For those of you who don’t know, I love chickens.  Seriously – they’re awesome.  I love them.  Read this post if you don’t believe me.

Okay, now that I’ve cleared my good name I can tell you about Evil.

Back when I was living in the Kern County area I used to board my horse at a little stables off the main highway.  The stalls were fantastic, the rent was incredibly cheap, and even though it was in a small town the stables themselves seemed to have less drama than most barns I’ve been at.  All in all it was a really great place.

The only downside to the barn was the location – as it was situated off of a main highway, most people could see it from the road.  I don’t know what your experience has been, but when normal, non-horsey people see a stables they don’t think, “Hey, look!  A stables!  I bet they keep horses there.  Neat.”

They seem to think, “Hey, look!  Horse Stables!  That’s where my latest unwanted puppy/cat/dog/kitten/chicken needs to be abandoned!”

I’m sure they mean well, even if what they’re doing is incredibly selfish, lazy, and rather cruel.  They probably have this nice idea of their animal living a comfortable, happy lifestyle, surrounded by laughing people and sweet-smelling hay bales.  “The kittens are playful!  They can eat mice, and run around, and live a good life!  All barns need a cat, right?”

Look,I don’t know about the rest of you, but we had a term for abandoned kittens at a horse barn.  We called them “Coyote Candy”. 

Maybe it was the area we lived in, but the animals which were constantly abandoned at our barn never really lived all that long.  It was a race against time, trying to find them homes before they were eaten.  Someone would drop off a litter of kittens.  By Tuesday, there would only be three little fluffballs.  On Friday there would only be one.  By Monday the barns would once again be cat-free, and someone would drop off an abandoned puppy.

Cats, kittens, puppies, chickens…. None of them seemed to last.  The coyotes in the area seemed to consider our barn their own personal buffet, and none of the abandoned animals seemed to live very long. 

That is, except for Evil.  Evil was a ratty, ragged, ill-tempered rooster.  He was a mottled red, had two or three drooping, pathetic tail feathers, and evil, beady little eyes.

I have no idea who dropped Evil off, but for all I know they knew all about our coyote issue and thought they were assigning Evil to a very deserved death.  To be honest, I wouldn’t blame them.

From the day he arrived Evil took over the stables.  He went wherever he wanted to go…. and heaven help you if you tried to make him leave before he was ready.

He was fine as long as you approached him directly.  If you walked towards him he’d stand up and saunter off, bobbing slowly away.  He always managed to make it look like it was his idea, too.

What’s that?  Oh, I just felt like getting up and walking over here.  See how I’m not meeting your eye?  You’re not making me do this at all. I *want* to go over here.

Yeah, getting him to move away from your stall/barn/hay stack wasn’t a problem.

The problem was when you turned your back.

I still remember the first time I saw him.  “Oh, hey!  A rooster!  Someone dropped off some chickens.  Cool!”  I squatted down, waggling my fingers at him.  “Heeeeeere, chook,chook, chook.  Heeeeere, chook, chook, chook.”

Evil stared at me silently, ignoring my outstretched hand.

“Tcht, tcht…heeeeeere, chook, chook.”

“Bakwaaaaaaaaak….” Evil growled ominously, and sauntered off.

I stood up, dusting my pants in disappointment, then turned around to head back to Jubilee’s stall.

“BCKWAAAAAAK!”  With a triumphant scream of rage, Evil launched himself at my back in a furious scrabble of flapping wings, scratching legs, and pointy, stabby little pecks of his beak.

Naturally, I did what any sane person would do when ambushed by an evil, attacking rooster bent on world domination: 

I  dropped my car keys, screamed like a little girl, and bolted about 10 feet in the opposite direction before turning around to see what was after me.

Evil stood in a cloud of dust, glaring at me, then smugly scratched the ground twice before sauntering off.  He’d showed me. 

I stared at him, mouth agape.  Had I…. had I just been beaten up by a chicken?

Why, yes.  Yes I had.  And it wasn’t the last time, either.

If Evil had just come at me fairly, I would have shown him who was boss, and that would have been that.  The problem was that Evil was smart.  He knew his only hope lay in ambush, so he never attacked you face-to-face. 

He was oddly stealthy for a chicken, and would creep up on you silently while you were distracted.  One second I’d be calmly cleaning Jubilee’s stall, lulled into a peaceful state through the steady scooping and sifting of the clean shavings through the tines of the manure fork…

And the next second I’d have a giant rooster stabbing me with his claws, screaming his rage into my ear as he scrabbled and clawed at my back.

I’d scream and bolt every time, and every time I’d turn around and see that stupid chicken standing there, smugly eyeballing me before he sauntered out of the pen.

