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A stupid pointless story in three parts.
Raoul Duke 138 10/28/09, 15:08 | 
11 | Preface: My wife and I have three cats. Actually, to be completely accurate; I have one cat, my wife has one cat, and we share the burden of the third.
Part One:
Two years ago, our house was invaded by mice. Our three cats dealt with the vermin swiftly and severely, and the invasion was over before the mice could grab a foothold.
During that time I saw a most brutal and magical thing.
My cat, KiKi, was de-clawed when we adopted her. The removal of her factory equipment has resulted in her being a little less than graceful and (obviously) not as well-armed or aggressive as our other cats. This disadvantage didn’t stop her from performing her feline responsibilities, though.
Coming out of the shower one morning, I heard a thumping coming from the third bedroom. I walked to the bedroom and saw KiKi standing face-in to the far corner of the room. I thought that she had heard the same thumping that I had, and had come to investigate the sound. Just as I was stepping through the doorway into the bedroom, though, KiKi reared up onto her hind legs and brought her front paws down forcefully onto the floor. Thump!
“What are you doing?” I said.
KiKi hadn’t noticed me watching her. As she turned to face my voice, she revealed a mostly-broken and barely alive mouse in the corner. Lacking claws, she had stomped the mouse to death. What a good cat.
“Gross,” I said. “Good girl.”
Part Two:
Last year around this time, we were set upon again. The mice, apparently learning from their tactical mistakes the previous year, sent in a lone scout to perform recon in advance of their primary forces.
A solitary mouse should not last very long in a house with three cats. Either this mouse was very charming or very lucky, though, because he tormented my wife and me for a full four days before he met his overdue end.
The occasional squeak, scratch, or blurred, fleeting glimpse would alert me to his presence. Every morning I looked forward to finding the mouse crushed and bleeding or, worst-case-scenario, catch a faint whiff of rot that I could use to track down his hidden corpse. Day after day I anticipated his grisly murder, but was disappointed every night when I would hear or see evidence of his continued survival.
Knowing there was a mouse in the house, it was impossible for me to sleep soundly, so on the third night of the invasion I slept on the couch with an old air-rifle on the floor next to me. I fell asleep just after midnight with the television on. A little less than four hours later, I awoke from a dream about a mouse squeaking.
Awake, I heard the sound of a mouse squeaking.
The living room was dimly lit by the television screen, and in the blue light I saw Jake, my wife’s cat, sitting in the center of the room. I grabbed the rifle from the floor and eased myself up towards the lamp.
I switched the lamp on and the sudden light stung my eyes and I blinked, hard, waiting for them to adjust. Between blinks, I could see Jake the cat. He was squinting and blinking, too. He wasn’t alone. He had a new friend.
My vision cleared quickly, but my mind was still a little fuzzy. It was 4:00 in the morning, after all, and it took me a few seconds to understand what I was looking at. Jake the cat was sitting on the floor, looking down at the mouse, and the mouse was sitting on the floor, in the exact same posture, looking up at Jake. They each seemed to be trying to figure out what exactly they were seeing, and were now studiously ignoring me. It was a sight right out of a children's book.
“What the fuck are you doing? Kill the fucking mouse!”
I remember that this is what I said, aloud, to the cat. Verbatim.
None of us moved. For just one minute in time, it was Four o’clock in the morning and I was shirtless, holding a rifle and talking to my cat. Jake the cat was steadily making best friends with a mouse, and a little brown mouse held sway over us all.
The spell broke. I cocked the air-rifle and drew a bead in on the mouse. I knew that the rifle was sighted in at twenty yards, but I didn’t know how much difference the change in distance would make. I aimed a little low and squeezed the trigger.
In the middle of the night in a quiet house, the report from an air gun sounds as loud as a bus crashing. The CRACK of the rifle startled Jake very badly and he pinwheeled his legs for a moment, scrambling madly for purchase on the hardwood floor, before he gained traction and ran into the bedroom. A small splinter of wood exploded from the floor below the mouse’s head before he, too, disappeared to find a quieter place to spend the evening. I was left alone in the living room with my ringing ears and my bad aim.
The next day, Jake the cat seemed wary of me. I don’t know if he thought I was trying to shoot him the night before, or if he was angry that I had tried to murder his new friend. Either way, he kept his distance from me all night, and when I fell asleep on the couch he was nowhere to be seen.
A few hours later, a scratching woke me again. Following the sound, I turned on the light above the stairs that led to the first floor. Halfway down the steps, Jake and the mouse were standing on the same stair, looking at each other.
A midnight liaison. A sordid affair. I was embarrassed on Jake’s behalf.
“It ain’t natural,” I murmured as I aimed my rifle at the mouse. I couldn’t live another day with the nagging failure of the previous night’s marksmanship. Jake was standing very close to the mouse, though, and I worried that a ricochet might hurt the cat. I took a small step to the right to get a clearer shot, and my shifting weight made the floor creak suddenly and loudly. The noise spooked Jake and he bounded down the stairs three at a time. The mouse, however, froze.
