The cruelest thing I've ever done
I was about six or seven and at this time in my life I was acting out violently, something typical for boys in this age group I'm told. The first event I can remember is when I caught a cat and I got mad when I was trying to take him home. We lived on the third floor of our apartment building. The cat was fighting with me and I could barely hold on to damn thing. My intentions changed. The closer I got to throwing the cat off the balcony the more scratches I received until the cat escaped.
That wasn't the cruelest thing I had ever done though. It wasn't long after the time in which I failed my inadvertent attempt to prove cats can survive a three-story fall. For Thanksgiving my uncle came in from out of town bringing with his two dogs and cat. I was playing with the cat and the dogs, all was going well, until the cat pissed me off for some reason or other. The next day when everyone was getting ready, I salvaged from the trash a string used to tie the bird's legs together. The string was about a foot long with two adjustable loops being held together by plastic pieces. Waiting for my grandma, my uncle and his new wife went outside to warm up the car, when she went up stairs to put on some make-up. The cat had came out of hiding hearing the house become quiet after the door slammed shut. I thought my grandma was already outside, so I tricked the cat into grabbing it, by playing with its curiosity. I put a loop around the cat's neck then the other around the door handle of the closet, grabbed my coat and hurried outside.
Outside I found my uncle and his wife, I inconspicuously dismissed myself to see what was taking grandma so long. Inside I find the cat and the string was gone. I go up stairs to find grandma wiping her tears a way in the mirror. I retreated ever so quietly in hope of not to being discovered. I've never killed a cat, but I have come close. I know what it might feel like to carry that burden of murder's mind. Because I feel that if wasn't for my grandma hearing that cat struggle and coming to its rescue, it would've died from my actions. To say that, I'm the black sheep of the family now is an understatement, that would've been the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.
The most my grandma ever said to me about that was, "You did something to really hurt Grandma".
December 16, 2007 | December 21, 2007