The cat bolted into the backyard when Wife cracked the screen door open to blow smoke up into the blue sky. We\u2019d recently implemented a policy against marijuana indoors. The floors were shag carpet in every room. The smell of pot had taken up permanent residence in the fibers like an invasion of fleas.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou let the fucking cat out again,\u201d I said to Wife, and stood up off the couch. With each step toward her, my kidneys ached with dehydration. I\u2019d had maybe a dozen beers the night before and no water or sleep to speak of. My eyes burned with the same fervor of the acid rising from my stomach and into my esophagus. \u201cDid you see where he went?\u201d<\/p>\n
Wife puffed her cheeks, filled the air with more smoke. Once the cloud fell away, and her face was clear of haze, she used a black nail to clean the bowl of her pipe, tilting it on the edge and letting everything spill out onto the floor. Her eyes didn\u2019t leave the rain of ash, even when she brought her lips to the mouthpiece and blew the last few flakes from the chamber.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an animal,\u201d Wife said. It took me a full minute to realize she could even be talking about the tiny innocent kitten we\u2019d found hiding in a bush at the park across the street. \u201cIt belongs outside with the birds and bugs and everything else with teeth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not an animal,\u201d I said. What I didn\u2019t say was he was the only living thing I knew for sure would never leave me behind. Before he died, my father had cats he didn\u2019t know how to care for. Fleas were one issue. Another was his drinking and kicking them with his steel-toed boots. I learned to hide them in the closet under the stairs, on nights when I could feel his anger building slowly along with the pile of dead soldiers in the corner from his case of Coors. Even after my father was long gone, those little lives clung to me like flowering vines in need of water to keep from shriveling up in the heat. \u201cHe\u2019s a cat,\u201d I told Wife. \u201cHe needs people like us to take care of him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell no shit. That\u2019s why he always comes back.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t always come back. He\u2019s never even been outside before now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe found him outside.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I\u2019m saying is he\u2019ll survive out there on his own two feet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot necessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome cats are smart as toddlers. Plus he has claws.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cClaws aren\u2019t enough. He needs us,\u201d I said, and pushed past Wife out the screen door.<\/p>\n
Our neighbor Noodle was out back sitting in a lawn chair, drinking IPAs in the sun. He shared the other half of our duplex; we all shared the yard. Our house was across the street from the Little State School. Poor college students had always lived here before we did. The yard was full of junk left behind along with the fervor of youth: Old grills and mini-fridges, long wooden tables for beer pong, red solo cups, condoms. You could hardly see the ground you were supposed to walk on through the mess of juvenescence.<\/p>\n
We, ourselves, were only twenty three\u2014Wife and me. But life was getting more serious now. Money, suddenly, was a very dire issue. We were no longer children moving through days and months and years without a care in the world or a plan for the future. We wanted to do more than simply survive, but it was hard to get ahead. The stress of constant failure had come in between us. Infidelity was involved, but it was nothing we couldn\u2019t recover from. Our relationship was young, like we were still young. Moving in together seemed like a natural solution to all our problems\u2014both romantic and economic\u2014a two-for-one deal kind of a thing.<\/p>\n
Maybe six months had passed since we\u2019d moved into the duplex, but Noodle had lived here three years, since Landlord finally evicted the college kids with a grandfathered lease, because of some faceless liability. In the middle of the yard, Noodle had moved the junk out of the way, over the years, and laid pavers without sand so they were off-level on the hard-packed clay, where his chair and bright orange cooler of beer lived day and night. The other thing Noodle did was build a garden bed. Junk piled up on all sides of the bed like a wall to keep out small thieves. On the other side of the wall was swiss chard, carrots, butter lettuce, basil, tomatoes in cages, and mammoth sunflowers gaping their mouths at the sun.<\/p>\n
