J.A.

Goolsby
aarongoolsby@gmail.com

4200 words

THE CAT ABORTION

By J.A. Goolsby

Years before Woody Harrelson Bitch-Slapped Him in the Eye

After a couple of years in Sherman Oaks, Slumber rented a U-Haul and the boys moved
downtown to the cross-section of Olvera and Chavez, just down from Roberto's Club where they
drank many a failed night away.
Their new home was a smooth pad, and perfect for a couple of shit-fucks. Once a strip
mall, which had seen a murder or two, the place was renovated and bedrooms were built. A
kitchen was installed near a closet-turned-restroom where also they performed laundry, if ever.

The landlord mentioned, off-hand, that the particular section they were to rent was once an
abortion clinic, and possibly a graveyard for dismembered babies from the womb.
Madeline was the shopping cart lady that lived on the Alameda-Chavez bus bench just
around the corner from the boys, about a block down and to the right. Madelines faded maroon
overcoat was a downtown fixture, and her bus bench was a hub of commerce for the bum
population that traveled the train tracks only a short walk away.
The rumor was that Madeline never changed clothes, only added more layers as the years
passed her by. Most people around town respected her as a priestess who held some sort of
power over the lives of men.
Slumber made a habit of picking up odd items from her, like pecans in a Folgers can, or a
dime sack of pipe tobacco cluttered with leaves and bits of Styrofoam. Slumber once traded four
buttons from his long sleeve shirt for a thick winter coat hed use up in Sequoia during their
winter treks to find natural herbs growing in the mountains there. "You want to know how to
stay warm? Talk to a bum. They got all the science of that shit down, man," he said, checking the
sleeves for length.
Slumber liked the odd deal here and there, but it was the grab bag special that brought
him back every Tuesday. On Tuesdays, Madeline took the contents of her shopping cart and
divided it all into a host of brown paper bags. She sold the bags for a dollar, sometimes two.
Madelines Tuesday sale caused Slumbers addiction to branch out. He spent seven days
a week thinking about Tuesday. Some people are addicted to things merely for the addiction of
it, some sort of purpose when you have no purpose, like property destruction in the name of
animal rights, or folding origami during night sweats with the television up too loud. Slumber
became an addict of surprise, skipping like a club-kid for used bars of soap, or chattering over

fancy nibbled chocolates nicely decorated with hair balls and lint. But it was the kitten that
would bring a strange turn to their unfledged lives.
"What is it, Slumber?" Tug asked, speaking loud over corner traffic, anxious, looking for
cops as he fiddled with the powders in his pocket.
"It moves, man. Whatever it is." Slumber reached into the brown paper sack and pulled
out a curled ball of deformity. "Its alive," he whispered.
"That one aint right," said Madeline, pointing to the kitten breathing slowly in Slumbers
palm.
"What is it?" asked Tug.
"Its kitty," said Madeline.
"I think its a cat," Slumber scratched his head with his empty hand. He looked to Tug,
but Tug looked away, searching for a quiet death -- a trashcan, a sewer grate. "Maybe we could
put it in the bed of that pickup over there," he said, pointing to an old Ford, the tires missing, the
windows broken. Slumber looked helpless. Tug shrugged his shoulders. Slumber hitched his foot
to the bus bench, and whispered, "We need something alive in the house. Well call it Speck."

***
Johnson Theodore Slumber took his first swig of air in Sanford-Fritch, Texas, the son of
a helium factory manager who sold pot to high school kids after the lights went out over the
stadium where the Sanford Eagles played football on Friday nights.
Slumbers mother gave up Ephedrine and moved to the big city of Wichita Falls to join
the Jehovahs Witness and that's where Tugboat met Slumber after the first break of their
sophomore year. In high school, Tug spent time as the backup catcher on the baseball team.

