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One Friday after Home Economics class, Kirk and I drive out to Big Pond to pick up the most insane marijuana we’ve ever smoked: Rapeseed Bud, it’s called. “It can fuck you up pretty bad,” Sidney Normandson told us at the high school dance.
After picking up a measured ounce of Rapeseed Bud from a dealer in a church basement, we drive for a short 30 minutes and pick up Sidney, and then drive the hour back to Kirk’s place and fire up the power-hitter. A quarter ounce later, we’re all trashed, and Kirk goes into body stone watching the Expos play the Yankees on television.
Suddenly, Sidney gets a hypnotized look in his eye, jumps up and walks out into the kitchen really focused. Two cat brothers – GW and BW – follow him into the kitchen.
In Home Ec, we talked about the difference between nature and nurture. Sidney explains to me that he is going to torture one cat and spoil the other, and see if it really makes a difference. It’s like an experiment – science.
He looks so concentrated and stressed that I don’t dare try to stop him even though I find this experiment really sick. See, there’s just no point in resisting Sidney’s psychotic need to control: I don’t have as strong a character as he does – even Kirk and I acting together can’t make him budge. Whenever I disagree with Sidney, he calls me a wimp or a faggot and then threatens to hit me or humiliate me in public. I don’t want to be on the receiving end, so I go along.
Sid spots a blow dryer and a bag of high-end kitty treats sitting on top of the fridge next to a case of empty Pop Shoppe bottles. With Kirk still engrossed in the ballgame, he drops some treats onto the kitchen floor, and both GW and BW go running.
Sidney throws them separate treats farther and farther from one another. When the cats are far enough apart, he attacks GW with the blow dryer yelling things like: “I’m gonna kill you, you little slut!”,”Soooh-eey!” and ” You’re not worth shit, you pissbag!” followed by a few long minutes of : “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!…”
He leaves all the treats in a pile in front of BW and then chases GW around the kitchen yelling “Antichrist! Antichrist!” and cornering him next to the sink.
He plugs the blow dryer into a wall socket, turns it on high, and points it right at the cat’s ear. Wrrrrrrrr! GW curves his back, hisses, and tries in vain to beat back the hot air with his little paw. I’m paralyzed myself, just like GW, and my paws are about as strong as his when it comes to fending off Sidney’s hate-turbocharged charisma.
Through the entire kitty nightmare, Kirk watches baseball and notices nothing else. “Bottom of the fifth, and still no score….”
Finally, the experiment ends with GW running outside and hiding for a few days.
As soon as GW runs off, Sidney pops his smiling head into the TV room and says: “Hey Captain Kirk, want some crackers and cheese?” For Sidney, crackers and cheese are the cigarette afterwards.
I’m not sure if baseball-body-stone Kirk ever figured out how GW got to be so neurotic. He probably doesn’t know or care why BW is so relaxed and confident, while GW – post blow dryer – is a lean loner who rarely seeks affection from cats or people.
Sidney used to fear his father who probably beat him up pretty bad. But why did he have to take this out out on a little cat? Why not his own son or daughter?
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qatzel ok 