It’s not easy being a Bad Boy.….nobody approves of you, unless you happen to be fighting their battle. Now being a Brainiac is easy-breezy. Everyone wants you on your Team …. they want the Bad Boy attitude with a well thought-out considered response to avoid confrontation.
It used to be so easy or at least that is the way I remember it, when my Big Bro’ Beau had my back, my front and my sides too. Life has changed since our Protector Beau took his blue cloud to join RIP Daddy in Heaven.
First off our Diva Calico Gen has become more skittish. While Beau roamed the highways and the byways of our lives, Gen would stay out past 10:00pm. On a moonlit summer night the three of us would routinely troupe together, me first, Gen second and Beau bringing up the rear. Over the street, under the fence, down the hill to the creek we would roam. Not any more. Gen would rather be safe inside, than take her chances with me as her Protector. After what happened to me who could blame her?
It was a beautiful night. I remembered Momma had said FDR claimed that ‘the only thing to fear is fear itself.’. .. I was good with that. I would go trekking by myself, I would. It was so easy. I pushed under the fence, peered around to give myself the ‘all clear’ and whammo. It was like I stepped on a buried hand grenade. Sharp teeth sunk deep through my bone, eliciting piecing pain in my right paw.
What the Sam Hill was that? Could it be that long talked about Forest Freak that I thought was an old wive’s tale to keep cats inside the house? I emitted a guttural growl that started at my toes, and spewed from my mouth and ears, deafening my attacker, who bolted away at the speed of lightning, never to be seen again. The silence of the dark forest was broken wide open as rabbits, mice, raccoons and squirrels scrambled to gather up their young ones and disappear into the dense woods. Birds squawked and flapped their wings, as they too recognized danger had replaced the tranquility of the night.
Like the Farmer in the Dell Rhyme, ‘The Cheese Was Left Alone.’ I had no one to help me. I belly crawled up the hill, under the fence in unbelievable pain, no idea what had happened. Some Brainiac I was. Without Beau-Re-Guard I was helpless to defend myself from these thuggish guerrilla warfare tactics.
Still, I had a plan. I would go wait on the bench for Momma to open the door. She could fix it. She can fix anything!
