Oh, my friends, how I want to say more about Wolverine’s gifts as a spy.  Few have monetized the trade with the ruthless efficiency of Wolverine.  Instead, I am writing about the murderous assclown, the chubby dung heap, that walked into a Tops to shoot dead anybody he took for black with a Bushmaster rifle.  The assclown decorated his rile by scribbling racist slogans so beloved by righty loons.

As a black cat, Bart felt the deepest imaginable offense at chubby, pasty, young Gendron.  She burst into a rage when she heard mistrained policeman had convinced this wannabe Einsatz Kommando not to kill himself.  Her reaction called to mind a scene from “Babe.”  Instead of Babe, it was Bart who wailed an endless “Why?!”  So, Bart dashed off an irate letter to the editor demanding an inquiry into what has led authorities to send cops to mass murders rather than infantry. “One must never forget,” wrote Bart, “The rationale for infantry is simple.  You’re not there to arrest anybody.  You want to cut the killer down where he stands. If he has put his gun to his own head, don’t discourage him.  Fill him with holes before he commits another homicide.” 

Bart has always taken a hard line on crime.  Gendron’s murdering blacks was a grave offence enhancement in her eyes.  If a vicious fool likes shooting blacks of his own kind, what might he do to black cats like Bart or me?  Her view didn’t surprise me.  Her theory of justice and jurisprudence got absorbed from watching Clinton Eastwood and Steven Seagal movies.    She loved old western too.  “Notice, too,” Bart reminded me,” that when the drumhead court sentenced handsome Bill Budd to hang, they did it fast.   

From the time the handsome Budd killed the demonic Claggart to the time he hanged was less than 24 hours. “Let that be a model for us all,” cried Bart.  If a drumhead court could hang a sailor that fast, a hanging that required a trial, you can have on-the-spot justice from our infantry when they respond to a mass shooting nowadays.   So reasoned Bart.

I mentioned to Bart that the authorities didn’t want to make mistakes.  A shooter could be crazy.  An innocent man could be hanged by mistake.  Bart delivered two blows to my head as her answer.

Fielding then chimed in.  “Who cares?  If a madman is shooting people, he’s a malignant crazy.  Screw him.  Put him down.  And why are you always worrying about so-called innocents?  None of us is innocent.  If somebody didn’t do the crime that we’re hanging him for, he must have done something else.  Innocence is a ruse.  

“Besides, don’t we say, ‘Better ten or even one hundred innocent men hang than let one guilty man go free.’  And there is precedent.  If crucifying our savior, an actual innocent man, remitted our bloodguilt, what’s the big deal about killing one innocent guy we mistake for a guilty one?  You should worry about finding the bad guy, not keep living in the past.”  When I started to challenge Fielding’s logic, she had had enough.  She beat me up.  Bart joined in.

I sometimes forget I don’t live in a house of lenient, prissy  Democats.  Bart and Tank see themselves as survivors of Martinez Creek because they never feared having bloody paws.  Fielding had made her living killing rats, a job that she claimed made her the feline moral equivalent of Eastwood’s Man-with-No-Name. 

As I tended to my battered face and body, Bart and Fielding told me, “To do true justice, a cat must learn to live with her mistakes.”  Their cold stares told me I had best shut up about Gendron.  Feigned agreement with their opinions was a wise path. In the past, when I tried to defend myself in these kinds of cases by pointing out I was taking mike’s position on a controversy, they’d just sigh. 

“Mike,” I was told, “didn’t know any better.”  “You know,” Bart added, “that his mum’s maiden name was Shea.  That’s an Irish name.  The Irish are a race of rogues.  Being from a clannish race of professional connivers, mike has a congenital predisposition to leniency towards criminals.  Have you noticed that mike even believes in letting somebody appeal a conviction?  Appeals???  Did Billy Budd get an appeal?  Was a “Wanted Dead or Alive” notice dead letter until the rascal named on it had a chance to appeal?  Did Fielding accept surrenders or appeals from rats?  Please! What a pile of Bravo Sierra!  You must talk to your chums Wolverine and Peregrine about punishment.  They’re sound thinkers on legal theory. Stop listening to mike the excuse monger.”  Okay, I get it, I’d been warned.