Walter had known that there were many videos for how to bathe a cat. Videos that showed anything from pumping the cat full of drugs, to taking the cat in a kind of sleeper hold. Walter had discovered, as with so many things, his very own method.

He knew that Verity was more than happy to be told stuff. It was just a fact. He preferred to watch videos of german trains over german railroads, slowly rumbling away, engineering perfection made in germany, not good enough that it would be scary, like in japan, but good enough that you still heard the occasional rock and rumble, so that a part of your mind filled in the scene.

Bathing a cat was different.

He was very aware that the cat had two very capable murder mittens. Connected to claws that were just a bit too pointy for his tastes. While Walter outclassed the cat several dozen times in terms of weight, reach, and vector, He knew that he was slower then the cat. That, plus his big size, would be his detriment when it came to defending himself against a cat.

Sensing an inevitable end, he had chosen his way of doing things.

He had started in the kitchen, as he had come home, and had emptied the shopping in the cupboard and the freezer. As was his custom, he babbled to the cat.

“So, let's get you set up, because we have a few chores to do. I have thought about the diet, and I was all, but it says here you should feed your cat a diet if it is ein indoor cat, but then again, I keep thinking, I got that wrong. You are not ein indoor cat, you are ein cat that sits in the werkstatt and works for a living. Thus, maybe, what you want is ein Plough… I mean, ein workman's lunch? “

He looked over to the cat, and saw the black magnificent form that looked extremely like a miniature panther whip its tail around, as if in fierce enjoyment.

“AAh, right, I keep forgetting. You get the food wrong. No big deal, let's start you up with a sort of sourdough sandwich. “

He fished two slices of bread from the shopping bag, and held them out under the cat's nose. She gave it a gentle sniff.

“I know, I know, but I want to make sure you like it. ”

He put the slices of bread down, and went to town preparing the modified ploughmans lunch.

“At first, we do the butter”, he said, more to himself then to anyone, “Because if the americans had a good sourdough , it would be debatable, but since the americans know four kinds of break, and one of them is called wonder bread, I am tempted to make sure at least the rest of the recipe is good. The butter is that irish stuff, because it has some slight salt in it. ”

Again, the open container was presented to the cat, for a sniff inspection.

“I myself was always a man that liked no butter, but if you have to do it with some sort of toast abortion, ….. Anyways, for garnish, a light leaf of salad….”

He peeled a few leaves of salad off the head of lettuce, until he found the best looking pines, giving them a wash in the sink, and letting the cat decide. The cat hesitated just once, and chose the bio variant. Predictable, but it was fun to watch nevertheless.

“Next up, we have just a little meat, no real problem, ”

He took a slice of baloney from the pack, and slapped it on top of things.

“On second thought, you are looking kind of thin. I want you in full fighting shape and weight. ”

He tried to have a fatherly smile, and choose a second slice, which was rewarded with a high pitched purring sound, and the feeling of a cat doing laps around his legs.

“Cheese, I tried to Get something good and strong, like stilton or ein emmentaler, but no, they do not have those in walmart. Instead, they have something called “kraft american cheese”, which seems like yellow food coloring with sludge. Now, normally , I would say to hold on to your enthusiasm, and go with the natural stuff, but a plowman's lunch sandwich without cheese…. “

He finished the thought, picked up the cheese slice, and held it to the small black cat for inspection. The cat gave it a sniff, and a careful lick, before looking up at him with big eyes.

“I know, katze, it is weird, but every once in a while, you can afford to be weird. It looks like melted crayons, so it probably is very stringy, but let's just say that even americans can’t fuck up cheese that badly. ”

He garnished the baloney with the cheese, and went for the onion. A few thick slices later, he nodded. Two of those slices were placed, whole, in the bread, the other was placed as garnish.

“Now, katze, the twist is that I make it ein bit special, so….”

He reached for the spice rack, and in a flight of fancy, not only found the sensibly labeled container of “salt”, but also a glass of pickled olives.

