Cruelty: Snake
I can’t remember but I think the girl down the street must have been four when she took from the five gallon bucket the garter snake her brother had caught and propellered it in front of her tiny body stopping only long enough for us to notice her grip on the tail and the head snapping down with gravity.
Was this the first time I felt frozen over what I was seeing someone do? I can’t remember but the adults who were laughing and encouraging the whole thing are in my memory wearing clown masks and have enlarged feet that are always stepping towards me.
I can’t remember who but after several minutes someone noticed the snake was still alive and told the girl to fly closer to the chain link fence and see what would happen.
Is this even real, this memory? I wish I didn’t know the ending because I ran or closed my eyes, but I’m stuck with all the laughter and excitement and delight as the reptile show ended and the clown show really began.
Cruelty: Cat
The goal was to throw the plush soccer ball from the second floor window at the boy with the bb gun to distract him for one moment so he’d miss or not shoot anymore at the cat hiding in the bushes behind the house while my friend sprinted down stairs and through rooms to stop him
Of course I missed but caused the bigger distraction of making the boys look up and wonder if I was going to cry and if they hit the cat would I sound like a girl which was just enough time for my friend to emerge and demand the gun which was his brothers’ gun that they were using while he had run down the street to buy juice or soda from the corner store
And when the boy with the gun laughed and despite my friend’s yelling and grabbing at him aimed again at the cat and squeezed off a few shots that raised dust close enough to fur so that the cat lowered its belly to ground not knowing how to escape the danger
I could be wrong but when my friend grabbed not just the barrel but the tip and dared the kid to shoot the other kid threw the first of several rocks one connecting with the hind leg that caused a shriek that the boys responded to with eyes-wide laughter before the cat made a decision and was gone
When the cat returned for dinner and went to sleep on the couch my friend and his brother brought me out back so I could shoot the cans of soda the boys never opened
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