attraction. I mean, the kid—Anne, the orphan—is cute and funny and all, but not hilarious-funny, more cute-funny which is not really all that funny. As Skeet read he stopped and said, "Want to hear something weird?" "Desperately," I said. "When Mr. Fasano read it to us, I didn't get, 'til the end of the book, that Anne's adoptive parents, Matthew and Marilla, were not married."

"Hunh? But that couldn't have been allowed, back then!" I said.

"No, no, no—they're brother and sister!"

"Well, that's just sick," I said.

"Well, no, not really. They're old siblings who live together," Skeet said. But by this time, I was re-writing "Anne of Green Gables."

Chapter 10

Anne Has a Sleep-Over

Marilla had said yes and Anne was so excited that she could hardly sleep the night before her pyjama party with her bosom friend, Diana Barry. All day, on the day, Anne and Marilla made cakes and ice tea and Matthew watched on with a big smile, though Marilla would toss him a glance from time to time as if to say, "Don't humour Anne too much; she's already all too thrilled for my tastes." Matthew would try not to smile, chastened, but it was a hard job.

Finally the night came and Anne and Diana were in Anne's room in the east gable telling each other romantic tales of knights and ladies of yore, staring out into the late sky and letting the views give scope to their imaginations. Suddenly, far away, they heard an odd noise and Anne said, "Diana! we must, must, must explore and find out the source of this noise. What if it should be a dragon!"

Diana, enjoying the game with a little thrill of girlish excitement (and a little bit of real fear too) said, "Yes! For if it is a dragon, we would have to call on a knight to save us!"

Very quietly the two girls tip-toed down the hallway. The noise was coming from Marilla's room and when they cracked open the door they could just make out the shapes of Marilla and Matthew. However, he was on top of her and she was grinning like some animal even Anne could not imagine.

"Just what my mother thought," Diana whispered, "the beast with two backs. It's why my mother didn't want me coming over here and we had to beg and beg and beg her."

"But it's all right," Anne whispered back, "maybe they're trying to make me a little brother or sister."

Diana moved closer to Anne, "Yeah, well, that would be one odd-looking child—Marilla and Matthew being brother and sister themselves."

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!" Anne roared. Matthew and Marilla were so busy doing what they were doing that they did not hear Anne. Diana dragged Anne back to the east gable. By this time the little red-head was shaking like a leaf and she looked like she had thousands more freckles. "I thought they were husband and wife!" she trilled.

"So do a lot of people," Diana said. "That's what makes Green Gables sort of a freak show. Tourists point it out and say, 'Is that where the couple lives and no one really knows their relationship?'"

"Well fuck me," Anne said and stared out the window.

"Go to bed, Anne. You must be tired. I am." The two girls curled up and as they were falling asleep Anne murmured, "Well, at least I'm not the biggest mutant on the Island—despite my red hair."

"Oh, no!" said Diana. "Not at all. One day I'll tell you about Mrs. Rachel Lynde's Quilting Circle."

"Hunh?" said Anne.

"Let's just say there's a reason the quilts they put up at the fair smell funny."

And with that the two little girls fell into a peaceful slumber.

May 28, 2010; Events aplenty

It's been pulverizingly hot the last few days and this means a few things: everyone feels like crap; when I go for my walks it's really slow because the city is full of shirtless men and men in shorts and the Boys (should it require iteration) are queer; I sleep a lot and don't do a lot of exercise.

All of these things came together the other day when I was out with Skeeter. We were at the end of the block where we normally cross to come up the block again. We were waiting at the light when Skeet went: "Hamana hamana hamana!" This noise, for the uninitiated, means he has spotted a particularly hot/semi-naked guy. And sure enough, there, at the outdoor café on the corner, sat a young man with his shirt open who had the kind of chest I know Skeet dreams of: hard, lean and hairy. (Now, if you'll excuse me, I would like to spit out the little bit of barf that just came into my mouth.)

So Skeet, using me as he is wont to do, said, "Stall." What this means is that I try to position us near the sexual object in question and take lots of time to sniff, etc., so Skeet can stare at the guy. "I'm really getting tired of being your beard," I muttered.

But then something truly happy occurred. When we crossed the street to the café who should I see hidden behind one of the decorative flower boxes but Cleo! "Hey!" I barked and dragged Skeet over. In an even happier circumstance this placed him just ahead of hairy hunk. "Hey Cleo," Skeet said and she mewed and, then to me he said: "Take all the time you want to catch up." The pig.

Cleo, unlike the last time, was happy to see me. "I've gotten used to street life," she said. "There sure are a lot of slow squirrels and birds around here so I'm never hungry." Though this was not the kind of "good" news I wanted to hear, I realized her life had changed and I had better get used to the idea because. I approached her and said, "Come over and put some of that stank on me." She giggled and said, "How street and how sweet and how ick." Then we nuzzled a bit. We didn't realize we had drawn an audience and several people at the café went: Awwwwwww. This broke Skeeter out of his chest-worshipping reverie and he smiled at everyone. Cleo and I felt a little self-conscious but probably not as self conscious as Skeeter who had to explain to the audience that he was looking away from us because he was "trying to give the two their privacy." I noted several in the café (including hairy hunk) watched Skeeter like he was a madman and potentially dangerous.

