MY CAT SMASHING MOJO

I have a mortal enemy. His name is Jabar.

Jabar is a cat.

Is that lame—to have a cat as a mortal enemy? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. If I were you though, I wouldn’t rush to judgment. You don't know this cat. This cat is evil. He's cunning, he's focused and nasty and vile and just plain mean.

He’s smart too.

He’s real smart.

He’s so smart he’ll write your midterm, and he’ll get a better grade than you ever would have.

He's my Lex Luthor.

Of course, if he's Lex Luthor, that would make me Superman, and I can’t be Superman. I hate that goody two-shoes jerk. Plus, I look terrible in red speedos.

Okay, this cat is my Joker. Which makes me Batman.

Yeah, I can deal with being Batman. Not the corny seventies Batman, but cool, pissed-off Frank-Miller-Dark-Knight-Returns Batman. I’ll be the Batman who chews steel, spits iron, and calls Robin a fruitcake.

That Batman’s awesome.

You see, not long after purchasing and moving into our first home, the wife and I had a cat door installed in the door leading into our garage. We then had another installed in the side door leading from the garage to the back yard. This was so our two cats could come and go as they pleased. It was simple. It was cheap, and at the time, it seemed to make perfect sense.

The thing we never counted on was that, while the doors gave our cats the ability to get out, they also presented other cats in the neighborhood with a way to get in.

It really should have been obvious from the start, but it wasn’t.

Okay, so maybe I'm not exactly Batman.

I mean, besides being a hell of a hand-to-hand fighter, a billionaire playboy, and a heck of a detective, Batman was also a scientist. A scientist would have figured out the intricacies of the cat door situation long before installation began.

I first spotted him on a Tuesday morning. I was late to work. I hustled down the stairs and into the kitchen where I planned to snag my keys and head for the door.

He was right there, waiting for me.

There was a very fat cat with a big black spot over his right eye sitting on my kitchen counter. The chubby, eye-patched little bastard was squatting on my tiled countertops without a care in the world—like he owned the place.

Our eyes met and I swear to you, I saw him grin.

Before I could react, he leapt from the counter, shot through the cat door leading into the garage, zoomed through the one leading into the yard, and was gone.

Not only was he smart, he was fast—especially for a dude carrying a couple extra pounds.

Lets jump ahead to Wednesday night. I was awoken by the sound of two cats fighting downstairs. I figured it's just our two cats—because they’re jerks and they fight all the time—so I tried to go back to sleep. Plus, I was in the middle of  a fairly fantastic dream involving me, the Enterprise, and an invading horde of hypersexual Orion slave girls.

The fighting didn’t stop.

It wouldn’t stop, and it sounded a heck of a lot more vicious than usual.

I dragged myself from bed, wobbled downstairs half-awake, and clicked on the lights. It was Jabar. He was in my house, and he was beating the snot out of my cats. The black-eyed devil spotted me and escaped in a blink.

The next night, the exact same thing happened.

The night after that, he did it again.

He was toying with me.

The wife and I decided to temporarily close up the cat doors and bring a litter box into the equation. After a few weeks, we tried the cat doors again.

The very next night, Jabar was back.

Damn it!

I’d had enough. If Jabar’s intention was to start something, he should considered it started. It was on! I was done fooling around. I was done playing the straight man, and I was through playing nice. No more games. No more second chances. No more lollygagging, no more pigeonholing, and no more lollypigeons!

If he wanted some of me, he was going to get some of me. He was going to get all of me he could handle, and them some!

I coiled my hands into fists and slammed my knuckles together. I lifted my head to the stars and proclaimed to the heavens above, "Bring it on, bitch!”

The wife heard me from the other room. "Bring what on? Who are you talking to?"

"Nothing...no one."

It was a Monday night—around 11 p.m. I was in the garage, and I was standing to the side of the door leading into the backyard. My eyes were trained on the flapping plastic covering the cat door just below my knees. Hoisted above my head was a brick.

My plan was simple: Cat comes into garage. Cat gets smashed.

Almost elegant in its simplicity, no?

Sort of like a Peanuts comic strip—with bricks and squashed cats.

