Tom Tom Was A Big Cat:

Tom Tom Was A Big Cat: Tails of the East Side of Town

John W. Gilmore

Tom Tom was a big cat...the biggest I have ever seen. Some may think Tom Tom was a Maine Coon Cat. They are often giants with very long, shaggy hair. They are big enough to look like small cougars. Tom Tom wasn’t like that. Tom Tom wasn’t shaggy. Tom Tom was your typical domesticated cat, but he was very big.

He was white with black spots. His limbs were very thick and he was about the size of a small dog, but stronger than any dog that size. He was stronger than any dog I have ever seen. In fact, Tom Tom would terrorize dogs if they made the mistake of confronting him. Collies, German Shepherds, Belgium Shepherds, it didn’t matter, Tom Tom would hurt them all. Let alone other cats.

We had a cat named Ugly. Why was his name Ugly? One day we were playing in the backyard and the feral kitten that looked somewhat like a tabby squeezed in through the bars of our fence. His colors were a bit off. He had black stripes, but the other stripes, the ones that would usually be grey on other cats, were green. Thus the name, Ugly. We caught Ugly before he could find his way back through the bars.

We began to feed Ugly and take care of him. He stayed on the porch most of the time, but he always ran the streets. He eventually grew up to be a beautiful cat. Like all cats who roamed the streets, he was tough. One day he and Tom Tom got into a fight in the back yard.

They wrestled and fought for quite some time until Tom Tom wore him out completely. When we came to the back yard Tom Tom was just sitting on top of him and he was too tired to even get up. Tom Tom had handled him like a child and had just over powered him. A big win for Tom Tom. The problem was that Tom Tom was too big and strong...so big and strong, his owner often wanted to get rid of him.

He would go to the fish store and buy all kinds of goldfish, mollies, fancy goldfish, and all kinds trying to create an aquarium. We would walk all the way to the fish store, which was probably a mile and a half away, pick up the fish in a plastic bag full of water put into a little cardboard box and carry them all the way back home. Every time we went and got fish, Tom Tom would get in there somehow, including ripping through the top, breaking covers off of the tank, we don’t know what he did, but he would get in there and eat them. One day, it was the very last straw.

They took Tom Tom and put him in the car and drove miles and miles away before releasing him and speeding off. About a week or two later, Tom Tom broke into the house and was lying on the porch cleaning himself when they found him. They couldn't get rid of him. He kept coming back no matter how far they took him. It might take a week, or even a month, but he would always find his way back.

By the time he got back one time, Brian had given up on the fish and had started getting white mice. All of us did that for a while. He would leave them in a cage and play with them a little bit. He would watch them running on the little wheel in the cage. Sometimes we would feed them and we would watch them eating. Tom Tom would be hiding around the corner watching. Since the mice were in the cage, we had no worries.

One day Brian came into the house and looked on the shelf. Tom Tom had broken in through the bars. He had bent them open completely, and was sitting right there eating the mice. His paws were so big they were like hands and he was picking them up and swallowing them down with only one or two bites. Brian went crazy and tried to grab the cat. He couldn't budge that monster cat. He kept eating. After two or three Brian started hitting the cat.

The cat had the last one in its paw and wouldn’t let go. Even as he was beating the cat on its back the cat slowly brought the mouse to his mouth, chewed it, and swallowed it. I don’t know what happened to Tom Tom after that. I don’t know if he took another ride, or if a tough dog finally got a hold of him. I never heard of Tom Tom again. I’ll always remember him though, because he was a strong, stubborn monster of a cat, which ultimately led to his demise.

The End

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