by B. L. Morgan
The cat that showed up a day or two before I left for Never-Never Land was sitting up and licking his balls on my couch. He looked up at me as I entered.
"Don't let me bother you," I told him. "Make yourself at home. Now what the fuck is your name anyway?"
He didn't tell me.
"Oh yeah," I said. "I named you Tom. Who in the hell could forget that."
He went back to licking his balls.
"Go ahead," I told him. "If I could do it I would."
He gave me a strange look.
"I ain't saying I'd lick your balls, you little furry fuck-head," I told him. "I'd lick mine."
He went back to what he was doing before I'd so rudely interrupted him.
I went to the kitchen and looked in the fridge. I expected to find a jungle growing in there after I'd been gone so long. The ice box was cleaner than normal, mainly because there was hardly anything in it. But there was my bottle of Walker's Whisky in there. I carried it into the front room with me.
Next to the open window that Tom came in and out of was a litter box. It was fairly clean. Lined up a little farther down the wall was one of those plastic cat food and water bowl sets.
"Looks like you've been doing pretty good for yourself while I've been away," I told Tom. "You must be putting the moves on Rosa because somebody sure likes you."
It was getting light outside so without really thinking about it I sat on the couch, picked up the phone and dialed Julia's number. I knew she must have gotten home from work just a few minutes earlier.
Julia picked up on the third ring.
"Hello?"
"It's John," I said. "I'd like to see you."
She let her breath out in a long sigh. "I don't think so," Julia said. "You've been gone for so long without even a word. I can't go through that. Having a man in my life just up and vanish, that just don't work."
"Look, it wasn't my choice," I started.
She cut me off.
"I don't even want to hear the reasons," she said. "This isn't good for Felicia. It isn't good for me."
"Let me explain."
Julia cut me off again.
"No!" She said. "I've thought about this a long time. I wish you all the luck in the world, John. I really do. It's over."
She hung up.
I slammed the phone down.
Ain't that a son of a bitch! I thought.
* * *
I sat with my friend Hiram Walker and Tom sat beside me.
Tom got done licking his balls so he licked his ass some too.
"Good job boy," I told him. "Make sure you get it all."
He looked at me like he didn't appreciate the joke.
I turned on the TV and Captain Kangaroo was the only thing on that seemed half way interesting.
The whisky tasted horrible. That wasn't anything new.
Green Jeans was explaining to the Captain how to plow a field. Yeah, right. You two faggot mother fuckers have been plowing each other's fields for years. You don't need to explain it to him now.
The phone rang.
Out of habit, I picked it up.
"What do ya want?"
"John," it was Sherry. "Is that you?"
"Who the hell else would it be? What do ya want?"
"I got to thinking," She said. "There's no guarantee that Caesar Lanista won't come after me."
"What's that got to do with me?" I asked. "I'll be clocking in in a few days."
"Well, I was thinking, I could send a car by," she said. "And we could discuss this."
"You know how I am," I told her. "I'm not going to come by to just hold your hand ‘cause you’re nervous. I got a lot of important things to do today."
Tom looked at me, and I thought if you could talk I'd wring your fucking neck.
Sherry said, "John, you're not making this easy."
"Then just spit it out," I told her.
She said, "I've thought about it and have decided that if you are not worthy then no one is. Will you come if I send the car?"
"Let me think about this a while," I said. "OK, send the car. I guess I'll be finding out if you're worthy and I guarantee we'll both be coming in a little while."
I hung up.
Maybe I'll tell her after I get there that Caesar Lanista is dead, I thought.
Yeah, and maybe I'll wait a few months too.
It all depends on how worthy she is.
If she's really worthy, she may never find out.
AFTERWORD
Some of you people out there might want to be saying to me, "Hey, wake up! Don't you know that Caligula and Spartacus didn't live during the same time? Where do you get off telling us a story that had both of them in it?"
All right, I'm going to tell you a few things.
First of all, you have been getting your information from people (teachers, maybe even college professors) who never were there. Who got their information out of books written by people who (yes, you guessed it) never were there. So what do they know?
This is like getting a story from a friend, who knows a friend, who heard it from a friend, who probably got it from a friend, who wasn't your friend to begin with. That kind of information isn't worth anything.
Second, I never once said that the Rome John Dark went to was on the same Earth as the one I grew up on. I don't know where the Rome was that he went to. I do not know if he went to an alternate universe, another dimension, a counter Earth or if he just time traveled.
This is fiction, if you enjoyed the story that’s what matters to me.