Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Spare me the crude contractions. This is not an episode of Jersey Shore.

I gaze out on mud-edged work boots.

“Good,” says Mr. Hearing Things. “I will leave a note under the old lady’s pillow. That ought to put a wasp in her—”

No lady will be the object of crude language when Midnight Louie is around. I strike like a snake, a shiv finding the sweet spot between the ankle-boot top and the wrinkled jeans bottom as the creep bends to place his latest poison pen note under Miss Mira’s pillow.

“Ow!” he yells, straightening up in a hurry.

“What is the matter now?”

“A wasp stung me.”

“Get real.”

“No. Look. My leg is all red in this spot. It is bleeding.”

“I am not looking at your bleeding ankles. Maybe you got an allergy. Leave the note and I will do something nasty with a butcher knife and whatever is in the meat drawer in the kitchen on the way out.”

“It is not just the two chicks now. They have visitors.”

“So. We back off because of ‘visitors’? We been hired—”

I wince again. As grammar goes so arrives the coarseness of modern life.

“—to terrify and that is what we do best. That dude is the woman’s son. I bet if we got a hold of him we could get her to come across.”

“I would rather kidnap the little redheaded chick. Less trouble and more fun.”

Their footsteps thud out the door and into the living room, then soon stomp onto the kitchen tiles like jackhammers.

I rocket out after them, intending to do massively more epidermal damage with my own butcher knives. Well, X-acto knives on steroids.

I run right into the open maw … of the leopard-print carrier, which a rude boot kicks shut on me before I can turn around in the canvas tunnel.

“I told you I heard something in the bedroom,” says one. A boot kicks in at me. “Wasp. I was right. Kiss your kisser good-bye, puddytat.”

Light returns to the tunnel as the boot draws back for a kick. I gather into a crouch. Luckily, Miss Temple has chosen a commodious carrier, I am planning to land atop the boot, sink in my staples, and ride it out of captivity. Of course, I may be flung spine-first into a wall, but I also plan to use the Mr. Max Kinsella survival strategy and go as limp as a kitten before I hit.

I admit I am being a trifle optimistic about my survival chances here.

“Hold it,” the other guy says, kicking my assailant’s boot aside. He bends to zip the lip of the carrier shut.