Welcome to the resumption of The Adventures of Tequila Kitty. I would first like to apologize for the break in action in our chronicles. Tequila Kitty was away for a family wedding and, on his way back to Vegas, he was sidetracked by a twice in a lifetime opportunity (this cat has been and seen places) to see Mount Rushmore.

This week's chapter is brought to you by y0urs truly. As the creator of the idea, I still wanted to participate, and I held myself to the same rules as the other writers involved: as such I did not know where the story was going until I saw the third chapter by Brian Lepire. For those new to the novel, Chapters One and Two by Christopher Chik and Aimee Hamel can be found by clicking on the links.


Without further ado, here's Chapter 4:



It was never supposed to be like this. I was raised in a normal household, just one in a litter of six. How I got to this point...how I became known as Tequila Kitty (Tequila is not the name my owners gave me); where I got the sombrero that seems to be stapled on my head like Fozzie’s hat...well, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t believe it. But everything I’m about to tell you is the tequila-soaked truth.
-excerpt from Chapter 4: How I Started, by Darren Cormier

Tequila Kitty Ch. 4: How I Started

It was never supposed to be like this. I was raised in a normal household, just one in a litter of six. How I got to this point--the most unwanted cat in Vegas, scrambling to maintain my six remaining lives, with just 24 hours to somehow track down $5500 to prevent getting killed by a Zuckerberg wannabe, and former protégé who wanted to be oh so much more, with my ribs almost broken, bloody whiskers, and my tail between my legs...well, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t believe it. But everything I’m about to tell you is the tequila-soaked truth.

Just like everything in this town, it’s all due to a dame. That plastic, feline version of Joan Rivers--Hello, to be specific. But that’s not where it began… and I haven’t started drinking enough today to tell you that story just yet.

Where to begin… How I got involved in the mixed-up criminal underworld? how I became known as Tequila Kitty (Tequila is not the name my owners gave me); where I got the sombrero that seems to be stapled on my head like Fozzie’s hat? Poor Fozzie: tried to make it on the strip as a comedian and when he couldn’t bring in the crowds like he used to—after a certain point “wokka wokka wokka” can only carry you so far—he just ran out of material…fast—the owners of the Palace kicked him to the curb. Got hooked on speed. When he couldn’t pay his debts, they reinforced the brim and stapled the hat to his head. He can never remove it. This town is a cruel, dysfunctional mistress. You might try to leave, it might be what’s best for you, in your best interests, best for your health, but you can’t. Once you’ve tasted it once, you’re here to stay. They say if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere. But with Vegas, once you’ve made it once, you don’t want to make it anywhere else. Everywhere else is just being a shnook, or in my case, a mangy alley cat.

Anyway…

As I said, I was one of a litter of six. Once ma had us, we lasted a few weeks before the owners tried to find us better homes. And before you try to pin all of this on the fact that my mother didn’t love us, all feline mothers are the same. After two weeks, you stay out of their way or you get whacked. Feline moms are a mafia of one.

Those first few months, though, were a kitten’s paradise: races up stairs, red laser lights, marbles and yarn, and ma carrying us around in her mouth. Unlike my brothers and sisters, I was born with opposable paws, so I had better grip, faster reflexes. Yeah, I was a prodigy cat. But I still hadn’t developed the ability to talk or walk on my hind legs yet so I was at this point just a very advanced feline. After three weeks all my brothers and sisters were gone, except me and Paulie: the runt. He had one folded over ear, a lopsided eye, and when he ran, he tripped over his back paws. He looked like Sasquatch sat on his head. One of our brothers once pinned him down, but after I took care of him… don’t ask what happened: I’m not proud of that day. But let me tell you this: if you ever messed with Paulie, you messed with me, too, I think the Newmarks realized Paulie wouldn’t survive without me there. Really, it was the other way around. And I don’t think they tried very hard to find a home for him. They felt bad for us. So there we stayed with the Newmarks.

The first few months were fun: exploring the house, exploring the giant barn at the far end of the yard. To us it seemed like it was a farm, but we’re cats: we’re one foot long, 18 inches tops. What perspective do we have on distance? Obviously now that I’ve been around the world and flown in the nicest private planes you can think of, hell, I jumped off the freakin’ top of the Eiffel Tower once (bad catnip experience, that’s all I can say, but I did land on my feet), since I’ve done all of that, I have a better idea of what the distance is, but at the time me and my nearsighted brother, we had no idea about size. But what he lacked in ability, he made up for in smarts. Smart as a fuckin’ tack, that Paulie. (Yeah, mixed metaphor. Who cares? I just had my ribs kicked to shit, okay? I’m sleeping under a dumpster at the far end of the strip. Far cry from the penthouse, okay? Give me a break.)

Paulie had the brains, I had the ability. We would chase down anything in that yard: mice, moles, squirrels, foxes, birds, deer. Yup, deer. One time. We had a system. I’d patrol the far area and swipe their faces with my claws, immobilizing and temporarily blinding them. I’d then corral them towards Paulie at the far side of the shed, who was waiting underneath the ramp for them to stagger by. Never underestimate how vicious a cat who can’t run well can be. Talk about somebody with something to prove. But, like I said, he had the brains. He’s the one who helped me figure out how to use my paws to my advantage, how to climb into the best possible places for food and jumping onto unsuspecting mice. If Paulie could have talked, there’s no doubt we’d be running the strip right now. He’s the one, who when I first got involved with the Dice Kids, taught me the best strategies for playing poker. And had Paulie not been there to teach me chess, I wouldn’t have been able to get out of that den in Chinatown. Chess roulette they called it, a combination of exactly what it sounds like. If you were checkmated, you held the gun to your temple. My paws, although I was able to hold the gun, were not strong enough to pull the trigger, but that’s a different story. I still wasn’t about to lose to Fingers Johansson. Dude was born with seven fingers on each hand. And after every move against him, he would just point and laugh. Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m a talking cat. It’s a freaking novelty, I know. Get over it and play the game already, Fingers. The look on his face when I dragged him into an Accelerated Dragon…

Anyway… I’m getting off topic again.

That lasted a few years. We mostly stayed out of ma’s way, and she mostly didn’t try to rip our tails off. It was a mutual understanding. On a good day, she’d just give us the stink eye when we tried to eat a little too much of her food, and on other days, she’d let us get on the same couch as her. I can remember once, when ma was sitting on the youngest daughter’s lap, we each jumped up as well, sitting next to her and rubbing up against the sides of her legs. Now granted, the mom and older daughter were there so ma didn’t have to share the petting—we were each getting petted—but ma didn’t try to shew us off. Didn’t even hiss once. I think Aimee had a lot to do with this.

The Newmarks had three daughters: Erin, Michelle, and Aimee. Aimee was the youngest, and each daughter kind of warmed up to each of us: Erin had ma, Michelle had Paulie (Paulie would purr like a freight train when she picked him up); and Aimee chose me. What can I say? The girl had good taste.

