The Cheetah

By M.E.BLACKBURN

Do you remember the Cheetah? It was at a mom and pop type store in the Casablanca section of town (at least that's what we called it). It was a old cat, matted missing hair, surly moods, sometimes you could pet it, other times it would bite you, which one of our buddies found out.

Now this cat was tied to a rope, which was tied to a rain down spout with an about 15 feet of travel. We discovered that if you rode up on your motorcycles and he would be sleeping, you could have some fun with this old cat. We would stop across the street and coast to a slow quite stop. Then gun the hell out of the motor. The Cheetah would leap to its feet and tear off towards us. At this point the rope would snap him back and slap him down to the sidewalk. He would then stand up and roar. We found this to be very much fun.

One fine sunny day I thought that I would buzz kitty. I slowly coasted to a stop and there he was...sleeping. I gunned the motor, he leaped and charged, snap goes the rope and he fell into the street.

Now at this point everything seems to going in slow motion. The Cheetah gets up, shakes his head and looks back at the rope, then he turned to me and takes off. His front feet slide out from under him and he falls again, gets up once more and bolts for ME!!! Sweet fucking Christ...I twisted the gas and dropped the clutch lever, the front wheel rose three feet into the air, just as the tire reached back to ground I dropped it into second gear and again the tire rose into the air. As the tire hit the ground and I nailed third and looked over my left shoulder next to the rear axle. He's right there, his ears are folded back against his head, his upper fangs are four inches long...kind of a off-white with a nasty yellow near the top with what looks like small hair line cracks...the lower fangs are just two inch copies of the uppers. His eyes are locked on my ass (and it is true that their feet are off the ground all at one time during the run). I turn back to the street before me. The street is full of people,
people on bicycles, people running, people screaming, camels, camels running, camels screaming, donkeys, donkeys running...the street parts like the frickin' Red Sea.

I grab fourth and then look once more. I got a good 20 yards on him and he's fading fast and the breaks off the pursuit. If he had been a younger cat and in shape or if I had a slower bike (I was on a 450 Ducati) the Cheetah would have had MP butt for
lunch.