"Steven, are you in he—" The wife stepped into the garage and immediately spotted me with a brick over my head, a wild expression on my face, and sweat pouring from my brow.

She stared at me for a moment, an indescribable look of confusion on her face. "Steven, what are you doing?"

"Nothing."

Her eyes moved from me, to my smashing brick, and back to me. She wasn’t buying my nothing excuse. "No, seriously, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to crush Jabar with this brick."

"Who's Jabar?"

The cat that keeps coming in here at night."

"How do you know his name is Jabar?"

"I heard the little girls across the street calling him that when they were playing with him in their yard."

Her expression changed. Suddenly, she was looking at me like I’d just taken a dump on the floor—like I dropped my pants and started humping the punch bowl at her company Christmas party.

"So, wait. You're going to stand here in the garage all night so you can smash the cat of the little girls across the street with a brick when he tries to come in our house?"

When she said it aloud like that, I have to admit, it sounded just a little idiotic.

So what?

I couldn’t let that deter me. The plan was the plan, and the plan was set in motion. There was no coming back and no backing down. I had no intention of allowing her to steal my need for vengeance! Under no circumstances whatsoever was I going to let her ruin my cat-smashing mojo. Not today! Not ever again!

"Yep. That's exactly what I'm going to do."

"No, you're not."

"I'm not?"

"No, you're not."

"But I want to."

"You're not smashing that cat."

"Oh."

"Put the brick down and come upstairs."

You've won this round Jabar.

I'M SUPPOSED TO BE A LOGGER, I THINK

"Can we ride again?"

"No, sorry. You'll have to get back in line."

"But there's only like fifteen people in line! Come on, big guy. Let us go one more time. Be a pal. What’s it gonna hurt?"

"I'm, sorry. You'll have to get back in line."

“You know what? Fuck it. Fuck you too! This is so fucking stupid! There's no one in line and you're gonna make us get out and walk all the way around in order to ride again? Are you fucking nuts? Gimmie a break!"

"I'm sorry, sir."

"No you’re not. If you were sorry you’d just let us stay in the Goddamn boat! This is so stupid! It’s fucking insane! Come on kids, the asshole is going to make us get off and walk all the way around to get back on."

"I'm sorry I've set a bad example for your children."

"Excuse me?"

That was the sort of nonsense I had to deal with on a daily basis while gainfully employed as a ride operator at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois.

The ride I was assigned to was called, The Loggers Run. It was a water ride. Employees were required to call it by its technical name however: The Flumes. I’m still not entirely sure what the word flumes means, or where it comes from originally, and honestly I don’t even care enough to take thirty seconds and Google it. I can't think of one single instance in which I've had use for it outside of my time at Great America, anyway.

Not once. Not ever.

Maybe it would work in a foreplay situation? You know, something like; “Baby I'm gonna do you good with this here flume of mine.”

No? 

Yeah, probably not.

Flume isn’t a very a sexy word.

The word dong is sexier – and dong isn’t very sexy at all.

Anyway, every morning I was expected to arrive at Six Flags at least forty-five (unpaid) minutes early. I needed the extra time to make my way “backstage,” get to my locker, order up a fresh costume, get dressed and make my way to the opposite side of the park where my ride was.

The costume in question, for those of us lucky enough to be stationed on The Loggers Run, was basically a pair of jeans so crazily tight that they not only made even the simplest movements impossible, but also put the baby elephant trunk and marbles on display for anyone sneaking a glance.

I also had to slide into a brown shirt made of an odd feltly (which isn’t a word) material, with an oversized collar and a neckline that plunged so deep it exposed far more of my doughy, sporadically-haired chest area than anyone wanted exposed.

Don’t get me wrong, the shirt looked bonkers great on the female employees – so great it made wearing those tight jeans all the more difficult.

It might have even worked on a muscular dude.

I don’t make judgments.

Putting my man boobs on display was a terrible idea though. It’s always been a terrible idea and it’ll always be a terrible idea.

My moobs are like religious cults and the Kardashians.

The thing about working at Great America (and I imagine this the same at all theme parks) is that people in the park have paid large sums of money for their tickets, and because of that they seem to think they own the damn place.

