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Welp, he knew it was inevitable. Sooner or later, Petey knew he’d go back to his evil ways and get his keister thrown back in cat jail. He had assumed it would be much later then the day after the dance party with the living laser pointer building, but the waitress at that diner just had to spill orange juice on his scrambled eggs and…
On the bright side the medics said nobody had worse than first-degree burns after he set the place on fire. All things considered, it was a very calm and reasonable response from him.
So there he was, prison cell sweet prison cell. Where the blankets smelled like swiss cheese and Big Jim had found a way to make his snoring louder and whinier at the same time. How could snoring be so sad and needy? How!?
Petey wrapped his pillow around his head to try and drown the noise out. It wasn’t such a big deal. After all, he’d done this song and dance so many times he should be charging for lessons. He wasn’t just any orange tabby. He was Petey, The World’s Most Evilest Cat, and it wouldn’t be long before his genius criminal mind found a way to break out of this joint and go back to-
“Petey!” a guard yelled as he banged his truncheon against the bars of his cell.
“I haven’t done anything yet!” the cat yelled back even louder, scaring Big Jim out of the top bunk and face-first onto the dirty floor. Okay, that was funny. So funny that he was surprised to see the guard open the door.
“You’ve got a visitor.”
“A visitor?” Petey asked, confused. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Now come on.”
Wanting to be anywhere but his dirty cell, Petey played along and followed the guard. He was handcuffed as he walked down the way. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t get away. He could slip out of the cuffs and sneak out through one of the vents. Or hop into the sheet basket and ride the laundry truck to freedom. Or beat the guard, steal his uniform, and walk right out the front door (doing that fun thing where he uses his own tail like a club and spins it around. He loved that one).
Still, he hadn’t had a visitor in… ever. So this he had to see.
Finally he made it to the visitation room, where his guest was waiting for him. Petey took his seat, and looked down at his clone son, Li’l Petey, looking tiny in the big adult chair.
“I don’t know what else I was expecting,” Petey said through the holes drilled in the glass between them, sighing.
“Hi papa!”
“Kid, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you Papa! The chief said that we’re family, so I get fizzy-tasting rights!”
Petey wished he was back in bed. “It’s visitation rights, son.”
Li’l Petey sadly looked down at his cute little paws. “Aww, I wanted a soda.”
“I’ll buy you one when I break out of here. Just go back home, or to school, or the glue factory. I don’t know what kids do these days.”
“Papa, you can’t break out of prison.”
“Sure I can. I do it all the time. I do it so often around here that someone breaking out is called Doing a Petey. Its awesome.”
“But Dog Man said-”
“Nah!” Petey said reflexively to his tiny clone, putting a finger to the glass to shush him. “Nah. Nuh-uh. Nope. No. Don’t get me started on Mr. Goody-Two-Paws. He doesn’t get it. Once upon a time in the Old West, it wasn’t illegal to break out of jail. It was considered understandable for people to embrace the urge to seek freedom from imprisonment. That is totally real by the way. You can look it up and see that I’m not lying! Seriously, do it! Look it up right now! I dare you! I double dog dare… hey, what the…”
Petey was knocked out of his educational rant to his son at the feeling of his cellmate squeezing into the seat with him. Big Jim just sat there smiling, giving the orange cat a small wave.
“Hiya, Petey!”
“What are you doing?” he responded, glaring at the fat black cat.
“Oh, you didn’t hear? Budget cuts.”
Petey raised an eyebrow. “Budget cuts?”
“Yeah, they’re the worst. Now cellmates gotta share visitation time to save money.”
“That is the dumbest thing I have ever… wait, who are you meeting with?”
The cats looked through the glass. And they saw that next to Li’l Petey was a doctor in a white coat, a chart in her hand.
“Please read the letters on the second line,” she said in a thick, scientific accent.
“You’re taking an eye exam?!” Petey shouted, flabbergasted by the sight of the… the sight chart.
“Yeah,” Big Jim answered with a smile. “Can you believe they squeezed me in on such short notice? Now then… G, F, M…”
“Whose that, Papa?” Li’l Petey asked, looking at his father, the fat black cat, and the lady pointing to letters on the eye chart.
Petey could feel a headache coming on.
“This,” he answered with a groan that turned into a shout, “is Big Jim. He’s my cellmate.”
“Good,” the doctor said. “Now the fourth line.”
“What’s a cellmate?” the kid asked.
“What’s a… listen to the word what do you think… MMMPH!”
“It means we live together, tiny Petey,” Big Jim answered for his one-sided friend. “We share a cell, and we play together during outside time, and have meal time together, and I think that’s a lowercase L…”
“Oh, okay,” Li’l Petey said, taking a moment to think. “Papa, does this mean Big Jim my mama?”
“Is he your WHAT?!”
“My mama,” the boy answered. “You live together and do lots of stuff together, like mamas and papas do.”
“Listen to me, kid, none of this is by choice. It’s the judge that’s got me chained to this hunk of dead weight.”
“Like a wedding?”
Petey could only stare at his son, groaning and pulling at his eyes anger.
“Besides,” the kid interrupted, “Dog Man is already my second papa, and I like you get to be my papas together. But having three papas just feels silly.”
“Woah, woah there!” Petey shouted, hands up. “I don’t know what you’re imply about me and Dog Man, but it is not like that! Not like that, EVER.”
Li’l Petey could only roll his eyes with a smile. “Sure Papa, whatever you say.”
“Eleven, backwards P…”
Petey could only watch his idiot cellmate botch the eye test in ways that didn’t seem possible. He gestured at the stupidity crammed next to him in the tiny booth.
“You really want this guy as your mother? This guy? Why would anyone choose to have him as a mother?!”
“Petey, please!” Big Jim said. “We shouldn’t fight in front of our boy.”
“OUR BOY?!”
“You two fight like an old married couple,” the lady in the coat said. “In case you want my two cents.”
“We don’t!” Petey shouted, ignored by everyone around him.
“What do you say, Big Jim,” the kitten said to the big black cat. “Do you want to be my mama?”
The big cat teared up, happily hugging his angry cellmate. “Oh, Li’l Petey, I’d love to! You’ve made me the happiest cat in the world!”
“You make me want to blow up the Earth,” was all Petey could say to the sickening scene.
“Love you too!” Big Jim replied. “Ooh, the color purple!”
“THERE ARE NO COLORS ON EYE CHARTS!” Petey shouted, getting tired of this dumb bit.
“What, no, I’m talking about the movie! There’s a sign for it right there on the visiting family board. We should see it!”
Confused, Petey looked at where Big Jim was pointing on the other side of the glass. All the papers there were a blur.
“There is no way you can actually read that.”
As if on cue, Li’l Petey hopped out of his seat and ran to read the family event board.
“He’s right, Papa! Big Jim, you have really good eyes.”
Big Jim smiles and hugged Petey tighter. “Thanks. Must be all those carrots I eat.”
“Everything you do justifies my choice to be evil,” Petey said, glaring at the oblivious idiot that would not let him go.
“Remember to eat your vegetables, son. They’re good for you.”
“Okay, Mama!”
“I HATE ALL OF YOU!”