I had the shot.
I took the shot.
Part Three:
I keep a clean house. Tidy.
When something is out of place, I notice.
When I got home from work yesterday, the clock and soap dispenser that I keep on the sill above the sunk were knocked over. I have always discouraged the cats from climbing on the tables and countertops, but for them to explore while we’re at work isn’t unheard-of. I chalked it up to curious cats and forgot about it.
After dinner, my wife and I were in the living room watching “Burn after Reading”.
The oldest cat, Bear, likes to hang out on the balcony. I had let her out before dinner and while watching the movie, I thought I heard her scratching at the door to be let in.
Jake and KiKi were relaxing in the living room with us.
“Did you let the bear in?” I asked my wife.
“Yes”.
“Who’s that scratching?” I asked.
“Mmm” Said the wife. I translated this to mean ‘Shut up. I’m watching a movie’
I stood up to see what the scratching sound was. Walking into the kitchen, I saw what appeared to be a cat run from one side of the room to the other, near the stairs. I would have assumed it was Bear, but it was the wrong color.
‘Holy shit! The neighbor’s cat got into the house!’ was my first thought.
The creature had run around the corner and down the stairs before I could catch up with it. I switched on the lights as I rounded the corner to the stairway.
It wasn’t the neighbor’s cat.
“Holy shit! There’s a fucking squirrel in the house!” I yelled.
“WHAAAT!?” -Wife.
“Look!” I pointed down the stairs at the squirrel, just as he rounded the corner into the studio and out of sight.
I wasn’t sure what to do. The old pellet gun would only injure a squirrel. I didn’t want to hurt him. I wanted him either completely dead or outside, unhurt. The next most powerful gun I have is the 9mm, and (as fun as it sounds in theory) I’m not going to run through my house squeezing off 9mm rounds at a damn rodent.
I followed the squirrel into the studio, turning on the lights as I went. I just caught a glimpse of a fuzzy tail rounding the bend into the basement stairway when my wife shouted down the stairs, “What are you going to do?”
I had to be honest, “I don’t know.”
The studio has a big double-door that opens to the sidewalk and street. I propped the doors open before heading down into the basement. I thought that I might be able to chase the squirrel back up the stairs and through the studio doors. It was cold and raining, but I hoped that I wouldn’t have to leave the doors open for long.
I switched the basement lights on from the first floor.
My basement is big. 1000 square feet. Like most people, we have our share of boxes, old clothes, tools, paint, and the miscellaneous accumulations of the years all stored in the basement. I wasn’t looking forward to tearing through dozens of boxes and shelves to find the rodent, but I wasn’t going back upstairs without getting rid of the squirrel. I knew I couldn’t trust the damned cats to do anything about him. He was the same size as any one of the cats, plus he had the benefit of not being a tamed and coddled pussy.
As I descended into the basement, I heard a rustling and metallic clanging near the furnace. Our furnace is a 1970’s jobber. Loud, rusty, and massive. It (along with the water-heater) vents the exhaust through the old chimney that sits behind it. For some reason, there is a metal trap-door into the chimney that, for as long as I’ve owned this house, has been closed. It’s cob-webby back there and frankly, pretty creepy. It’s hard to get light back there, and the old metal trap-door looks like something out of a horror movie. Something that, if you were watching someone on-screen reaching towards it, you’d think, “Why the hell are you opening that? Leave it alone”. I always just left it alone. I’m a man who listens to his horror-movie-voices.
Well, the door was hanging open. The squirrel obviously got in that way, and he was now using it as his exit. I heard scratching inside, though I couldn’t see in. I reached behind the furnace and slammed the creepy door closed, then pulled a five-gallon bucket of paint in front of the door to make sure he wouldn’t use it again.
Back upstairs, my wife has the house pretty much turned upside-down. It seems that the squirrel had been in the house all day, and had taken to pooping and pissing pretty much everywhere. She was busy cleaning squirrel waste. Something that, on our wedding day, I specifically told her she’d never have to do. She thanked me for getting rid of the squirrel and I stepped out onto the balcony to have a smoke.
While smoking, I heard the furnace kick on. I pictured the squirrel climbing up through the chimney and a thought struck me. Why hadn’t he climbed out earlier? At some point in the day, that rodent found himself trapped in huge house for the better part of eight hours with three natural predators. Yet, when I started chasing him around, he made a b-line for the chimney door.
The only answer that I could think of was that he might not be able to climb out of the chimney. He fell down it, and then couldn’t get back up. If that’s the case, he might already be dead from the CO that’s running through the chimney, assuming he’s in the part that vents the gas. If he’s still alive, I’m going to have to get him out of there. Hell, I have to get him out either way. Shit. Stupid squirrel.
I guess, as it stands right now, this little story doesn’t really have an ending. To be completely honest, I just wrote this because it’s all I’ve been able to think about since I got to work. So, we’ll see what the situation is when I get home.
I guess I’ll have to open that scary door.
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