Slumber, all lofty and leggy he was, threw pitches with his knuckles. The balls would flutter to
home plate in great looping curls that matched well with the lazy spring of his bleached-blond
hair.
Slum moved quickly to the top of the pitching rotation where he became a fan favorite for
his funk-a-delic leg-kick, and the foul mouth he used well to entertain the locals as they drank
two-dollar beer and tossed the spent cups along the outfield wall.
Tugs job was to warm the pitchers up between innings. He never swung a bat or caught a
foul ball, which was fine by him. All he had to do was sit around and chew sunflower seeds until
someone said go play catch and he'd go play catch. It was an easy way to make his dad happy,
make the old man think he was interested in things.
Tug didn't give much of a shit about baseball. He didn't like track either, but he found
himself running laps on the weekends because Slumber wanted to keep his schedule full.
Slumber didn't like being at home. It was the Jehovah's, he said, always over at the house
explaining some theory about how only 144,000 people are going to make it to heaven, and
though you don't have much of a shot at this heaven of theirs, they want you to come by for a
good meeting or two and drop off a payment or three.
Slumber knew it was only a matter of time before he slugged a Jehovah in the jaw. He
said he already spent time in the juvenile system and couldn't get caught with another hit on his
record. He was sure a Jehovah would call the law if he let his anger get the best of him again.
When Slumber brought the subject up over coffee and a spiritual thought the Jehovah's said they
wouldn't do such a thing. They made sure to let Slumber know they had a good prayer in mind to
help him find some peace in the Good Lord, err, make that the Good Jehovah.

But it wasnt the Jehovahs that would change the boys lives. It was the Mormon girls
they dated back in Wichita Falls that brought about their interest in Bethany Hurt. They hooked
up with the two powdery sophomores due to Slumbers overbearing sense to be away from it all.
He overheard the girls talking in the quad after the lunch bell rang. The girls were mid-sentence
in a conversation about an upcoming trip to Oklahoma for Mormon dancing night. Slumber
moved in quick and said he loved to dance. He busted out a sorry hip and jive number.
With their phone numbers in hand the boys began to call on a regular basis. They liked to
call the girls in the early morning of a Friday night and most times they reached the girl's affable
fathers who told them how much they appreciated good boys like them before they passed the
phone along to their sleepy daughters. Every now and then the boys believed those two old cats,
who seemed like Playskool fathers with their Mormon kindness, and who thought of the boys as
sons even though they didn't know them well.
So, every couple of weeks the boys would tag along for the drive north passing along the
slow moving curves of the Oklahoma plain. See, the Mormons aren't so bad, Slumber said one
night after passing a joint they had stolen from the upstairs bedroom of Tugboats sister, Nora.
The western sky was in mid-set, orange breath crept slowly through the darkening clouds. The
Mormons, they don't really preach at you, they just give you a book and ask you to read it. Then
they give you ice cream. And when you're done they ask if you want another bowl. They get so
sad when you say your full, so you take another helping and somehow you find yourself at one
of their meetings with a hand covering your eyes because it gets so damn emotional in there
when one of the old ladies gets up to the podium and starts talking about how it was Joseph
Smith that made her life okay when her husband passed. And Tug, I didn't believe what she
believed, but I did consider that whatever it was that she believed was doing something right for

her, which in its own way was a peaceful thought, you know, just that maybe even I could find
something peaceful for myself someday.
Its whatever, man. We can go back if you want.
I dont want to go back. Im just saying they made me feel good. Thats not the kind of
shit that happens to me.
The ice cream was good,
Well, true that.
The girls were the best of friends and they stood united against giving blowjobs, but the
boys liked them anyway, because for some reason -- deep down -- it felt good to be around a
couple of girls that showed some respect for themselves, but those were better days. Before
California. Before good drugs took a hold of them in a way that seemed so beautiful at the time.
Out of high school Slumber signed to play baseball for the San Francisco Giants. The big
club sent Slum to play double AA ball for the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes. Tug didnt have
much better to do, so he tagged along and out California way they found a whole new process of
finding themselves.
It turned out that Slumber wasnt any good at baseball, but he had a good run of it for
about seven years, and they were good years, because the minor leagues arent so bad when
youre young and single. Slumber liked to tell stories about groupies on the road and group sex,
but those days were choppy memories anymore, back during that time when it was trendy to be
from Seattle, when school kids carried scribbled notebooks and loaded shotguns in memory of
Kurt Cobain.
After Slumbers career ended they moved to Sherman Oaks. The boys took an art class at
Los Angeles Valley. Slumber met a girl named Patrice who lived with three uncles and a dying