This is how it was for a while, though: Paulie and me running around and killing anything in the yard and staying out of Ma’s way. Over time we’d get into more trouble, as he realized what my double paws and leaping ability made me capable of. We would start taking time in the barn and, instead of eating the dead mice or bringing them inside to Ma or Erin or Mr. Newmark, Paulie would hide them on the top of a landing that was just out of reach for me to jump to. He wanted to see how far I could stretch and see if I could start walking like Napoleon. He had heard Michelle talking about this book she was reading about a bunch of talking animals and one of them was a pig who by the end could walk on his hind legs. I don’t know how he knew what they were saying, but he did and he would scratch out things for me or, as he heard them say something, he would point to it in the house and told me to listen more. I owe everything to Paulie and if he were here now, I’m sure he could help me figure out a way to get that asshole Craig his $5500. Which isn’t even his debt. He stole that from the Dice Boys. It’s them that I owe the money to all because of that bitch Hello. (I know a cat can’t be a bitch, but you know how trustworthy dames can be. I’d say I trust her as far as I could throw her, but if I ever found her again, I could throw her a helluva far way, so that metaphor’s moot.)  I know the Dice Boys, I grew up with them, they and Paulie made me what I could have been, and I know that they wouldn’t care about the debt.

Anyway… back to Paulie. He’d have me hide the mice on these landings and wouldn’t let me jump. He couldn’t do anything to me, so he didn’t intimidate me with beatings or whacks and he was just as nervous about Ma as I was, but if Paulie asked me to do something or if he had an idea, I would run through a brick wall for him. He’s my brother and he’s so much smarter than a talking cat like me could ever hope to be, and vice versa. I know that if Paulie could trade with me he’d do it. Over time, Paulie would put the mouse in higher and higher places, and over time, in that barn, at least, I was able to balance on my hind legs and even to walk a little on it. The first time I was able to hold it without falling, I thought Paulie was going to mate with the wheelbarrow. That was where we’d nap in the barn. Mr. Newmark was a very neat and tidy guy: everything had its place. But one day after mowing the lawn, I think he was beat tired, more tired than an alcoholic cat sleeping under a dumpster, and didn’t feel like bringing the rest of the grass to the woods in the back of the yard. He wheeled the barrow into the shed, and left it there, instead of standing it on its end. Paulie and I saw the grass and jumped in, slept there until Michelle and Aimee came out looking for both of us, late at night, crying, clutching her doll to her side, the same doll whose hair she’d dangle over my head.

The Newmarks were a crazy card playing family, too. Every Saturday night, they’d have some friends over, and they’d all sit around the table, bottles of whatever being passed around, glasses clinking, ice spilling over the side, more and more alcohol staining the tablecloths as the night wore on. As the girls got older, they’d join at the table.

One night, Paulie had been in a particularly needy mood. One of the dad’s friends—Jonesy, loud, large, and stupid—commented on “what an ugly looking cat that is.” He usually would run and hide under Michelle’s bed on these nights. She had lots of furs and think white carpets in there. He’d sprint at full speed in there, stop on the carpet, and there he’d slide underneath the bed, curled up on whatever part of the carpet would slide under with him. Michelle had heard this, though, and since they were adolescents now, they were allowed at the card table. So she and Aimee grabbed each us (Erin was out with a boy, and ma didn’t want anything to do with them at this point) and brought us to the table. You know that moment when you finally do something that you’re destined to do, like how a chef feels the first time he’s in the kitchen; or that moment when you meet the love of your life. That’s how I felt when we sat at that poker table: the blur of the cards folding into each other after someone made a bridge shuffling them, the whirr of the colors, the secret code language; the lower sound a quarter makes when hitting a dime, the roar of the guys as someone decided to throw a five dollar bill on the table, chips slapping against each other. And it didn’t matter who you were: everyone was equal on the poker table. They all just wanted you to play, and play well, so they could take your money.

So Paulie and me became members of the Saturday night crew. But one night Jonesy said something particularly nasty. I was already on thin ice for the last time he said something. It had been a summer night and he was wearing shorts, so I treated his leg like it was a scratching post. He never came over in shorts again. But because of that night, I had to be on behavior or out in the barn I would go, no matter how much Aimee cried. So this one night after he talked about Paulie’s ear, I waited to strike. Jonesy liked his drink and nobody was going to get between him and his drink. One of the friends once tried to dump one of his beers when there was still an inch left in it. You would have thought someone had slapped Jonesy’s mama they way he reacted. Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, but he sure found a way. The color in the glass this night was deep amber, and the reflection of the ice made Jonesey even bigger, if that was even possible. So when he got up to pee, I jumped off Aimee’s lap, walked across the table and dipped my head into his glass, lapping up all of. Damn it tasted good. That’s the day I stopped being Mittens and started being Tequila.

***
           
On weekends and during the summer, Aimee would ride her bike to her friend Mitzi’s house. (Mitzi was the younger sister of The Dice Boys.)


“Aimee? What are you doing?” I heard Mrs. Newmark ask.

“Nothing.” Aimee was chasing me around the house with a cardboard box. She had cornered me onto the couch and was trying to put the box over my head. I was swatting at her, claws in mind you.

“Aren’t you going to Mitzi’s? You aren’t bringing Mittens with you on your bike.” Not everyone had taken to calling me Tequila yet, just Mr. Newmark and the Saturday night poker crew.

“That’s not what I was doing.” Aimee dropped the box on the couch and went to gather some other things to go to Mitzi’s. With everything relaxed, I pulled myself out from between the couch cushions. I had squeezed myself in there to make it harder for her to pull me out. If she did start pulling me out, I would have used my claws, or bitten her on the arm.

While I could hear Mrs. Newmark talking to Aimee in the other room, I climbed in the box and curled up. Can’t explain to you why I love boxes so much: the walls muffle the outside world, we can’t hear it as much, so it’s much easier to fall asleep. Okay, maybe I can explain why I like them.

Moments later I heard Mrs. Newmark’s keys rattling, and the box was picked up. We were going to the car! What the hell had I done to deserve such a fate as this? I just wanted to sleep, dammit! Apparently, Mitzi had a cat and she and Aimee wanted the two of us to play.

On the way over, Aimee kept trying to put me on her lap, thinking her petting would comfort me. You pulled me from my box sleep, kid. There’s no comforting me now.

I don’t know how long we were in the car (I’m a cat. I don’t tell time. I might be able to talk and walk and drink tequila like nobody’s business, but there’s a reason I don’t wear a watch) but when we got there, I still didn’t want to come out. So they pulled me out in the box. Mitzi was on the front steps, hair in braids, bow on the left side of her head, wearing a pink and black dress. She had a small cat in her arms that was dressed up the same way: a pink bow on the left side of her head, and wearing a pink and black dress. I don’t know if it was the car ride, my half-wakened state, or the fact that I had never seen a cat dressed up like a human before, but I was frozen.

Aimee held me in her lap. I inched my head closer to this new fine feline. I didn’t know what her name was, but I kept hearing Mitzi and Aimee, in high-pitched voices, as if speaking on behalf of us, saying, “Hello, Kitty. How are you?” Each would in turn grab our paws and gesture to the other one with them. People can be so stupid sometimes. Just let us cats do what we want.

I wanted to jump off and lick her face. I wanted to put my paw on top of the bow on her head and spin her like a ballerina in a music box. I wanted to run across country with her, she in her dress wooing people over to me to try to beat the cat at poker; and me taking all their money, a cat version of Bonnie and Clyde, but without the gunfire: Teqs and Hello, Hello and Teqs. We could be a vaudeville act, a mom and pop catnip shop,  traveling snake-oil salespeople, gypsy cats with patches over our eyes sailing on makeshift rats on the ocean, all the fish we could want. We sat like that for what must have been hours, staring at us each other, not moving, not saying a word to the other, just quietly assessing the other, wishing we were away from our human masters.