Beyond the garden, bird seed littered the bare earth in patches between piles of junk. Each day, hundreds of birds made their way to Noodle\u2019s little oasis. Sparrows, finches, waxwings, robins, doves, scrub jays\u2014even hawks that hovered in the elm canopy and hunted them all down. Sometimes, when you opened the back door and stepped out into the light of day, the sensation of their fluttering wings brought to mind the feeling of angels drawn closer and closer to heaven. I passed out once on whippets, having stood up too fast off the couch before swinging the back door open, enjoying a head rush with my eyes closed and my head leaned back too far on my neck, picturing a beam of light drawing me up into the clouds with those birds and little women with white wings. It was the closest I\u2019d ever been to experiencing hope.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cat went that-a-way,\u201d Noodle said without looking at me, pointing to a pile of ten-inch blue PVC pipe in the corner of the yard. As I shut the screen door, four mourning doves scattered up into the trees, and when Noodle turned to watch them his hair fell over his face. \u201cRan into one of them long tubes with cobwebs. Took one of my little sparrows with him, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLittle fucker,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s gonna be hiding in there a while. He knows my wrath\u2019s waiting for him on the outside,\u201d Noodle said, and let out a laugh with something terribly bitter cocooned within, reaching one hand into his cooler. He held out a lukewarm beer and drew me over to him with a soft tilt of his head. \u201cI\u2019m thinking we might as well wait him out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess I\u2019ll have just one,\u201d I said, though I\u2019d downed three beers of my own shortly after waking up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the spirit,\u201d Noodle said. \u201cGot one for your lady too if she wants to show herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noodle flashed me what was left of his teeth. He had an eye for Wife. She had that effect on people from The Neighborhood. Men often shouted things out the windows of their cars, or at least stared at her skinny ass through the tint of the glass. She had the kind of hard-won husk of beauty that grows out of a childhood with little money or joy. But I could hardly look at her now without thinking about Fat Fuck, the landlord from our old neighborhood. I\u2019d caught him eating her pussy after the third month in a row we were short on rent, kneeling in worship at the edge of the bed we shared with her thin thighs suffocating his face. After I hit him in the back of the head with a wine bottle and Wife slipped into the shower to rinse off whatever had been shared between them, I leaned over and smelled the little crescent of fluid that had sunk into the sheets where Fat Fuck\u2019s tongue had reached inside of her. I don\u2019t know why. I thought it might teach me something. The smell. But it was exactly what you might expect. We\u2019re all so filthy and full of gunk held at bay by simple circumstance\u2014who can blame a person for trying to flush it all out?<\/p>\n
\u201cWife\u2019s not coming outside,\u201d I said to Noodle, and set my beer down in a little pile of bird seed. The little balls and chunks of corn stuck to moisture beading on the can. \u201cShe just now got high. She\u2019ll probably take a nap.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s morning,\u201d Noodle said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t sleep much at night these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t have to explain to me. I know what you\u2019re getting at. But that little thing,\u201d Noodle\u2019s eyes rolled toward the PVC pipes, where our little black cat lay hidden in the shadows. \u201cYou gotta keep your eyes open or he\u2019ll get away from you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe try to watch over him. He\u2019s a sneaky guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe frightened all my beautiful birds,\u201d Noodle went on, and gestured with both hands as if there was a single bird in the yard at that moment. I looked around at all the junk. The wind tossed an old rusted refrigerator\u2019s door open and shut. The heads of the mammoth sunflowers bobbed and looked down upon us as though the million seeds would sprout little black pupils. \u201cIf it were my cat, he would be in deep shit, stealing someone else\u2019s bird and\u2014Christ\u2014swallowing it whole. I love each and every one of my babies. Children is just a word. Everyone has to take care of something. That\u2019s our job as human beings. You\u2019re responsible for passing life on in whatever way you can.\u201d He burped and fondled the beer-ballooned stomach that put wrinkles in his white shirt, tickled by the long, gray-blonde dreads that fell from his head and framed his blue eyes. \u201cThese birds keep me on my toes. The flowers and veggies too. This is my kingdom. I owe each one of these creatures my life. Even the raccoons and squirrels and rats and bullshit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRaccoons?\u201d I said. I\u2019d never seen one. Not once in my life. I never knew they lived in The City. I imagined them in thick forests full of bears and people with guns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey only come out at night.\u201d Noodle spoke with the arrogant nonchalance of a tenured professor. \u201cIf you flick on the spotlight, you can see their little black masks and hands.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo they ever get into the garden?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo way, man. They\u2019re after the seed. All these little creatures are after the seed. They go through 35 pounds a week, two big bags, sometimes even more. I throw it all over the yard, even where you can\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see it,\u201d I said, and tapped the side of my beer with one finger, scattering the seed that had clung to the rim. Noodle watched it fly through the air like snow.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot all of it,\u201d Noodle said. \u201cAll this junk\u2019s like a habitat. It keeps the critters safe and makes them work for their food. None of this shit should be easy in life.