aunt, the aunt being old and bewildered. She once grabbed Slumbers wrist. She pulled him close
and whispered that she loved daffodils.
Patrice loved photography and so Slumber took it up on the weekends. He went out to the
city to take shots in the morning. He climbed trees for a better view. He scaled fences and slid
down drain gutters. Then the boys drove to IHOP where Tugboat sat forward in his wooden chair
fiddling with film packages, paper napkin residue on his sticky fingers as he perused the
packaging for clues on lighting. Slumber watched the world and its movement slip by beyond the
pane glass window. He was thinking about Patrices aunt and the bouquet of flowers he never
brought by. But he couldnt help to think, or maybe hope, that his disturbing desire to do so
might make some sort of difference in his own dying soul.
It was one of those odd weekends when Slumber spotted Cameron Diaz toggling a pair of
Liz Taylor's on Venice Beach. Her breasts were bare and sun-roasting just past noon on a
Sunday. She lifted a joint to her mouth. Slumber caught her tiny chest just before she turned for
another sip of Diet Coke. The shot netted three-grand and a full pack of American Spirit
cigarettes that Tug found on the sidewalk two steps removed from their first paying gig. So, it
was California where they became photographers and found themselves adopted into an
underground social class. Paparazzi: a sniffing-dog class of lawless subjugators, which seemed to
fit the boys personality, so they spent their days chewing pills and slipping needles into their
skin, living that L.A. life that moves like the slow wave of a good wet dream on a California
night.

***

The Tabby moved like a hex, or a witch concocting a hex, either way she had this lump in
her back, creepy, like a small head stretching from her spine leathered by her thin gray coat. She
was oddly beautiful in her disfigurement, almost chic in lamplight as she catted around the living
room searching for something, anything, to lessen the boredom of her day.
She had a personality this cat, singing along to Rush and Floyd, though the boys could
never get a grasp on her mood. Is it possible for a feline to be Autistic? Schizophrenic? Maybe
the marijuana twisted her some. She lived in a cloud of roasted cannabis streaking across the
furniture ninja-like, and mean, like how Down syndrome kids are mean during Arts and Crafts.
Tug was never a fan of the feline. They reminded him of women. How they never come
to your call. How they sniff your hand when you put yourself out there to make some kind of
peace with other peoples pets you hate, and invariably they turn away, ass up in the air, disgust
evident in the sad cowl of their lips -- just like all the women in his life, but somehow in the
wake of a near deadly binge he found himself sharing his pad with the strangest being not named
Johnson Theodore Slumber. They fed her. They cleaned her litter. They shouldve had her
spayed.

***

It was evening, the day after St. Patties day, and the boys were in the living room
watching season five of MacGyver on DVD, drinking green beer from a warm keg, smoking
hash with Grandpa, who dropped by for an Eighter and to inquire about some Black Tar before
he went home for the night, to help him sleep better, he said, maybe keep his feet warm in the

night. It was the new weathers fault, he whined, all the climate change in the world, the rising
temperatures.
It must have been Grandpa that put Speck in a frenzied mood. Grandpa had a gut on him
and he laughed high and stupid with his gut. Hed get overpowered by a couple of good jolts of
powder. He screeched, loud enough to be bitch-slapped, but he was old

