Ain't No Love For This Little Kitty Cat

A story from the streets

We’re standing in the usual place, because it’s the usual place. It’s too hot, like it is most of the time. If it’s not too hot, it’s too cold. I blame the fur. When it’s hot the fur makes me hotter, when it’s cold it doesn’t. You’d think there gotsta be a way round that, but there isn’t.

I said this to a guy once, one of my regulars, after we’d finished and he was getting his affairs in order, like they say. It’s simple, he says. Is it, I say. Sure, he says. Get a better fur for when it’s cold and don’t wear one when it’s hot. You’re crazy, I say. How am I crazy, he says. This fur is my uniform, I say. If I didn’t wear it nobody’d recognise me and I wouldn’t get any business. I’d recognise you, he says. You wouldn’t, I say. I would, he says.

So I try it. The next Thursday, cause he’s one of my Thursday guys, son of a bitch walks straight past me. Goes to Jenny instead, and she gets the money I’d have gotten if I’d worn the damn fur. No food for me that night. I could only afford enough for the little one and her brother. Assholes didn’t even ask why I wasn’t eating anything.