\u201d This time, when Noodle gestured with his hands, it seemed he was trying to capture the whole Neighborhood between his palms. \u201cWork is what keeps you going. Alive. Our whole world\u2019s like an ecosystem. I\u2019m just doing my part to pass on the good will. That\u2019s my job. You know what I\u2019m saying?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere he is,\u201d I said, pointing my finger toward the PVC pipe. Noodle\u2019s eyes followed the folds of my knuckles. The cat\u2019s little black head was poking out of a long blue tube right in the center of the pile. If I wasn\u2019t searching for him, he could\u2019ve watched us for hours without our noticing. He was silent. Cunning. But once he was far enough out of the tube for the light to strike his yellow eyes, the lanky silhouette he cast was clear as day. My little child. \u201cHe\u2019s getting ready to make his move.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHere, kitty,\u201d Noodle said, slurring. He picked up some of the birdseed and held it out toward my boy. It all fell through his fingers and danced on the pavers like hail before finally settling down. \u201cWhat\u2019s the little guy\u2019s name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have one,\u201d I said. \u201cWe just call him cat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a shame,\u201d Noodle said, but I thought he was wrong. To me, a name was something you either grew into or grew out of. It told the world who you would be before anyone even knew who you actually were. Think: Benjamin vs Chad. Hunter vs Sage. My feeling was always that a name should be an award earned later in life, like a trophy for finally figuring out what it meant to be you, or what your life was all about. My own name was like a box I\u2019d outgrown so long ago it had split open and now belonged out in all the piles of trash our yard held. Though I also felt it was impossible to think of a single word with me for the definition besides fuck up. But that was actually two words.<\/p>\n
I told Noodle what I was thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re onto something here,\u201d he said, and fingered his grey mustache as though he was deep in thought. \u201cI named my first kid Chester and I always knew he\u2019d turn out a pussy. What a shame.\u201d Noodle shook his head in disgust.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have kids?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot anymore,\u201d Noodle said. \u201cPlus Chester changed his name. First and last.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMakes sense,\u201d I said, and wondered where Noodle\u2019s name came from. It wasn\u2019t his brain\u2014his noodle\u2014and he wasn\u2019t exactly skinny\u2014stringy\u2014either. But somehow it fit like a glove. Maybe it was the way his blue eyes moved in his head, wriggling along the lines of certainty he\u2019d drawn out over so many years of living.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome to think of it, what\u2019s even your name,\u201d Noodle said to me. I guess we were on the same exact track in our minds. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever had the pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know my name,\u201d I said, and tapped my index finger on Noodle\u2019s forehead like I might hear an echo, or at least a kind of knocking between my own ears. \u201cIt\u2019s somewhere in there. I\u2019m gonna go get some cat treats for this boy.\u201d I downed my beer and met eyes with the cat, then stood up slowly, backing toward the door. He froze, and his pupils were like marbles rolling as they followed my every move. \u201cThat little guy can\u2019t resist the shaking of a bag.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho can?\u201d Noodle said, and laughed, then brought an index finger to his right nostril, as though he was ready to snort a line with a flock of children at the Little State School.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When I walked inside, Wife was pouring herself a glass of Cab and microwaving a pepperoni hot pocket. The light from the microwave cast an ethereal glow over her face. Her eyes shone gray like clouds split open by sunlight. The moisture on her lips seemed to sizzle. Blood rushed not into my penis, but all the way down to the tips of my toes. She was the kind of woman who always found herself in light that made the best parts of her glow. I envied that about her. It seemed sometimes like whatever was good or nice about me was shoved way deep in a dark tube filled with cobwebs even longer than the blue one the cat was hiding inside of.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me guess,\u201d Wife said, eyes red from pot. \u201cYou got drunk with Noodle instead of finding your precious little cat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cat\u2019s in a tube,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m gonna call him out with treats.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t have any treats. We ran out last week.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have some canned tuna from Poor Groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t like fish. Only chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNoodle has all those damn birds out in the yard. They\u2019re basically his children or at least his pets. Can\u2019t he, like, catch one and use it as bait?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not the same as chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo? Cats eat birds all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess they can fly. Noodle\u2019s probably too old and slow to catch one. Or drunk.