After some time, Mitzi’s mom came outside. “Aimee, your mother just called. She wants you to know she finished grocery shopping and is on her way to pick you up.” We left shortly after Mrs. Newmark pulled into the driveway.

Every time after that day when Aimee would go to Mitzi’s, I’d mewl and chirp and rub on her legs, trying to get her to take me over there. Never happened again. I don’t know what I did that day, either, but Hello clearly didn’t want to see me. She didn’t look like she does now. Her eyes were wide. Her legs were normal cat size. She could move; man, could she move. I don’t know how she made it over to Japan, but she did. Forgot all about us, about me, about her roots. Stepping stones for some dames wild dreams of fame, fortune, and the grand catnip in the sky.

Haven’t seen a cat like her since. Dames. Every dream we have, they manage to take our snow-globe world and trash it on the ground, porcupines in our world of bubbles. You end up sleeping under a dumpster with your ribs kicked in and owing some jackass $5500, lapping up leftover tequila from the broken bottle of someone else’s shattered dreams.

Dames.           

 
Brian Lepire is a man of many hats: editor and contributing writer to the online pop culture zine Junkyard Arts; poet; lyricist and lead singer of a rockabilly band; playwright and actor; sous chef; student for a degree in publishing; and an aficionado of all cool storyteller music: think Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, Sex Pistols, etc.
He also hates cats and tequila. Which is why his authoring of the third chapter of Tequila Kitty (found here) seemed so appropriate. And, lastly and definitely not least importantly, he's also a friend. I sat down with him recently over a glass of his hated tequila to discuss books, writing, and his own process. 
Picture
Brian Lepire, looking mighty skeptical about his tequila.
Q & A with Brian Lepire

Q: Tell me about what your writing. You write in a lot of different genres: poetry, prose, songs, drama, film criticism. Do you think they all feed each other, or do you have one particular genre that you consider your calling more than the others?

I view writing as a form of expression. It allows me to tap into my various thoughts, beliefs, and experiences. But there’s not just one genre that lets me expose all those elements. Some things I feel are better said through a poem than through a story, a three act play rather than a three verse song.

Then there are the articles and music reviews and film critiques. That’s my thirst for knowledge and new experiences coming out, as well as the desire to share that information with people. I would say my background is definitely in creative non-fiction and I derive a great amount of joy from writing a well-research, well-executed article.

Q: What would you say are your strengths as a writer?

I’d like to think I turn a good phrase here and there and pull together a coherent storyline with relatable characters. When I write, I spend a good amount of time making sure my characters are familiar enough so the reader doesn’t have to work excessively hard to see things from the character’s perspective. Another strength, and perhaps my greatest weakness, is I’m known for writing too tight sometimes – my sentences and paragraphs flow in such a way that editing can be a long and tumultuous project.

Q: What are you working on now?

I’m currently piecing together a collection of short stories, tentatively called THE PEOPLE WE MEET. I’ve spent a good portion of the past decade focused on my poetry and journalism, so writing short stories has been an exciting challenge. It’s forced me to dive deeper into the themes that surround my writing and my life.

Q: What publications has your work appeared in?

I’ve spent the past three years as a contributing writer and editor for Junkyard Arts, an online magazine aimed at exposing the masses to what’s happening in the art world and what’s worth paying attention to. You can also find my work at SalemFilmFest.com, where I am Online Media Editor.

My work has also been featured in Thirsty Magazine and several newspapers.

Q: Who are your primary influences, or inspirations, as a writer?

My influences are as varied as the genres I write in, but at the core they all seem to share a knack for packing great description and wit into crisp, memorable lines. Writers like Gay Talese, Leonard Cohen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Neil Simon, and Hunter S. Thompson have masterful styles that I keep returning to for guidance.

Q: What inspires you the most (e.g. music, landscape/nature, written word, life, etc.)?

More often than not I pull inspiration from real life experiences, especially when writing poetry.

Q: Do you find there’s a difference in writing poetry or prose? Which comes easier to you? Which do you enjoy writing more?

There’s a definite difference for me between writing poetry and prose. Poetry has always been easier for me to write. My best poems usually come from brief moments of inspiration that turn into a feverish writing session that can last anywhere from 20 minutes to three hours. Prose takes more time and development, which is fun, but is more of a commitment for me than poetry.

Q: What are you reading right now?

Right now I’m catching up on Jack Kerouac’s THE DHARMA BUMS because I should have read it a while ago. I’m also reading BOOK BUSINESS: PAST, PRESENT, and FUTURE to prepare for my summer at the Denver Publishing Institute.

Q: What authors, when you read them, make you think, “I’m giving up writing because I will never be as good as them?”

Breece D’J Pancake. He was able to capture so much emotion without having to become overly verbose. His writing at times is very stark and completely captivating.

Q: I know this is the hated and borderline unanswerable question, but it has to be asked. Why do you write?

Because when I don’t write, food is tasteless and my blood is quick to boil. Writing gives me purpose, fuels my ambition, and allows me to express the world that I see. But most of all, writing is what I’m meant to do. I get very frustrated when I can’t write for long periods at a time.

Q: If you weren’t writing, what else would you be doing?

Publishing. Managing an independent press/independent bookstore. I want to provide an outlet to great writers who might be intimidated or feel burned by the big publishing houses. There are too many poems and stories and books that have never reached the public because the writers have been turned off by the whole process, and I think that’s a shame.

Q: Name your top five favorite books and/or top five favorite authors?

Oh man…why did you have to ask? My five favorite books, in no particular order: The Rum Diary (Hunter S. Thompson); On the Road (Jack Kerouac); Stranger Music (Leonard Cohen); The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran); and CASH: An Autobiography (Johnny Cash w/ Patrick Carr).

Q: What is your non-writing claim to fame?

Officiated the wedding of Sarah Murray and Liam Walker. A pretty big accomplishment in my book.  

And now we get into the non-writerly, more silly-ish questions of the interview, as paraphrased from James Lipton of Inside the Actor’s Studio:

Q: What is your favorite drink?

Coffee

Q: What is your favorite curse word?

Fuck…it is such a versatile curse. Good for any fucking occasion.

Q: Favorite food?

Hot Dogs from Coney Island in Worcester, MA. And cheese. Man, I love cheese.

Q: What is your most vivid memory?

The night I met “The Man with the Bomb”. You’ll have to pick up the book when it comes out to find out more.

Q: What is your favorite sound?

The excited greetings of friends when I arrive to the party.

Q: What is your least favorite sound?

An unattended, screeching fire alarm.

Q: If heaven exists, what do you think god will say upon meeting you at the pearly gates? What would you want it to say?

I would want God to say “I hear you have some questions. Want to talk?” But It will probably say “How did you get in here?!”


