THE HOMELESS TROLL AND THE CAT WITH A HITLER MUSTACHE   
 
The cottage I rented in Glendale, a suburb of Los Angeles, was built in the 1920's and made for classic pseudo-resort Southern California living. Pseudo-perfect except that my front door looked right out onto a street and a sidewalk where pedestrians walked by all day long on the way to the bus stop. Every time I saw them, I got either sad or annoyed. Actually, I always got both sad and annoyed. Sad because they took the bus in LA, a pain in the ass unfit for a decent person.
 Annoyed because they would be walking by my house forever. All I would do was pray that someday they would move the bus stop. Or outlaw public transportation in favor of jetpacks. Or discover travel by means of disintegrating a person's matter, turning it into a beam of energy, and reintegrating the matter in its original pattern at another location.

Every day I walked past a sporadic stream of strangers. They didn't nod at me. I wished that they didn't exist, or would at least take advantage of the best market for car-buyers ever. They pissed me off if they got too near the patches of grass in the front lawn. They pissed me if they got too near the street. And they pissed me most of all if they got too near the neighbor's cat. I don't believe in outdoor cats, not in multicultural neighborhoods filled with streets and backyards and cars and not a hint of wilderness. And that poor cat was always outside, watching the carless stragglers. I wanted to pet it but I didn't because it would make me just as bad as anyone else, condoning its outsideness. I just kept as far away as I could from that cat, shut my curtains, and pretended I lived on a country lane or on a studio backlot. Finally one day the cat scared the shit out of me.
 
I was home slightly early from work. My mail sat in the unlocked mailbox right by my front door where any patron of public transportation could just grab it. I felt several people file behind me. Their proximity to my personal mail made me nervous. I fumbled the mail and dropped it all over my concrete stoop. Bending down to grab it, I heard a slight rustle of leaves on a windless day. I looked suddenly to my left and I saw the cat. His face was three feet from mine and he hissed. He didn't seem dangerous except that on his face was the clearest Hitler mustache in the world. He hissed again and I staggered against the house, cracking the glass on the front door. Then he disappeared.
 
The next day, a small man suddenly appeared on the small strip of grass that separated the sidewalk from the street in the front of my house. You aren't supposed to call midgets "midgets" anymore. You have to be sensitive to labeling, but any other word failed for thisguy. He was a troll. He was reclining against the large oak tree wearing a beaten-up old green pilgrim's outfit. Everyone that walked by was now being ordered to pay $.75. A fee so exact that it confirmed my belief that he was not a homeless man, but a troll that staked out a territory and collected his due.
 
At first people tried to ignore him, the way they do the homeless guys who stand off freeway exits. But with the troll, there was no looking away. There was no window to roll up. When someone didn't pay, he hurled insults that were amazingly personal and seemingly dead on. Or maybe everyone is just sensitive about being fat and poor.
 
Eventually, the foot traffic died out completely. The bus riders found alternate routes to the bus like they always could have done. The neighbors walked on the opposite side of the street. But I gladly paid the $.75 each time. The troll was the answer to my prayers.
 
Things were better on my street. Better, except that the cat with the Hitler mustache had recently taken to appearing at my window and hissing. It seemed random at first, until I realized that he was showing up whenever I was watching TV: specifically, when I was watching the Chabad telethon, or the Larry Sanders show. One time I was watching Seinfeld and the cat went nuts and started banging up against my window. I practiced deep breaths and tried not to get upset. But that cat was persistent.
 
Then it got worse as the cat and the troll fell in love with each other. Sometimes the cat would be sitting in the troll's lap, as I'd toss my seventy-five or even a dollar. The cat would hiss at me, and the troll would praise him. That fucking troll. One day the troll upped his rate to two bucks a pass. I wouldn't pay and he started making fun of my nose and how I looked naked, fucking peeking troll. I decided he needed to go.
 
The Glendale police told me on the phone that the tree where he was perched was publicproperty, and he was allowed to be there if he wasn't loitering. "What else is he doing?" I said. "He's loitering and extorting, that's all trolls do!"
 
Calling him a troll wasn't too smooth. It just sounded pejorative to the police. They showed up anyway, and of course when they came the troll had gone. Probably out buying treats for the Hitler cat. I tried to figure out a way that they could at least arrest the cat. I wanted to call the Simon Wiesenthal Center, give it cyanide cat treats hoping that if I cornered him he'd eat them rather then be captured.
 
