A Night With the Slicks

Theodore strolled through the unlocked door, a big smile on his face and a brown leather saddle bag over his shoulder.

"Is everybody dressed?" he yelled out in greeting.

Satisfied that he had announced his presence, he took a moment to take in his surroundings. Under his tattered blue Reeboks was a lime green shag carpet that trapped the smell and excretions of the 13 cats residing in the living room. Each cat looked up from their nap or cleaning themselves to stare at the bright-eyed intruder. Theodore immediately wanted to apologize to each and every one of them for hitting one of their brethren with his car. Fortunately, the moment of remorse passed quickly as the cats returned to either go back to sleep or lick their anuses.

Theodore looked from the cats to the off-white walls and the paintings from artists he had never heard of. Oh, sure, he knew about Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. But that was because they were the names of his favorite cartoon and comic book super-heroes. As he advanced forward, looking at the paintings in wonder, he almost bumped his shin on the scratched coffee table. Millions of cat scratches had ruined its once-beautiful cherry finish. In the middle of the dingy glass top was a basket of sickly plastic flowers and some dingy, rotten fruit.

"Well," Theodore thought out loud, "May as well help myself."

He reached down to pick up a wrinkled apple to discover that the fruit was made of runny wax. Theodore jerked a red bandanna out of his pocket and quickly tried to wipe the wax off his hand. He looked over the shabby brown burlap couch at the thermostat, which read ninety degrees.

"New rule," he thought to himself. "Don't touch anything."

He looked up as he heard quiet, shuffling footsteps coming from the hallway. A woman with long dark hair done up in a French twist swept into the room with all the grace of a hippopotamus with hemorrhoids. She covered her lumpy frame with a tie-dyed curtain suitable for bay windows and stared at Theodore with eyes as wide as saucers. Her eyes glistened, but her mouth was worked into a scowl that made Theodore think that her breakfast this morning consisted only of lemons. The woman lifted a gnarled hand decorated with long, bright red nails.

"How do you do, sir? I am Lili-an Howsli..." The woman’s voice trailed off, as if she could not bear to iterate the final consonant in her statement.

Theodore stared at Lili-an’s hand hanging limply in the air. This did not seem to be the same hysterical woman that came out of the little brick home, winding her arms around like a windmill and screaming about her dear cat. Lili-an’s eyes widened a little more and she shook her hand a little. There was a little jingle coming from her wrist area.

"Oh!" Theodore exclaimed. He then proceeded to give Lili-an a hearty handshake. Lili-an jerked her hand away and rolled her eyes with a small sigh of exasperation.

"I guess chivalry is dead," she muttered to herself.

"Excuse me, ma’am?"

"Oh, nothing. Just thinking about how I must fix dinner for my darlings soon. I trust that this little matter will not take very long."

Theodore’s eyes opened wide with joy, clearly showing his muddy brown irises. His mouth broke into a grin that showed his uneven, off-white teeth. He even bounced a little bit.

"Oh, I love kids! How many do you have?"

"Children?" Coming from Lili-an’s lips, it sounded like she was trying to decipher the meaning to a foreign word. She gave a deep, clipped laugh. "Don’t be silly, dear man. My husband and I are a career family. We have no time to raise children. I was referring to my little pets." She emphasized this by clapping her hands, causing more jingles to come from her wrists. "Come, dear ones. Mommy’s going to give you your dinner."

The cats instantly rose and gathered around Lili-an’s feet. As Lili-an strode towards the kitchen, the cats followed her in a wave of multicolored fur. Before disappearing into the kitchen, she turned back to Theodore.

"Please," she said, "Make yourself at home. My husband will be with you shortly."

Theodore carefully sat down on an area of the burlap couch that was not covered in a coat of cat fur. As he waited for Lili-an’s husband, he listened to Lili-an feeding the cats. The woman’s voice had lost the deep tone and was almost mother-like.

"Now, now, dear ones. You’ll each get your turn... Scruffy, not in the kitchen, dear. If you want to make Muffy pregnant you’ll have to do it outside. At least, you’ll actually try with her. God knows Albert hasn’t tried anything with me for the past ten years."

Of course, the last statement was more than Theodore needed to hear. He tried, by whistling the tune to The Who’s "My Generation," to drown out Lili-an’s conversation with her pets. He could see, out of the corner of his eye, a black and orange cat staring unblinkingly at the large, doughy woman as she poured out her heart to the animal.

"Lilian!" cried a voice shrill enough to be mistaken for a Baptist preacher at a revival. "What happened to that document? That Bunch guy will be here any minute!" A bald, red-faced little man that reminded Theodore of an overgrown rat stormed into the kitchen.

"I do not know where you put it," Lili-an responded with a deep tone again. She closed the door so Theodore could not hear the imminent battle.

"Dammit, Lilian! Don’t give me that smart-ass accent again! Where’s that document? You didn’t shred it up for your mangy cats to shit on, did you?"

"It’s Lili-an, dear. And no, I didn’t shred up your precious document. I only did that once, which I have already told you was purely an accident. Why must I continue to be reprimanded for such a petty crime? Haven’t I suffered enough? Haven’t my darlings suffered enough with all your insults directed towards them?"