Back to us...

I started to prance with joy at seeing my beloved and she smacked me in the nose. Then she said, "Do that again." I was confused and said, "Jump around like a fool and make you nervous?" "Yes," she said so I did and she purred, "You've been working out! What happened to my pudgy little Jack Russell? Where did those leg muscles come from?" I crowed a little (in Dog Speak that's like a yawn with a little whinny at the end).

"Well, that's a story," I said to her and told it.

Two weeks ago the Boys were watching—you guessed it—"The Dog Whisperer" and the nasty little Mexican showed how you could exercise your dog by getting him to run beside a bicycle while you rode it. Boo-Boo's eyes lit up and he said, "I'm going to try that!" and on the next sunny day he did. At first I bucked and resisted like I was rabid but it boils down to two choices, finally: running with the bike; getting dragged like a cadaver behind it. So I ran. I hate it hate it hate it hate it. We do it every morning now and, on top of that, the two assholes have cut my meals again and my body has no choice but to tone up and fat down.

"I like it," Cleo purred again and once again we nuzzled and once again the crowd at the café went: Awwwwww. What I hadn't noticed was that hairy hunk had gone and Skeet was now bored and impatient. But he can be decent, sometimes, and as much as he wanted to leave, he also knew we, on the ground, were joyful.

It was Cleo who finally broke up the party saying, "I'm hungry. Time to hunt." This wasn't your sleek little lap cat anymore. Skeeter leaned down to us and said to Cleo, "If you need anything, you know where we are, sweetheart." Cleo acknowledged the kindness by rubbing her head into his hand and then, without another word, she was off, dashing into an alley to get herself some lunch.

It's sort of sad but it's sort of not 'cause it's sort of real.

May 25, 2010; Urofascism

In this city there are laws about dogs.

Dogs have to have licenses (no one enforces this). Dogs have to be leashed (no one enforces this). Owners have to pick up after their dogs...EVERYONE ENFORCES THIS.

Let me tell you about my 'hood. It used to be a working class district 'til all the poor people were sent to Siberia by yuppies, faggot couples, little families and the B&B trade. What that means is that it was once a nice little urban village where men doffed their fedoras to each other, where women talked to each other from their balconies and where kids played hockey in the treesy alleys. Now it's a village Nazi Germany where your neighbours know every fucking thing about your life, spread it around, judge the "facts" and make decisions about whether or not they will nod to you on the way to work in the morning or ignore you like you were a crack whore living in their dumpster.

A lot of everyone's impressions of you is how you deal with your dog and whether or not the person who is spreading this news is liked by the rest of the commune or not. For instance, their is this college professor who lives in a ground floor apartment just a little down from our place. He hates dogs. He, of course, created a little garden which is like dog-bait—we all like to piss there! This means he hates us even more. But here's something you should know: about two years ago, while walking Cosmo, Skeeter saw a young street ruffian at the perfesser's door. He was coming out and, right there at the door, money was exchanged. As Skeet had had a lot of trouble with this man because of Cosmo's explosive need to piss the minute he got out and the fact the Cos had liberally hosed down this guy's garden many a time, Skeet thought he would fight back in a way the entire neighbourhood understood: he started (very subtly) to spread the word that the prof was hiring whores. Suddenly everything the prof said about dogs peeing or shitting, or his garden or the price of barley was ignored by all the rest of the street.

However, the prof is not—by far—the only problem! The city has a beautification program and has asked citizens to adopt the trees on each street and to water them and take care of them. Some of the fucks here see that as a way to have their own little gardens without actually living in a space which allows for one. They put flowers and plants around the trees they are tending and, worse!, little fences around these gardens! So, tell me!, where the fuck is a dog supposed to piss?!

If I piss on the sidewalk some fucking nosey parker raises a stink about stepping in dog piss in sandals or flip-flops and tracking it into their place. If I piss on someone's mini-lawn it's a five-act opera with overture and ballet! And if I piss on the mini-gardens around the trees...well, all hell breaks loose! So basically I gallop about, and get yanked about by Skeeter or Boo-Boo, 'til we've found some hidden little place off the beaten path where I can empty my bladder. Since when did a dog pissing become something shameful?! I ask you!

Oh, and then there's shit. God forbid you don't pick up after your dog because on this street, when the temperature gets up above 55, everyone is on their balcony spying, spying, spying. There's even one lady who videotapes owners who don't pick up and shows the tape around until the owner is identified. In one case, a guy with a pitbull was caught this way and instead of being confronted in a neighbourly sort of way, he woke up one morning to find his wrought-iron fence festooned with baggies of other dogs' shit.

So, please, imagine living in this fascist state when you're sick (as I have been several times and as Cosmo was, apparently, often). I mean you need to go. But what happens is that one of the Boys, seeing that look in your eyes and realizing no baggie will pick up what you're going to deliver, gets you on the leash and out the door as fast as possible and then runs you down the street to the alley where your screaming, cramping bowel can finally explode. (I heard that Cosmo wouldn't tolerate this little sprint, and found an elegant solution by shitting as he ran.)