No matter how vigilant I remained, he always managed to wait until my guard was down before attacking.  He bothered other people at the stables, but for some reason he took a particular aversion to me.  I swear that rooster was hunting me. 

I hated that rooster.  I felt a little guilty, but to be honest, I couldn’t wait for the coyotes to get him.
 
For once, the coyotes failed to do their job.  That stupid rooster refused to be eaten.  I think even the coyotes realized he was a little too evil for them to mess with.

Within a few weeks I was twitchy and spooky, jumping at the slightest noise and doing my best to look over my shoulder every thirty seconds.  It’s not like I didn’t try to fight back.  I remember the time he spooked me so hard I jumped into the barn wall, scraping my nose.  I completely lost it.   That was IT.  Love of chickens or not, I’d had enough.  Evil the rooster was going DOWN.

I flew out the front of the stall, manure fork carried over my head like an angry villager’s torch.  Evil tried sauntering away from me for a few steps, but once he realized I meant business he took off.  I don’t know if you know this or not, but chickens are FAST when they want to be.

Unfortunately for evil roosters, so are Beckys.

That stupid rooster and I tore up one row of stalls and down the other in an eerie silence.  He didn’t make a single sound as he ran, and the only sound coming from me was a steady, determined breathing.

He fluttered through stalls, doubled back through the manure spreader, scurried over pipes, dashed through the round pen…. All with me hot on his heels. We were spooking every horse we went past, but I didn’t care.

I’m not sure how the situation would have resolved itself if the barn manager hadn’t come by to feed her horse.  She pulled in front of her stall just in time to see me round a corner, red-faced and sweaty, four steps behind that stupid rooster, manure fork cocked and loaded against my shoulder like a bat.

“Becky!  What are you doing?!”

“Killing him,” I huffed as I sprinted past her, spooking her horse.

It didn’t do to spook the barn manager’s horse.

“BECKY!  KNOCK IT OFF.  LEAVE THAT CHICKEN ALONE!”  For such a short woman, she had an impressively loud voice.

I slid to stop and watched angrily as Evil immediately slowed down to a saunter.  He wasn’t running away.  He was just out for an evening stroll… although for once I did catch him looking directly at me as he panted as heavily as I did. 

“I’m sick of that rooster, Diane.”

“Then leave it alone, Becky.”  An animal lover to her core, I could see that Diane wasn’t going to see my side of the equation. I was just an evil, chicken-chasing animal hater. She shook her head in disappointment.

“Fine,” I snapped, stalking back to my barn to fume.

Life continued along the same lines for a couple of weeks.  I did my best to ignore the idiot, evil rooster, hoping the coyotes would finally man up and do their job.  They didn’t, and Evil continued to ambush and scare the living crap out of me every time he got a chance.

That is, until that one, beautiful, magical day.

I had just finished cleaning pens and was on my way to go dump the manure in the manure pile, when I saw him.  I know you probably won’t believe me, but the stupid rooster was sneaking around the corner of my barn so he could lay in wait and attack me the moment I walked past him to put my manure fork away.

Ha.  Gotcha, Evil.

I did my best to pretend I didn’t know he was there.  Casually, I dumped the load of manure and went to go replace the wheelbarrow in its spot by the barn.  Even more casually I turned to head back on my usual path to Jubilee’s stall.

As I walked past the corner where he was hidden, I just happened to raise the manure fork and rest it on my shovel.  I wasn’t doing it on purpose… it was just a casual thing.  I had a manure fork.. why not rest it on my shoulder?  It had nothing to do with the fact I was getting ready to take a swing.  Nope.  I was Casual Becky.  I was Unaware Becky.  I was Victim Becky, just continuing along with my chores.  La, la, la, laaaa, laaa……

About three steps after I passed his hiding spot, I saw him make his move out of the corner of my eyes.  Head low and limp tail feathers spread, he rushed forward, preparing to leap for his attack.

Tightning my grip on the handle, I pivoted on my left foot, straightened my elbows and started a downhill golf swing with the manure fork, driving through with the force of my hips and the experience of too many mornings practicing at the driving range with my dad…

And I connected.

The second I felt the back of that manure fork connect with that idiotic, evil bird, I knew it was a good shot. 

THWAAAACK!!!!  The sound of that solid, square, perfectly on-target hit resonating through the evening air was one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard.  I can’t even begin to describe how good it felt.  It was a cool drink on a really hot day.  It was the first taste of ice cream.  It was stepping into a Jacuzzi after getting chilled spending too many hours in the pool.  It was all those things… but better.

