I liked Jimmy—nobody else did. Not my friends, parents, roommates, and not Zeus. Zeus was a four-year-old Siamese with attitude and I belonged to him. Jimmy was a tall, broad, blond German with a gangster name and the leather jacket to match. When Jimmy would come over Zeus got rather grumpy and hid away, but when Jimmy stayed the night Zeus would get angry and jealous and he expressed himself by yowling—loudly. If you have ever heard a Siamese yowl you know what I mean. Jimmy hated this but his way of dealing with Zeus was not traditional. Jimmy would hunt down Zeus and hold him under the cold shower for about ten minutes and then explain with a loud German accented voice: “Every time you do that, I do this!”
The ferocity with which Jimmy had treated Zeus had stunned me, but before I could intervene the whole ordeal had been done. Zeus was furious, his pride had been dampened and while he didn’t yowl again when Jimmy was in the apartment, it was clear that vengeance was on the horizon—the Siamese was only biding his time.
The next time Jimmy came over was about a week later. Zeus was quiet and kept out of sight the entire night. I didn’t think much of it, I thought that Zeus had learned his lesson and would just disappear when Jimmy was around. But no, oh no—the next morning when Jimmy was getting dressed to go we found that Zeus had left little presents in his very cool black cowboy boots (which had spurs). Then all of a sudden there was Zeus, just sitting on the window ledge, watching us, quietly—I could feel the smirk. Zeus evaded a furious Jimmy that day by wedging himself into a heat duct in the ceiling.
Jimmy spent the night again the next month—after his ego and boots had cooled down a little. Zeus became a wallflower, not a hair in sight. I felt there was going to be trouble so we stored Jimmy’s boots upside down on a rack and made sure everything was closed away. The next morning Zeus was sitting on the windowsill—watching. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face, but what had he done this time? Jimmy was getting dressed to go once again and when he opened the foyer closet he let out a roar. I came running only to find him holding his leather jacket of which the inside lining had been torn to shreds. Zeus had forced his way into the accordion-doored closet and climbed up and down the inside of Jimmy’s jacket several times. Jimmy was furious—Zeus was illustrious.
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]by Stephanie Gauvin
