Back Street’s Back All Right!!!

Greetings Me Droogs N Droogettes!
Many thanks who assisted in the contributions to keeping the lights on around here and apologies for the Backstreet Boys reference. You guys and gals are The Best!!! Now, the horrible boy band? Besides being a good lead-in title, No shit, one of my first GIANT stadium concerts was… with great shame mind you…. Paula Abdul, with the Backstreet Goober Brigade opening for her…

Hey
I was what? 21/22? I was on date #3 with what became Wife Number One, the tickets were free, I had a huuuuge bag (I think a QP as memory serves me) of premium doobage and I didn’t have to drive? Thinking back, the show purely sucked but I did get laid, so that was the price to pay back then pre-tinder and whatnot… dinner, drinks, a concert/movie/show, more drinks, then the horizontal bop IF you didn’t totally show your ass. In fact that show blew rancid dead donkey dicks… it was around that time when Paula Abdul went from “perky cheerleader hot” to “bloatapotamus”… not a recommended sight to see, especially when she was all in a transparent -something- and writhing around on stage…

Which BTW, GN-BN, we had great seats riiiight up front where I could count the indentations of the cottage cheese-thighs and what was prolly a reeeeally rank fupa, as hard as she was sweating… like a Borax 8 Mule Team Sweat…

Gross me out…

Thank God it was good doobage as I previously stated.
So, not doing poly-ticks today, nor doomporn. Lotta folks been pointing out the negativity man…

That’s right Baby…
So, in going with that, I thought of a funny story I told Gretchen like early this AM, as for whatever reason I couldn’t sleep at all last night… was down at 0130 and up this AM at 0600.

Dunno why, maybe because Bob-the-Cat came in when he heard us mumbling. He likes to come in and let the slaves know whats gone wrong overnight and then demand his morning skritchums. Gretchen has KILLER long professionally done nails (she does them herself) that she keeps in just barely under “Freddie Kruger Sharpness” LOVE me some skritchens myself. Back during the Kung Floo when everything was closed, I sprung on a HUGE supply of the ‘stuff’ for her to do it herself, as she -is- a beautician… like school trained, former head stylist at the Biltmore Estates for like 15 years… there’s a reason she’s known professionally as “The Hair Diva”. Anyhoo…

Might have been Bob that triggered it but I got to thinking about another cat from waaaaay back when. Right after Gulf One in 1990/91, me and my Battle Buddy RIF’d and went into our Reserve time. Getting RIF’d (Reduced in force…) post Gulf they offered an ‘early out’ for like everyone, especially us trigger pullers, (of which they had an overabundance of at the time) left us with like 8? plus years of Reserve Commitment, but we were good with that.

We moved into a double-wide trailer in the foothills of the White Mountains in NH… a bit of a ways outside of Farmington. Middle of nowheresville back then. Still sorta is, but looking on Goolag Erf, the place has come a looong way with some what appear to be exceptionally expensive new McMansions. Because it was New Hamster, and it was a trailer, the rent was like $200 a month.

Did I mention it was a trailer?
An uninsulated trailer?
Winters were….interesting? shall we say?
My Battle Buddy, we’ll call him “D”… D’s mom had originally rented it when she got her 4th? 5th? divorce… she was cool, but a bit…. neurotic. That’s the kindest way of putting it. “Bugshit Fucking Nuts” just is too harsh for her because she -was- like a second mother… as the Brits would say “stark staring mad donchaknow eh wot?” Had a ‘thing’ about cleaning. Like we’d go grocery shopping, we’d bring home the food, and she’d spray down and/or wash every. single. container. with antiseptic. Reeeeeally hardcore about dirt and germs… and she went through men pretty quickly b/c she was really good at hiding the cray-cray, (and she was hot too for an older lady which didn’t hurt, and no, she was like my mom so no you pervs, nuthin’ happened) so eventually the mask would come off, and for her, it was wash-rinse-repeat… Anyways… I’ll call her DMom for this.

She got a new squeeze and moved out, and offered up the place to us… the Landlord didn’t care as long as we didn’t blow up the place or burn it down, to the point he let us put in a firing range off the back porch (we were really out in the boonies like I said) and do pretty much whatever we wanted out there. It was waaaaaaaaaaay outside of ‘town’ and back then it was like a microdot ON a postage stamp if you know what I mean.

