Hit Me Again, Bob

T/W: Aunt Jemima used as a seductive pancake maker. A song from 1893 by Henry Miller is quoted. Both of these are found in the free use policy of international satire law. There's also some religious language. Don't read this if you go to a non-denominational church.

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You know when the judge gives you three to five …

Hours 

of community service

He's not asking you to train for a new profession. I throw my shovel down and tell big David Bagelwood that he needs to take care of the carcass himself. My name is not Animal Control.

My name is Tommy and I was caught scuba diving without a license.

Dave's one of those guys that probably didn't finish high school and gets all mad when I use big words like "castigation." As in "I don't need your castigation!"

He has that befuddled look, like Elmer fudd just had a baby – it grew up all big and strong and wears reflective neon vest all day with the undesirables of a small town. He doesn't even supervise a serial killer. His life sucks. 

Me? Man, I scrape barnacles off of the bottom of yachts for a hundred bucks a foot. I'm such a good barnacle Man that rich people from Puerto Vallarta are always asking me to get on their boat and to drink their martinis. Half of the old men want me to give their wives a little attention.. I could have seaweed in my hair and they still find me beautiful. 

"You need to pick up that dead cat, Thomas."

David's not listening. I'm trying to tell him that the sea, the ocean, the beautiful Pacific wants me to come home. My body is not intended for Highway 1. It's all gravelly and people go by way too fast and they don't even say hello and wish you a good day. Instead, they just hit black cats on black roads and pretend nothing happened.

They've lost all their hearts and their souls. David doesn't get it. He's the kind of guy that still balances his checkbook instead of going into stores with credit cards so that you can have emotional purchases. He's one of those kinda fellas that counts how many beers he's allowed to have that week. This should be a no count. Life is not based on accounting. He is way too accountable.

I go over to the side of the road and show them how to become more spiritual in their quest for leading the best life they can lead. I throw up a little dirt from the road's shoulder. "You see? Do you see? This it's important!"

The soil at the side of the shoulder is mostly Monterey sand, mixed with some 30 weight oil from the last rain, it is like industrial pollution that doesn't know its pollution. I walk over to the ice plants that are waiting for us to leave so that they can bloom. I pull up the skirt of one of the ice plants and get on my knees. Dig down just a few inches and I have… terra firma. The uterus of Mother Earth.

"YEAH. Right there, baby."

It takes just a few handfuls of the organic, wormy, luscious material that sustains life. The soil is moist like cake batter. The love child of Dunkin Heinz and Aunt Jemima. " Smell the sustenance…"

I don't care if David Bagabomb thinks I use big words. He can't help but Chant a little prayer and sprinkle the Earth's goodness over the smashed corpse of the black cat. 

"Ashes to ashes…."

And the community service people say:

 "... dust to dust."

That's right. My little students of creature spirituality. We are simultaneously solidifying the cat guts while giving it the proper coverage to avoid the smells. There is also some religious significance because… because…. I don't like to burn bodies.

Let's face it, they stink.

It's better to dig a little hole and get a few rocks. If David personally knew this cat that was located between Lightfighter and Del Monte exits on the southbound side of the 1 — then he could say a few words of beauty. It's cool. We all need to grieve in our own personal way.

I bow my head to read the diver's watch. I expected we should be able to have a good 30 minutes of retrospect in the cat's honor. Then I point to the horizon which is called Message Mountain. It's really just a sand dune where people get all sweaty and hike up there and make messages with shells and rocks and stuff. 

"Look, it's a sign." I have to point.

Someone had replaced the message from 3 days ago that read GOD LOVES YOU to now read BOB LOVES YOU and it was unmistakable that we should call the daily departed "Bob." Bob-cat. Yeah. That was nice.

(I assumed it was a boy cat but did not have the proper osteological training to check).

"We need to lay Bob to rest."

Dick, I mean David, started to grumble..

He releases one of his belt notches and starts to relax as I put the other dozen community service captives to work, preparing the grave site, taking wildflowers, and three of the men could actually sing in acapella. 

There are people parking on the side of the highway, feeling a sense of community belonging. We are going to get rid of this cat together, with all ceremony and proper tooling. The sky…the sky is an intense form of Jasmine that sharply contrasts to the white peaks of the waves. If everyone would just stop using the highway we could hear the Earth abate, feel the lull of the seagulls dripping from the clouds in glide, inhale the subtle beauty of crabs that want to embrace other crabs.

We only have the little crabs called hermits here. So you have to really look good and sometimes with binoculars.

Nature is overwhelming. Consider the porcupine that finds a mate. Even snaggletooth David Back-kicker has got to have some diseased toothless slightly human entity, waiting at home for him to share a TV dinner. The fact that ugly people still exist proves that Darwin was wrong.

"Let us sing."

A guy named Jabar stars his fingers in a snap, "The cat came back…"

THE VERY next day….

"We thought he was a goner but…"

THE CAT CAME BACk the very next day.

Someone hit the bass notes:

 (It just couldn't stay away~)

Yeah. I lifted the corpse on the end of a ceremonial shovel. Bob sort of waved to the crowd as I jiggled him a little. Jabar kept the people going on the next verse and I slowly paced over to the hole. 

It was actually a lazy man's hole, not even three feet deep. David probably told one of the grave diggers that they were supposed to be picking up trash instead of being sanctimonious. (He doesn't know that word. We can speak in code like that). 