 
I’d made it to the motel parking lot when I heard the footsteps. A sombrero may make me look good, but it does shit for my hearing, so the bastards were able to scoop me up real quick. The first one gave me a hard slap on the top of the head with an opened palm. The bottle crashed to the ground, shattering like so many dreams do in this city.  While I was still reeling, another one came up from behind with a burlap sack. The last thing I saw before they cinched the sack closed was an oversized neon cowboy wink at me.
- excerpt of Chapter 3 by Brian Lepire

Welcome to Chapter 3 of The Adventures of Tequila Kitty. (Chapters 1 and 2 can be found here and here, respectively.) When we last saw Teqs he was getting kicked out of the house of a kind-hearted, lovelorn woman who had fallen for him and taken him in. But, just like you can't teach an old dog new tricks, you can't domesticate a wild cat. Chapter 3 was written by my friend Brian Lepire, who has written for Junkyard Arts, the Salem Film Festival, plays, and songs for his previous incarnation as the lead singer of a rockabilly band.

So, without further ado, (and because Teqs getting rather restless and we want to tell this story before he bolts the country...again), we bring you Chapter Three of The Adventures of Tequila Kitty.


Chapter 3

I promised myself I would never come back to this city.

After my last trip to Vegas, I knew the only thing this city had to offer me was trouble and bad credit. I told myself it was time for a fresh start. I’d put down the tequila and put away the sombrero.

But here I was again, with a bottle in my paws and women by my side, making more bad decisions.

I had come back to town to wish an old friend good luck. She was a good woman who didn’t deserve the hell I put her through when we knew each other, so when I heard she had run away to find a better life, I wanted her to know I wished her only the best. The fact she ran away to the place I was running from was an irony that tasted like a bad omen, but I went anyway.

She was giving everything she had to be a comedienne and had managed to get a show at the Venetian lounge room. After her set, I decided to bolt out before she had a chance to corner me. Awkward moments smell like rotten mice – I can smell them for miles. I was also hoping that no one recognized my tail. The last time I was at this particular casino, I hadn’t left the best impression. Probably because I didn’t leave as much money as I owed.

The place was crowded. There was a convention of seniors in town playing the slot machines and a poker tournament that was getting some national air time, so I thought the staff was busy enough that a cat wearing a sombrero minding his own business could go unnoticed. The girls and I walked quickly, careful not to make eye contact with anyone who might give a damn that I was back in town for a one time occasion.

There’s a trick to walking fast across the casino floor. The joint is set up so that you can’t get ten feet without stopping to spend more money, but you just have to keep the slots to your right at all times and keep your eyes out for old timers. They’re the ones who usually get blinded by the whirring cherries and sounds of emptying machines and might accidentally step on your tail, then keel over from the unexpected sound of a cat screeching and clawing their ankles. Blind fools have it coming though.

We were almost to the doors when I thought I saw someone swing their heads around for a second glimpse. I was hoping it was just someone getting a better view of the beauties I had picked up earlier that night at the bar down the strip. Or did I meet them at the bar this morning? I think their names were Tina and Emily.

The fresh air tasted cool and sweet. I took a fresh swig of my tequila.

“Where to now, Teqs?” asked Emily, the brunette in a perfect blue dress.

“Oh, oh, oh, let’s go to the Palace! I haven’t been there yet,” Tina exclaimed. She was obviously new to town.

“I think this might be where we go our separate ways, girls. I think I’m gonna call it a night.”

“What? It’s still early though. There’s still so much trouble we could get into,” Emily said in a way I’d heard so many times before, like a lady who expected me to keep her warm tonight. Damn if she didn’t look good in that dress though.

“Yeah. I wanna go to all the nice places,” Tina said.

“First off, the Palace ain’t as nice as you might think. Be careful over there. That place can shed your fur.  They especially like to ruin blondes, Tina. And Emily, I’ve had my share of trouble in this town. I’m ready to call it a night on Vegas. Give me a call tomorrow.”

They pouted a bit, but when they realized I’d made up my mind, they headed off towards Caesar’s.

I didn’t want them around when trouble came.

I was holed up under a dumpster outside a cheap motel at the end of the strip; a far cry from the penthouse apartments and ritz’d up houses I usually worked my way into when I was in town. Lonely ladies had a thing for taking me in, and I didn’t mind taking advantage of their desperation every now and then. But this time I chose a place further off the radar, away from the lights that might give me away to any of a number of people who I didn’t have time for.

I’d made it to the motel parking lot when I heard the footsteps. A sombrero may make me look good, but it does shit for my hearing, so the bastards were able to scoop me up real quick. The first one gave me a hard slap on the top of the head with an opened palm. The bottle crashed to the ground, shattering like so many dreams do in this city.  While I was still reeling, another one came up from behind with a burlap sack. The last thing I saw before they cinched the sack closed was an oversized neon cowboy wink at me.

***

Dried blood on burlap has a weird smell to it.

Whoever had sent these goons to pick me up had forgotten to mention I didn’t have all my nine lives anymore. They’d gingerly tossed me into the back of their van and laughed as the sack bounced off the interior walls. By that time I was so groggy I didn’t know how long we drove for. I assumed we were just going out to the desert to dig a well, so it didn’t really matter how long it took.

At some point I had finally passed out and didn’t wake up until the van door slammed open. One of the bastards stepped in to grab the sack. I let my claws peek through just enough to give him a nasty surprise when he wrapped his hand around the knot.

“Sonofabitch!” the unlucky one said.

“What’s your problem, Joe?”  

“Bastard clawed me!”

“Haha. Pussy.”

“Shut up, Brad!”

I chuckled a bit too, until Joe’s boot met my ribs. I passed out again.

The next time I woke up the bag had been opened and I was surprised to find I wasn’t in the desert next to a fresh grave. Instead, I was in a large room without windows. It was covered in blood red wallpaper, which did nothing for the lack of light in the place. Shadows danced around the room from hanging incandescent lights.

There were two men standing behind me making sure I didn’t try anything stupid like bolt for the door. Joe was a bit shorter than most guys in his line of work, but had shoulders to make up for it. I could tell it was him from the fresh blood still speckled on his hand. Brad was a bit taller and better off in the looks department. It’d looked like someone had busted his nose at one point, but the damn thing gave his prep boy face even more character.

At the other end of the room was a glass desk that reflected the weird blue glow of twelve computer screens mounted to the back wall. There was a chair facing the screens, but I already knew who had picked me up.

I coughed up a hairball and some blood.

“Is that the infamous Tequila Kitty I hear? It can’t be. I thought he was long gone by now, especially after the shit he pulled last time he was here.”

The chair spun around to reveal a young guy who still dressed like he was in college, even if he did have more money than most actors in their prime. Craig Irvin had a specific look: zipped-up hoodies, jeans, and sandals. Didn’t matter where he was or who he was meeting with, whether it was the Prime Minister of Russia or the founder of the world’s largest tech company - he always wore sandals. He also had a nickname to match his curly red hair, but I refused to call him “Big Red”.

“It’s nice to see you again, Craig,” I said, trying to hide any signs of pain.

“Oh, it’s nice to see you too, Tequila. I assume you have my money.”

“Your friends there picked me up in the parking lot of a motel I couldn’t afford a room in, so, no. I don’t have your money at this moment.”

Craig wanted to kick me himself, but couldn’t because of his sandals, so he looked at Joe. A familiar boot met my sore ribs and I let out a loud yelp.

“Who the hell do you think you are, you mangy alley cat?!” Craig was on his hands and knees, pushing his beat red face against mine. Spit sprayed my eyes as he spoke. “Do you think the rules don’t apply to you? I want my money!”