We also ‘inherited’ a cat…
Which in this case, t’was NOT you’re ‘normal cat’. This was a Maine Coon Cat. Got a hunch the majority of you know of what I speak, but here’s a pic to give you an idea of what we were dealing with:

Now, this’s a example as back in those days, there were no digital cameras/phones. Unfortunately, I never did get a pic of that Big Bastard. In fact now as I recall, 1989 to about 1995 was the Luddite Lifestyle in the extreme compared to these days… Now, Our cat? He was sort of runty, only coming in at 12-13 pounds initially. More on that in a few. DMom named him “Puddy-Wuddy”.

Not exactly a burly name for a cat who had claws like fucking Wolverine man let me tell you. Part of the reason he got that sorta faggy name was, well… for a GIANT fucking Clawed Deathkat, he meowed like a little bitch. As in he had this teeny, tiny Mike Tyson lisping meow you could barely hear. Used to crack us the hell up when he’d be cussing out us slaves in that little kittenish voice of his…

Now Pud as we called him, he just sort of showed up randomly one day, and decided DMom was now “his Hoomon” and that was that. He had a collar, but no tag, and no one ever said anything about missing a Giant Fucking Catzilla, so, hey cool Giganticus Felineus-Rex man… faaaaar out man! (We were smoking a lot of weed back then, attempted to grow it even on the roof of the trailer under an “acquired” camo-net and poles. It was crap-weed but we had fun doing it)

Now what was funny was there was an overlap of D and DMom and myself living there. We were there when Pud showed up, and since DMom was feeding him, that was who he attached himself to. The pattern after she left was whoever fed him he tended to follow around. He was an indoor/outdoor cat, and preferred to use the latrine outside, which we liked as that meant no nasty cat box to deal with. He was really good about letting us know he had to go, and could get shall we say dangerously persistent, especially if you were asleep/passed out hammered (which back then was a daily occurrence. Party til you drop man!) The reason it was dangerous?

Those Wolverine claws?

He’d sink them into whatever appendage that was available. Now, he knew not to like maim us, just enough to let us know “Slave!!! I have to piss/shit NOW!!! Get the hell up and let. me. OUT!!!” We learned our place in the Grand Scheme of Pud’s World rather quickly let me tell you. So, right before DMom bailed, she took Pud to the vet. It was a Drill Weekend so me and D left, and DMom had told us
A) She was taking Pud to the Vet, and
B) She was moving in with her new Boyfriend.

OK, no issues here man, made it easier to party now that the adult has bailed.

We go out for the weekend, and got back home, dirty and all funned out from 3 days in the woods playing “Army.” Now normally, when no one was going to be home for a extended spell, we’d put Pud out. No worries with him being out there as in our immediate Area of Operations, there weren’t too many critters that’d want to tangle with a Catzilla. Well, this time, we get home, and maaaaan.

There’s an IRATE 14 pound Ball of Clawed Hate and Fury in the house.
With a big patch of fur missing around his nether region.

I won’t go into the attack, but Pud definitively let the slaves know that they had been highly remiss in their duties. We got out of it with minimal bloodshed as both D and I were still in our BDUs with the sleeves down, and our pants were bloused over our Jungles. That being said we had to stich some rips and tears because as I said, Pud was pissed.

Not that I blame him. For whatever reason, the Vet had offered to neuter Pud for free as there was some push to cut down on ferals or some such shit at the time. Either way, Mom went along with it, and Pud got his balls chopped.

I’d have been pissed off too.
He sure as fuck was, and let us know it.

Which leads us into the hilarious (leastways to me) part of the story. This was late Summer/early Fall when this happened. It’s a gorgeous time in the area we were living in. Temps juuuust right all the time… very little rain, and like no humidity. We had a new neighbor who’d moved in, a not completely unattractive female, a single mom whos name escapes me, but D took her on as a regular FWB. I was dating the X at the time, and she (the X) came by on the regular or I’d travel down to her, which showed how serious it was getting as one-way from my crib to her ‘rents was like a 120 mile trip.

