Ten Thousand Upsidedown Screaming Yacking Trees

My wife and I used to travel a lot back in the day. We were really just a couple of punker misfits going from city to city with all those stinking hippies you see at Dead shows. We picked up hitchhikers, and in turn, were picked up while hitchhiking. It was the way things went. Sometimes we just sat waiting to be picked up. Sometimes we just kicked around killing time.

We spent a lot of time in Seattle during the fall of '94. We were 4 then Mrs. D. and myself, Nathan, and Todd. We also had a kitten that we had found. Todd had dubbed it Ten Thousand Upsidedown Screaming Yacking Trees, Kitty-Kitty for short. His theory was that a cat would not come when called, no matter what you called it.

Nathan owned the van we were riding in. He was WAY into the hippie thing. He had lost his shoes sometime back, and had taken to walking around in a tie-dyed skirt and no shoes. When we hadn't seized control of the tape player with Nine Inch Nails or Danzig, he would play Crosby, Stills and Nash tapes till he cried in silent apathy for long lost crushes on nameless hippie girls.

Todd, on the other hand was Texas. We had picked him up in Albuquerque a few weeks earlier. He loved alcohol, Pantera, and hating Nathan. He was a tornado of energy and sarcasm that rarely slowed down. He reminded me of Jim Carey on amphetamines and an IV drip of sugar water after 10 days with no sleep. He was my long lost brother-I-never-had.

One of the scheduled events for this trip to Seattle was Nathan's appointment with the object of his childhood fantasies. The girl/woman/chick/whatever that had been his baby sitter 10 years earlier. She was a few years older than him, and in college I think. They were both now in a position to visit each other outside of the business relationship. If you know what I mean.

As was the plan, we met her and some of her friends at this upitty kind of bar in the University District. The kind of place where upwardly mobile student would meet for cocktails and deep philosophical discussions about such issues as the plight of the homeless and the starving masses in Africa. After which they would retire back to their dormrooms and film 'Girls Gone Wild' videos, stepping over the homeless, starving masses in disgust along the way.

We were a vision. Four oddball people that lived in a van; unbathed and unconcerned with all that mattered to the crowd gathered in this bar. As we entered I'm sure there was an audible gasp from those nearest the door. We always had some kind of scent wafting off of us; well, at least I always did. She, Candi or Tami or some name with an 'i' dotted with a cute little heartat the end, was the typical cheerleader chick. All her friends were a little too full of themselves, and would attempt to punctuate the conversation with condescending comments that were stated in a way that was intended to make them funny.

We had no money, so 'i' girl and her Mtv entourage paid for all the beer. We were all just there for the free beer, so the conversational jousting match was not taken very seriously on our side. After a little while, the GQ crowd was not enjoying the party so much; and their comments steadily increased in venom content. Which Todd, Mrs. D. and I found very entertaining. Nathan, however became increasingly uncomfortable with our behavior. He was crawling under his skin. This was probably his only chance in the last and next five years to get some, and he was having to deal with a three man cockblock.

After her friends tired of us mocking everything they held holy, they excused themselves. We followed the girl to her friends house in the burbs and continued to ingest free alcohol. Her friend lived in his parent's basement with his girlfriend. They were great people and enjoyed watching Nathan squirm as much as we did. The basement was great. There was a room to the side with saloon doors and arcade games inside. After the friend and his girlfriend retired for the night, and Nathan and the girl disappeared, Todd, Mrs. D. and I continued to drink and laugh. Todd would swagger thorough the saloon doors while whistling the music from The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and we would scream with laughter.

Nathan was afraid that if we kept going, we would get us all kicked out, so he came down and said we had to go sleep in the van. Mrs. D. and I obliged and went to sleep off the vodka. Alone in the van, we tried unsuccessfully to consummate the evening. Having drank too much, it was surely a funny thing to see. I only remember apologizing and falling into a pile of blankets.

As the sun rose into the sky, the van interior got warm enough to wake us. As was always the case after drinking, I awoke having not moved from the position I laid down in. It took a few minutes for me to get my brain fully awake. The first thing I noticed was the stiff little corpse of Ten Thousand Upsidedown Screaming Yacking Trees (Kitty-Kitty for short) pressed into the pile of blankets I was sleeping on.

The only explanation that makes sense to me, even now over 10 years later, is that my wife's cruel sadistic nature took hold of her in her drunkenness. She sometimes falls victim to her dark side and does things like stuff fluffy kittens under the limp body of innocent drunk guys, just to make them feel guilty the next morning. I have learned to deal with such things. I always forgive her in hopes that my charity will someday make her realize the error of her ways. God I'm like Gandhi. Mother Teresa doesn't have shit on me. Can an atheist be sainted?

Oh yeah, we buried the cat.