Dropping fifty bucks doesn’t make you a king and it sure as shit doesn’t give you the right to act like an idiot. Sorry. It just doesn’t.

Dropping a thousand bucks doesn’t give you that right.

Dropping a million bucks might.

Let’s test it.

Someone drop me a million bucks and treat me like shit.

The question I was most commonly asked while working was, "Can we ride again?“

My answer was always, "No, I'm sorry, you'll have to get back in line."

The response to my no was usually something along the lines of, "That's a fucking stupid policy! Come on! Just let us ride again! It’s not gonna hurt anything! Don’t be such a little prick, you little prick fuck!"

Okay, maybe there wasn’t so many “pricks” or “fucks,” but you get my point.

This happened every day - for eleven hours a day – nonstop.

It was nauseating.

Working at Six Flags was a marathon. It required fortitude of will and an uncanny ability to keep my emotions at bay. I was constantly fighting the urge to grab every one of the ride again idiots by their shirt collars and scream in their faces, “I make seven dollars an hour! Seven measly dollars!”

I pictured myself squeezing their necks until their eyes bulged and their faces began to turn as purple and blue as the tip of a penis moments before release.

I imagined myself knocking them to the ground, lifting my boot and stomping it into their groin. “I don’t make decisions, you moron! I make seven dollars an hour to not make decisions! If I let you get on that boat, I get fired, and if I get fired I make zero dollars an hour!”

I wanted to wrap my fingers around their necks one more time, and squeeze until my knuckles turned white. I wanted to squeeze so hard their heads exploded and their brain matter fell from the heavens like rain.

It would have been so beautiful and freeing.

It would have been the end of The Shawshank Redemption brought to life in Gurnee, Illinois.

For example, take the conversation I was having with this large 240, 250lb guy at the beginning of this story. The guy's boat had just pulled into the station with himself, a woman I assumed was his wife, and his two kids sitting behind.

I had about ninety seconds once a boat pulled into the station, to get the old riders out and the new riders in before it cycled and was shot out of the loading area.

This guy was going to push that ninety seconds to the max.

"Can we ride again?"

"No, sorry. You'll have to get back in line."

"But there's only like fifteen people in line! Come on, big guy. Let us go one more time. Be a pal. What’s it gonna hurt?"

"I'm, sorry. You'll have to get back in line."

“You know what? Fuck it. Fuck you too! This is so fucking stupid! There's no one in line and you're gonna make us get out and walk all the way around in order to ride again? Are you fucking nuts? Gimmie a break!"

"I'm sorry, sir."

"No you’re not. If you were sorry you’d just let us stay in the Goddamn boat! This is so stupid! It’s fucking insane! Come on kids, the asshole is going to make us get off and walk all the way around to get back on."

"I'm sorry I've set a bad example for your children."

"Excuse me?"

I was being a smart ass. I knew I was doing it and I didn’t care. The end of my rope had been reached and it was slathered in grease. I was sick of climbing. I didn’t even want to hold on anymore. Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut, but it had been a particularly long and especially annoying day.

I blame the Warner Bros. Corporation more than myself on this one.

"What?"

"Did you just say that I'm setting a bad example for my children? Because I haven't done anything wrong here, you're the jackass who won't let my family ride again even though there’s no one in line!"

The guy’s kids and wife had already got out of the boat. They were heading for the exit to and yet this guy refused to move. He was sitting there, soaking wet, and arguing with a sixteen year-old kid about something the kid obviously had no control over.

His wife grabbed him by the arm. "Come on Fred. Just forget about it. Let's go." Fred shucked her away.

His face redder than the rear end of a well-spanked gimp, AngryFred slammed his hand on the front of the boat. "No! Who does this little prick think he is? I'm not forgetting about anything!"

His boat was rapidly nearing the halfway point. My supervisor noticed there was a problem and decided to intervene. "Is there a problem here, sir?"

"Yes there's a fucking problem! All my family and I wanted to do was ride again and this little dickface won't let us!”

Dickface?

I always thought I was more of a vagina face, myself.

“Plus he's giving me lip! This is what I paid good money for? Really?"