I didn't want to stop the amazing presence of the people, the hope and joy we all shared in a cat exploring eight more of its lives… the next day. There were many of us that did believe

…But David said it was all snot. He blew his nose onto his shirt sleeve. He said that as soon as he washed his shirt it was all gone

"Just like that cat."

Children cuddled into their mother on the side of the road screaming, "Mommy, say it isn't true." A mother with a polka dotted dress crossed her legs to barely move because the Sea breeze did not want to give us a show — she patted the child's head, adjusted the bangs because she deeply wanted to brush the girl's hair in public and said, "Everyone knows that cats are immortal, honey"

Kachink.

One more faith-based soul coin for Santa Claus. David is the killer of dreams. He writes bad poetry. The man could not get a date at a slave auction. He is artless. And he parts his hair in the middle because he's also indecisive.

I almost dropped the cat as I wanted to run over to the small child, grasp her or her mother, perhaps one at a time, and let them know that BOB would always be with us. He had given his life so that people could drive over 65.

But I didn't drop the cat! That would be some amateur crap and I am a professional. I could simultaneously look at my dive watch and gently place the kitty cat into the dark hole at an angle where no one realized I let the body fall for the last foot.

Da thump.

It was very important for the children to know that we honor our dead. David wants to stop the covering portion of the ceremony so he can check the neck of the daily Departed to see if it had a City license. He says he's looking for and identifying phone number but I know that he just wants to see if there's a City license. The man is paid by peanuts with his large elephant hide, he seeks to profit the city at every catastrophe, he will grind up your grave goods and use them as city mulch. We are so small of a town that David Bendmeover actually tows cars when they are left in front of the garage/home of the town's only mechanic.

We get it. He tells his mother that he works with consistency and devotion, he wears the hats of the Park and recreation, the tow man, and community service supervisor. The fact is, the more people that the judge sends to community service is the less amount of trash that David has to pick up himself.

I'm not saying they're lovers.

I'm not even saying it's a loop system because David is smoking cigarettes and not putting them in his pocket when he's done. It's like he's trying to avoid obsolescence. 

It turns out that the polka dotted dress mother is a actual pastor. She's already stepped into the whole crossing over event with her children and now they are looking at her to bless the grave sites and the soul. I step back away from the hole and mumble with the rest: "the cat came back .."

It's kind of like a Jesus song if you think about it. I know, I know, resuscitation versus resurrection. 'it is given to man to die but once' and yet Jesus and the cats have to carry on.

The pretty little religious mother is giving some psalm from the old book. I am thinking about the term "going Old Testament" on David, who doesn't even bow his head. He doesn't even realize that the community is coming together at that moment because he found a cat.

He's actually the reason our people are one. Kinda like Satan brings us all together for holoween, San Francisco orgies and tax day. It's like we need a really disgusting villain to remind us of a hero like Bob. 

What a cat.

I declare to my inner self that I will purchase a pet after my next round of illegal barnacle scuba diving. I'm not going to be cheap and just bring home a barnacle and put it in some water. I'm not going to steal a fish from its ocean domain. Those tanks are expensive.

But everybody needs somebody. Bob is probably over on the other side of the dune waiting for us all to leave so he can come back and enjoy his eight lives. Myself? I'm drifting toward the hamster camp, the illusion of life is a slim wheel, the unmistakable futility and yet the beating heart continues to require its paces. Hamsters are cool.

If it doesn't work out I could always feed a stray cat. There is hope and valor in these undertakings. We must not be afraid to give a little bit of ourselves to one another. I dropped the reflective vest and creeped closer to the polka dotted pastor.

She's really long-winded in her sermons. I like that. The sea never talks back to me when I'm deep underneath her, I am surrounded by her folds of kelp and algies. She can be yelling at sailors above the water line but I hear nothing. 

I am abath, spremchto-cocha-chaut in her mingling. The pep tides and the Uncle moon are all fassimical dandanertons, completely untamed like ptolomalogical scabies.

Don't share wetsuits, by the way. Unless it's with someone you love.

Pastor Polka Dot is bringing her good book down to her waist in relaxed arms that have done their duty. Her children go back to the car as a group of mourners make a line to hug the pastor personally. It is our way.

Just as Dave gets close to that sexy beautiful pastor lady… I jam a big finger at my dive watch that shows my labor is done. 

"Get back to work!"

There is silence.

I stepped closer to the pastor lady, tell her that Dave and his honchos are supposed to be public SER-VAnTs. 

She licks her lips.

There's a strong wind kicking up and I suppose that she forgot her Carmex. I mean what kind of mom drives around without lip balm? I take a step back and she drops the Bible to only one hand on her left side

She says, "You know…I'm part of a non-denominational assembly. We take just about anyone."

I am sorely afraid. What kind of people go around not being denominated? That's some pretty scary crap… I mean, who's going to tell them that they're doing it wrong? Other non denominators?

She is so persistent that I don't even realize as I take another step back and fall into the hole of Bob.

::Snap::

We say a bad word together…it was not pre-planned or intentional it just came out in our passions. She puts a good book on the sand and waves her fingers like the nail polish is not yet dried. Wondering about her lustfull missionary style –

David yells back that he's not using a city van to bring me to the hospital. 

I am cold and lie back. The pastor lady promises to call an ambulance as she quickly leaves the scene. 

I'm lying there thinking about how lonely it is at the bottom of the sea. Then I swear I feel the small bite marks on my ankle…

Bob is saying that the good work is never done. I trust in his smashed and decomposing cat body to tell me the truth. He is a miracle.

Every life that doesn't die is a miracle.

Embrace 

And

Shovel.