It was incredible.

“BAKWAAAAK!” Evil sounded genuinely surprised as the rush of his charge met with the swing of the manure fork. 

“BAKWAAAK!”  He complained.  “BAKWAAAAAAK!” He said, as he flew an incredibly satisfying distance, landing about 15 or 20 feet away in a disheveled heap in a cloud of dust.

“HA!” I shouted in my most mature, intelligent fashion.  “HA!  Take that, you stupid, evil rooster.  Who’s the man, now?  Huh?  Who’s the one who won that bout?  ME, that’s who!  What’s that?” 

I may or may not have stomped threateningly in his direction.

“What’s that?  You want some more of this?”  It’s possible I may have throw my arms wide at this point – not that I’d ever to admit to such childish, infantile behavior.

Evil stared me, and for a brief second it I saw a brief flash of respect, bordering on fear in his eyes.

I met his look, squaring my shoulders and facing him defiantly, trusty manure fork by my side.

“Bakwawk,” he muttered disdainfully, turning around to saunter off in the opposite direction.

He never attacked me again.

The first time I met my stepdad I was an arctic snow fox.

At the time, he wasn’t my stepdad.  He was just a friend of my mom’s that she was inviting to dinner.  At six years old I was oblivious the fact that single, divorced women don’t have male “friends” that they invite over for  a meet-the-children dinner.  If my mom wanted to have a friend over for dinner, what was it to me?

I had other, more important things to do.

During our lunch break, my best friends and I had sat down and seriously discussed the merits of “being” different animals.  Jackie, Alana and I had been best friends since the first day of kindergarten.  We were inseparable.  Jackie was, in a word, adorable.  She was small, pudgy, and two little crooked pigtails and a sweet little lisp that went perfectly with the scattered freckles that dusted the bridge of her nose.  Shorter by more than a head by the rest of our class, everyone loved Jackie.  It was impossible not to.  She was the class clown a, class favorite, and class mascot, all rolled into one witty, huggable package.

Alana was the class beauty – she had silky blond hair that went down to the middle of her back and large, impossibly blue eyes.   When she wore a blue headband, within a week half the girls in the class would all be sporting blue headbands.  When she started parting her hair on the side, for weeks afterwards other girls would run around the playground with disobedient hair falling into their eyes as they retrained their hair to part on the side, too.  Alana was quiet, cool, and beautiful.  Even her name fit her.  The rest of us were Beckies, or Sarahs, or Jackies.  Alana – it just rolled off the tongue with a cool, crisp, classiness.

Me?  I was the zany one.  A tomboy to my core, I disdained Barbies and dress-up.  I loved horses, and hunting, and animals, and the Discovery Channel, and above all else – I loved foxes.  Foxes were the perfect hybrid of everything that fascinated me – they had long, slender legs built for running – something that occasionally eluded me depending on whether my Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis was acting up that week.  They were a predator, which made for much better role-playing games – who wants to play “we’re a bunch of deer, watch us eat grass” for recess?  Foxes could pounce, and snarl, and snap, and chase frightened field mice and savage rabbits….. and yet they were also cute.  They had large fluffy tails, and pointed, inquisitive little faces…and they also happened to be one of the main characters in the world’s greatest movie of all time – The Fox and the Hound.  I’m sure it was just a coincidence.

Earlier that week I had watched a documentary on arctic snow foxes and had found myself fascinated with their coloring and eating habits.  For those of you who don’t know, an arctic snow fox will listen for the sounds of mice beneath the surface of the snow, tilting its head quizzically left and right, until at the very right moment they spring about three feet in the air, brace their front legs, and crash through the surface of the ice, pouncing on their unsuspecting prey.

As an adult, it’s fascinating to watch. 

As a child – it was even more fascinating to act out.  I never tired of it.  Tilt head, dramatic pause, then FWAM!  Leap into the air and crash down, stiff-legged in a display of predator glory.

It makes me knees hurt just remembering it.

During recess I would gather Alana and Jackie to my side and assign them their parts.  Jackie would be a rabbit I could chase – but one I would always allow to get away, simply based upon the fact that Fox Becky would never be able to actually bite such an innocent, adorable creature as Rabbit Jackie.  Alana would insist upon being a cat, regally ignoring my spluttered, angry explanations that cats couldn’t possibly survive in the wild, much less the arctic tundra.  We finally compromised on her being a black panther – an animal much more suitable to the epic wilderness of my imagination than a plain, tabby housecat.  The three of us would dash about the playground, Jackie hopping about with her hands drawn up to her chest like tiny little forepaws and wiggling her nose intermittently, Alana slinking about with a cool, feline grace, and me dashing and pouncing with high pitched snarls and agile leaps.

