The Cat with the Ouroboros Tattoo
By Plot Roach
When I came back to the apartment, Steve was sitting on the couch holding our cat Hugo. Both wore a pissed expression on their faces, at least I knew why the cat was unhappy, he was shaved. And as for Steve, I couldn’t guess.
“What’s up?” I asked, settling down on the couch next to them. The cat looked up at me as if to ask for help.
“Our cat has a tattoo.”
“No, really. I said. “What’s wrong.”
Steve gave me THE LOOK in response. It’s the same look that I give him whenever does or says something extraordinarily stupid. That way I don’t waste the breath giving him a lecture when I need it to chase after him and smack him upside the head. Being on the receiving end of that glare made me wonder if the offences he had committed in the past were worthy of such a punishment. And in case you were wondering, they were. There was this one time he tried to clean his hockey gear in the dishwasher, and… That’s another story. This one’s about the cat…
By the time that I had recovered from the glare, Steve was holding the cat out to me, his neck exposed. And right where the collar had sat against our fair feline’s skin, was a tattoo. “Oh.” was all I could say.
“I told you.” Steve snapped at me.
“Well… how did he get it?” I asked. “Was it before you adopted him?”
“No, I got him as a kitten right off the street. I’ve had him shaved before and never saw this.”
“How could he have gotten it without our knowledge?” I asked.
“I don’t know!” Steve said, stalking off into the kitchen to grab a beer.
“Did the vet say anything?”
“He laughed his ass off, and then gave me a lecture about animal cruelty. He said that if we did it again that he’d have to report us to the ASPCA and they would give us a fine and take the cat.”
“Did you tell him that we didn’t do this to our cat?”
“Yeah, but I think he was supposed to give me the lecture anyway, just in case. I’m pretty sure he knew I wasn’t lying when I freaked over seeing the tattoo.” Steve hissed, flipping the channel on the television. Poor Hugo, our beloved tattooed cat, sat in the hallway and proceeded to groom himself. He looked like a sad lion, the remainder of his orange striped hair in socks on his feet and in a mane around his head. The rest was shaved right down to his pale skin. We had it done every year around summertime in order to help him cope with the heat and to help prevent the fur balls in early Autumn.
If we had him tattooed on purpose, why would we have him shaved by someone who would report us? And why an Ouroboros? It made no sense. No one could be that cruel and stupid at the same time. I sat beside Steve, stealing an occasional sip of his beer as we waited for the documentary on polar bears to come back on. In the meantime we had to sit through car commercials, perfume ads and other assorted televised garbage. When the commercial came on about the insurance company showing a man getting into an accident because a circus monkey had been stowed in his back seat by a well meaning friend, Steve and I looked at each other and at the same time said: “Chance.”
“Chance was watching the cat last month when we were out of town at my mother’s house, remember?” Steve asked.
How could I forget. He ate the olives out of the pimento loaf, left midget foot fetish porn on my laptop and the cat kept throwing up what we assumed was bad tune at the time. Chance is one of “those guys”, the kind of person who is always on the last line of the list of people you trust. He was Steve’s friend in college, not that he actually took classes or graduated. He just stayed long enough to be banned from every frat house. And was arrested for giving the school’s mascot alcohol poisoning. In his defense, you would thing that a draft horse could drink more than a fifth of Jack Daniels and still remain standing.
Steve dialed Chance’s phone number and put our phone on speaker so that I could hear their conversation.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Steve!” Chance yelled into the phone, panting. “What’s up, buddy?” As soon as his voice could be heard over the phone’s speakers, Hugo ran for the bedroom and dashed under the bed.
“Did I catch you at a bad time?” Steve asked.
“Naw, I was just polishing the chrome.” Chance said. I gave Steve a puzzled looked and he pantomimed playing with his genitals. I made a face, but no sound. I didn’t want to alert Chance to my presence, since he would make an even bigger deal out of it in order to embarrass me.
“Listen… Um, did something out of the ordinary happen while you were watching our place last month?”
“Uhhhh…..No.”
“Something involving the cat, maybe?” Steve asked.
“Oh wow! I totally forgot. Yeah, with little Hogo.”
“Hugo.” Steve corrected.
“Yeah, Hugo. That’s what I said.”
“So…What happened?”
“Oh, I took the little dude out, since he seemed kind of down.”
“Kind of down -how?” Steve asked.
“Well he seemed unhappy.”
“He’s a cat, how can you tell.”
“Dude, he’s your pet. You should know.” Chance said. “He wouldn’t come out and play when I threw the ball or when I tried to feed him.”
“What did you feed him, Chance?”
“Well I tried the bologna in the fridge after I pulled the green crap out of it.”
I nodded, it explained the pimento loaf, at least.
“Then I took him out for a walk and we went downtown.”
“You walked him downtown?”
“No, dude. I put him on my bike and we drove. The chicks really dig a cat that can stay on a motorcycle, bro.”
I shook my head, no wonder Hugo was hiding from the man.
“And then what happened?” Steve asked.
“Well, at Barbarella’s Body Piercing, the new guy offered me a free tattoo.” Chance said. “But my parole office said that I have too many already and that’s why people won’t hire me, so I decided to pass on the love.”
“So you decided to give my cat a tattoo?”
“Oh, cool! you saw it?” Chance said, like a kid showing off his prized baseball card. “I have a poster of it in my room, man. And I thought it would be cool if little Horno-”
“Hugo.” Steve corrected.
“If Hugo could have something that would remind him of me.”
“You have an Ouroboros poster?”
“What the hell is that?”
“An Ouroboros is a serpent eating it’s own tail.” Steve explained.
“Sick, dude.” Chance said. “That isn’t what I wanted at all.”
“What did you mean to tattoo on our cat then?”
“Woody woodpecker.”
“I’ve got some bad news for you, Chance. Not only is it not Woody Woodpecker, it’s also on the back of his neck.”
“So the little dude can’t see it?”
“I’m afraid not, Chance.”
“Dude… I’ll have to get him one on his chest for Christmas then.”
Steve was speechless, so I answered for him. I hung up the phone.
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