Part 5

You should take your time naming a cat. We called Pumpkin “Pumpkin” because she came to us on Thanksgiving, a traditional time of pumpkin pie. I think I told you all how this happened. We used to keep the dog food out in the garage and we noticed that something had been getting into it. We assumed raccoons.

So, right before Thanksgiving, we brought the food into the house. Thanksgiving Eve I’m standing in my kitchen doing dishes and I hear the most ungodly pissed-off meowing from the garage. It was the cat who would eventually come to be known as Pumpkin, a scrawny mess, angry that we had stolen her food supply.

Pumpkin is a stupid name for her, though. It’s the wrong name. Her name is so obviously Squeaky that no one even uses her “real” name. She’s either “new kitty” or “Squeaky.” And that’s it.

Well, until this summer.

I’m sure you all heard about the “arsons” we had up here in Whites Creek and Joelton. Unsolved, they said. Bullshit. Of course it was a dragon. But you never heard that because the police didn’t want to admit that they spent a month trying to kill that thing without any success.

So, you never heard how it all ended either. And I’m not sure myself how she did it, but it was Squeaky. I was sitting here late one night watching TV and there was a big thud that shook the whole house. I assumed it was an accident out on the highway so I ran to the dining room window. Nothing. Traffic was passing normally.

And then I heard Squeaky, singing away as she does when she’s got something she’s proud of.

I open the front door and there, on the porch, is Squeaky, sitting next to the carcass of a small dragon. Okay, come on. It’s a cat. Let’s just be honest. The bottom half of the carcass of a small dragon.

“Look at you, Dragonslayer,” I said and that’s stuck as a second name for her.

Baby Butcher

I pulled this sweater right out of the dryer this morning and it smells just like a diaper. Not a dirty diaper. Like a clean, cloth diaper, like the diapers I used to put on the Butcher when he was a baby. And, because it’s smell, it brings back those memories so hard–how soft the skin on his face was, how his black hair was so wispy, the little crooked ls his legs made, how it felt when his fingers curled around mine.

It’s weird to think that he doesn’t remember any of that. That these memories, which I’d forgotten I even had, are a way I know him that he doesn’t know himself.

On the other hand, I’m not that exited about regularly smelling like a diaper, so maybe we need a different detergent.

Horns

So, I wanted to say a little bit more about it, because we ended up talking again last night about how much we enjoyed it. I just wanted to expound on how visually funny it is. I know Joe Hill only wrote the story, but there were so many sight-gags that it kind of made me wonder if they weren’t also paying a little homage to his comic book background.

The diner is “Eve’s.” The guy who gets horns has a brother who plays the horn. One of the characters gets two of his fingers blown off so his hand is permanently giving devil horns. Ig is turning into a demon at the same time he drives a gremlin.

I mean, they’re cheesy, but they’re cheesy visual puns in a really fun way.

Daniel Radcliffe’s accent is hilarious. I mean, it’s definitely an “American” accent, but I don’t know where in the United States someone has an accent like that. And this movie contains more peeing than most movies. Also Ig spends a great deal of time with his pants undone. It’s really interesting just because he has a body on-screen in a way men normally aren’t embodied.

Anyway, I liked it. But I was confused how Heather Graham has ended up doing bit parts.