The day I met my stepdad recess seemed shorter than usual.  We had barely begun our game when the bell was ringing and the three of us were forced to run and stand in our class line, miserable at being cooped up again.  It was during our reading session that we came up with a plan – why did we have to stop just because recess was over? Couldn’t we continue on during the evening, and report back to each other in the morning the stories of our escapades?  We could be animals all.  Night.  LONG!

The plans were made – our animals were chosen (although I highly suspect Alana was NOT the black panther I assigned her but rather a plain, drab, tabby housecat), and our pact was sealed.

That afternoon, when my mom picked me up from after-school care, I silently crawled into the backseat of her brown 80s Datsun, fumbling the intricacies of the seatbelt my awkward fox paws.

“Hurry up, Becky.  We need to get home.”

I tried to hurry up, but the seat belt was proving impossible without the use of my thumbs – and as we all know, foxes don’t have thumbs.

“Becky, here, I’ll get it.”  I smiled up at her in a way that I hope displayed the fact that I no longer had flat, human teeth but rather sharp little jaggedy canines.  Beside me, my sister rolled her eyes and buried herself in a book as my mom stared at me, before sighing.  “Oh.  I get it.  Are you a dog again?”

I yipped a high-pitched, insulted negative.  A dog?  A big, lumbering, slow dog?  I shook my head, then yipped twice again.

“Oh,” my mom said with another sigh, pulling out into traffic.  “A fox.”

I yipped again.  Smart mommy.

Preparing for dinner was hectic, between my mom trying to help us with our homework, do her makeup, and produce a delicious meal all at the same time.  The fact that I refused to sit at the table (have you ever seen a fox sitting at a dinner table?  Don’t be ridiculous.) probably didn’t help her stress level.  Of course, she knew better than to argue with me.  When I “pretended”, I pretended hard.

Math took twice as long, cupping a pencil with a tiny, white paw, but I was a smart fox and I figured out a way to use my furry chin to stabilize the pencil.  Whether or not it was legible, I’ll never know.

By the time my soon-to-be-dad came in, I was in full gear, pleasantly warm from the excitement of knowing that halfway across the city, a bunny hopped around her living room and a black panther (not a tabby housecat!) snarled angry responses to any questions from her captors-in-the-form-of-parents.  When our dogs exploded into a volley of barking and excited twisting at a knock on the door, I scrabbled over on hands and knees and joined them, squirming and sitting up to scrabble at the door with my pack.

“Hi.  My  name’s Dave.”  He was a man of medium height and broad shoulders, with a trim beard and kind eyes.  My sister stood up to shake his hand.  I yipped at him and sat up, offering him a paw.

Dave took my paw, glancing over at my mother.  “She’s a fox,” she explained wearily.

Introductions were made, and Dave sat down to try and charm us.  My sister was friendly but obviously more interested in her book than him, and I only yipped or snarled in response, depending on whether the answer was affirmative or negative.  In retrospect, I actually feel a little sorry for him.

When it came time for dinner, I refused to sit at the table.  My mom insisted.  I shook my head.  She insisted again.  I shook my head harder, ears flat against my skull in irritation.

“Becky, seriously, enough.  Sit at the table like your sister.”

 I snarled, and backed under the table legs, glaring.  I was a fox, darnit.  Foxes did not eat at tables, with utensils.  Not only did they lack thumbs as well as an interest in using human plates and forks, they also lacked the necessary balance to remain sitting up for that long – they ate on all fours. Everybody knew that.

“Becky, enough.  Time to eat.”

I whined, and shook my head. 

“Becky, enough.  Quit pretending.”

I snarled back at her, and felt the thick fur at the ruff of my neck begin to bristle.  Who was pretending?

With a desperate look, my mom had to make a quick choice.  Which was worse to show her date?  The strange child or the stubborn battle she knew she was about to lose?

“Fine.  Foxes can eat on the floor, but only – ONLY – if they finish everything on their plate.”

I yipped back at her, opening my mouth in a wide grin, my tongue lolling over my sharp canines.  I gave her a small wag of my tail— but only a small one.  It wasn’t like I was domesticated.  Still, she should be rewarded.

The plate slid beneath the table, and I crawled out from beneath the chair legs to hunch over it.  The green beans and picadillo wavered, then became a slice of raw caribou.  I squatted down and picked it up with my teeth, chewing the meat and growling slightly as my sister’s legs came too close to my “kill”.  It was dark, and oddly comforting beneath the table.  The legs around me looked like trees, and without any real effort they wavered slightly, and then became trees.  I was in a forest – a cool, green forest, full of shadows and unexplored places.  I was eating the caribou I’d brought down, occasionally snarling at the smaller scavengers that crept timidly forward to eat from my kill.