I felt as good as I could in a situation like that. He wanted his money, which meant I might be able to walk out of this room if I could promise I could give back everything  he’d lent me during my last bender in Vegas.

“Or maybe I’ll just make myself a new pair of fur-lined sandals. What do you think, Teqs? Those sound nice.”

I didn’t feel so sure about this anymore.

“Craig, I think I can-“

Joe stepped on my tail, twisting his foot as if he was crushing out a cigarette. I hissed and took a swipe at his ankle which caused him to jump back. He started to wind up for another kick.

“Not yet!” Craig said. “Little runt was about to say something. Hopefully he was about to tell us the code to his bank account, which conveniently has the $5500 he owes me, plus interest.”

“Craig, if you don’t mind me saying, what’s $5500 to a guy like you? Don’t you make $5 million a day from your websites alone? Is it really worth killing me over?” Probably not the best thing I could’ve said at that moment, but I had three broken ribs and a concussion. I was doing the best I could to figure out how to give him what he wanted.

“Vegas is an interesting place when it comes to debt,” Craig said, letting the anger on his face transform into malice. “Did you know they found a body in the desert last week of an old gangster killed over $50?”

Craig sat back down at the wall of computer screens and began pulling up files.

“Tequila, let’s summarize what’s going on here so you and I are on the same page. You came to town a few months ago driving a nice looking Corvette and swigging straight from the bottle. You and your loser buddies start playing the tables and you’re having some luck. You hit a couple places around town, running tables until they get cold.

Things taste real sweet as you rake it all in. Then, like pretty much everyone in Las Vegas, you overstay your welcome and lose it all. You think you can still win, so your friends hook you up with a pretty well-off guy: me. We hang out for a bit. I think your hat is weird, but like you enough anyway to front you some money; exactly $5500. 

You head back to the tables and lose it all over Vegas. Then, instead of doing what you agreed to do and hand over the keys to the car, you jump in the Corvette you probably stole from someone and drive back to whatever dirty litter box you came from.

Does that sound about right to you?”

“You’ve got a good memory.”

“And you have a lousy memory. I want my money back. How are you going to get me my money, Tequila?”

When your universe starts to collapse around you, time stands still. The imminent sense that there is no way to avoid a death you are unprepared for makes the world’s axis grind to a halt and all you’re able to do is remember the most random moments of your life. As I listened to Craig layout my dilemma, all I could do was remember the most obscure things: my first sombrero, the first time I caught a mouse in Tijuana, the smell of a woman as we laid under the covers on a cold morning.  Craig and the others must have seen a drooling cat, because Craig slammed his fist on the desk.

“Tequila! How are you going to get my money?! Better yet, I don’t want to know. I just want it back. And I want it back in the next twenty-four hour.” Craig swung his chair back to the screens. “And  now for some added incentive. You know you weren’t the first one we picked up last night, right?”

Craig pulled up a live camera feed of a small empty room, save for two chairs back to back. There were two beautiful women handcuffed to the chairs. Luckily, it looked like Joe had been kinder to Emily and Tina. But their faces were etched in fear.

“You bastards! What have you done to them?!” I spun around and made a quick dash towards Joe. He must have been expecting it though, because as I jumped up to claw his eyes, he reached out and swatted me down. I fell on my back, which took the wind out of me and reminded me I should be in a body cast.

“Calm down. They’re fine,” Craig said. “You’re the one we want, not them. I only had Joe and Brad ask the ladies to join us so that you don’t get the idea to run off again without paying back what is mine.”

Craig walked over to the spot of floor I was sprawled over. Another bloody hairball came up as he looked down at me.

“Tequila, you don’t know me very well, but you should realize by now that I’m a man of certain principles. Kind of like how computers and science have unbreakable rules, I believe that there is no debt too small worth forgetting. And not only do I value my money, but I value my time. I took the time to help you out of a bad situation, and now I’m taking the time to address this little problem we have. So, basically what I’m saying, if you don’t get me my money, and if I feel like you’ve wasted my time, I am going to be very angry. And Joe likes it when I’m angry, because that means he gets to be angry too, and Joe really likes being angry.”

Joe took a step forward, but Craig raised a hand.

“Tequila, here’s the deal: you get me my money in the next twenty-four hours, or else the young ladies are not going to win big in Vegas. And please, for their sake, and yours, don’t try to leave town. I’ll know if you will, and I’ll still come after you. Is any of the unclear?”

I gave Craig a big smile, wide enough to show all the pointed teeth I still had, and nodded.

“Be back here tomorrow at 10 am with my $5500. Joe, Brad, get him out of my sight.”

I thought I was going to end up back in the sack and was prepared for an extra kick from Joe for good luck, but instead Brad came over and ran his hand across my back.

“Alright. Grab your sombrero and let’s go.”

I dragged myself onto all fours and tossed my sombrero on. Joe and Brad escorted me to the elevator. Brad hit the button for the first floor, and the three of us rode down twenty floors in a weird silence normally saved for funerals or in-laws.

“I’m guessing that hat ain’t your lucky one,” Brad said.  

“Ha! Nope. I guess not. Hopefully I can change that though,” I replied.

“I doubt it,” Joe said with a smirk.

The elevator doors open and sunlight burst through the glass-paneled walls of the reception hall. Brad pointed to the door and gently pushed me towards the exit with one foot.

“We’ll see you in the morning, Tequila Kitten,” Joe said. He waved as the elevator doors closed.

I stepped out the door and realized we’d never left the Vegas strip. I felt lost.

 
Last week a new literary project (phenomenon?) was launched: The Adventures of Tequila Kitty. Thirteen writers were recruited to write one chapter each, only being allowed to see the chapter written before them. There were no limits on scope, style, or plot line. The only mandate was that one of the main characters of their chapter had to be a tequila swilling, alcoholic, sombrero wearing cat: Tequila Kitty, or Teqs. Chapter One: The Tequila-Mockingbird Incident can be found here

As part of this project, an interview will be posted within days of each author's chapter.

Chapter Two: Confessions of a Crazy Cat Lady was written by my good friend, the bartender poet, Aimee Hamel, who recently received her Bachelor's in Creative Writing-Poetry from Emerson College in Boston.

Picture
Aiimee and me moments before our mandatory Tequila shot.
Q & A with Aimee Hamel

Q: Tell me about what your poetry collection. When did you originally start it? How did it evolve? Was there a theme in your work you intended, or is it more just a collection of your works?

I actually started it a couple weeks before freshman year of college when I was talking to a future peer and he asked to see my work. I didn’t have anything to show so I wrote a poem in like 5 minutes to show him. An edited version of that poem did end up in my final poetry Thesis.

There was no intended theme, but as I went along it was pretty clear there was a theme forming. Each poem sort of had something to do with the trials and tribulations of being in love, and I ended up titling the collection after one of the poems: This Is Why I Choose to Be Alone.

Q: Give me a brief bio of your life:

I’ve been a New England girl all my life: grew up 40 minutes south of Boston, went to school at Emerson in Boston, and bartend in downtown Boston now. I’ve always been active in dance and sports, and in my older years am now heavily into fitness. I have always had a California state of mind and am currently saving up to move out there in a year or two.

Q: What would you say are your strengths as a writer?

I think my stuff is pretty easy to read, and I like that. I like that my poetry is complex but still understandable to most people, I think. I typically am drawn to write dramatic, depressing stuff, so once in a while when I attempt to write comedy (like this chapter in TK), and it’s actually funny to people, I definitely feel a sense of accomplishment.

