Mephisto Waltzing

Mephisto, my ex-girlfriend's cat, would often sit in my lap late at night and telepathically communicate to me with a purring whisper. Mephisto wore a coat of pure jet black save a white patch of goatee under his chin, the scratching of which would elicit groaning words of encouragement to be broadcasted into my skull. We'd often just hang out on the couch, the two of us, watching pirated Shao-lin soap operas and old Lucio Fulci flicks until dawn.

One night, when Violet (the Ex) was out drinking with some of 'the Girls', I put on Zombie and proceeded to feed Mephisto bits of Cosmic Cat Brownies (basically raw tuna patties mixed gingerly with fresh cat nip). Around the time the classic 'zombie versus shark' scene finished he looked up at me and flash-thought:

"You know she's cheating on you." the words hummed melodiously within my thoughts.

"Violet?" I snorted, "No way, Cat!"

"It's true..." He persisted, "look!"

A fierce white light flared across the eyes, incinerating the living room around us and plunging me into a bottomless free fall of pure blindness. Then a blur formed against the void, out of which a milky gray haze formed a cell around me. Against these walls the details of our bedroom began to come into focus. Everything was shot on what I had come to call the 'Mephisto Cam'. There was no color but the details seemed crisper somehow, sharper in focus than what I was used to seeing and the shadows that clung to the walls seemed dimmer. The perspective was off though, everything within the room had grown to monstrous proportions and the effect created a vertigo wave of nausea that one never truly gets used to.

I sat in the neon green plastic laundry basket forgotten on the floor and looked up at the long mountain wall of unmade bed that seemed an impossibly long distance across the room. Violet was laying on the bed waiting for 'me'. She had on those special black and white horizontally striped stockings that were worn only on special occasions along with my club beaten bowler hat from that year I went as a Droog for Halloween. That and nothing else. She was lavishly stretched out with her arms intwined with the bars of the bed stand. The sun filtered through a blowing curtain behind her illuminating pale skin with a soft glow.

But that would mean it was daytime and I didn't remember us doing this in the light...

... a colossus naked man entered the room beside me. Great tree trunks of hairy legs rose up and stepped over me, offering me explicit canyon shots not easily forgotten. When he reached the bed I recognized the disheveled pompadour, buckshot scarred pot belly and the double headed crowned eagle tattooed across the back. It was Tim Malt, a local hood rat whose older brother was the drummer for the Harvey Keitels. We weren't best friend's or anything like that, but he had crashed out on our couch plenty of times and I even hid him from the police in our closet after some ruckus went down at the Point.

I watched in horror as he mounted her with clumsy desperation, squirming his copious weight to fit into the parting stockings, not even a pump into the game and broken out with sweat. He began 'digging for fire' slapping his belly off hers with a series of grunts and curses that filtered with painfully heightened clarity through Mephisto's ears. Violet began whimpering gratefully and Tim responed with a layering of his meaty fists around her throat.

"Enough!" I shout and another camera bulb flash goes off and I come back to my senses literally.

A woman was screaming hysterically on the TV. Mephisto looked up at me with disinterest and went back to watching a horde of walking dead give chase through the jungle.

I bolted up in shock, spilling the cat from my lap.

"Watch it, Monkey Man!" he hissed the warning and scampered off into the bedroom.

That's when I started drinking.

By the time Violet got home I greeted her in the dark, sitting there drunk after polishing off a full bottle of scotch we were saving for the weekend.

"How long have you been fucking him?" I demanded and when she told me she had no idea what I was talking about I pitched the emptied bottle into the tv. From there things got reeeaaal ugly, reeeaaal fast. Book shelves were toppled. Furniture overturned. She emptied a kitchen cabinet throwing plates at me. One I even caught in my mouth, like a dog catches a frisbee, and bit into it with a mindless rage, the shattered porcelain cutting open my lips so I was constantly spitting blood whenever I shouted. Which was always. By the time the cops arrived I was wearing a pair of black eye glasses befoe promptly being hauled off for an all expenses paid night at the fabulous Fulton County lock up.

When I got bailed out two days later it was from Tom Malt, Tim's older brother. I told him Tom right there and then that Tim was a fucking dead man... bail or no bail. Tom listened to me rant and rave the whole ride back to a friend's pad (Violet's place being strictly off limits - she broke up with me when I used my one phone call to her the next morning). When we pulled in that was when Tom informed me that his brother Tim couldn't have fucked Violet.

"Yeah why'zat exactly?" I huffed lighting up a cigarette with shaking fists.

"Tim's gay, Jack." he spoke softly, the words coming with the air of a broken secret, a confession held too long.

I wasn't buying it and said as such.

"Why 'cause he's not prancin' around and talkin' with a lisp?" Tom grabbed me by the scuff of my t-shirt and pulled me into an angry stare, "Fuck you, man! It took my lil' brother years, years asshole, to come to grips with that shit. Did you know that's why my family has fuckin' disowned us? Did you know they blame me for it? Me? Cause it was my sorry ass that kept sneakin' him into all those shows when he was a kid! They think it was all that 'punk rock music that turned their lil' boy into a queer'!"

Tom releases me with a shove and looks back out the window.

"Get the fuck outta my car!" he barked and it was the last time we'd talk for the next eight years or so.

Days later I managed to talk to Violet. Just long enough for me to apologize and for her to tell me to come by tomorrow afternoon to pick up my shit.

When I showed up she wasn't home. There was a note telling me to leave the key and nothing else. My books and cds and clothes were boxed up and piled in the middle of the living room. Mephisto was sitting on the couch watching me and my buddy pile my life into the back of his pick-up truck. When we finished up I told my buddy to give me a minute.

I went in and picked up Mephisto, cradling him in my arms as if he were a newborn and I began scratching his 'goatee'. Mephisto purred and rubbed his head against the crook of my arm.

"You lied to me, didn't you?" I asked.

"Yes" he spoke without hesitation or regret.

"I don't get it. I thought we were buddies, friends... Jesus, I thought you liked me."

"I do. You're funny for a monkey and it's not easy to make cats laugh."

"Then why'd you lie to me? Why'd you show me all that fucked-up shit in my head?"

"Nothing personal, Jack. You're just not right for her."

"What? Whaddya mean 'not right'?"

"You're not a very good hunter. You don't do much all day but sleep and eat and occasionally make her smile."

"You fuckin' hypocrite!" I wailed, "You don't do anything 'but sleep and eat and occasionally make us smile' either. That and shit in a box! Who are you to judge me?"

"I'm a cat. What's your excuse?"

With that Mephisto squirmed out of my arms, dropped to floor on all fours gracefully and ran into the next room. I just stood there staring after him. The impact of his words having scattered my thoughts far enough from coalescing back into the narrative of my consciousness.

"Dude!" my buddy broke me out of my fugue state, "Are you talking to her cat?"

I glance over at my buddy without really seeing him and then back again towards the hallway leading to the living room.

"Not anymore..." I answer, laying the key gently on top of the TV (the cracked monitor offering a dull reflection in the waning light of the afternoon) and locking the door behind me, I muttered my goodbyes to Violet and Mephisto.