“So, Dave, ” my mother said, raising her voice to be heard over my territorial snarls. “Would you like some more potatoes?”

“Ellie, I’m afraid your services are no longer required by this company. You are not a good fit for our team, and the synergy you bring to this team is not cohesive. We are looking for team players here, team members who want to bring this company into the next threshold of productivity, not tear it apart.”

Ellie was breathing hard in anger, but somehow managed to keep herself composed. “Allen, are you even listening to yourself? Can you even hear how ridiculous you sound?”

“Please, I think we can remain professional enough not to engage in more name calling,” Allen raised a conciliatory hand, trying to calm her down, but Ellie wasn’t going to have any part of it.

“No, I will not remain professional, not if being professional is being like the two of you. Allen, you’re speaking complete dribble,” Ellie raised her voice, speaking over the beginning of Allen trying to cut her off. “You sit there and speak about synergy and team cohesiveness, but you’re completely ignoring the fact that we’re not speaking about stupid ideas you learned in business school – we’re speaking about the law. What Carrie did was wrong. This isn’t a difficult concept. It’s illegal, and if you put this company’s name on it you’ll be an even bigger idiot than she is.” Allen’s mustache twitched as his mouth tightened in anger, but Ellie was far from finished.

She whirled around, pointing her finger at Carrie. “And Carrie – seriously. Do you have any redeeming qualities other than a big rack?” Carrie spluttered in anger, but Ellie just raised her voice, speaking over her. It worked well enough on Allen, after all. “Well, do you? Because as far as I can tell, your main contribution to this company consists of mincing around in skirts, passing off other people’s work as your own, and trying to see how much attention you can get by forcing us all to stare at your cleavage. If you’ve got something worthwhile to bring to the table, I think we’d all be happy to hear it.” Carrie sat there, the picture of delicate shock, covering her mouth with a well-manicured hand as her eyes began filling with tears. Ellie had to hand it to her – she had never met anyone who could cry on command better than Carrie.

Allen slammed both hands down on the table, standing suddenly. “Enough!” he roared. “Ellie, I will not tolerate you speaking to us like that.”

“Speaking like what, Allen? Honestly? What, are you so used to having people just spit your own ideas back to you that you get confused when someone actually bothers tells you the truth?”

“I said that is enough, Ellie! If there were an issue with the legality of her work, don’t you think I would have heard about it previously? What, do you have some kind of law degree that you didn’t’ divulge on your resume?”

The two of them stared at each other fuming in silence for a few heartbeats. In the chair beside her Carrie smirked, her crocodile tears from moments before completely vanished in her undisguised glee at the scene unfolding before her.

“No, I am not a lawyer, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the education necessary to be able to tell right from wrong,” Ellie took a step forward, pointing at the proposal in front of her. “The proposal is a fraud. And you know as well as I do that if you decide to go through with submitting that proposal you’re just as guilty as she is.”

“So, refresh my memory. You have, what, a bachelor’s degree? In what – environmental sciences?” Allen shook his head with a derisive laugh. “I have a Masters in Business Administration – I am quite familiar with the legalities surrounding copyright infringement, and I don’t need a temporary employee to come in here and try to give me lessons on what I can and can’t do with my company.”

That was it. “Congratulations on your master’s degree, Allen. We’re all very proud of you. I’m glad to see your education isn’t getting in the way of your stupidity.” Ellie reached up to her name tag, unclipping it and tossing it on the desk. “I quit. No need to call security. I can find my own way out of here.”

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EEE! EEE! EEEEEEEE!!!!

Anguished screams come from the living room, ripping me out of my sleep again.

Crap.

Ever since Coyote learned how to hunt about two months ago, he has been dragging home his kills and bringing them in through the kitty door every night. I’d be upset with him, but unlike many cats he’s not bringing it home as a present – he actually eats what he kills. Most mornings the only evidence that he was successful is a blood stain on our nice, grey carpet.

Scrubbing rodent blood and entrails off the carpet is such a pleasant way to wake up.

You wouldn’t think a clean, southern California neighborhood would have so many rodents, but we’ve learned otherwise.

I’ve learned to identify his kills by what he leaves behind. Mice are my favorite thing for him to catch, since they only leave behind a tiny bit of blood.

Rats leave behind a larger pool of blood and have too large of a skull for him to completely finish, so if the stain is larger and there’s a set of yellowed teeth pulled back in a death grimace beside the stain, then it’s obvious he killed a rat.