Q: What are you working on now?

After taking almost a year off from writing after I was burnt out from writing my Thesis, Tequila Kitty got the ball rolling and I’m excited to start writing again. I’m going to try to publish some or all of my poetry collection, and I’m thinking about writing a short story.

Q: How has your upbringing influenced your work, if at all?

I don’t know if my upbringing really influenced it at all... I just remember as a 9 or 10 year old kid, always coming up with make-believe scenarios in the back yard with my neighbors. I also acted in middle school. I love a good story I guess.

Q: What inspires you the most (e.g. music, landscape/nature, written word, life, etc.)?

I’d say life. Weird stuff. Every time I see weird or creepy person, I want to write about him/her. A lot of times the weird stuff is the depressing stuff, so that’s why I think a lot of my writing is depressing, but I love it. This world is so strange and I just want to talk about it.

Q: Do you find there’s a difference in writing poetry or prose? Which comes easier to you? Which do you enjoy writing more?

I really do like them both. Lately i just love that you can tell a whole story in a couple of lines, with poetry.

Q: What are you reading right now?

As weird as it is, I managed to go all of high school and college not having read The Great Gatsby, so now that the movie is out I feel like I finally have to read the book. I literally don’t even know the story line, haha, so I’m interested to check it out.

Q: What authors, when you read them, make you think, “I’m giving up writing because I will never be as good as them?”

Q: I know this is the hated and borderline unanswerable question, but it has to be asked. Why do you write?

Unlike what I think a lot of people would say-- some nonsense along the lines of “I get the urge and I just HAVE to do it,”-- I don’t really feel any urge to do it. Half the time I convince myself I’m not that great of a writer. But then I eventually write something and at the end I find myself liking it and it’s always a pleasant surprise, like WAIT I actually am good at this, cool!

Q: If you weren’t writing, what else would you be doing?

Well over the past year that I wasn’t writing, I have been bartending and working out. Both of those things make me happy, and I’ll be continuing them even as I get back into writing.

Q: Name your top five favorite books and/or top five favorite authors?

Books: We Were the Mulvaneys, The Lovely Bones, Oryx and Crake, The Virgin Suicides........ Fifty Shades of Gray! I had to...

And now we get into the non-writerly, more silly-ish questions of the interview, as paraphrased from James Lipton of Inside the Actor’s Studio:

Q: What is your favorite drink?

Alcoholic: I don’t drink sugary drinks anymore since my diet, and I miss them!!! But technically my favorite would be Tequila Sunrise.

Non-Alcoholic: Anyone who knows me will tell you I’m obsessed with milk. Room temperature and drunk straight from the jug.

Q: What is your favorite curse word?

Cock sock

Q: Favorite food.

Clam chowder. I have to moderate my intake.

Q: What is your most vivid memory?

I’ve suppressed most memories before the age of like 14.

Q: What is your favorite sound?

Cat’s purring.

Q: What is your least favorite sound?

People chewing loud crunchy things. Like that one person in class who would bring carrots or a bag of Fritos during a lecture. Close your damn mouth or go away from me.

Q: If heaven exists, what do you think god will say upon meeting you at the pearly gates? What would you want it to say?

I hope that I will get enough done before this life is over so that he says “well done.” I hope he does not say, “#fail.”


 

That’s how I’d met him really: drinking games. We’d both been at the local watering hole, challenging the other patrons to drunken games of chance and making a clean sweep of it. A few guys, figuring themselves for alpha dogs, had Teqs cornered after he’d taken them for about a grand combined. I grabbed up a bottle and got ready for some smashing action, when a few ladies diffused the situation with their, “Aw, but he’s so cute,” and, “look at his little sombrero.” Before the petting turned heavy, he bolted out the door with his winnings.
I followed him down to a dive bar just outside Hollywood. Inside, I spotted him paying his tab with the misfortunes of others.

-excerpt of Chapter One of The Adventures of Tequila Kitty.


Today marks the first installment of The Adventures of Tequila Kitty, an exquisite-corpse collaborative novel. A much longer explanation and introduction will be given in the near future, but here is the Cliffsnotes version.
Thirteen writers were recruited to write one chapter.  The rules were simple: one week, 3000 words (more or less), any style. There were two conditions. The chapter had to involve the cat in the above photo (since named Tequila Kitty, or "Teqs" for short) as one of the characters; and each writer could only see the chapter written before them.

For the next few months, the next chapter will be released the following Sunday on this website and many others. An interview with the author of each will be posted the following day.

The first chapter was written by my good friend Christopher Chik.
As always, thank you. And enjoy.



Picture
Chris Chik (left) and I moments before our obligatory tequila shot.
Chapter One: The Tequila-Mockingbird Incident

We were in a Geo Metro convertible somewhere outside the Barstow freeway when the catnip started to hit.

“Birds, birds everywhere.” My companion was pawing at the sky in fits, claws extended.

I had told him not to open the bag with the top down. The stash had blown across the freeway into the setting sun, a puffy trail of green leaves and stems spattering the trailing cars with the mess. He was relegated to huffing what he could out of a stitched up tie-dyed mouse.

“Caught the bastard trying to steal my sand.” He had the mouse between his paws, back legs kicking and pushing, trying anything to get at the catnip.

Poor bastard, I thought, but I had my own problems. He’d put all my weed in the trunk with my bong and suitcase. In his haste to get at the catnip, my companion only thought to throw my rolling papers in the glove box. Not sure how he planned to roll joints with those paws of his—at least not without shredding the papers to bits. Without my grinder, all he was good for was dicing up the nugs anyway. We would need to pull over; I needed my weed, and if I didn’t get to a pet store before they closed, this hip cat would start clawing at more than a stuffed mouse. Say what you want about a Geo Metro, but it was mine and got fifty miles to the gallon at a time before they’d invented hybrids.

I took the next exit into a little patch of concrete, just outside the true desert of Joshua Tree.

“Coronas, they’ve got Coronas!” he said.

“Corona’s the town you idiot,” I said.

“Well, every town’s got Coronas.” He was huffing at the stuffed mouse and reeking of desperation.

I pulled into a gas station to ask where the nearest pet store was. The sun was nearly gone and with it had to be most of the store clerks around town as well. Inside the station’s little convenience store, the lone attendant fussed with dispensing cigarettes and one person who still paid cash for gas. He didn’t seem too interested in my questions at first.

 “We don’t need your kind around here.”

“Just trying to find a pet shop, man,” I said.

“Everyone comes through here on the way to Vegas; stuck in traffic; just want to use the bathroom or get directions.”

“Relax, meow.” My companion tipped his sombrero forward on his furry head with his free paw, the other clutched to a case of Coronas; I hadn’t even heard him come in.

“No pets,” the cashier said.

“Name’s Tequila, but you can call me Teqs,” he said, flashing his fangs.

“There’s a pet shop two blocks over.” The cashier rang him up.

“Told you they had Coronas.” Teqs winked at me and smoothed his whiskers.

He slinked through the doors and left me to settle the tab. When I got outside the crazy feline was already six beers deep into the case. Since I’d met him, he’d been into something: booze, catnip, empty boxes. More than anything, he loved getting waist deep in people’s dirty laundry. Spend your days in the desert scratching in the sand, and you’ll dig up all kinds of dirt.

