They Called Him Assh*le! A Savage Feline Tale about One Mean Cat! Part 2

Sometimes pets would disappear from our apartment complex. Asshole would leave our apartment at night to go “Hunting.” Later we would hear some piteous howl coming from some where in the complex. Asshole would return looking even fatter, whereupon he’d sleep most of the day lying in the Sun…”Digesting” we thought. A few days later little posters would decorate our building with pictures of a cute dog saying “Reward! Have you seen “Bacon”? or Missing! “Cuddles” Small Terrier Lost! Reward Offered! ” These infrequent missing pets seemed to confirm our dark suspicions on what Asshole was up to when he’d go out at night. ” Yeah, I bet Asshole probably ate ’em or drove them off! ” Matt would whisper to me from his twin bed at night. I would just groan in response tell him to’ “Shut up!” and bury my head deeper in the pillow wishing this nightmare would go away. 
Since Mom refused to be parted from Asshole I had to devise a few defensive tactics that were a mixed bag of successes. One that seemed to work best was to sleep with a beat up electric guitar my Mom had bought for me.
Like all young kids of my generation of the 1970’s, I had dreamed of becoming a “Rock Star” playing to massive stadiums of adoring Fans. The fact that I couldn’t play the damn thing or had any discernable musical talent seemed to be minor stumbling block – because I looked damn good in the mirror, posing like Pete Townsend guitarist of The Who. The only song I could play was the iconic opening to “Smoke on the Water” by the rock group Deep Purple. For those of hipsters who are too young to remember the song has probably one of the easiest and recognizable openings playable from the 1970’s – that is if you knew how to play. It kind of sounded like:
“Uh, Uh, Uhhhh! Uh, Uh,  Eh- Ahhhh! Uh, Uh, Uhhh, UhAaaah!” 
Since I couldn’t tune my guitar and had no idea how to do so my version of this classic opening sounded more like:
“Blap, Blap, Blinkkk! Blink, Blink, Kee-Blink! Blap, Blink, Blunkkk! Blap-Blapp!” 

Somehow I convinced myself mentally that my version was a close match to the original. And since it was the only tune I could “play” – I annihilated it frequently much to the disgust of the household and our neighbors. 
Asshole hated my playing. He hated the sight of the instrument and would usually hiss and arch his back whenever he saw me with the guitar – retreating to somewhere else in our apartment. Success! The problem was keeping the damn thing with me all the time. It was too cumbersome to schlep around and… sleeping with it was just too uncomfortable.  I would often wake up with some of my uh… Body Parts entangled in the strings. Ouch!!! 
So so at some point of this ordeal, I thought maybe I ought to get on the right side of religion. Maybe Jesus could help me? I thought. So I started to attend a Young Christian Youth group that was popular among the more jocular set at Farmstead High School (maybe our football team thought it needed Jesus’s help too? I cynically observed.) 
Anyway, I was welcomed with open arms by the kids of the “Youth Group for Jesus” (probably because as I was recognized for being an unrepentant Heathen!) and given a small wooden crucifix on a length of yarn to wear around my neck. The meetings consisted of us having to sing praiseful little ditties about our love for Jesus supposedly written to be contemporary and hip but came across as kind of lame. The second part meeting was some Jock or Burn Out getting up and testifying on who had sinned the most during the week past. It always seemed like a contest to me on who could proclaim “He who had sunk the lowest.” There would be some Beefy Football Player getting up in a letterman’s jacket and with tears streaming down his face, would tearfully recount how he had “drunk a beer, smoked a joint and engaged in sexual fornication with his “Hot Girlfriend.”The “Hot Girlfriend” of this so-called sinner would always  look extremely uncomfortable during the confession. It’s as if she thought she was somehow at fault for her Hero’s fall out of favor with the Lord. I always felt bad for the girlfriend. But secretly I wondered if maybe she might be up for a little corrupting of Moi – if she had any free time?! No such luck. Damn! Meetings usually concluded with more praying and hand wringing. 
The cross I wore around my neck seemed to work for a while as Asshole would sniff at it suspiciously whenever I left it out on my desk and stalk away. The cross would smoke suspiciously after one of Asshole’s investigations. 
One day I went to put it on and as I reached over to the night table I found it… Gone?! I searched high and low for my preventive talisman with very little luck. Matt and Mom denied seeing it or touching my stuff. 
Eventually, I found it under my bed partially chewed. The yarn had almost completely disintegrated and the cross looked like it had been going through a couple spins in the garbage disposal. I quit the group in disgust and Asshole resumed his attacks.

End of Part 2 

To be continued…