Gophers are my least favorite of all. Baby gophers leave behind patches of inedible fur, a stubby tail, and what appears to be a section of intestine.

Adult gophers are too large for him to finish, and are generally eviscerated, leaving loops of intestine lying in delicate, widening spirals. They always manage to die in the most bone-chilling ways, their anguished expressions and curled toes seeming almost human. Finding a dead gopher in my living room feels like walking into a serial killer’s lair – it’s disgusting, and completely unnerving. You can almost hear the whispers of, “It puts the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.”

Coyote’s propensity for hunting is surprising, considering he’s the most mellow cat I’ve ever owned. I rescued him from the streets of Taft the weekend of my grandma’s funeral. Depressed and stifled by the press of well-meaning relatives and stale cigarette smoke, I handed DragonMonkey off to The Bean and went for a walk. I’d walked the streets of the sleepy town many times during the years I lived with my Grandma, and there was something healing about feeling the same stretch of pavement beneath my feet once again. The sun beat down on the back of my neck, and I began to relax. It was comforting, losing myself in the familiar ache of being too-hot, feeling the aching scorch of the sun making my skin tingle. I stopped beneath the shade of a tree, leaning against a block wall as I took a moment to cool down. Glancing at the house, I noticed a pack full of lanky kittens staring curiously at me from beneath the shade of a bush.

“Kitty, Kitty! Tch, tch, tch!” I waggled my fingers enticingly, and to my utter delight two black kittens began to emerge from the sleepy pile. I seated myself on the wall, and grabbed both of them. The first to arrive was slightly taller, and I could hear his purr even as he trotted towards me. The second was a little quieter, and instead of throwing himself at me in ecstatic abandon, he flopped down beside me companionably.

“You can take them, you know.” I looked up at the voice, and saw a woman peeking through her front porch, smiling at me. “You can take them all, if you want.”

“No, I’m just loving on them. Thanks, though.”

“No, really, you should take them. I don’t even want them – they’re not really mine. The neighbors across the way moved and left their pregnant cat behind. I couldn’t watch her starve so I fed them, and now they won’t go away.”

I held the first kitten beneath my chin, and it rubbed its head against my chin, purring increasing in volume. “I’ve already got a cat, thanks.”

“Well, if you change your mind, feel free to take one.” She disappeared back into the air-conditioned shadows of her house.

I flipped the kittens over on their backs, scratching their tummies and marveling at their placid behavior. For nondescript, run-of-the-mill black cats, they sure had incredible personalities. I spent a few more minutes cuddling and murmuring into their fur before returning back to the house.

As I slept that night, I couldn’t get those stupid kittens out of my head. Life for a street cat in Taft is generally short, and not easy. It gets hot during the summer months, and water is hard to find. That, combined with the unusually high number of stray dogs tends to make most outdoor cats live no more than year or two. Those kittens were so sweet. Most kittens are cute, but every once in awhile you run into a kitten that you know is going to make a once-in-a-lifetime cat. It seemed like such a waste for those kittens to languish in a front yard until they eventually got hit by a car. Besides, I felt like taking something with me – some memento, some part of Taft. With my grandma gone, I knew I wouldn’t be making the three hour drive anymore.

I wrestled with it throughout the night before finally deciding to leave it to fate. If the kittens were there on the way out of town, I would take one.

I grabbed an old laundry hamper and lined it with a towel. We said goodbye to family, loaded up the car and then passed by the house on the way out of town. I opened the car door, the late-summer heat enveloping me. I looked over at the bush, and then up at the porch. No kittens.

I felt a surprisingly sharp pang of sadness.

“Tch, tch? Kitty, kitty?”

“Prrt?” A soft noise returned my call, and I looked down at the shade beneath a low-hanging tree. The second of the two black kittens looked back at me, mellow and friendly. I waggled my fingers at him, and he stretched slowly before meandering over. I picked him up, burying my nose in his fur, tears sliding down my face, dotting him with dampness. I don’t know why, but finding him there felt like the real moment of saying goodbye to Grandma, and to the life I had known with her.

I wiped my tears away in his fur, returning to the car. It was almost unnerving the way he reacted to being shoved in a dark hamper – I expected lots of loud meowing and skittering. In stead, every time I peeked inside he looked back at me — purring.

He adjusted to life in our house seamlessly, with a mellow, friendly attitude. We named him Coyote as a tribute to the life he escaped – kittens in Taft are often referred to as “coyote candy”, a fairly realistic term. The DragonMonkey abuses him mercilessly every time we turn our back for more than a second, picking him up by his middle and dragging him around like a stuffed animal. I try to encourage Coyote to fight back— scratch him, for goodness sakes! — but he’s just too good-natured.