From then on, I refused to pay the troll and endured his wrath. I hoped I could outlast him, figuring since I had been his only customer for quite some time, there would no longer be any reason for him to stay.
 
Though he was always there when I was home, the cops came by a few more times that week and the troll was missing (or hiding) each time. I was starting to wonder if the police thought I was crying wolf or troll. By the third visit the cops must have scared him because things quieted down for a while. Both the troll and the cat were MIA. Maybe he found a better corner, I thought.
 
I decided to test the new calm by renting Schindler's List. I was so into to it that I forgot all about my previous troubles until the scene where the little girl yells out, "Goodbye Jew!" Then there was a bang and a rattle at the front of my house. I froze and then stood up without moving my feet. I looked out the window and I saw the cat at the door, hissing and raising his sharp-clawed paw, tearing at the screen door. I ran to the back and the troll was prying open the back door with a little green crowbar. It was an invasion. I called the police and said, "A homeless man is trying to break into my house!" I left out the troll and the cat with the Hitler mustache part.
 
The police told me they were on the way, but I wasn't sure if they'd come this time. I needed to act fast to defend my cottage. I grabbed a spray bottle off the counter and opened the front door. The cat rushed at me and I sprayed him, straight into his eyes. He screamed and ran out, blinded. The troll came running to the front of the house.
 
"You bastard!" he yelled and lunged at me with his little crowbar. I sprayed him, straight into his dirty little eyes and he crumbled. I grabbed his crowbar, and I took my foot and pushed him straight out the door and locked it. He banged on the door with both of his little fists and I yelled back, "Fuck off!" but I don't think he heard me. After a few minutes I guessed he just gave up because he turned around and walked away. I opened the door and he was down the block. Great, the cops were going to miss him again. I yelled, "Hey TROLL!"
 
Apparently, I'd called his bluff. He ran straight at me so I slammed to door. He started banging; he was fucking up the house. The neighbors started coming out of their houses to see what the noise was about. I grabbed my spray bottle and crept out the back. I rounded the corner and saw the troll there and tried to wish him away. It didn't work. I put the spray bottle on stream and hit him with it in the cheek. He came straight at me again and I ran. I didn't want to leave my house in case the cops showed up, so I ran in circles, with the troll chasing me. Him with his crowbar and me spraying the bottle back at him until it was almost empty. The neighbors were still watching. I heard someone say, "Okay, just relax."
 
I was distracted by the sight of them drawing in. The troll sensed his opportunity and lunged at me. He swiped my leg with the metal, and I felt my calf dent. I limped away and fell to the ground. I looked up and the Hitler cat was back. With the last drops of water I sprayed him right in the face again. I heard a woman scream as the troll walked toward to me with the crowbar high above his little head. I scooted back on all fours to my house but the door was locked. I sunk to the stoop and covered my head with my arms. I expected the worst but all I heard was rustling and screaming. I moved my arms from my eyes and looked up. Five or six men were wrestling the troll to the ground. They were sick of his fees and this was their revenge. I stood up and looked around.
 
The cops pulled up. Everyone was moving quickly like the sky had become a strobe light. Icould see a woman holding the Hitler cat in the distance, wiping a mess off his face.
 
"What's going on here?" said the cop.
 
The neighbors exploded with explanation. The harassment, the extortion, the general evil troll behavior. Turns out I hadn't been the only one who'd called the police, I was just the only one who had called him a troll. They handcuffed him and my neighbors applauded. As he was being led into the police car, he flashed one tiny middle finger from behind his back. I didn't care. I thought I had won. Then I heard: "That man sprayed my cat's face!" She was pointing at me with her cat.
 
The cop said, "Let me see the cat." She showed everyone the cat's face. He looked perturbed but fine, harmless and fat in his owner's arms. And all but just a few dots of his Hitler mustache were gone. I looked at the spray bottle bonded by sweat to my hand: it was bleach.
 
The cop looked at me as if I was suddenly going to make sense of it all. But I couldn't. I couldn't explain that he was a Hitler cat, or that the homeless man was a troll, or that I now loved my neighbors and wanted them to walk by my cottage forever. So, I just shook my head and smiled.

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