The pet store was just as run down as the rest of town. Before I could even pull into a space, he’d leapt over the side. I managed to make half a loop around the aisle when he burst through the door with cans and bags of catnip clutched to his chest, a bird between his teeth. I wished so hard for a string to be attached to the feathered mass, but when he loosed his fanged grip from it, I could see the blood trickle out. I gunned the engine when I saw the store clerk running through the door behind Teqs.

“Get back here you furry little drunk,” he said.

Teqs leapt up toward the car as I sped past. His front paws tumbled his swag into the passenger’s seat, but his legs weren’t strong enough to get him over the edge. He latched onto the top of the door with his claws, and with him hanging from the Geo we escaped into the night.

“What’d you go and do that for?” I asked.

“He was mocking me, dude.”

“The clerk? I mean, you are wearing a sombrero, man.”

“The bird.” He sat there batting at it.

I looked down to see a gray-white bird with soft orange and baby blue patches.

“We’ve got to make a run for it, ditch the body somewhere. I can’t take another murder rap.”

“Petty theft. Birds aren’t people.”

“Next you’ll tell me cats aren’t people.” He hissed and arched his back.

“I’ve probably got the only yellow Geo in Corona, you know.”

“Maybe we should ditch the car, too.”

“You buying me a new one?” I asked.

“Suggestions?”

“Lay low for a while, then book it to the Nevada border.”

I drove until I found a quiet, dark neighborhood and packed a bowl. Excitement was well and good, but if you weren’t paying for it up front, with cash, you’d get billed for it in the end. Nothing calmed me quite like smoking a fat one. Why he couldn’t just wait for me to park and go in with him is beyond me. Maybe he’d thought every second counted, that they’d close before I could park and get in. He never did have much sense of time; maybe that’s why I understood him better stoned—that total imperceptibility of the passing minutes. In the seat next to me he’d shredded open a pilfered bag of catnip and dumped it all over the seat.

“This is enough to last me a lifetime.” Teqs was writhing around in the seat, purring and rubbing his cheeks into the folds of the cushioned surface.

“Oh yeah, you’re really rolling in it now,” I said.

When we got back on the road, the sun was completely gone and my sense of direction failed. We drove around for blocks and blocks looking for the freeway. Teqs seemed more docile by then, just batting at the bird and muttering about getting locked up. He had a bad experience with a cage once and some folks in the Deep South who didn’t take well to his kind, but it wasn’t something he made a habit of talking about. The thought of answering for his crime of haste had him stuck back in that place, like a hairball he just couldn’t cough up. I’d have done anything to drag him out of that funk.

We passed a parking lot I’d seen a few times before. How long had we been dancing circles in the Corona concrete? The lot had been empty the first couple times we passed, but this time was filled with cars and a smattering of people; a number of them had mohawks and looked to be rather crusty—our sort of folk. Teqs was coming out of his comatose state by then and was burying his face in a fresh can of the ‘nip.

“Think you ought to slow down there, Teqs?” I asked.

He was oblivious.

“Wouldn’t want you so out of it you couldn’t run the hustle with me.”

His ears perked up and he quit wriggling in the passenger’s seat.

That’s how I’d met him really: drinking games. We’d both been at the local watering hole, challenging the other patrons to drunken games of chance and making a clean sweep of it. A few guys figured themselves for alpha dogs had Teqs cornered after he’d taken them for about a grand combined. I grabbed up a bottle and got ready for some smashing action, when a few ladies diffused the situation with their, “Aw, but he’s so cute,” and, “look at his little sombrero.” Before the petting turned heavy, he bolted out the door with his winnings.

I followed him down to a dive bar just outside Hollywood. Inside, I spotted him paying his tab with the misfortunes of others. He was so skilled he’d almost never taken a sip, while his opponents grew wearier with each slug. After I’d watched for a while, I made my challenge.

“Bet you can’t even hold your liquor,” I said.

“How’s that, meow?”

“Haven’t even seen you take but two drinks, man.”

“How’s about a drinking match, straight up?” Teqs asked.

“Name your poison.”

“Patrón.” He smoothed his whiskers. “Stakes?”



“Everything you’ve won tonight.”

Teqs slid his pile of cash across the bar.

“From before, too.”

“Meow, that’s my kind of scalawag.”

Saying Tequila was half my size would be generous, and still he had me beat. I’d had to stop somewhere after the first bottle, but he kept going. He’d spent my money on three more bottles before he finally passed out. Part of me wanted to take my money back, like there was no way anyone could drink that much and not pull a John Bonham. I’d thought about it for a few minutes, standing over him laying there on his back, all four appendages up in the air and kicking at dreams. He awoke with a fit, though. Seeing me standing over him, I expected Teqs to tear me a new one.

“How’d you do it?” he asked.

In his celebration, he’d drunken himself clean of the memory of his victory. I thought about claiming otherwise, telling him the truth of the situation, but before I had time to weigh on it, he made me an offer.

“Meow, I tell you what, we could clean up on a drinking game hustle; never met a man could outlast me.”

After we’d cleaned up from the Patrón binge, we went to a little coffee shop down the street. It was a lot like a first date, learning what my new shill was like. As partners go, this guy had a puss could squeeze a dime out of a miser and get him to smile while he did it.

“Name’s Tequila,” he said.

“How’s a guy come upon that name?”

“I guess since we’re partners, meow, I can tell you.”

I wondered if he thought I was a fink; I mean, he’d caught me standing over him at the bar and all.

“Tequila’s the only drink gets me fuzzy anymore.”

“So you’re a ringer?” I’d wanted to tell him he’d beaten me at the bar, but that early on, our partnership hinged on my established mythos.

“My kind is everywhere on the internet; I made my fortune there; CERN, DARPAnet, videos of me in different hats, that sort of thing.”

“Guess the sombrero stuck.”

“Blew it all on catnip, the good stuff, imported straight from Colombia, dude,” he said.

I started to think about all the greens I could buy with that kind of Silicon Valley dough.

“When I snapped out of the haze—”

“When you went broke,” I said.

“I tried to drown myself in bottle after bottle of booze, but nothing got me drunk anymore, except tequila.”

“Tequila—”

“Call me Teqs.”

By the time we’d hit Corona, our game was on point. Teqs was like a walking Konami code for the drinking hustle. Corona was just a detour along our path to Vegas drinking glory. We wouldn’t have been stuck there waiting out the heat if Teqs could go an hour without a sniff or wait two minutes for me to put the top back up. He was a cool cat, but I’m almost certain he had an attention disorder. He thought the world owed him something, too.

The kids in mohawks were starting to line up around a small brick building at the end of the shopping center. Some had wild liberty spikes; a number had patches sewn into denim jackets or jeans; a few had leather jackets; a couple even looked more like greasers. The music pouring out the double door entrance had an edge to it, the kind of rock that wouldn’t just cut the powder, but the mirror underneath it, too. A punk club with a live band was just what we needed.

I pulled into a space and started rolling some joints for the show. Teqs managed to stop rubbing his face around inside the catnip jar long enough to stash some in a baggie for inside. No one seemed to mind when we played a game of puff-puff pass with a few crusty kids ahead of us in line outside the club.

“We been squatting this trailer in the desert,” one of the kids said.