I think that’s why his sudden desire to slaughter every small animal in sight is so surprising. Who is this carnivore, and what did he do with my mellow, sweet, peace-loving cat?

I’m thinking of renaming him Dexter – friendly by day, serial killer by night.

The other morning Coyote brought home a gopher that was so huge my first instinct when I saw the disfigured skull in the morning was, “Holy crap – he’s gone cannibal and eaten a cat.”

At any rate, on nights when Coyote isn’t that hungry he takes his time killing whatever poor, hapless rodent he’s brought back. I used to get up and try to save them. With their large, terrified brown eyes and adorable faces, I couldn’t stand the thought of them slowly being eaten to death.

The night I walked in on a half-grown rat with a broken back changed that.

“EEEEK!” screamed the rat. I rounded the corner and stared in horror as it scrabbled around in lopsided circles while Coyote stared down in bemusement, stroking it gently with a soft paw, claws sheathed.

“Prrrt?” asked Coyote, staring up at me with mellow, golden eyes. Do you see my new pet? Isn’t it funny?

“EEEEEK!” screamed the rat again, thrashing in terror.

“Prrrrt?” Look! It is amusing, isn’t it? He stood up and padded over to me, leaning against my ankles. Pet me? Hold me? I want loving and cuddles.

“EEEEEK! Please, for the love of all that is holy, end my agony! The pain! The pain! Please! AAAARGH! EEEEK!” screamed the rat.

Love? Cuddles? Snuggles? Coyote continued to press against me, purring. Snuggly wugglies?

I stood there, frozen in horror.

No cuddles? Okay. Perhaps later. For now I will go back to my plaything. Coyote walked back over, sitting calmly beside the rat, and continued to pet it softly with a velvet paw, appearing amused as the rat redoubled its fruitless efforts at escape. Shhhh. Shhh. It’s okay. Shhhhh. I’m just going to torture you before eating you alive. Shhhhh.

I’m a coward.

I crept back into the bedroom, ashamed at myself for not putting the rat of out of its misery. I shut the door and pulled the pillow over my ears, trying to block out the thin, piercing squeaks. Please, just die. Please. DIE. PLEASE DIE.

I started hating the rat, resenting its stubborn tenacity to life. PLEASE, DIE ALREADY. I have to work in the morning. PLEASE? PLEASE DIE. JUST FRIGGIN’ DIE!!!!

Eventually it did succumb, and by the next morning all that remained were a few drops of blood and an anguished-looking snout.

Coyote looked up as I entered the room, stretched lazily, and padded over to me. Loves? Hugs? I love you.

With a sigh, I scooped him up, and he flopped himself bonelessly over my shoulder, purring loudly.

Creepy, serial killer cat. I don’t know what I’d do without him.

Ring. Ring.

My sister and I stared at each other for half a heartbeat before bolting out of our chairs at the same time in the direction of the telephone.

“It’s mine!”

“My turn!”

“I GOT IT.”

“NO!!!! YOU GOT IT LAST TIME!”

Few things are more boring than a summer vacation when both parents are working. In a perfect world we would have had an energetic nanny or endless trips to summer camps.

Unfortunately, the world is rarely perfect.

Divorced and struggling to make ends meet, my parents split summertime straight down the middle – six weeks with mom, and six weeks with dad.

What I remember most about my childhood summers was the boredom – hot, stuffy endless afternoons where the roaring nothingness made you feel like you were choking. There are only so many times you can reread your favorite book, play out the same scenarios with your Breyer horses, or stare sightlessly at the mindless dribble of afternoon television. It always seemed so unfair to me. The good television wouldn’t come on until our parents returned home and wanted to watch their own shows. They always wanted to watch the most boring shows, too. What could Fox News have on Inspector Gadget or Looney Tunes?

I realize now that my parents were not entirely comfortable leaving us at home by ourselves. We were under strict instructions to keep the blinds drawn and the front door locked.

We were never to answer the door.

Even answering the telephone became an exercise in safety. While we could pick up the phone we weren’t allowed to divulge that our parents weren’t home. Or our names. Or our parents names. Or anything at all, really.

Not only did our parents drill this into us, they used to test us. We regularly received phone calls that went something like this:

Ring Ring!

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Mark. Who is this?”

“Can I help you?”

“This is Mark. I’m a friend of your mom’s. I really need to talk to her.. can you put her on the line?”

“She’s in the shower right now.” (This was our standard lie.)