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, like\u2014Noodle loves those birds. He takes care of them. He would never harm a single one with a gun to his head. They\u2019re not like stupid fat chickens. They\u2019re his family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t take care of a bird. That\u2019s a wild animal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really. They trust him. That\u2019s why they stick around.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not your father, you know,\u201d Wife said, just out of the blue, and did not meet my eyes. She stared into her wine, where I thought she might catch the reflection of her own pale face. She went on. \u201cThat cat\u2019s not running away because\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what I\u2019m saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you saying?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNoodle feeds his birds 35 pounds a week.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOf what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBird seed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s more than I could eat.\u201d Wife sipped her cab. \u201cFat little chickens, aren\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChicken\u2026\u201d I said, and a lightbulb flickered on somewhere inside of me. I let my fingers make fists and shoved them into the air above my head. \u201cOh shit. Chicken!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one could eat that much chicken,\u201d Wife said. \u201cMuch less a bunch of seeds.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cI finally found it! The cat\u2019s name is Chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChicken\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
I drew a breath deep in my lungs. For the first time in a long time, I was certain about something that mattered\u2014knew I could change the shape of a life for good. The cat\u2019s name was Chicken. I knew what I knew. I didn\u2019t need to explain myself to anyone, but I tried.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cat\u2019s always scared,\u201d I said, then turned away from Wife and busted through the screen door. Noodle stood on the other side of the yard above the PVC pipes. Chicken was dangling from his hand. \u201cNoodle,\u201d I said beaming. \u201cYou caught Chicken.\u201d But as I walked closer to him I could see the blood coating his forearms, the long tracts dug into his skin from Chicken\u2019s sharp claws. He held Chicken out before him and I could see his body was limp like produce pulled too early. His tail hung down toward the ground, and his pink tongue was loose in his mouth. I spun around and fell flat on my ass in the dirt, pulling my knees to my chest. The smell pouring from my pits suddenly told me I was shirtless. Through the screen door, I watched Wife pour another glass of wine. I couldn\u2019t bring myself to turn around and meet Chicken\u2019s blank eyes as he dangled from Noodle\u2019s fingers.<\/p>\n
\u201cNoodle\u2014Jesus, what the fuck!\u201d I yelled using the deep, scary voice of a father. I didn\u2019t know I could possibly sound so threatening. Wife ran up to the back door when she heard my big voice fill the yard. I shut my eyes and a flurry of my own father\u2019s fists jabbed out from some memory and drove themselves hard into my closed lids. It was a feeling in my stomach then like if you poured molten lead over my organs and cast them in a hard, cold shell to be displayed to strangers seeking some beautiful work of art, but finding only disappointment. \u201cNoodle. Fuck. What happened to Chicken?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u2019s Chicken?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy? Well\u2014\u201d Noodle paused. I turned over my shoulder and tried to meet his bloodshot eyes but they wouldn\u2019t stop moving in his head. \u201cHe\u2019s got claws. That\u2019s what happened. To keep it plain and simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo\u2014you just, you killed him? You killed my fucking cat Noodle? Are you crazy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCall the police,\u201d Wife shouted from inside, and laughed.<\/p>\n
It was no secret Wife could be cruel. Even so, there was no question we would live and one day die together. What we had wasn\u2019t special. It wasn\u2019t entirely practical, either, aside from the money we saved on rent by living together. We weren\u2019t the type of people to consider our lives of any value. But still, we needed each other deeply. Like, for example\u2014shortly after Fat Fuck wandered his way to the hospital down the road, bleeding profusely from where the wine bottle had hit him, I tried to write a note to Wife with a Sharpie on the cardboard left over from a six pack, which was the only paper we could afford. It seemed right that I should tell her what she meant to me at that moment. But the words in my mind spun around and around and turned to static, so as best I could, I drew a picture of myself in a raincoat on a bright, sunny day filled with blooming flowers and animals frolicking. Wife, I guess, was that dark coat.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice, police!\u201d Wife said again, cupping one hand around the edge of her mouth. \u201cWe\u2019re harboring a murderer over here!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t kill anyone,\u201d Noodle said without flinching. \u201cHe brought this life upon himself.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLife\u2026what life?\u201d I said, and Noodle took his eyes away from Wife. \u201cHe\u2019s dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t need any cats in my yard,\u201d Noodle said. \u201cI\u2019ve spent years building a life for myself and these birds, digging out of all this junk. Your cat put all my babies in imminent danger. Look what he did to my fucking arms!\u201d He held out his arms with care as though they held self-inflicted wounds reflected in a mirror. \u201cHe\u2019s a little hunter, this guy. He would torment all my loves if I\u2019d let him, and then eat them. I know all these fucking birds by name. They need me. Unlike you and this motherfucking cocksucking cat.\u201d<\/p>\n