At least the gas was cheap Aye?
As I remember like maybe 90 cents to a $1.10 if it was “up”
To think I used to bitch about that back then…

Our living area, like on the property, we had a few ‘things’ around the house. One was an old wood pile under a tarp from the previous residents of the casa. The trailer had a wood stove and I should emphasize the had to have a wood stove as maaan, ALL of our Artic Survival Training came into play in the deep winter. NO insulation. The central heat (HA!) was barely capable and when the wind started cranking? Hoo boy man. We’d be walking around in two sweatshirts, two pairs of sweat pants, two pair of sock… you catch my drift? (Bad pun, sorry). Long johns were the daily uniform. Now, because this wood pile was rotten AF and bug infested, we didn’t use it and instead, we’d bought a couple of cords of dry stuff from the local Lumberjack. You know you’re in a small rural town when you got a local Lumberjack… he cut us a deal as I hooked him up w/some good Herb I was getting down in Boston so after he delivered it, we stacked and prepped our own ‘clean’ woodpile.

Back to the early Fall. Old Pud had started gaining weight like a Chinese Mandarin Court Eunuch. Shot up about 4+? maybe? pounds. His disposition towards us really didn’t change, however, some of the days that he’d be out overnight? When he got back we’d find him on the front porch doing a cat version of ‘cleaning his weapon(s)’. Assiduously digging the chunks of unidentifiable bio-matter from the claws, and the mats of blood from his fur. One time the blood matting was bad enough to warrant a bath in the kitchen sink, and surprisingly, he didn’t even kick up a fuss. It was like he knew he needed help getting the blood out.

First time we saw him like this we initially thought he was hurt. The bath was more like triage for us. But nope, couple of not-too-serious scratches, maybe a bite or two from the ear or tail, but Pud generally came back with his sheild, rather than on it. Our prime concern was he’d get road-pizza’d if he wasn’t careful. That winter he still kept rolling out, be gone a couple days once and a while, and come back if the weather got really cold. One time after a fresh snowfall, we saw Pud’s prints (that or a fucking mountain lions, could have been either) in the snow and we tracked him a bit, only to realize that he had set up under the tarp and old woodpile. Made us happy that he’d figured a place to crash if he needed to.

Now. Springtime showed up. Gorgeous time there too. I think that change of seasons is THE thing I miss about New England. Pretty much the only thing.

D and I were enjoying just being bums. Life was good, the cat was cool, we had a good thing going and we knew it. Not for nothing, a really good time was had by all. Now, as it was Spring, we had the obligations of Spring cleaning. The Landlord was a bit up pissed off about a lot of the deadfall branches and shit that always comes with heavy snow. Seems the local dude who cleaned up that sort of shit wanted a LOT more shekels than the year before. We sat down with him over some beers and weed, and came to a deal that we’d do the work, and he’d knock a month or two off the rent. Part of the deal was we had to clean the WHOLE A.O. which also incorporated his other two trailers, one that had D’s friend-with-bennies and this nasty old biddy at the front of the street.

We lived on a dead-end road that was supposed to have like a mini-trailer park on it, leastways back in the early 70s whoever set the place up had that idea. There were like 9 slabs for the trailers and the piping had been laid. Problem was, only three trailers ever got set up, mainly because whatever fool thought putting in what was essentially an uninsulated aluminum box on a mountaintop in New Hamster had no fucking clue what the winters were like there.

SO because of this, as a trailer park, it was a bust. Ours was the last one on the left and our road was a dirt track essentially. I -think- it was supposed to get paved at some point, but never did. Good Ole FWB was our across the street neighbor. The last trailer we think was supposed to be the Landlord’s place, but the guy who owned it (the trailers and property) when we were there never lived in it, and he never knew what the original plan was. So instead of him, we had Ye Olde Fishwife living there… Man, she was a nasty old bitch. ALWAYS calling the sheriff on us. Had a nasty yappy Bichon dog that was just gross… always dirty and bitey. So bad because the mailbox was up by her house, we had to take the car to avoid either getting cussed out, or having this rancid little nastymutt attack us. Mind you, we were far enough back that even when we were ‘throwing down’ you couldn’t hear the music. That was her main thing she’d call the fuzz on us for… not the gunfire, loose whammenz, or weed… nope… that ‘Debbil Moosic Rock and/or Roll!’

The Sherriff for the area was cool. His deputies too. Knew we were vets, and that we weren’t doing anything highly illegal… Left us alone for the most part. Deal was if he could hear the music from her place when he got out of the car, he’d let us know. 90% of the time, it was bullshit thought. I think the only time we really had it cranked was when I got some new Tower Speakers and we were playing Manowar “Black Wind Fire and Steel” at skull-bursting levels.

Our bad man, sorry about that… want a beer?

