AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MANGY BLACK CAT THAT STALKS OUTSIDE MY APARTMENT BUILDING

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(Wrote and posted this yesterday in another forum. Perhaps it's a little solipsistic, but I enjoy it. So should you. Really.)

Oh, little black cat. I don't know your name, so I'll just call you Bitey McScratchesme. I think that's fitting considering the time we've shared together.

I remember the first day I saw you. It was last May; I was coming home from work, you had just finished lying in your own piss and licking it off. It was a magical moment, you were cute - even for a cat - and though I wouldn't say that my heart melted I will admit I didn't want to kill you right away. You meowed, I felt sorry for you, so I let you sniff my fingers and then walk between my legs, rubbing your excrement-heavy fur on my jeans. You seemed well enough adjusted, and for a moment I thought that perhaps my feline hatred had been misplaced.

If you'll recall, this was the moment you took a swipe at my balls with your left paw.

No blood was drawn, but your aim was so deft, your movements so true, that you not only managed to produce a mark on my scrotum that has yet to diminish over a year later, but also to rake across one of only three existing hair follicles that exist in that region, leaving me in searing pain not only at that moment but just minutes later when I was forced to apply the Bactene. I don't think I have to tell you, Bitey, that this was unpleasant. I wonder where your head was at in those moments I was only showing you compassion. I can only apologize to you if, on that cool Spring Eve, my crotch smelled to you like your mortal enemy.

But that was merely the first of our ecounters, Bitey. Bite me once, shame one you; bite me twice...well...really shame the f*ck on you. But also shame on myself, for I would not have learned a lesson. I avoided you like the black plague that you are for months, hissing you away from my apartment steps and charging like a madman so that you'd quickly retreat to your roost atop my neighbor's VW Thing. You sit there on a throne of lies, Bitey, feigning for all your subjects that you rule on high with class and dignity. You are nothing but a fascist. When you look at me I know what you're thinking. I have seen it, and it is bad. Because I know; I know that you are a genocidal maniac, Hell-bent on taking out every resident of the quiet, peaceful Pico/Robertson district.

When I tell my friends about you I blow you off with fake bravado, dismissing you as nothing more than "some stupid cat". If they only knew the depths of our conflict. Do you think anyone would believe me if I told them about the time you pushed me into the street in front of that cab full of transvestites? No, Bitey, for ours is a private struggle. And yet we've never spoken word one to each other. My logical mind tells me that I should know thee as just a cat, just fur, piss and vinegar waiting to have your massive ego stroked by a lonely woman or the right gay man. My logical mind tells me you can't possibly engage in the kind of psychological warfare I sometimes catch you in the midst of. But at other times I allow myself to imagine us meeting somewhere on a field of battle. You speak in the dignified accent of British noblitiy and offer me a Cuban cigar; I pretend to accept and then beat you senseless with a small hammer when you're not looking. That would be a glorious day, Baron von Kitty Kat. A glorious day indeed.

Even as I write this I feel your eyes on me, but where there was once fear there is now resolve, and I've taken to thinking not about how I shall dodge your aggressive advances later this afternoon, but rather about the popping noises your lean corpse will make as you cook via radiation in my brand new, cat-sized microwave.

You may have constructed the gauntlet, Cat, but only I will see through it to the end. If you're lucky, I'll give you the respect of placing your head on a Pig Pole at the exit.

Goose