As Foul-MouthedFred screamed at my supervisor (who was seventeen years-old) I noticed that his boat was nearing the Critical Loading Point.

Ooh. Sounds dangerous, doesn’t it?

Basically, the Critical Loading Point was the spot at which we were no longer allowed to load guests on the boat because they might slip and fall, and possibly die.

Or worse, they might slip and fall, and possibly sue.

StubbornFred was intent on remaining exactly where he was. He wasn’t going anywhere. This was his battle for the day and damn it, he was going to win it!

He motioned for his kids to hop in the boat with him and barked, "Danny! Jessie! Get back in, we're going on again!"

His wife buried her head in her hands, grabbed the little girl (who I assume was Jessie) by her wrist and headed for the exit. Though he looked terrified, Danny hopped in the boat alongside his father moments before it left the loading station.

Fred assumed he’d won.  He believed he’d beaten the sixteen year-old punk with the smart mouth, and the sixteen year-old punk's seventeen year-old supervisor in their disgustingly low shirts and super-tight jeans.

He was proud. It was his greatest accomplishment. It was something to tell the boys at work about and it was going to make a bonkers-fantastic story at the next Bar-B-Queue.

He was excited and he was happy, he was laughing his ass off.

StupidFred leaned over and gave his son a pre-ride noogie. He pumped his fist and readied himself to get soaked again!

He was getting his fifty bucks worth! Rules and common sense, and basic human decency had been tossed out the window and he couldn’t have cared less!

This was the defining moment in Fred’s life - until I hit the ride stop button and a huge steel wall popped in front of his boat, anyway.

He wasn’t going anywhere.

Fred immediately turned to me. He leaned out of the boat, pointed a finger in my direction and screamed, "Fuck you! Fuck you, asshole!”

People are nuts.

It's as simple as that.

PARLAN NELLISON

I was at my very first comic book convention, I was twelve years old and I was nervous as hell.

The place was bigger than I expected it to be – filled with chubby, greasy-skinned nerds and even chubbier, greasier-skinned nerds in costumes that made them look silly, chubby and strangely, even more greasy-skinned.

I pulled the stack of drawings under my arms closer to my body and breathed deeply. My feet wouldn’t move. My legs felt heavy and my lips were dry. Even the multitude of Spider-Man paraphernalia wasn’t making me comfortable, and Spider-Man had always made me comfortable.

Why did I bring the stupid drawings? I shouldn’t have brought the drawings. I might have been able to enjoy the surrounding nerd fiesta if I hadn’t brought the drawings.

When my mother offered up a trip to the convention a month prior, I was excited. I was really excited. I loved comic books. I’d always loved comic books and I was always going to love comic books. When she suggested that I bring along my drawings to show around, my excitement petered, wrinkled and crawled up into me like a chilly penis.

I didn’t want to show anyone my stupid little drawings. That didn’t sound fun at all.

It’s not that I wasn’t any good, because I was pretty good – for a twelve year old.

There were going to be adults there – people older and more talented than me – people looking for jobs and struggling to feed their families. Editors and business people and such didn’t have time to deal with a twelve year-old wiener with a stack of mostly crappy Spawn sketches.

It was silly and I was going to feel silly doing it.

I shouldn’t have brought the stupid drawings.

My mother mashed her hand into the small of my back and pointed toward the opposite side of the room. “Why don’t you go wait in that line over there?”

Fifty or so feet away a line of Silent Bob-looking nerds was slowly forming. At the front of the line there was a small table with an elderly couple seated behind – elderly from the perspective of a twelve year-old, anyway.

When I didn’t move, my mother nudged me again. “Go on, Steven.”

I lowered my stance, shifted my weight and refused to budge. “Mom, I don’t want to. I don’t even know who those people are.”

It was the truth. I’d never seen either of the white-haired old goats before.

“That doesn’t matter, Steven.” My mother squinted her eyes, looked past the line of unshaven, arty nerds and tried to read sign taped to the front of the table. “Look, his name is right there…Parlan.” The conga line of dorks was obscuring most the letters and she was adding replacements on her own, “Parlan Nellison.”

