I commute. I’m one of those people. I drive thirty-eight miles to work every day. I’m a banker, a manager at that. Now don’t you think for one minute that eludes to occupational grandeur. I can tell you it doesn’t. There is no such thing as banker’s hours. I wake up at 6 am to multiple alarm clocks. I’m lucky that any one of the four wake me up at all. My days are long, my branch doesn’t close it’s doors until seven p.m. By the time I’m walking out, clicking my heels on the asphalt it’s nearly seven-thirty and I still have my thirty-eight mile commute to endure. Sometimes it’s lonely, sometimes it’s my sanctuary. Tonight, it was boredom.
I pulled into my driveway around eight-fifteen, gathered my things and stammered into my house. My husband was in the shower, but the cat greeted me kindly with her broken sounding meow. I reached into my pocket to remove my phone and noticed I had a missed call. It was from my friend and fellow banker, Courtney.
Let me tell you a little something about Court. She’s about as misanthropic and sarcastic as any seasoned banker can get. Her wit and cynicism are one of the few things that get me through my day. As you can imagine, I look forward to my conversations and interactions with Courtney. I dialed my voicemail and took a listen.
“Kate, I have the funniest story to tell you about a devil cat. Like seriously, you will probably need a diaper when I tell you, it’s that funny.”
My reaction to this was a giggle and smirk. Curiosity spiked, I dialed her number.
“Kate, oh my God. I have the craziest story to tell you.”
She begins to tell me about an incident her husband Pete had the night before with an apparently feral cat. For several nights prior, Courtney and Pete had been hearing strange noises at their front door.
“Kate seriously, it’s like the sounds you hear when a serial killer is trying to break into your house in a horror movie.”
Courtney was terrified. In the morning, when they woke up Peter checked the door and discovered gashes and claw marks embedded in the soft wood. The weather stripping had been riped from the threshold of the door and the entire front porch reeked of urine. They assumed it had been some sort of animal but couldn’t understand why it was so determined to get through their front door.
The next night, the noises suddenly started again. Peter reluctantly stood from the spot where he’d been resting with their two small puppies on the couch and crept slowly to their front door. After a deep breath, he rotated the knob and slowly pulled the door open. In a flash, an unknown Siamese cat darts through the open doorway, through their living room and down their hallway, all while emitting a high pitched screech that in no way resembled a meow.
Quickly, they herd the puppies into their kennel and pursue the rogue Siamese. Laps and laps Peter runs, following the cat as it darts and jumps like an anxious flea. The cat was not about to be captured. Befuddled and out of breath Peter digs his aerosoft gun out of the closet.
“Kate, we had to scare the shit out of that thing to get it out of our house! It was crazy, like seriously rabid or something.”
Peter thinks shooting it once should do the trick. Scare it off. Remove it from the property. The gun fires and the shot hits it square in the rear. The Siamese scowls and runs back toward him and out the front door which is quickly slammed shut by Courtney from the inside. Now Pete is stuck on the front porch with the cat, which has chosen to interpret the shot in the ass as a sign of affection. It inches closer, howling and screeching at Peter. He fires again, and again. Four, five, six shots and now the cat is his best friend, winding and figure eighting his legs. About ready to collapse from exhaustion and frustration he reaches for the closest thing to him, a broom. He begins to yell and swat at it as their neighbors emerge from an adjoining apartment, laughing at his terrible misfortune. Swat after swat, nothing happens. The cat simply plops down ready to endure any sort of punishment.
“It was insane! The thing just rolled over belly up like he was expecting to be pet! He’d been wrestling with the thing for almost an hour!”
As he screams at the Siamese an old women suddenly appears on the balcony opposite their apartment. She yells out, “Is there a Siamese over there?”.
Pete scurries to hide the gun before replying, ditching it in a bag of charcoal on the front porch. The old woman proceeds to tell him that she’s been looking for her cat for days and that he goes crazy when he gets outside. This is an obvious understatement.
“Kate, the old lady came over and got the stupid cat. She told us that her son was moving out and it got outside. The cat apparently gets really confused when it gets outside. Yeah, obviously confused isn’t the right word. That cat is straight bat shit crazy. So yeah, it’s gone. She took Crazy home with her and we were like, yes, finally! So the next night….”
Courtney was just getting home from work and she drops her keys under the seat of her truck. The dark of the cold, damp February night was making it nearly impossible to rescue the keys from the prison of the floorboard. She notices a familiar sound that sends chills down her back. She begins to quicken her pace, cramming her chilly arm under the seat, feeling around until her fingertips barely graze the cool metal of her keys. All belongings in hand, she secures her truck and makes her way toward the stairs. A shadowy figure is poised and waiting.
“MEEEEEOOORAWWWWWLLLLLAAARRRREEEEEOOOOOWWW!”
She screams and throws her purse at the cat. She makes a run for it, jumping the beast with olympic fervor. She slams her body into the door, swinging her arms and grabbing for the knob. It turns and she falls into the apartment with the momentum of the opening door. She slams it shut with her back. Face white with terror she slides down the door until she’s suddenly resting on the carpet.
Peter looks at her with horror.
“Kate it was back and it was waiting for me! Devil cat was waiting for me.”
It scratches and claws at the door like a zombie thirsty for brains. They huddle together on the couch and turn the volume of the television high enough to almost drown out the incessant howling. Not knowing what to do, they decide to wait it out. Sleep comes, then morning and the Siamese is gone again.
“Now I’m afraid. I’m like living in fear of this effing cat. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with it, but it won’t leave us alone. It’s like we have a stalker only the stalker is a crazy ass cat.”
Courtney told me the story quite seriously although I couldn’t stop myself from belting a row of laughter so intense I nearly gave myself an asthma attack. The whole time she’s going on about Devil Cat, my own little kitty is sitting in my lap nicely, purr purring away and I think to myself, “I’m glad you’re not that crazy kitty.”.
Is there an end to this story? Right now, I’m leaving it open ended. Any revision to this story would only make it more glorious. Although, I’m pretty sure that Courtney and Peter would disagree with that statement. All I’m going to say as I wrap this up is this: That phone call sure beat the shit out of Heroes Monday night. =P
