Brokenhearted in Bakersfield
23 - ALL FOR A WORTHY CAUSE
With a newfound spring in my
limp, a spare beer in my pocket, and an entrepreneurial determination, I headed
out of Broken Heart Park and off to the nearby public housing complex. Of course, after about an hour in the hot sun
my shamble became a sideways shuffle, what with my recent injury and all. (For the life of me, I still can’t figure out
how I ended up with that inserted table leg.
Just another one of life’s mysteries or practical jokes.)
With great relief I finally arrived at my destination: the “I HAD A DREAM” housing project. Soaked in sweat, I tenderly slumped myself
under a newly planted tree with sparse young foliage. What looked like a hundred freshly painted
buildings was stretched out before me with cool patches of green grass and
pretty flowers by the side of each door.
Off beyond the parking lot children cavorted on swings and hung on
Jungle Jims and climbed up to the top of the slide and cut loose with excited
shouts of joy. A few mothers was around
to keep an eye on all the goings-on.
But I hadn’t come here to examine the conditions of grinding poverty; I was
here on a mission. Scientific advances
might depend on my noble efforts, even if these exertions was underwritten by a
profit motive. Before anyone could notice,
I silently moved around back one of the pastel colored buildings and started
going through every dumpster in the vicinity.
I called out: “Here, kitty,
kitty, kitty. Here, kitty, kitty,
kitty. C’mon, kitty, kitty, kitty, dammit.”
After about an hour I struck paydirt. I
found me a half dozen little fur balls all curled up behind the very last
dumpster. “Come on now,” I tried to
encourage ‘em. “You wanna go play lab
partner with Uncle Owen?”
I gathered up the tiny kitties in an old cardboard box, all hissing and
scratching real cute, and headed back to collect my bounty. To save time I decided to take the shortcut
through the parking lot near the Burger Prep auxiliary campus. I wasn’t halfway through the mall when this
lady stepped out from behind a parked Pontiac and blocked my path.
“Oooooooooohhh!” she squealed right in my face.
“Let me see the little darlings.”
I tilted down the box so she could peek in.
“Wooo-wooo-woooooo!
Wooo-wooo-wooooo! Can I pick up a
little puss-puss?” Without waiting for
my consent, the lady reached right into my box and scooped up a handful of
fuzzy profit margins.
I was getting impatient now. “Yeah,
yeah, you wanna put the little fellers down, ma’am? We ain’t got all day for you to be playing
around with my beer money, so just put all the kittens back in the box and no
one gets hurt.”
“What?” She got real indignant. “Where
are you going with these innocent darlings?”
“Not like it’s any of your business,” I answered back, “but if you must know,
I’m in business to help a friend of mine who’s pursuing a career in medical
science. And he pays me five bucks per
feral feline.”
Well, let’s just say that two minutes later I had $60.79 burning a hole in my
pocket, and that lady got herself a box full of lab equipment.
I hustled back to that complex faster than suds hit lips on a Saturday
night. It took me another hour or so,
but off under a utility shed behind the playground I finally heard the mewing
music I come looking for. Flat on my
belly, I stretched and reached into the small crawlspace under the shed. There was hissing and scratching and no small
amount of biting as my hand grabbed around for kitties, but it was well worth
it. I got eight, total.
But this time I handwrote on the side of the box: B O U N
D F OR
V I V I S E C T I ON
Let’s just say that after a couple of hours and a few overly offended smacks to
the back of my head, I’d moved enough merchandise to pay my back rent to Ferris
and Rosa, and get me a six-pack fortified with Nyquil shooters. Mission: Accomplished.
If I’d known science was so lucrative my studies in pharmaceuticals would've
taken a totally different turn.