the skins game

Virtue the cat hit the road today. Equipped with his hobo bindle and knife he hopped a fast freighter out of Phoenix down near the old stockyards. One bloodied paw and closed eye suggested a bit of trouble went down last Thursday in Scottsdale's east side Julio's Bar. Julio's is frequented by all sorts of cats, mostly bad. Bikers, thugs, meth addicts.
I speak of Virtue because he was Willie's best friend. Willie stays at my place. He considered joining that freight train to Mission Viejo, but stuck in Phoenix because Virtue is clearly on a downward spiral Willie can't slow or arrest. And, these cats don't do interventions.
They play a game called the skins game. Points awarded for biting and scratching. Virtue should have gone pro, but the pig was in the tunnel, as the late, great Hunter S. Thompson once said. The alcohol pipeline was open and flowing and like Charles Bukowski, Virtue wrote, drank and fought. He got ratty, smelled downright fowl and neglected the litter box taking pleasure in staining carpets at friend's houses. His hair was greasy and fell out in patches. His wounds became infected.
I tried to plan an intervention but the cats couldn't groove on that theme. And then, just like that, Virtue became a rolling stone. We don't know where he is now. He can't afford a postcard or a stamp.
I pay more attention to roadkill these days. I look for Virtue's traveling bindle. I wonder where he is right now, how he's making out, whether he's using again. Willie is beside himself and spends his time releasing his tension on my high-backed leather office chair. He's stretched out on the floor next to me right, watching me, wondering why I'm not out looking.
But, I'm not quite sure what I'm looking for ...