. I got there late on in 2003. In court they would say the trailer was a “flop house for low lifes.” A flop house. And that’s what I saw when I jumped up onto the windowsill, a bunch of people flopped down low on the floor. I could just about see Butsch through the blue smoke hanging above them and around them. I mewled piteously and something, someone, stirred. It was a woman, dirty and shaggy. Her hair matted on her head and down over her eyes.
“It’s a pussycat!” she squealed in delight. She looked like a little girl. Nobody else moved. No-one looked up. I wondered if they were all dead. I wondered if my job had been done for me. She creaked open the window and lifted me up under my belly and through to inside. I gagged on the smoke.
A voice from the floor said what you doing Deanne? I couldn’t see who it belonged to, but it wasn’t Butsch.
There’s a little cat, she told him. She chucked me under my chin so that I half-closed my eyes without meaning too, lost in the ecstasy of the moment. I purred and she stroked. This went on for some time. People were snoring. There was a man asleep in a folding chair. Eventually she pushed me from her knee, and went into the kitchen to fix herself a sandwich. She brought out some meat for me, some old chicken. I swallowed it down and mewed for more. They all laughed.
Time went on. People in the trailer fed me, and if they forgot I went out myself and took a rat or a bird or whatever I could find skittering around in the garbage. I needed to get Butsch alone, but he never seemed to be alone. There was always someone with him, asking questions, handing over money, whispering with their heads bent low. Then at the end of one day, a hot day, I caught him. He’d come to sit out back, in the cool of the evening. I curled around his legs and miaowed my sweetest miaows. He kicked at me, trying to shoo me, but he didn’t want to hurt me. He was scared to see me. I reminded him of his crime.
“Clayton,” I said, “it is I, Samysarach. Are you surprised to see me? Didn’t you know I would find you?”
Butsch dropped his beer in his lap. He looked at the cigarette in his hand. It was badly rolled and smelled of earth. He stood up and turned around, brushing at his jeans. Then he brushed the chair, shaking his head. Drops of beer pattered to the ground. He scratched at the back of his neck and took another pull on his cigarette.
“I am speaking to you Clayton Butsch,” I said, growing myself larger. “Speak to me. Where is my mistress?”
Butsch was folding up the chair. He threw it down. He ran back inside the trailer, banging the door behind him leaving the screen flapping uselessly off its hinges. I was grown as large as a lion. I put my paws up onto the window sill.
“Let me in Clayton,” I growled, “let me in. I have chosen you to speak to. Answer me, where is my mistress?”
Butsch walked up to window and regarded me. Then he took another long pull on his cigarette and said, she’s dead, Sam, died three years ago with a needle jammed in her arm. His words were brave enough but there was a break in his voice. His fingers shook around his cigarette and ash fell onto his shirt.
“I have come to kill you,” I said. “Do you understand? I have come to take your life to avenge mine and now hers.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “no, no…” I had grown to my largest size, filling the yard. I hooked a claw around the window frame. He was terrified. I roared at the glass and it shook. I was no longer a skinny kitten. I was an avenging angel. Butsch reached forward, quivering. He undid the window latch. I shrunk down small in the blink of his eyes and slipped inside.
“Bring me Vavricka,” I said, padding towards him. “Bring me Vavricka and I will spare you.”
Butsch was backed up against his refrigerator. He slid slowly down to the floor.
“Aw, hell Sam, I don’t even know
Chad any more. I ain’t seen him in over three years...”
“Find him,” I said, “Find
Chad Vavricka and bring him to me. I will be revenged.”
Then I curled up small like only cats can, curled up small on his heaving chest and slept.
* * *
The first time I met them was ten years ago. They’d been paid to scare the shit out of some woman. Some woman, my mistress. How could I protect her? I was but a kitten. As they came through the door Vavricka’s boot found my belly and threw me up against the door jamb. We screamed together, my mistress and
I.
“Leave him alone!” she howled, as Butsch kicked her down next to me. “He’s only a baby, he’s only three months old.”
Vavricka got me up by my scruff and laughed at my furious roaring. To him it was nothing but tiny kitten cries. I scratched and spat and hissed and raged. The men threw me between them until Butsch said:
“This is what we’re going to do to you sister, if you take the stand. We’re gonna do it to your pusscat, then to your kids, then to your ma and then to you…”
I was twisting around in the air, trying to get back to her. Butsch’s hands were around me, hot and tight. He swung open the oven door and pushed me inside, wriggling and squirming, into the grease of the roasting pan. I heard the click click click, then the whooommph of the gas. This was my First death. The last thing I saw was my mistress, curled up on the floor and their boots – their boots smashing into her, again and again and again.
* * *
It took over a year. But we found Vavricka and brought him in. Deanna did it, in the end. Butsch paid her fifty dollars.
“Once we get him here,” he whispered in my ear, “once we get him here Sam, we’ve got him for good. No-one leaves my gang. We can do what we like with him.”
I had been elevated to the status of the most important in the house. No-one kicked me or pinched me. No-one pulled my tail. When they called out for pizza they would feed me strings of cheese and pieces of hot pepperoni. When they called out for fried chicken I would get the first piece. I was king of the trailer. Butsch believed he could keep his death at arm’s length if he kept me close and happy. I purred up at him and let him believe it.
Whenever Vavricka came round, I would hiss and spit. If he tried to pet me I would claw at him and move to the furthest corner of the room. Deanna thought it was funny. Sam sure hates
Chad, she would say, they musta met in a past life or something. That cat don’t hate no-one but he sure hates
Chad. Then she would laugh.
I waited out my time, I waited for the right time. Someone brought a gun into the trailer. I licked it and nuzzled it, running my rough tongue over the cool metal. Butsch shooed me away from him and told me to git. Later he apologized, crooning to me. It’s just dangerous to be near a gun Sammy, it’s just real dangerous. He knew how much I wanted him to have an accident. That’s why he was scared.
In the middle of the next week there was a party. There was a lot of beer and a lot of smoke. There were needles and pills and powder and small dried mushrooms. Deanna and Vavricka argued. No-one likes you Chad, she screamed, even the cat don’t like you, you might as well hang yourself, we hate you, you ain’t nothing but a bum. She slammed the door on the way out. Everybody laughed.
Chad sat down on the folding chair and drank another beer.
When Butsch went to pass him a cigarette he was asleep. I slunk over and whispered, “you could kill him now, Clayton.” I’d never called him by his first name before. “Kill him now, use the gun. He’s sleeping, he’ll never know.” Vavricka jerked in his sleep, kicking out his leg. It caught me on the tail and I yelped. People laughed, people were laughing. Isn’t it so funny how that cat hates
Chad, they said. Don’t it make you howl? Butsch was getting up, going to get the gun. No-one stopped him. Everyone was laughing.
Butsch leveled the gun at Vavricka’s head. No-one really thought he would do it. No-one thought he would shoot a man just because his cat didn’t like the guy. But he did. The shot rang out, banging from the walls of the trailer. There was a silence. Vavricka, shocked awake, leapt from the chair. Butsch shot him again, reflex action. Some of the blood and the brain spattered onto me, into my mouth. I licked at it. Vavricka had fallen back down heavily into the chair. His face was shot away. I didn’t notice the people fleeing. Neither did Butsch. The police will come for you, I said, the cops will be after you Clayton Butsch. You killed your friend. Better shoot yourself if you don’t want to go to jail. Butsch was crying. I leapt up into the folding chair and ate a few pieces of flesh. He tasted good.
Sweet, like revenge.