“Yeah, I came down from Fresno; met this guy at a show, he said he was squatting this place, and I could stay there too,” the other said.

“I love a good squat out in the sand,” Teqs said.

“Where you guys from?”

“L.A.,” I said.

“Come out here for shows a lot?”

I looked down and realized I’d worn my Leftover Crack t-shirt.

Teqs tugged at the stash he’d tucked away in his sombrero, but didn’t take a sniff just yet.

“Well, hey, thanks for the rips,” one of them said.

“Say meow, you fellows happen to have some extra space out there, I could do some scratching maybe?” Teqs asked.

I elbowed him a little.

If Teqs would keep his cool, we could make some real scratch and be on our way to Vegas without any guff over the pet store mockingbird. Inside the club, a mosh pit was raging in front of the stage and the bar was stacked three people deep. Somehow, Teqs always managed to wriggle his way up to the bar and set up shop. Once I’d even seen him hang onto the bar top with one paw while dropping shot after shot with the other. He got us in at the bar next to a shapely blonde in a studded jacket and ripped jeans. He had a way with the ladies I never did. The guy could just rub up against a girl and she’d just nuzzle him right back. That sort of thing would get me slapped for sure.

After a few drinks we’d found our mark. Some fish with short spiky hair, the kind has those frosted blonde tips—Zach Morris of the punk scene. Teqs put him away with a game of one-man relay flip cup. They threw the kid out when he puked along the side of the bar somewhere after beer eleven, but not before Teqs relieved him of his cash.

“Nine hundred bucks will get us a great start in Vegas.” Teqs slapped a stack of bills into my hand.

Before I could say anything, he was on top of the railing between the bar and the dance floor mosh pit with one paw in the air. He did a back-flip into the pit and floated around on top of the crowd, once in a while getting tossed up into the air some. At one point, he was pushed onto the stage. Security tried to grab him and throw him back in, but he darted every which way across. When they had him cornered, he leapt atop one of their heads and back into the pit. Through it all, he managed to keep the sombrero on his head.

When the band was called back for an encore, we decided to make our run for it. Cops would be lurking everywhere when the club let out after the show. Getting pinched now was the last thing we needed. I’d just gotten Teqs back in a more stable frame of mind—a scary enough proposition itself. At the door, the blonde in the studded jacket stopped us.

“I like your style,” she said.

“That a fact, meow?” Teqs asked.

“I got an empty box just for you.” She smoothed Teqs’ ruffled fur with an outstretched hand.

As I leaned against the brick wall watching them, I sparked up my last joint.

“Like to come back to my place?” she asked.

Women always wanted to take care of him. I could be eating soup with the broth dribbling down my chin and a waitress wouldn’t bother to say a word to me. They’d brush the burrs out of his fur, bathe him, or even pick up his tabs, though. For a guy who’d blown his bankroll on Colombian green, he lived pretty well between his hustle and the love of women. Could be that meal ticket puss of his kept me from coming clean that day at the bar.

“We’re headed to Vegas,” Teqs said.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” She leaned on a black Corvette.

“Nice ‘vette. Yours?” Teqs smoothed his whiskers.

The blonde beeped the alarm; the doors popped open and the engine started.

“How’s about a ride to the strip?” Teqs asked.

She got in the car but only closed her door.

I grabbed the suitcase, bong, and what was left of the Coronas, while I let Teqs handle the rest of our gear. It was a gamble, but the encore was tapering off and the cops would show up any minute. A safe getaway trumped ensuring that daffy tabby remembered everything I didn’t. I stowed what I was carrying in the trunk, except for the bong, and told Teqs to make sure he had both our stashes up front this time. With me sitting shotgun, Teqs circled around himself in indecision. The blonde noticed and tapped her thigh.

“You can ride in my lap,” she said.

I decided to take a little nap since I didn’t have to drive. When I woke up, I saw the approaching sign for Vegas zip by. I looked around, but the blonde wasn’t in the car. Teqs was behind the wheel, doing something like one-thirty, though.

“Where’s the blonde?” I asked.

“Got off in Barstow.”

“The car, though.”

I still don’t know how he did it, but he talked that blonde right out of her car. My bong was behind my seat, so I hoped this time the silly bastard remembered to pack my weed in the glove box like I’d asked. When I opened it, my stash was there and right next to it that damn bird.

“The hell is this here for?” I asked.

“Lot of sand out here, dude.” With one paw on the wheel, Teqs flashed a set of claws.

 
"So what's the Tequila Kitty project about?"

Enough people have asked me this question lately* so, since today is the official launch of the project, I figured an introduction was in order.

(*Actually very few people have asked me this question, but I wanted an excuse to write about and shamelessly promote the project. Pretending that people have asked me about it would give me an excuse and make this post sound much more conversational in tone. Anyway, I digress...)

The Tequila Kitty Project is an 'exquisite corpse*-type project involving 14 writers. The main character will be the cat in the above photograph.

(*I explain below what Exquisite Corpse is. I mention this technique as it allows me to be slightly pedantic**, and perhaps attract greater readership to this blog since I'm trying to sound all smart and literary and stuff. But I'm digressing again...)

(** Didn't you just say you wanted to make this entry more conversational in tone? Now you're saying it's going to be academic so you can introduce the 'Exquisite Corpse' technique and, by extension, show off how much you've read? Make up your mind!)


Picture
The Exquisite Corpse was a technique introduced by the Surrealists in the 1920's by founder Andre Breton. One artist would start a drawing or a story and send it to the next artist/writer, who would add the next part, without being allowed to see what was written before it, or only being allowed to see the last page or paragraph, or, if it were a drawing, the last section. (Examples of surrealist Exquisite Corpse drawings can be seen here.)

(Okay, the pedantry/digressing* is over. This now returns to the little-read blog it has always been.)

(* "You just used the word 'pedantry'!"
"Actually, I thought he said, 'peasantry'."
"Peasantry?! That's class warfare. **)

(** Sorry, dear readers. I keep digressing. Welcome to the Tristram Shandy of blog posts. Back to the explanation of The Tequila Kitty Project...)



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Each of the 14 writers, myself included, will compose one chapter. We will only be able to see the previous chapter written. Each writer will have one week to complete their chapter and send to the next person on the list, but they will have full autonomy to create whatever they want, so long as it involves the cat above.

Also, over time, an interview/bio sketch will be posted with each participant of The Tequila Kitty Project in order to introduce each talented writer to a greater audience. *

(* "What if the project doesn't generate as much interest as you think it's going to? What if you don't follow through on your intent to post an interview of each participant?" **)

(**Hey, interior monologue! I'm not going to let you bait me into a hypothetical argument that will prevent me from finishing this blog post. It's not going to happen this time... Oh, damn. It just did. Anyway... Back to the subject.)

As the project progresses, I will be making more public updates to keep people interested, without exposing any of the work-in-progress. It
is scheduled to be completed in mid-February with dissemination of the final product yet to be determined. Some ideas have been proposed and, perhaps, we'll even pull in external/audience suggestions, make it a fully interactive project.

Stay tuned for more news on the Adventures of Tequila Kitty.


As always, thank you.


 
(character count: 153. Without title: 137)

Apology Template

Oh, _____. I’m _____. I haven't been _____ to you these past _____, have I? It doesn't mean I don't love you, _____; I've just been busy.