Now, back to the story. We started cleaning up, and we had all the time we wanted to do it in really. To be honest, busting our balls, we could have probably knocked it out completely in a week. We actually had until June 1st to get it done. We started about Mid-April when it was warming up and the rains weren’t too bad. We’d gather all the deadfall, and each weekend, we’d bonfire the fuck out of it.
Good Times.

Now, towards the end of May, we got to the back side of the crib. The cleanup had gone smoothly up til then. The back side? That’s where that nasty rotten woodpile was. In all seriousness, we didn’t want to hit that we weren’t sure how we were going to deal with it, as we fully expected that this shit wouldn’t burn as it was all nasty and rotten. Just how nasty, however, we had no idea.

We finally got to it, and by way of starting, we ripped that big ole nasty tore up tarp off. You know, those BIG blue reinforced ones? Not the shitty Chineseum ones, but a pretty substantial one… anyways, we ripped it back only to get literally in the face with the stench of death/murder most foul

Or should I say ‘fowl?’
Seems that post ball removal, Pud had evidently become what we figured to be a sexually frustrated mass murderer.
Possibly THE most prolific serial killer cat EVER.

There were literal -stacks- of corpses.
Squirrels, Rabbits, Chipmunks, oh damn there were a lot of fucking Chipmunks.
Birds of all ‘flavors’…
There were Raccoons, even a Fox, and God help us, 3 (we think) utterly putrescent Skunks. Could have been more as they’d all gotten ‘melty’ and ‘soupy’ into a fucking pile of rotten goo…
Yeah we puked. Both of us.

Seems Pud? When he lost his nads, he also lost his compunction against mass murder.

While we were doing this, Pud showed up.
He climbed on the pile, and just -looked- at us.
Like all proud… like “Look guys! How’s this for a kill streak?”
Y’all who have cats know exactly ‘that look’
Jeez.
We were living with a fucking Feline Version of Jeffery Dahmer.

Worst part was when we started to kind of push everything into a pile…
Ooey Gooey pure Horrorshow
More Vomiting Ensues.
Now there’s also a side note. Back a few months previously, about 3 or 4 weeks after Pud got chopped, the Deputy showed up asking if we’d seen or knew anything about nastymutt going missing? (you know where this’s going)

Now AT THE TIME we told him in all honesty we had no clue. He was aware of the friction with the Old Bitch, as she blamed us for everything… so nothing more came of it.
Until we got to the bottom of the corpse-pile.
Fucking a dead dog… It had to be nastymutt almost fully desiccated by that time and had been DOA for quite a spell…
We -think- the annoying fucker was one of Pud’s first kills.
After that, Everything else was a freebie.
(Politicians please take note)

We learned for sure that it was for sure nastymutt when we found the collar still on the corpse. That and the little bastard was MIA, so THIS DOA matched. Case closed. Cue “Law and Order Theme”

From what we could see, Pud had disemboweled the thing, and dragged it’s dead ass back to what became known as “The Trophy Room”. Reason we called it that was because, no shit it looked organized.

Birds with Birds
Squirrels with Squirrels
And so on and so forth.

The question then came up (for about a millisecond) if we should let the Old Harpy know what happened to her fucking asshole dog. It took D all of a second to say “You think she’d tell us if the roles were reversed with Pud?” I told him, “Well yeah she would, if only to make us feel shitty about it… fuck her… and even if we do tell her, she’ll raise a stink worse than these dead fucking skunks with the fuzz and try to get the Pudster in the shit.”

So that issue being decided, we worked for about another 30 minutes until we realized just how nasty this shit was going to be. I mean it was already nightmare fuel… Ain’t no way in Hell were we going to bag this shit up like the other garbage. So we went in another direction. Dug and scraped a firebreak between the pile (both wood and corpses) and the Trailer and held us a big ole Viking Funeral, sans boat.

That shit stunk too.
Burning up old rotten corpses is a nasty-fucking-biddness as we came to learn.
The whole time, Pud just sat there…
Watching us.
Almost like a Roman Emperor watching the slaves clean up the Arena Floor after a particularly brutal Gladiatorial show. Just like a cat Aye?
Quite the look of satisfaction as I recall.

Ole Pud, well he stuck around with us for another 3 or so years as D and I went our separate ways when we went on active duty. We dropped Pud off with DMom, and my understanding he lived a few more years after that. Figure he was about 10 when he cashed in.
To this day, he remains as I call him “The most prolific serial killer cat ever.”
Not a bad epitaph for a cat I think.

So, I’ll do some more as we go. Hope you enjoyed
More Later
Big Country