"You’re one to talk, Lilian. Oh, excuse me. Lili-an. Every day I work my hands to the bone and come home expecting a nice meal and to relax in front of the television. But no! I find my house cluttered up with pieces of crap from your ‘art society,’ the bathroom smelling like cat piss, and one of your little furballs having kittens on my new suit! And they eat better than I do!"

"I am one to talk, Albert? You haven’t won a case since 1960! Oh, yes. I enjoy having to borrow money from my sisters because you lost your case and can’t pay the bills. Nothing is better than having my needs ignored for the past ten years while you gallivant off to the nearest strip club to fritter away what little money we have on some little trollop that dances around in her underwear. My darlings are all I have to comfort me."

"The only good thing about your darlings is when that imbecile hit one of them with your car so I can wipe him clean."

This statement stopped Lili-an cold and had her break down into tears. "Snookums! Oh, how can you be so cruel, Albert?! He was such a sweet little thing. That ... that beast that’s sitting in our living room murdered my darling with his negligence!" Lili-an leaned over the counter and bawled.

Albert’s scrunched up rat-like countenance softened as he saw the woman grieve over her dearly departed feline companion. No matter how mad he got at her, he was still defenseless against Lili-an’s ultimate weapon of tears. He put his arms around her. "Oh, honey! Don’t cry. I’m sorry. I had no idea how much the cat meant to you. Don’t worry, we’ll get this bastard back for killing your pet. I promise."

Albert opened the kitchen door and marched into the living room. Theodore stood up and extended his hand.

"Good evening, Mr. Bunch," Albert greeted. "I am Mr. Slick."

"Good evening, Mr. Slick," Theodore responded with concern in his muddy brown eyes. "I’m really sorry about running over your cat yesterday. I’ll do anything to make amends."

Albert smiled and straightened up so that his beady blue eyes aligned with the Who logo on Theodore’s T-shirt. "Well, Mr. Bunch, according to Gregor v. George, I can file a civil lawsuit. Lilian wanted me to do that, but I talked her out of it. Perhaps we can settle it tonight without having to take it to court. Please have a seat."

Theodore and Albert sunk into the burlap couch. Theodore listened carefully as Albert spewed a bunch of legal terms at him. He nodded his head occasionally with "I see" or "Of course," but the furrowing of his brow betrayed the fact that he had absolutely no clue about what Albert was saying.

"So, are we agreed?" was Albert’s ending query.

"Uh, yeah," Theodore answered. His head was starting to hurt. "How can a cat that ran out into the road too quickly for me to stop cause this much trouble?," he thought to himself.

"Good, then. I’ll just take your check for $100,000 and we’ll be all set."

"$100,000?! I don’t have that kind of money! I was going to offer Ms. Howe-Slick an opportunity to visit the animal shelter I work at so she can get a new pet. Sure, it won’t replace the one I ran over, but she’ll at least have something else to love."

"I have already explained this, Mr. Bunch. Ms. Howe-Slick is very, very distraught and had to be put on medication yesterday evening to calm her down. That medicine is extremely expensive and is not covered by our insurance policy. There is also the consideration of my own emotional trauma over dear Snoopy..."

"That’s Snookums!" Lili-an cried as she stormed out of the kitchen.

Albert darted up and attempted to stare Lili-an down. "Honey, not now. I’m trying to settle this case and ease your emotional distress."

Lili-an put her hands on her hips, spreading the tie-dyed curtain so that it looked like a tent. Her voice lost its deep tone and was rising steadily in pitch. "Oh, you don’t care about Snookums or me. You just want the money. But I don’t care about the money! I just want my darling back!"

Albert’s right eye nervously twitched as he looked from Theodore to Lili-an. "But you can’t have the cat back. It’s dead now and gone to a better place. We can only gain a retainer now."

"But getting a new cat is the next best thing! Maybe even several new cats!" Lili-an tried to contain her school-girl-like excitement and failed miserably. "Mr. Bunch how many may I take home?"

Theodore smiled in bewilderment. "Um, as many as you want." Well, it was at least better than shelling out $100,000.

"Oh, Albert! A chance to expand our family even further! When may we visit, Mr. Bunch?"

"Enough, Lilian!" Albert decreed. "Mr. Bunch, if you do not give us the money, I will be forced to take you to court."

"But, Albert..." By now, Lili-an’s tone was that of a small child’s.

"Lilian, you’ve got 13 cats now! Why the hell would you want any more?"

Lili-an’s eyes started welling up again. "Oh, you don’t care, Albert! You don’t care that I lost one of my darlings in a tragic accident. And the one that murdered my darling is willing to make amends by helping expand our family even more." With that, Lili-an covered her face with her gnarled hands and bawled shamelessly in front of Albert and Theodore. Albert’s face became redder than a bottle of ketchup.

"Um, Mr. Bunch?"

"Yes?"

"When can we be there?"

Theodore gave one last wave to the Slicks on his way out of the living room.

"Goodbye, dear sweet, Mr. Bunch!" Lili-an said. Albert responded with some sort of high-pitched grumble.

"See you at the animal shelter," Theodore responded. He slipped inside his car and started to drive off, careful not to hit any more cats on his way down the road.

"That’s the last time I take this road to a Who concert," Theodore thought.