Kit-tee!
Kit-tee!
Kit-tee!
Kit-tee!
Speck got to where she jumped in place for a good minute. Grandpa egged her on yelling
out in that voice of his that sounded eerily reminiscent of Oprah on her after show.
It was in the space-time of this event that Speck managed to cause another ruckus during
the episode where MacGyver gets shot by an assassin, and that girl from Blossom, the one with
the nose, helps him out.
MacGyver ends up giving her his Swiss Army knife towards the end of the episode.
Slumber always kind of wished he was that little girl, that it should've been him to receive such a
magnificent gift. Could he ever be that special? Could he ever be a little girl in a floppy hat with
a nose so large to be uninvitingly cute, who laid claim to a knife given to her by a prince that
could cure melanoma with a tank of helium and a butane lighter? Guess not, he thought.
But, the drama went something like this, Speck spun out of a giant leap and she knocked
over Grandpa's beer in route to slicing up the crooked end of Slumbers pinky toe. "Shit!"
Slumber yelped. "Need to cool that bitch down." Slumber took a long hit of the stick burning

between his fingers. He held his breath back to keep the smoke at bay. He got up quick and
snatched her around the belly as she leapt from couch to floor. "I got you, woman," he
whispered. He cupped Specks head into his hands and let the smoke from his lungs curl to her
ear, "Now calm your ass down," he said, as she scrambled from his arms. The boys clanked
beers, smiling, stoned. "Thats MacGyver right there, son."

***

The problem began as a high wail in the middle of the night. They were quite familiar
with self-medication, so, to them, getting Speck stoned was just a treatment for her mental
instabilities, but all it seemed to do was stimulate her sex.
One night, they heard a sound that woke them from sleep, a harsh yowl, like an alarm
signaling an end, soulful and horrifying. It was Speck dressed in an evening gown, garter cinched
around her leg, singing a note of lust to the ceiling of their two-man bachelor pad fully equipped
with porn mirrors and a disco ball.
For a time, Speck grooved in her own little world. She existed in this up and down cycle,
a bi-weekly spell of cat-dick fever. The screaming was a nightmare, electric. She sauntered
around the house with her ass in the air, pink hole puckered, dripping cat juice, screaming out
like a human child, panting, eyes crossed in a sexual madness, that was near-on unbelievable.
Slumber, stumbling through a heroin come down, couldnt take it anymore. He tossed her
outside before he could snap her neck in a fit of I dont give a fuck. It seemed like the right thing
to do, but it hit the boys hard three days later when their last round of morphine dwindled to a
low buzz. She left them silent in her absence, two medicated zombies milling through the house

staring at white blots on the ceiling, scratching themselves, shitting in the sink and cleaning it up
later wondering why the hell they shit in the sink.
They werent prepared for the emotion of it all, the damn cat. They realized too late how
much they loved Speck, how much their home needed her. Daily, they boys sat outside smoking
cigarettes in lawn chairs watching strays go by hoping to see her, looking for deformities and
counting stripes. Maybe she was relieved to be rid of them. Maybe she saw a better life out there
in the world and took hold of it with her tiny paws. Maybe she enjoyed the freedom from their
addictions, the freedom they thought about when they gave themselves time to think.
In Specks absence Slumber geared towards another stint in rehab, and Tug was going
strong on a four-day acid binge when they heard her singing outside their door. She was back, a
woman now, and satisfied. Slumber fell to his knees. Powder dusted his nose. His shoulders
shook. He yelled out as if he found Jehovah again. Tug remained in his corner huddled against a
wall staring at the poltergeist on the television, struggling to remind himself that he was not a
horse dying of lymphoma, and that the acid would wear off soon.
They had so much love to give. They wanted her to know that they needed her, that they
wanted to be better owners, better people even, but they struggled with it because the drugs were
just too much, and so they let her slink around the house searching for food until the next day
when their high finally reached its peak. They came down hard, but full of joy. They took turns
holding her. Love.

