Omen for Assholes

July 28th

Last night he came home late from his degrading job, holding a huge piece of painted cardboard underneath his arm.  "Hey Andy," he said, "Look at what some homeless dude gave me on the street, isn't it cool?"  He held it up.  It was an oversized tarot card.  The Death Card.

Settling For Less Than Less

July 27th

He and Blanche arrived home in good spirits.  He planted himself on the couch with confidence.  "Guess what?" he said.  The suicide pact is a go, I thought.  But no, it was not to be.  Apparently, he was at a comedy club with Blanche and he had been heckling the performers the entire time with one-liners so delicately crafted he might as well been lobbing a ship-in-a-bottle onto the stage.  Perhaps a fully-rigged 16th century galleon replica in the form of "You're gay!"  The owner pulled him aside afterwards and told him he was the funniest kid in the joint, and decided to give him a slot at the next open mic night.  He invited me to go, and I might, if only for the slight chance that his set turns into the only funny thing it could ever be: a shattering mental breakdown on stage.

It's his big night.  His name is announced by the owner reading from a crumpled piece of paper.  Stanley pops up from his seat, the last weak jello shot sliding down his gullet, and runs up the aisle high-fiving the crowd like a pro-wrestler.  He hops up the stage steps in a single bound, his gelled hair tearing through the thick club air like the like the nose of an F-14.  He slaps the owner on the back and grabs the microphone, pulling it out of the stand and swinging the cord behind his feet like a seasoned veteran.  He pauses, just for a second, nodding to the guy manning the spotlight, and Begins:

"My room smells like cat poop."

And sobs weakly into the microphone until he's pulled off stage.

The Lion Tamer

He barged in the front door the other afternoon with a mangy kitten hanging from his hands, the poor thing's arms sticking straight up into the air as if signaling for me to save it.  

"Can we keep it?"
"No Stanley, I'm allergic."  I said.  

The cat and I exchanged a wink, the only two brainpowers in the room.  

"You know you want a kitten" he said.

The rogue lion tamer cannot be stopped.  He goes out into the urban jungle with nothing but a whip and a tube of Nivea Smooth Indulgence Hand Cream (actually in our medicine cabinet), and he returns riding on the back of the defeated lion.  It is his way.  He cannot heed worldly details such as his lack of money, space, time, or permission for his lifestyle.  Every new stimulating prod on his neurons warrants slowly killing an animal.  Stanley is but a vehicle for a divine quest to annoy, and he must follow it like a naked Ken doll played with by a confused and adolescent God.

I could have tried to talk to him like June Cleaver about "big responsibilities."  But nay, it is not fated.  Cat scratch fever had riddled his defenseless brain.  A few days later he trapped me while I was smoking on the fire escape and he laid out his case:  They would keep the cat in their room so I wouldn't even see it.  And besides, Blanche really wanted the cat because she was lonely.  Who am I to deny her companionship?  The lady of the manor needed a furry eunuch to keep her company and tend to her while her man was on his crusade, the PM shift at the kitchen supply store.  Apparently, her being in a fit of unemployment all day, writhing around on the bed in a slip with a terrible case of the vapors can get a bit lonesome.

"Well," he ended, "We already bought the cat and the food and the litter box anyways."

The cat is terribly skinny, sometimes it's head will eclipse it's whole body.  When they are both gone for 14 hours at time, it remembers it's previous life of abuse as it bakes in their room like a bobble-head trapped on the dashboard of an abandoned car.

The smell of their room is unbearable.  If they even crack their door, a visible frontier of stench can be seen crawling across the apartment.  And you better run when you see it coming.

Stanley and Blanche now have robotic sex among an even stronger stench than their own rotting hearts.  And Bobble-Head watches, dreaming of Africa, or perhaps the living room.

Also, they feed the cat milk.  Because they learned how to care for a pet from Looney Tunes.