Brokenhearted in Bakersfield

 

51 - SLEEPING UNDER THE WRONG TRAILER

I was in a world of hurt as consciousness roused me to waken yet again.  I hadn’t felt the wrath of demon alcohol in a long, long time.  My brain pounded like hammered dog shit.  Yup, I was gonna be under the overhang all day.

I tried layin’ real still and quiet, with my eyes stuck shut in a vain attempt to keep my hangover somehow more endurable, when I noticed something oddly fuzzy near my face with an un-compelling hint of tuna.  I rubbed my nose, “Lorleen?”

I slapped at the fuzzy warm thing, “Nooo!”

As my now wide open eyes came to blurry focus, I distinctly saw, to my everlasting relief, an innocent little kitten.  “Thank God.”

I rolled over onto another kitten that let out an angry yowl and quickly scampered away.  Then two more little fellers clawed their way from between my legs while more scrambled under an overturned cardboard box with my hand-printed  B O U N D  F OR  V I V I SE C T I ON  still visible on its side.

Lucky for me, I must'a found my way back to Owen’s camper and crawled underneath.  Unlucky for me, I woke up with a bunch'a kittens scratching and snuggling up next to me, while mounds of cat shit landscaped the sandy soil.

“Owennnnnnnnnn,” I groaned.

I heard footsteps above.  Next I heard his over-amplified voice coming at me.  “Morning, partner,” the words reverberated in my brain.  “Why don’t ya climb on outta there?  I’ll have some hot java ready just as soon as I can get these crystals to dissolve.”

Slowly, painfully, and very carefully, I emerged from the dark space beneath Owen’s camper to join him in his laboratory.  I prayed he would have some aspirin among his vet supplies.

“Hey, what happened to you last night?” Owen interrogated me.  “One minute I seen ya dancing with the Princess, and then next thing I know, you was dumping her on her coccyx.”

“Don’t be stupid, Owen,” I sneered.  “Girls got titsus, they ain’t got coccyx.”

I took a disgusted look around.  “What’s with all the damn cats?”  I shooed one off the chair.  “You was supposed to be neutering ‘em not breeding ‘em.  It smells so bad in here I’m surprised the paint ain’t peelin’ off.”

Owen continued stirring his coffee crystals with blackened forceps as he broke into a grin like a mad scientist who was too dumb to be insane.

“I got pretty good at neutering gerbils,” he answered with the practiced air of a paramedical professional, “but cats is totally different.  With the boys you just stick their heads in a boot and snip and it’s all over.  But the females, well, try as I do, I can’t get ’em to drink enough NyQuil™ to go under for the procedure.  Turns out to be a lot easier to drink the NyQuil™ myself.  I’ve sorta been playing hooky from my formal education ever since.”  He wiped his smeared forceps across a pant leg before tossing them back into a bowl of autopsy implements.

Owen grinned his big dumbass grin while a kitten fell from the cupboard and just missed the pan he’d been boiling water in.  “They do multiply,” he swatted away the fallen ball of fur.  “Forget about the cats.  Let’s talk about your future.  Let’s talk about your stock.”

A kitten yowled as Owen stepped on its toes.


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