Parlan Nellison?

I shook my head. “What? I don’t even think that’s a name.”

My mother was rapidly becoming annoyed. She wedged both hands in my back, leaned into me and shoved me forward. “Yes it is, Steven! You have to start getting better at stuff like this! Now walk over there and get in line!”

I couldn’t figure out why she was making me do something I clearly had no interest in doing. If she wanted to talk to old man Parlan so badly, why didn’t she do it? I didn’t want to talk to the guy, and I sure as hell didn’t want to awkwardly offer to show him my drawings!

I wanted to call my mother a four-letter word! I wanted to kick her in the shin, tear my clothes off and run into the city screaming! I wanted to chop off her shove-happy hands and drawn my next round of Spawn drawings in the blood spurting from the stumps! I wan-

The look on her face told me that I needed to start walking.

I started walking.

I stood in that line for nearly thirty minutes, struggling to control my breathing and wiping massive amounts of sweat from my forehead. One by one the nerds plopped their oversized nerd butts beside Grandpa Parlan, opened their portfolios and began to explain the ins and outs of their work.  The line was getting shorter and shorter. My neck felt itchy. My legs had transformed from concrete to loose spaghetti. I looked over at my mother - she was flashing me the thumbs up.

I was totally going to paint something in her blood.

The longhaired goober in front of me sat down and opened his portfolio. Suddenly I was next. As old man Parlan thumbed through the pages I was finally able to read the name on the paper hanging from the front of the table. Parlan’s name wasn’t even Parlan – it was Harlan.

Harlan Ellison.

At twelve years old, I didn’t have any idea who in the hell Harlan Ellison was. I had no idea that he was one of the most influential science fiction writers of his generation. I’d never really seen Star Trek, and I had no idea what The City on the Edge of Forever was. I hadn’t read I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, or A Boy and His Dog, and I certainly didn’t know anything about him being the literary world most famous curmudgeonly asshole.

If I had, I would’ve reconsidered kicking my mom in the shin.

Harlan flipped close the portfolio in front of him, shook his head, sighed deeply and waved away Mr. Nerdy McTrenchcoat. When he finally looked at me, he grimaced.

The feeling was mutual.

I didn’t want to be there any more than he wanted me to be there. His old-timey arm raised and his mummified finger pointed squarely in my direction. His lips curled into an annoyed snarl and he flashed his pearly white dentures. He was moments from telling me to go play in traffic when his wife snatched his wrist, and returned his wrinkly appendage to the table.

She smiled sweetly in my direction and patted the table gently with her free hand. “Hi there.”

Women.

It would have been better for all involved if she’d just let the cranky old bastard scream at me, clonk his cup of coffee off my forehead and send me on my way. Instead she had to be nice, and she had to be cordial, and she had to keep him from getting arrested for assaulting a twelve year-old.

Women.

For the next ten minutes, Harlan begrudgingly flipped through the pages of my raggedy sketchbook and rolled his eyes while his wife remarked on just how talented I was. When he came to my poorly proportioned renderings of large-breasted women, he chuckled. When he came to my Liefeld-esque, Youngblood drawings he moaned. When he came to the comic book I’d drawn on typing paper and stapled down the side, he nearly slammed his head against the table.

Clearly annoyed, the cranky old sack, leaned back in his chair, tossed his hands into the air and sighed a sigh so deep it made the old Jim Carey talking butt cheek gag seem subtle.

His wife tossed another talented my way to cover it up.

Suddenly I wanted to kick him in the shin as well – her too – just because.

After all the pages had been turned, the old bastard flipped my sketchbook shut and nudged me in the shoulder – clearly indicating that he wanted me to get lost. His wife shook my hand.

He did not.

I looked Harlan straight in the eye and said, “Thank you, Mr. Nellison.”

At that point I knew his name. I was just being a jerk.

He sort of deserved it.

When it over I shuffled through the crowd and returned to my mother’s side. Believe it or not, the ditzy broad actually had the nerve to try and give me a high five.

To this day she has no idea how very close she was to getting her arms chopped off and how very close I was to crafting my next typing paper comic book with her blood.