***

The next morning the boys bought more coke to celebrate their newfound quest. They got
comfortable in recliners, ripped lines, and called clinics to get the good word on putting cats and
abortion in the same sentence. A girl from the place out on Farmers Avenue threatened to call
PETA. That sounded bad. Tug got visions of crazed parent-teacher soccer moms hopped up on
diet pills storming their pad with a protest in their lungs. The cocaine kept them going so they
made more calls, gibbering and jabbering with animal lovers, abortion haters, people that didnt
need coke to make phone calls. They found a place that would take the job for fifty-bucks cash
on hand. It sounded like a deal, so they set an appointment for Friday of the coming week. They
were assured that by Saturday morning their lives would go back to normal with no sense of
guilt, or their money back.

***

Friday came without a thought as they found themselves MacGyvered back to the status
quo. That morning, the boys caught Speck sunbathing in the window. They took turns holding
her. Slumber gave her that child-goes-to-the-hospital pep talk that his mother gave him when he
was a kid. They stroked her head and told her everything would be okay, but the boys only made
it two steps toward the door. Tug looked to Slumber, then gazed down at the little girl in his
arms. She purred and sighed. She nuzzled his forearm. She seemed at peace with the world, her
demons replaced by children in the womb. She reminded him of his mother. Certainly not the
proper train of thought when filled with the bright lights of a good abortion.
"Is this the right thing, man?" Tug asked.
"What?" Slumber said.

"This abortion thing."

"I dont know. What do you think?"
"She seems happy. My mother couldve aborted me, you know?"
"Thats a big responsibility, man. Were not so good with all that shit."
"We did right by Speck. And now we know what were doing, right? We've got one
under our belt."
"Speck is one cat. Shes going to have like twenty of them little fuckers. And that means
were going to be cat people, and I'll be pretty fucking honest with you, I never thought of
myself as a cat person."
"But Slum, it just don't feel right. I mean, abortion is cool and all, but when its your
own? You know what I mean."
"Well," said Slumber, "I see what youre saying. The whole you can kill your kid, but I
wont kill mine thing, right?"
"My mother couldve pulled me out limb by limb, Slum."
The boys bought more coke and let the appointment pass without a call. Over the next
month they watched her breasts drop and swell. She became tired and depressed. They fed her
pickles, but she turned her nose. Tug gave her peanut butter and cottage cheese, but she clawed
his wrist. She ate the sardines. Eventually, they just let her do her thing. They double checked
her cat food and cleaned her litter twice a day. They stopped smoking pot in the living room to
give the mother some air. They created a smoke space in the laundry room, and they spent weeks
in there huddled together watching MacGyver on the black and white, burnt roaches spilling
from the ash tray, needles stranded on the floor. They even bought a sign from Madeline that
said, "IT'S A BOY!" -- In Spanish.

It took them two hours to hammer the thing into their cement lawn. They found a better
reason to love her. They had a mother in the house; but things have a way of becoming more
than a thing. The kids didn't turn into kids at all.
One morning, Tug went into his closet to hang wet clothes from hooks on the wall, and
there here found a puddle with the consistency of V-8 from the can. Within the puddle he found
three lifeless bodies the size of a mans thumb. They found a fourth in the living room.
Amazing how things happen so fast, how a man's heart can be torn from his chest going
from one room to the next. Tug cried that day, the day they found those little bodies that never
had the heart to breathe.
He went to the living room and fell back against the couch, staring at nothing, exhausted,
MacGyver on way too loud in the laundry room. Tug saw Slumbers quivering lips in his
peripheral. He heard Grandpa in the bathroom flushing the bodies away.
Speck sunbathed in the window like it was nothing, but Tug could feel it was something
more for her, it was something more for all of them, something that made them feel again in a
world where feelings didnt mean enough.
They cried together, two friends confused by the impossible complexity of life, struggling
for an answer, for a reason to fight their addictions, to somehow move on and maybe find some
women like those Mormon girls they knew when they were kids, but the idea of those kittens
being born to the world was the only thing they had going in their lives. All they could do was to
sit back and wonder why. They never thought much about it all until that kitten came along and
gave them the mind to think. Slowly they turned around, and there behind them, in the plethora,
they discovered a whole new process of finding themselves.