DUTCH

 

“THEY eat the dogs. They eat the cats.” So I immediately get my ass on the train to Springfield, Ohio. Cats have free travel on the tracks, as long as you know where to hide which is not very hard. The fat dude with the orange hair had said that immigrants in Springfield eat cats.

As if there is anything delicious about us. We are inedible, tough, with a nasty smell of death when you cook us. Also, we will posthumously scratch your face to shreds. And besides: ever tried to pick up someone else’s cat? Let alone two, three or ten?

I wasn’t out on the street in Springfield yet, or I smelled grilled meat. Hell, maybe this time he hadn’t lied for a change. But it smelled good, so it couldn’t be cat meat. People began to recognize me, they said hello, kids asked for my autograph. I waved it all away, because I had to know where and who were cooking an animal.

Oh no.

In the town square, openly, for all to see.

Hot dogs. Five dollars.

* VanderBus left home at the age of six weeks and went hunting for a city bus in Maine. He caught the bus. It cost him one eye, but he won a standing ovation from everyone who watched him do it. VanderBus, since then mayor of Bicker Hollow, is running for president of the United States.