Mark made it into the kitchen before Travis, still screaming
bloody murder. Their father was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of
coffee in one hand, a pen in the other and the latest issue of Ranger Rick in
front of him on the table. He liked doing the puzzles.
This mother was at the sink, trying to clean the family’s legally purchased and licensed AR-15, with soapy water. It wasn’t going very well. And she constantly cursed the weapon under her breath. Meanwhile, the radio next to her kept talking about that Dow Jones guy and his obsession with bulls and bears.
“Mom! Travis is a freak!” Mark managed to say between gasps of air. “There’s something wrong with his but!! Look!” he said, pointing a quivering finger toward his be-toweled brother.
“What is your brother talking about Travis?” asked his father. “Is there something wrong with your butt, or has Mark gotten into the airplane glue again?”
With that, Travis realized that the cat(tail) was out of the bag, to be honest, he was surprised that he managed to keep it a secret as long as he had. His head dropped and he turned around to reveal his tail (and unfortunately, his ass cheeks as well) to his family.
The gasps from his family were so in unison, you’d think they’d practiced ahead of time.
“What the hell is that?!” His father bellowed, spilling his coffee all over his magazine, jumpimg up in surprise.
His mom just screamed, doing her best Laurie Strode impression.
“It’s my tail, obviously,” Travis replied.
“Why do you have a tail? How long have you had a tail?” His dad queried. “And why the hell do you have a tail?!?! Jesus Jewels, I told you that your cravings for Monsanto corn during pregnancy was going to come back to haunt us!”
“I don’t know why I have a tail. It just showed up one morning, like a Christmas present from David Cronenberg. I’ve had it for a little over a month. But look, it’s not useless!” Travis said excitedly.
He then walked over to the kitchen table, turned 90 degrees and, with his tail, he picked up his father’s dropped pen and circled “coccyx” in the word search in the magazine. He then drew a mustache on Ranger Rick’s face, which seemed kind of pointless since Rick was already a furry raccoon.
This mother was at the sink, trying to clean the family’s legally purchased and licensed AR-15, with soapy water. It wasn’t going very well. And she constantly cursed the weapon under her breath. Meanwhile, the radio next to her kept talking about that Dow Jones guy and his obsession with bulls and bears.
“Mom! Travis is a freak!” Mark managed to say between gasps of air. “There’s something wrong with his but!! Look!” he said, pointing a quivering finger toward his be-toweled brother.
“What is your brother talking about Travis?” asked his father. “Is there something wrong with your butt, or has Mark gotten into the airplane glue again?”
With that, Travis realized that the cat(tail) was out of the bag, to be honest, he was surprised that he managed to keep it a secret as long as he had. His head dropped and he turned around to reveal his tail (and unfortunately, his ass cheeks as well) to his family.
The gasps from his family were so in unison, you’d think they’d practiced ahead of time.
“What the hell is that?!” His father bellowed, spilling his coffee all over his magazine, jumpimg up in surprise.
His mom just screamed, doing her best Laurie Strode impression.
“It’s my tail, obviously,” Travis replied.
“Why do you have a tail? How long have you had a tail?” His dad queried. “And why the hell do you have a tail?!?! Jesus Jewels, I told you that your cravings for Monsanto corn during pregnancy was going to come back to haunt us!”
“I don’t know why I have a tail. It just showed up one morning, like a Christmas present from David Cronenberg. I’ve had it for a little over a month. But look, it’s not useless!” Travis said excitedly.
He then walked over to the kitchen table, turned 90 degrees and, with his tail, he picked up his father’s dropped pen and circled “coccyx” in the word search in the magazine. He then drew a mustache on Ranger Rick’s face, which seemed kind of pointless since Rick was already a furry raccoon.
“See? I can do stuff with the tail! It’s like a third arm.” Travis said.
“Yeah, well, get that shit out of my sight. Honey?” Travis’ dad said turning to his wife. “Is the saw still in the work shed?”
“Of course, Rufus. Where else would it be? It’s not like it’s under our mattress because I agonize all the time about which night will be the night I actually go through with it and separate your loathsome head from your miserable excuse for a human shell,” came the reply.
“Great! I’ll go get it. Jewels, Mark, hold him down on the table, I’ll be right back.” And with that, Rufus went out the kitchen back door and walked over to the work shed.
You will be spared the gory details (mostly). Travis was held down on his stomach, a dish towel shoved down his throat to keep him from screaming and something for his teeth to clench onto. After all, there was no anesthesia for this DIY surgery.
