Texts from Bennett by Mac Lethal

muggen me.i wuz like QUIT Haten, im jus a yung nigga tryn 2 git paid
    I slumped over, burying my face into my lap and squeezing my head with my legs. I’m not even flexible enough to do that normally, but this was surreal.
    ME: ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!???????
    BENNETT: why u care nigga i thot u hated cats ?
    ME: Oh no.
    ME: Where is the cat now? Take it back to her yard, dude! Seriously?!?!
    BENNETT: im rollen a blunt . i wanna get da cat high agan bcuz it just sat here fuckin whinninG all day. but da blunt made it stop goin waaaa waaaa
    BENNETT: i got em in a big cage i found at da creek.. wit a boll of water
    ME: Please don’t get the cat high. Please.
    BENNETT: 2 late but itz all gud. 4 rill da cat is a much more plesant kitty now . da weed help it allot..
    ME: No! Man take the cat back!!!
    I called him seven times back-to-back. No answer.
    ME: Hello? Why aren’t you answering my calls?
    ME: Please, man. You’re going to get me arrested or removed from my home!!!
    ME: Please, dude, take the cat back. And PLEASE don’t tell her you tried to sell it to a Chinese restaurant either. Just give it back to her.
    BENNETT: K
    ME: Wait a second. I just reread this text. You said cats. You stole more than ONE cat!??!
    BENNETT: ya i got 3 . but Yo! my nigga quit bein a lil bitch . i will take all da cats bacc to there yards
    BENNETT: i just gadda remember which yard da other 2 cats balong in.
    ME: Oh my god, Bennett. No, man. No no no.
    BENNETT: i gadda questin Do u think da lady at Bo lings wuz mad bcuz chinesse people eat dog and not cat ?
    BENNETT: did i affind her?
    BENNETT: did i get it wrong? dogs r cute as fucc who wud eat a dog?
    BENNETT: hello u their
    I couldn’t speak to Bennett when he got home. Sans cat(s), I should add. I couldn’t even look him in the eyes. I just told him to go to the basement and sit there quietly. I obviously wasn’t going to tell Harper about this, even though she’s a dog person and doesn’t particularly care for cats. I’m a dog person too, though I actually like the concept of cats. They are independent and sleep all day.
    I’ve been the owner of only two cats in my life. The first, Grizzabella, was a huge, twenty-five- to thirty-pound cat that I had for my entire childhood. She was unlike most cats. She was so fat that she could sit on her butt, lick one paw, and use the other paw to hold her tummy up while she bathed her underbelly. She died at age eighteen. So it goes. RIP, Grizzy.
    The other cat I owned was named Droors. He was smashed by my garage door the first night I owned him. My mother found his corpse, leaking blood, oozing its soft viscera onto the cement garage floor. I was twelve and very sad. Grizzy, on the other hand, was stoked. I think she’s the one who pushed him under the door. So it goes.
    Cats can be filthy, temperamental, and let’s be honest . . . weird. But in my opini—
    Wait a second. Why the fuck am I even talking about cats? Regardless of whether I hate cats or not, trying to sell a cat to a Chinese restaurant is unacceptable and probably punishable by some law.
    Mom, if you can hear me, please save us. Please.
    •
    Ironically, all that talk about Chinese food had made me hungry for some honey-walnut shrimp. So I decided to drive up to Bo Lings that night to get some carryout Chinese food. More important, I wanted to make sure the proprietors didn’t know that Bennett was related to me.
    At first I was nervous. I have full tattoo sleeves and imagine most restaurateurs find me to be a little suspicious. So the staff immediately all begin staring at me, which freaked me out. But after standing there for a silent couple of seconds, everyone went back to work. The old lady with the limp, who runs the place with her husband, even smiled big and said, “Hello! Welcome to Bo Lings!”
    I took a seat by the porcelain elephants and statues of old Chinese sages, with long beards and contemplative faces, while I waited for my