“She just called me so I know she’s not really in the shower. Can I talk to her? Put her on the line. This is really important.”

“Actually, if she just called you it was probably from her work – she’s not home right now.”

At that point there was usually a soft click as the original caller handed the phone over to our mom and we realized we’d been had.

“BECKY! You are in HUGE trouble young lady! What if that had been a bad guy trying to see if it was safe to break in? You COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED! HAVEN’T I TOLD YOU TIME AND AGAIN…”

Yeah. I’ll spare you the rest of the lecture. The lecture usually revolved around the “fact” that at any given moment large herds of predatory, murderous, child-hating puppy-killers were milling about outside of the front door at all times, just waiting for the chance to pounce.

With the constant threat of our imminent deaths hovering over our heads like an evil storm cloud, it’s small wonder my sister and I freaked out the day my dad came home early.

I think it was the summer I was going into fourth grade, which would have made me around 8 or 9 and my sister, Brandie, around 11. Brandie and I had what I like to refer to as a “hate-hate” relationship. Bookish and shy, she was the kind of quiet, reserved child that most parents dream about. Unfortunately, as her hyperactive, extremely noisy younger sister I brought out the worst in her.

Our interactions with each other tended to be noisy confrontations punctuated with lots of “LEAVE ME ALONE”s and high-pitched whining.

And those were the good ones.

The day my dad came early was no different. Trapped in the house with each other, by the time the afternoon rolled around the two of us weren’t even speaking. It was hot that afternoon… miserably hot. My skin was sticking to itself unpleasantly, making me whiny. Brandie had somehow managed to gain control of the remote control, and she lounged on the couch holding it smugly. She was watching something that bored me, and I was trying to figure out how to get her to change the channel. I knew from experience that asking her to change it was of no use. Even if she was watching something she hated, if I asked her to change it she would keep it on the same channel just to spite me.

I perched on the arm of our faded orange lounge chair, picking at the material and pretending to read my book. In reality, I was biding my time. I’d seen her finish a glass of tea only a few minutes before. If I was lucky, when she went to the bathroom she would forget to take the remote with her.

I reread the same page of the book three or four times, growing impatient. While I may have been quicker and more energetic, Brandie had an endless supply of patience, especially when it came to torturing me. I was just about to give up and see if I could whine enough that she would change channel when we both heard the garage door open.

We both froze in our seats, eyes widening.

To better comprehend our sudden terror you have to understand that our dad never came home early. He NEVER. Came. Home. Early.

EVER.

It’s small wonder my sister and I both came to the same conclusion when we heard the creaking whine of the ancient garage door opener slowly creeping into action –

This was it.

This was IT.

The herd of child-murderers was finally breaking in. They had found a way to open the garage door and were heading in to steal all of our secondhand furniture and kill us both.

We were going to die.

Choking on our terror, the two of us simultaneously bolted for the only door in the house that had a functioning lock: the downstairs bathroom.

Under normal circumstances I was faster than my sister, but terror seemed to give her feet wings. She reached the door half a step ahead of me..

And slammed it in my face.

I heard the sound of the lock sliding into place and began jerking on the handle, wailing. “Let me in! Let me in! You locked me out!” I started crying, pounding on the door with my fists.

“NO! Go AWAY!”

“LET ME IN! HE’S GONNA GET ME! LET ME IN!” I alternated between pounding on the door with my fists and jerking on the handle, trying to force it open.

“GO AWAY!” Brandie’s muffled, equally terrified voice held a peevish tone. “GO FIND YOUR OWN HIDING SPOT!”

“THIS IS THE ONLY DOOR WITH A LOCK!” I howled.

“TOO BAD!” came the reply.

‘LET ME IN! HE’S GOING TO KILL ME!” I scrabbled at the door frantically.

I feel I can honestly say I’ve never known more fear than I did in that very moment. There was wasn’t a shadow of a doubt in my mind that a masked, knife-wielding man was about to round the corner and take my life. I could feel the fear in my throat, gagging me, and I redoubled my efforts.

“LET ME IN! PLEASE!”

“SHUT UP OR HE’LL KNOW I’M IN HERE!”

“LET ME IN! PLEASE! LETMEIN, LETMEIN, LETMEINLETMEINLETMEIN!”

“NO! Go away or he’ll find me too!”

And that is how my dad found us on the day he decided to surprise us with some McDonald’s for lunch— me, red-faced and terrified, throwing myself against the door and screaming for sanctuary … and Brandie, safely ensconced behind the “safe” door and hollering at me to go get killed somewhere else so I didn’t give away her hiding spot.

Parenting. It isn’t for the weak.

Oh, and Brandie dearest?