When I saw Noodle was about to toss Chicken out into the junk, I turned away from him again in time to only hear the sound of Chicken\u2019s limp body rattling the scrap metal. Tears rimmed my eyes. Wife was still framed by the screen door. She was smiling. Her bony hip was pushed out sideways. The edge of her glass of Cab was pressed into the dimple on her chin. When I looked close, I could see the outline of her dark nipples through her wife beater. I couldn\u2019t imagine what was on her mind. But when I breathed in I could smell the smell of the stain on our sheets left over from whatever was between her and Fat Fuck. There was no way my saliva and her cum smelled the same when mixed together as theirs, no way me and Fat Fuck both sent the same kinds of things spilling out of a woman like Wife. Fat fuck\u2019s youthful vigor was long gone. He was bald. He must\u2019ve been forty. Plus he was rich\u2014an owner of land, a shepherd of tenants\u2014and couldn\u2019t possibly understand the hurt that had taken up residence in Wife\u2019s heart, over the years, couldn\u2019t possibly know how to make her feel something. Even if Wife and me were dead broke, I couldn\u2019t accept that the stroke of his tongue was powerful enough to absolve her of the usual suffering of the lower class. But I swear, to my nose, there was no difference in the smell of that stain. None. Maybe we were all the same, after everything. All that gunk\u2026I turned back toward Noodle. Blood was spilling from his forearms. He was swimming through the junk, trying to dig Chicken out of the mess left over from prior tenants\u2014years of mess, so many years some of the residents who once owned the junk must have died by then\u2014from overdose or something worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry, man, I\u2019m sorry,\u201d Noodle said, his eyes clear now. \u201cI\u2019m not drunk\u2026I shouldn\u2019t have done that. I\u2019m no good with pain no more. I\u2019ve had too much. I just\u2014react sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNoodle,\u201d I said. \u201cFuck. Noodle.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name\u2019s not Noodle.\u201d Noodle shook his head. He had his palms pressed together against his chest like he was about to dive into something deep\u2014the junk, or at least a tight string of words that would matter in retrospect. I followed his eyes around the yard, the garden. Not a bird in sight. Not even a distant chirp. But they weren\u2019t scared off by Chicken. I knew that now. Especially since Noodle had murdered him. They saw what Noodle\u2019s hands could do and had no choice but to run for their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not Noodle,\u201d Noodle said, his arms buried between two black microwaves, searching for Chicken beneath it all. \u201cI\u2019m Christopher.\u201d Without breathing, he closed his eyes and shook his head hard. \u201cChristopher would never do something like this. He\u2019s a good boy. He loves his mother. He brings her ice cream after school. He knows her favorite flavors. He massages her feet with Vaseline. And he tucks in his little sister every night before bed. Every night. And when Dale gets home from work, Christopher takes what Dale gives him and never says a word.\u201d Noodle\u2019s teeth chattered. \u201cChrisopher\u2019s mother doesn\u2019t know what Dale does. His mother loves Dale. Christopher loves his mother. He wants to take care of her.\u201d Noodle stuttered and sent a short breath breaking through his teeth. My spine felt cold like a sharp tongue of wind had run along the bone. Whoever this Christopher was, he was as much to blame as Noodle for my poor dead cat.<\/p>\n
\u201cNoodle,\u201d I said. \u201cYou killed Chicken, you fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChristopher,\u201d Noodle said, and the pain in his face pierced a hole inside of me I never knew was there. The letters that, when drawn together, made the shape of his name took the form, between my ears, of a boy\u2014a small child with fluttering white wings, rising toward golden clouds where something small might burrow into the mist and hide from whatever was watching from the shadows, ready to pounce.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name is Christopher,\u201d Noodle said, and I believed him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIt\u2019s an animal,\u201d Wife said. \u201cIt belongs outside with the birds and bugs and everything else with teeth.\u201d I said, \u201cHe\u2019s not an animal.” What I didn\u2019t say was he was the only living thing I knew for sure would never leave me behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":24430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-shayne-langford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23496"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24432,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23496\/revisions\/24432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}