Ginger, Benjie, the walking throw rug up the street and I have talked this over and are looking for a way to rebel. For one thing, we don't think it's fair that trees we anoint all year are suddenly verboten. What's made it worse is that there are some of these fucking dink gardeners who don't like a dog pissing there even during the off season as they will have to deal with the soil under the tree when it comes time to plant their pansies. Ginger suggested that, as I am talking to Skeeter now, I tell him dog owners need to lead the charge against the tree people.

Here's the thing...I suspect Skeet has already begun the battle. Everyone on this street has a secret. And the other thing is: No one on this street has a secret. A bitchy lady planting flowers under a tree today can be the one everyone is saying should be kept away from small children tomorrow.

All is fair in the piss wars.

May 22, 2010; Straights 'n' Gays

We were, as usual, curled up on the La-Z-Boy, it was hot, he was reading, I was bored so I said, "I had a weird dream last night."

"Good for you," he said, not moving his head from his book. Not even looking at me, the fucker!

"Don't you want to hear about it?"

"No."

"Jeeeeeeeez."

"Take it from a writer, pal, two things no one ever wants to hear about: dreams and sex."

"I'm not buying that," I said. "I thought that all you people talk about is sex!"

"Us people?" he said menacingly.

"Oh fercrissakes you're thin-skinned! Not queers! People! People! Straight! Gay! People!"

"Well, a lot might talk about it, but the others listen only by politesse."

I said, "So if it's a sex dream, I guess you really don't want to hear about."

"You got that right."

"Hm."

"Look, when we're young we talk about it all the time. We don't listen, but we sure like to talk. I used to date this couple—"

"—Excuse me? This isn't going to be one of those sordid gay threesome things because I really don't want to hear about that!"

"No, no, no," he said and explained: "They were a couple, they were friends, and we always went out together. She was my friend more than him, but he was real eye-candy so I didn't mind so much. But then their relationship started to get rocky and I was put in the middle. She was very good and discrete about it. He, however, would come over and whine and whine and whine and it was always something to do with sex. Worse: straight sex. The worst time started when he said, 'I thought she liked getting eaten out.'"

"Yee-ikes!" I said.

"Straights think gays like to share this way, though I don't know why. I never told him about my sex life which, in those days, was pretty colourful—"

"—you mean raunchy—"

"—well, yes." And he paused and his feeble, aged mind harked back to the days when he catted about. But finally he broke out of the spell and went on with his story. "So...He started like that but then it only got worse. It was like a train-wreck. 'I think I'm pretty good. I have a good tongue. All the girls I've been with have told me I have a good tongue! And until last night I thought she (his girlfriend and my friend) did too. She always squirmed and squealed when I did my thing. I have this thing; this little buzzing thing I do...' Then he stuck out his apparently talented though, I noticed, fat little tongue and started spitting around my living room. Like a vibrator with eyes!"

"Just how desperate were you for friends, back then?" I asked and really wanted to know the answer though he took it to be rhetorical.

"I passed him a Kleenex and feigned appreciation of the spine-melting effect that buzzing must have on any woman. But he went on: 'So last time I'm doing it when she yelled, "Would you stop that buzzing shit! It doesn't turn me on and you get my thighs all wet!"'"

I had to get off his lap because I started to scream with laughter and, like some little old lady, thought I might pee myself. "True story," he said, "I kid you not." But he was laughing too. "I think that was the last time a straight sex story was interesting to me and it was for all the wrong reasons."

I went to drink some water but had to stop because every time I tried to sip, the image of the naked chick telling the naked guy about her wet thighs came back and I would choke on the water. Finally I got a relative grip but I was still chuckling as I hopped onto his lap. "What happened then?"

"Well, I was trying desperately not to laugh—"

"—I guess!—"

"—Then I asked him why, instead of resorting to 'tricks' he didn't just make love to her. He said, 'Well, it's that, after a period of time, heterosexual people bring in little tricks to keep love-making from becoming bland.' He was patronizing me. Heterosexual people are not a mystery to gays. We don't needs Margaret Mead to explain heterosexual people to us. We hear about heterosexual people day in and day out. So I said, 'Excuse me...but if you're resorting to tricks already, three months after your first fuck, how long will it be before you're making snuff films!' He didn't get it. He resented me for saying it and, needless to say, it wasn't a month before the friendship was over and I went on with my life. She stayed my friend—my best friend—for a long time but he disappeared." He said this wistfully (thinking about the girl's friendship? the guy's hunkdom?). "Since then," he concluded, "I've made it clear to all my friends that I have a very limited attention-span for sex stories. Sure, if sex is the root of a problem I'll listen and help, but telling about sex (or dreams, you) bores me to tears. Even from gays 'cause we all experience sex (and dreams, you) differently."

"But doggy sex dreams? You're not the least but curious?"

"Oh, Lord! No!"

"Well, it was just chit-chat anyway," I said because, after that story, it was.

The image of the chick yelling at the guy came back to me over and over all day and the next and I kept snerfing with laughter each time. Gotta say: those people are hi-larious!