Whatever Happened to Chester?

We have been in our house now for almost two years. It has gone by very fast.

When we were building the house the neighbor on the hill, he wouldn't even wave at us if we waved at him. He thought we were laborers. His name is Billy. Our subs, they kept hitting his mailbox. He had mean words with Ward about it even though we told them right away we would replace the mailbox (and the stupid things are not easy to replace because the Homeowners Association picks them out and has someone make them out of iron, but they are done so cheaply and cost a fortune). Then we were asked not so nicely to never ever park any vehicle that had anything to do with construction or us in general to park on their grass which isn't really theirs but the county's. EVERY day I had to keep no crossing tape up to keep people from parking on the grass. One day while fixing the tape I lost my keys.

I assumed in their grass, but I couldn't find them. Billy has a son. He is bizarre. During construction he would 'dumpster dive' into the huge dumpster on the site. I would bring some of our trash from our old house and put it in the dumpster. One day little kid, we will call him Damien because he reminds me of the kid from 'The Omen' asked Ward if he could "go dumpster diving just one more time?" For some reason Ward said yes. A few days later I saw him in his yard playing with some of my things. It was really strange. So anyways, I thought maybe little Damien took my keys. So I went over there to see.

I am walking up their very long driveway and Billy turns and looks at me like 'what are you doing coming into my yard you lazy construction filth'. He doesn't even walk towards me, he just stands there waiting for me to walk up to him. I tell him who I am and that I have lost my keys fixing the yellow tape.

"What do you mean you're building the house next door?" He asks. He cares more about my introduction than the fact that I can't find my keys. I tell him we're building the house and he looks at me confused. Again, he asks what I mean, like are we going to be residing across the street from him? Yes! "What about the people with the Cadillac?"

My mother-in-law's boyfriend drives a Cadillac and they came by very often during the construction phase. Billy took one look at Ward's old F-150 and my KIA and figured there was no way we could afford a house like this, no, it had to be the people with the Cadillac's house.

"I yelled at your husband about my mailbox. I didn't know he was the owner."

So you see it's OK to treat people like dirt if they are just the ones constructing the nice house but not if they are going to be the owners. He asked if he could come over and see our house. He kept going on about how nice it was and kept asking about the people who owned the Cadillac. He probably thought they were paying for the house or something but I don't really care.

He was never friendly again if you could call that one encounter friendly and I don't.

Flash forward a few weeks. We have moved in. We sell our old house and finally bring our three cats (actually our third cat Crookshanks was picked up at the dumpster right after we moved in, she was pregnant with kittens and we are fools) and two dogs to the new house.

Our two cats, Sammy Davis Baker Jr. and Chester Copperpot, they are both black and white. They are cats. If you have ever owned a cat you know that you don't OWN a cat they OWN you. And they do as they please and they come when they want. Anyways, Chester had always been a little odd (his story is long and a blog for another day) and would disappear for days. As soon as we brought him here he disappeared for a few days. Sam is really needy and befriends all children. He seeks them out, especially little girls and has been fortunate enough to find himself residing in houses beside little girls his whole life. Maybe he thought Damien was a little girl.

One afternoon about a week after the cats came home to live here I get a knock at my front door. I open the door to find Damien standing there (the kid is all of 9 or 10) in his Sunday best. It was Tuesday. He is blinking his eyes over and over and over...

As he's blinking his eyes he says to me and I will never forget it because of the bizarreness of the whole interchange:

"Are your parents here?" he asks blinking rapidly and looking like he is going to try and sell me something.

"No, actually they are out."

"Um, do you have a blue cat?"

"Uh, no. I have black and white cats." I respond as I am thinking about the way this kid is blinking and wearing clothes that little kids don't normally wear.

"Can you get it to stay over here? It keeps coming in our yard and rolling around on the grass. My dad told me to come over here and ask you if we should take it to the dump or"

At this point my curiosity has turned to anger that this kid and his father are plotting how to kill my cats and do away with the evidence but have been decent enough to give me fare warning and that is exactly what they were aiming for, a warning, a threat and I say in my not so nice tone:

"I will take care of my cat thank you."

And I shut the door on Little Damien.

Now I know I am an adult and he is a little kid but he is scary and I just couldn't stand there at the door any longer listening to him or I might have gone mad. I was very angry and I thought about going up there to their house and giving their whole family a piece of my mind but I am as big a wuss as I am an over-reacter so I let it go.

I never did anything with the cats. They hate to be inside, especially Chester.

And then shortly thereafter, Chester went missing. I have never been able to get the thought out of my mind that Hilly Billy's family had something to do with my cat's disappearance.

They have a little dog, we sometimes joke that we are going to take him out. But we are animal lovers and are only joking. The little Damien, he throws rocks at the pint sized animal. I feel sorry for it.

The Devil, I mean Damien, didn't have my keys and maybe he didn't have anything to do with Chester's disappearance but I still think the kid is pure evil.

-june

p.s. Maybe Crookshanks was a botched attempt at "dumpster delivering" a cat and our neighbors are mad about it.