F#ck Off, Cat!

I was a dog person, not a cat person.

I had always been a dog guy my whole life, so I was a little disjointed when the feral black cat sauntered out of the alley by my apartment building that morning and just glanced at me with a saucy look on her face and then began leading me towards the entrance to the downtown 6 train. I knew where I was going. I grew up here, for fuck sake. What am I, some God damned tourist? I don’t need your help. Fuck off, Cat! You’re lucky if I don’t kick you out into traffic. I know how to get to the fuckin’ subway. Back off.

She didn’t back off. I actually tried to kick her as we descended the steps down to the subway platform but she was too quick. She just skirted down a few steps and then gave me a funny look, like “Why are you being such an asshole?” She wasn’t wrong. I was definitely acting like a complete and total cunt that morning, even by New York City standards. I had things on my mind and problems to deal with and I didn’t need some fucking new feline companion to accompany me. But that’s what I got. Sometimes life delivers unexpected surprises. I should have brought my gun.

She followed me through the turnstile and boarded the train when I did and then she insisted on sitting on my lap. I wanted to hit her right in the face, real hard, but there were other people there on the train so I just shoved her off me and she stayed down by my feet, humming softly every so often. I kind of felt ashamed. She wasn’t a bad cat. The ride out to Brighton Beach took almost an hour.

I owed money. I owed money to people who you really don’t want to owe money to, and I didn’t have that money. In truth, my little brother Nikola owed that money but when he got sent up to prison in Elmira last month on a Class A-1 felony trafficking charge it suddenly became my debt. Not exactly fair, but neither is life.

Dimitri was with one of the Russian outfits from Little Odessa out there in Brighton Beach. Not that high up, but high enough that he could have someone stuff my dead body into a dumpster and no one would say one fucking thing about it, including the cops. I wasn’t exactly relaxed sitting there in his living room, with two of his guys who spoke no English - Viktor and Anatoli - staring at me with stone flat faces. I tried to break the tension a little.

“Mne zhal'. Moy russkiy ne ochen' khorosh. Ya ne nastol'ko umen.”

No one laughed. We Russians aren’t really known for our sense of humor. Not sure what I was thinking there. Dimitri reached into a drawer in the coffee table before him and withdrew a Walther PPK .380 pistol and set it on his thigh like it wasn’t even there. Russians are very adept at non-verbal threats. We know how to make a point.

He nodded and looked at me with those dead black shark eyes. “So you have come to pay me my money then?” He lifted his chin. “All of my money, yes?”

The little black cat down by my feet, perched like the Champawat tigress ready to pounce, let out a tiny roar. There was something about it. 

Dimitri looked down at her and leaned back on the couch a bit. “I eto tvoy kot?” (And this is your cat?)

“Nyet”, I replied, holding out my palms and shaking my head, not knowing what else to do really. I guess she was becoming my cat though, like it or not. She was a pretty cool cat. I was definitely starting to like her. Fuck me. I was gonna die and my cat was prolly gonna die too. Why didn’t I bring my fucking gun?

She was quick though. Dimitri reached for that pistol and the cat did two things.

First, she leapt onto his lap, clawing at his hand and kicking the Walther PPK right at my feet. The second thing she did was to go full fucking berserk-ass crazy with her claws and teeth on Dimitri’s face and neck. It was a sight to behold. It was fast and it was nasty.

This mayhem created a sufficient temporary distraction for me to pick up the gun and drop Viktor and Anatoli with a few shots to each of their chests. Then my cat jumped off of Dimitri, who was basically blind now, and I put two rounds in his forehead, instantly painting the white wall just behind the couch in a twisted red rictus.

Fuck that guy and fuck that bullshit debt. I didn't deserve to die for that. That wasn’t my debt but that also wasn’t my gun. Sometimes things just fall your way. Sometimes the cards are kind to you. I took that Walther PPK with me when I left but fortunately I didn’t need it to get out of the neighborhood, so I dropped it into the sewer just before me and my cat got on the subway back to the Upper East Side.

I really didn’t want to do this. That Walther had those CT laser grips and you just had to squeeze a little bit to put that sharp infrared beam on your target, but I wasn’t planning to walk around with a gun that had three bodies on it. I might have been born at night but it wasn’t last night, for fuck sake. Besides, I had another gun at home. A clean gun.

I was a cat person now. Me and my cat stopped off at the corner market on the way home to get some cat food and some canned tuna and some milk. I named her Lucyfur and I love her dearly. We sleep together in a warm embrace every night. I will never curse at her or try to kick her ever again. (Sorry, Lulu. You know I love you! Ready for din-din? Come on. Follow me...) 

Don't ever try to kick my cat.

THE END