Travis, bucked and struggled. His mother and brother were surprisingly strong. He couldn’t break free from their grips. He could only cry, his voice muffled by the towel, his tears falling silently down his face, unnoticed by anybody. His tail, as if it had a mind of its own, swung this way and that. Trying to avoid Rufus’ attempts to hold it down. But it was a game the tail was going to lose, and it did.
Eventually Rufus got a firm grasp on the tail and slammed it down on the oak surface of the kitchen table. With the hack saw in his other hand, he brought it down and began a steady back and forth motion. The fur and the flesh beneath were easy enough, though a bit slippery because of all the blood. The bones were a little harder. Since a cat tail can have anywhere from 19-23 caudal bones in its tail, it was hard for Rufus to find a gap between bones to take advantage of.
After the longest ten minutes of Travis’ life, Rufus dropped the bloody saw to the floor, picked up the tail and walked around to where Travis could see him. He knelt down until he was at eye-level with his son. Travis’ eyes were squeezed shut and there were rivers of snot coming out of his nose, to be absorbed by the dish towel. He was immobilized with pain.
Rufus slapped him hard in the face. When Travis opened his eyes, his father shoved the bloody tail, still spasmodically swaying, in his face.
“You see this bullshit?! DO YOU SEE IT!” Rufus bellowed. “I will not have shit like this in my house. What the hell is wrong with you? Who goes around town with a goddamn tail? It’s disgusting! If some crap like this happens again, it won’t be the offending appendage that gets removed, capice?”
Travis nodded weakly. Even if he had something to say, it was impossible with the towel still down his throat.
“Now get that stump bandaged up and go to your room until I say you can leave. And that’s going to be a long time. Meals will be delivered to you. You may only leave to go to the bathroom. Now get the fuck outta here.”
With much straining and exertion, Travis slowly, agonizingly, got up, stood on two wobbly feet and gradually limped his way up the stairs to the bathroom where this whole horrible event had originated. He grabbed another towel and wetted it. He also took some gauze and Neosporin, staggered to his room and shut the door behind him.
***
Four months had passed. Travis was taken out of school. His
friends stopped coming by to check on him. He was sure Hana had concocted some
kind of elaborate fiction about what happened to him, for the other kids to
gobble up. Maybe he had been kidnapped and eventually eaten by a serial killer.
Or he had run away to the circus, or to join up with a band of gypsies. Or, and
Travis really hoped that this rumor was actually going around, Travis had
become a kind of Typhoid Mary. He had contracted an extremely contagious and
fatal disease that gave people fins and gills or whatever, but he could only
give it to others, it didn’t affect him at all. And the government made him
live in an underground bunker in Area 51 for the rest of his life.
Of course, none of that was the case. He was simply a prisoner in his own house until his father deemed otherwise. So Travis just lay there, (on his stomach, it still hurt if he laid on his back) every day. Resigned to his miserable life. A captive, a hostage in his own room. No happy memories to be had. No escape possible. When he wasn’t lying in bed, Travis looked out his window at the world around him that he used to be a part of, but not anymore. He was no longer a participant, just a spectator. He missed the wind, the smells, kicking around the frisbee with his boys, or going to the soccer court. He missed the greater world around him, all that was NOT his prison cell. He longed to be free.
When Travis was 16, he grew wings.
During one of his mother’s daily checks of Travis in his room, to see just how broken his spirit was and if he deserved to be let out, she came upon a surprise. He wasn’t in his room. There was no trace of Travis. Just an open window. His family never saw him again.
Of course, none of that was the case. He was simply a prisoner in his own house until his father deemed otherwise. So Travis just lay there, (on his stomach, it still hurt if he laid on his back) every day. Resigned to his miserable life. A captive, a hostage in his own room. No happy memories to be had. No escape possible. When he wasn’t lying in bed, Travis looked out his window at the world around him that he used to be a part of, but not anymore. He was no longer a participant, just a spectator. He missed the wind, the smells, kicking around the frisbee with his boys, or going to the soccer court. He missed the greater world around him, all that was NOT his prison cell. He longed to be free.
When Travis was 16, he grew wings.
During one of his mother’s daily checks of Travis in his room, to see just how broken his spirit was and if he deserved to be let out, she came upon a surprise. He wasn’t in his room. There was no trace of Travis. Just an open window. His family never saw him again.
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