uninviolable trust

So, there's this cat that hangs around our apartment complex. Big, sleek, beautiful black cat. This cat is no slouch. It's a very muscular cat. Very little fat on his bones. He's a very cool cat. He plays it cool. Often, he will come into our apartment and look around. He does nothing but look around. He investigates, perhaps he'll want to be petted (that word sounds stupid) a little, not too much, but mostly he wants to look around and leave. But he really likes our apartment. He will sit at the front door and meow and scratch, not entirely unlike a dog. This cat has been doing this since I moved in back in May, and has made this a habit for the more than a year prior to me moving in. He just comes in, looks around, makes friendly chitchat, then leaves. A friend that doesn't overstay his welcome.

This was all a setup. A long, elaborate setup for a dark, twisted joke. I can still hear the cat's dark laughter. I hear it with my ears.

The cat comes in today, and it's the usual stuff, "Oh hey kitty! Good to see you kitty!" and the cat takes a special shining to me because animals really dig me, which is kind of neat in a beastmaster kind of way. The cat comes in, my roommate and his friend leave, cat's looking around, and walks underneath the desk on the wall behind me. He starts sniffing at... something. I don't know what. Cat's can smell way better than I can, so I trust the importance of whatever he's smelling. Then I hear him clawing. I turn around and ask, "what delightful kitty thing are you engaged in over there cat?" The light's are off, and I can't see what he's doing, but there's a slight dread building at the back of my head. "Oh hell," I think. "Please no," I think. I teleport <> over to the other side of the room, where I get down on all fours to get a better look at the cat's "shenanigans." A string of vulgarities ranging from the angered to the comical issue forth from my mouth as I realize the dark seeds of this cat's blackened heart are taking root in a cosmic comedy. A joke played at my expense.

The cat's taking a humongous dog-sized crap right on the floor. All the kindness we've shown him. All the hospitality, all the trust and friendship metaphorically shit on in a moment of this cat's feral abandon. The little s.o.b.

I get up and turn the light on so I can see the extent of this beast's selfish damage. He's still going. I get back on all fours, and the smell is terrible. I gag and retch. I pull my shirt over my nose and breathe exclusively with my mouth. The cat stares at me. Its eyes tell me that it knows why I'm angry, yet he's still pretending to not understand what my problem is. He's finished his business, and he wants out of the apartment. Probably before I tear his legs off or something. He bolts out. The apartment smells awful. It smells like old people, which is weird. That bizarre mix of collected scents that produce that extremely bitter mothball "old people" smell. I get a handful of paper towels and pick up the little bastard's mess. This is the part of dog owners, who take their dogs for walks in the park, that I don't understand, and if I ever own a dog, a part I refuse to take part in. The feel of the cat's evil joke sickens me. It takes two paper towel "runs" to get all of it. I run, full on sprint, to the dumpster outside to dispose of it, trying not to gag the whole time. I come back inside, and it still smells like old people. This cannot abide.

I search the cabinets. No airfreshner. Damn. We do have about a gallon of disinfectant, which I use liberally until the thing is virtually gone. The smell is still detectable. This cannot abide.

I make a run to the store for scented candles. The house now has a lovely smell of melons and vanilla cookies. On the way back into the apartment, the cat shows up, meowing at me. Deep pleading black kitty meows. He runs to the door before me, and meows at the door. I look at him and I tell him, "No you little black bastard. You shit on my carpet. People who shit on my carpet don't get to come back."

"MMMMMMRRRRREEEEOOOOOWWW"

"Dammit you little s.o.b, no!" In retrospect, I realize we have "african american" neighbors across the hallway, and directly above me. I hope they a) didn't hear me, or b) realized I was talking to this devil cat.

I open the door, and the cat bolts in. I drop my bag of candles, hurdle the couch, and the amplifier, descend on the cat like a carrion feeder, and scoop him out. The cat meows out this bassy "ah man, c'mon!" kind of meow, and I keep telling him what a bastard he is. I drop him outside, and I can still hear his bass meows.

I guess the moral of the story here, well, there's an obvious one that sounds sort of naughty, but this is a family place! C'mon! The moral of the story that we're going with is, "don't be stuck alone in a house with a crappy kitty."