Good afternoon. Gigi the parti poodle here to present chapter twenty-two of my story Catzilla. Fall is just around the corner, and it has been preceded by the cold season. Everyone around my novelist is sick. Except my novelist and me. I fear she will fall ill soon and where does that leave me? Abandoned on a desert island to fend for myself. Try as I might, I cannot seem to figure out how to open those blasted cans of dog food. And the treats in the zip locking bags and the goodie jar, forget it. I can’t climb up there. I can’t open those infernal bags. I need my sustenance. I need my novelist to remain well. She tells me not to worry. A cold would not make her so ill she could not feed me. I simply do not believe her. I’ve seen her get sick and it’s disturbing. More terrifying than a Kubrick film. I can see the elevator doors opening now and all the horror breaking loose. I have been making sure she is taking her vitamin C. That she is wearing a mask when she is out of the house. That she is taking me for walks and getting fresh air. She must not get a cold. She must not get a cold. And with that thought, here is chapter twenty-two of Catzilla.

Catzilla

by

Gigi the parti poodle

Chapter Twenty-Two

Aero ran back inside the building and headed towards mom and me. Lyle wasn’t a big kid by any far stretch of the imagination, but it was awkward trying to get him out of the truck just the same.

“Okay, Mrs. Gagnon.”

“Garnet.”

“Okay, Garnet. I’m going to reach inside and try and get him out.”

Aero opened the truck door and tipped Lyle up to a sitting position, slid his hands under him and carried him out of the truck. “He’s heavier than he looks. Could you get his legs, Garnet?” He turned and looked at the drooped-over cat. “Let’s ditch the truck and get out of here.”

Areo and my mom carried Lyle towards the exit with me following behind. Aero reached over and put in the code to let the doors roll down. Then he laid Lyle down on the grass. “Lyle,” Aero said to him patting his face. “Lyle buddy, you with us?” Lyle didn’t respond. Aero checked his pulse. “He’s still with us but we’d better get him to a hospital.”

“You need to drive him,” my mom said.

“I’ve got a lot of work here I need to finish.”

“Drive this boy to a hospital now. And before you do, we need a car since the truck is in there with the cat.”

“Most of the cars here don’t work. That’s why they’re here.”

“You must have something.”

Aero thought about it for a moment and said, “There’s this one sports car I’ve been rebuilding. Took it for a spin the other day. Thing is a beauty: new engine, new tires, new paint job…I’ll drive that one. You can take my truck. It’s that one over there.” He pointed to a little white truck that must have been twenty years old. “She’s old but good.”

I looked at my mom and my mom looked at me. “Hand me the keys,” she told Aero.

“They’re going to be looking for the cat,” my mom said. “Hopefully we can get to them before they get to us.”

“Lyle’s heartrate seemed low,” I said.

“He was breathing and Aero’s taking him to the hospital. Right now, I’m going to call the principal and tell him to send the kids home from the dance.” She unlocked her phone and handed it to me. I found the principal’s number in her call history and dialed.

“Hello,” I said when he answered. “This is Briar…Mrs. Gagnon’s daughter. She wanted me to call to tell you now is the time to get all the kids out of the dance and send them straight home.”

“What’s the deal with the cat?” Principal Doofus asked.

“Put him on speaker phone,” mom said.

I did.

“Hello, this is Mrs. Gagnon. I just wanted you to know we have the cat secured and this would be an excellent time to send the kids home.”

“So, it’s safe?” he asked.

“For now. But you need to get them home quickly. I don’t know if the cat’s owners are coming to find it or not. With something like this I imagine a fair amount of money is riding on this experiment and the cat likely has a camera on it besides the one my daughter and her friend attached.”

“I’d not thought of that.”

“As someone who has done a lot of consulting with a lot of different companies, I’d say the likelihood is high.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to go see some old friends.”

“I haven’t been over here in a while,” my mom said as we parked Aero’s truck on the back side of the Edevane factory.

“I thought you’d never even been here.”

“It was one of the first companies I worked for. They hired me before you were born.”

“How did it go?”

“Not well.”

“How are we going to get inside?”

“How did you get inside before?”

“Lyle’s mom’s keycard.”

“But you don’t have that on you this time.”

“No.”

“But I do.”

“What?”

“Lyle had it on him tonight. I took it from him.”

“How?”

“Let’s go inside.”

We disembarked the car and headed up to the gate. My mom put the keycard up to the pad. The gate unlocked and we headed inside towards the building. My mom stepped up to the door and held the keycard up to the keypad.

“I think they’re watching us on surveillance right now,” I said.

“I think you’re right,” my mom replied as the light turned from red to green and we headed inside. We were on the opposite side of the building from where Lyle and I had been last time, which put us closer to the laboratory.

“We’re close to the lab,” I whispered to her.

“Lead on.”

I looked around wondering if that guard who’d chased Lyle and I last time was lurking around. Then I turned left, and my mom followed. We crept up to the laboratory door. My mom put the key card up to the pad and the light turned from red to green.

“We’re in,” my mom said, and we slipped inside.

The factory looked the same as it had when Lyle and I were there before. My mom looked around taking everything in. We heard strange animal sounds coming from the door inside. My mom held the key card up to the pad. The light remained red. She tried again. The light still didn’t change.

“It didn’t work for us either,” I said.

“Sounds like our cat isn’t the only one being experimented on. Even if we can’t get in, we can record the sounds and take pictures of the lab. Get out your phone. I’ll record the sound you take the pictures.”

I took out my phone and began quietly taking pictures of the place while my mom recorded the cries of the cats or whatever was behind the door we couldn’t enter.

“Well, well,” a voice said. “Garnet Gagnon, we meet again.”

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: WORKING: WHAT WE DO ALL DAY (2023)-NETFLIX

When I went through a PATP program and studied acting in New York City, one of our first-year projects was to choose a person and their occupation from the book Working by Studs Terkel and perform a monologue. The assignment was for a speech class and the focus was to learn how to recognize and communicate operative words. Operative words are the most important words in any given sentence and convey the new and most important information. The book is considered a classic work of journalism where the author interviewed numerous people who all had different types of jobs and made different types of income.

This documentary hosted by former President Barack Obama is inspired by Studs Terkel’s book. There are four episodes. The first episode focuses on those working in the lower class. The second focuses on those working in the middle class. The third focuses on the jobs of the nine percenters. The final episode focuses on the top one percent. It’s interesting to watch what each group values, and in some cases how money is precious and sparse where in other cases how money is earned and wasted. Interestingly, the most balanced group seems to be the one shrinking the fastest and that’s the middle class. There is a young man from this group who continues to follow his goals all while dealing with his delusional parents’ blasé ideas of success, which I assume is similar to many Americans’ constant need to cling to the past.

The documentary shows how workplaces used to treat their employees and the abysmal way they treat them now. Most of this is thanks to a man named Milton Friedman. If you think most of the products you purchase these days are overpriced junk and that golden parachutes for CEO’s are ludicrous and damage companies, thank that guy. And it’s not getting any better. Obviously most (not all) of the one percenter group are disconnected from reality. But even sadder are the nine-percenters who waste money aspiring to be in the group above them. Nothing is good about being on or below the poverty line and nothing is good about a shrinking middle class which the documentary points out was at the time it was conceived a radical idea.

Something else the documentary shows is the looming world of artificial intelligence, which in some ways could be a marvelous tool providing more middle-class and nine percenter jobs. But when you meet some of the cavalier upper management, you get the sinking feeling the place runs a good chance of getting renamed Cyberdyne Systems.