They had fun with it..........

They were lined up along the shoulder of the road. One after the other. About 20 feet apart. Six of them in all.  I had maybe a couple of seconds to take it in as my car sped by. When I saw the first one I thought it was just a clump of mud that had come loose from a passing truck. By the third I assumed they were bits of one animal that had been hit trying to cross the highway. The final two, I finally realized. They were kittens, maybe 6 or 8 weeks old, I'm guessing on the age. It took about another 5 minutes for it to sink in, what I'd glimpsed in passing at 70 mph. Northbound 35, just south of the Iowa border. I run this same route Monday through Friday. Bleached out  farm buildings, falling in on themselves. Land as flat and drab as western Kansas. Six dead cats, spaced evenly, one after the other.  I figure he , and it's almost always a he, must have thrown them out the window of his vehicle as it rolled down the highway. That would account for the even spacing. One after another, until they were no longer a nuisance. Certainly easier than being bothered with finding homes or a shelter. In my minds eye I picture a  beat up pickup truck. A couple of half drunk shit heels, giggling like school girls as the one in the passenger seat tosses out the living breathing bundles of fur.

Of course I have no way of knowing the type of vehicle or who was in it. But the spacing of the dead kittens makes it a no brainer as to how they ended up there. So I think about it, chew on it.  I decide whoever did it must have enjoyed it. He had fun with it. 

The joint was , and always will be, filled with guys like I just described, I suppose you could find some comfort in that. Several of the clowns in the video posted the other day fall under the same umbrella. Life of any variety has zero value. Most of you won't find yourselves at a hip hop venue, so you can rest easy in that regard. The problem is, you just never know when you are going to cross paths with someone with that mindset, the one that has slipped through the cracks, spent a life flying under the radar. Maybe  he kept his powder dry by tossing cats out his car window or smacking the wife and kids around. One day he wakes up and those faithful standbys just don't do it for him anymore.

I knew a guy like that, grew up in the same part of town, ran in some of the same circles. Like most of the guys I knew, he went on to try his hand in the dope trade. Like most of the people who get in that game he was his own best customer. Unlike most he was as sadistic a prick that ever walked the streets. I heard shit from time to time and it never came as a shock, as crazy as the stories were, it was right up his alley. There are a couple of incidents that stand out. Some junkie gets him to front him a bag of dope, tells him he has a customer waiting with the cash. But there isn't any customer, just the dope fiend and a ravenous monkey on his back demanding to be fed. We'll call the dealer Doug and the fiend Curtis, because that's their names. So Doug puts out some feelers, probably offered up a little powdered reward. He gets a call, catches Curtis in the wrong place.  Curtis ends up spending a few hours, buck naked in a metal folding chair, doused in water. He gets familiar with the bare wires from a hot extension cord. I heard Curtis left town after that, but who knows.

There was another story going around about Doug giving some girl a hot shot. I heard it was Red Devil lighter fluid mixed with some kind of dope, most likely coke or meth since that's what he peddled. An older guy, a fence who bought the stolen stuff Doug acquired from junkies related both of those stories to me. This was 20 years ago, but I still recall how the fence  got kind of scared talking about it. He  whispered even though there was no one near us at the bar we were in at the time.   A few years ago I heard Doug got his ticket punched. Not for nothin, but the worlds a better place if it's true.

So what's the connection? Cats tossed out of moving cars and a sociopath /small time drug dealer.  You'll have to wait to find out.
To be continued.......