He chose three nice pitless olives, halved them, and placed them on the sandwich, before sprinkling just a bit of salt on there.

“Now, you think this is already good. Right? ” He said, reached down, and picked up the suspiciously heavy cat, petting it, and placing her on the kitchen counter. The cat gave the sandwich an approving sniff.

“Okay, because you have been ein nice katze, I will serve this on dein favorite plate. “

He reached up to the cupboard, and opened it. It was …

An uninvolved observer would have seen the world's most bachelor amount of cutlery. He did not even need to count it. He had bought it. 4 plates, flat, 4 plates, deep, 4 sets of fork, knife and spoon, 4 sets of full metal chopsticks, 2 deep bowls, 4 cups, 4 beer steins , 8 ashtrays of various restaurants,1 racoon. ….

He sighed.

“Verity, you did not tell me your friend is over”

The racoon managed to at least look embarrassed, and was a bit distressed, but soon relaxed when the older man grabbed the racoon out of the cupboard, weighed it in his hands, and sighed.

“You have not been eating right, I take it? ”, he said, without waiting for a reply, and just took two deep plates , storing the raccoon under one arm like a baseball. “You poor thing, you are barely skin and bones. Must be all that corn starch and high fructose corn syrup that you are exposed to. Or that vomit trash they call hersheys. ”

He balanced racoon, plates, ashtray and a mean looking kbar knife, making his way to the small ratty couch and the lazyboy. He had hauled both back from a street corner, it had been a very bumpy mile and a half, but he had been thankful for the exercise. It paid the weirdest dividends living in a university town.

At the coffee table, in front of the 50 inch TV (he had bought that one in the stores, you had to have some standards), he sunk down in his lazy boy recliner that just smelled a little bit like the frat house it had previously occupied, and placed the food on the table. Raccoon and Cat managed to make it up to the couch only to patiently wait till the food was fairly cut in two portions, and put on the two plates.

He put on the TV and selected a channel on random that showed sesame street, and while the cat and the racoon excitedly devoured the sandwich halves (without quarrelsome hijinx, because that would have resulted in a dressing down), all three of them first watched sesame street, then Mister Rogers neighborhood. The animals quietly munching, the man smoking.

Afterwards, as the allotted hour had gone by, he slapped the armchair, and stood up.

“Okay, now, over to the bathroom, we will clean ourselves! After all, after cleaning ourselves, we can have after bathroom snacks”

He had a firm, concrete sense of the issue. If he did not make a big fuss of the issue, surely the animals would not make one as well, and he had seen it a dozen or so times at the groomers.

10 Minutes later, He was already in the swimming trunks (he had been informed, in no uncertain terms, that despite all the form support and comfort that they offered, speedos were a no go for men above a certain age, and had therefore bought colorful hawaiian print trousers), and in the bathtub, he waited for the Others to join him.

The ruckus started in the guest room, and relocated itself , as Walter followed the noise with his eyes.

The water was warm and nice and steamy, the air had that sweet smell out of what the lady at the Lowe’s had promised him was all the rage, and he felt himself relax. Scenes of a fight came from outside the bathroom door, and he sighed, turning up the small shower radio.

He started counting down from 100.

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99….

He was warm, comfortable, not in pain, and

*tabatabtab*

Very relaxed

*bump*

There was nothing to worry about

*The sound of high speed hissing*

They would not….

*The sound of a plate falling on the floor. *

He closed his eyes. Nothing whatsoever happened, only that he began smelling slightly of ozone.

He reached his hand for the shampoo stand, and chose the fake one. He was proud of the fake one, he had spent hours figuring out how to do it. IT contained a little bit of Mint, a lot of camphor, Lots of etheric oils, and smelled as chemical as possible. It was in a bottle that anyone who managed to read could identify as “all tears”. It had a hysterically crying infant on the bottle, and warned people that this was so chemical, that it would wash away excess energy as well as any sort of parasites. According to the very finely printed list of side effects, it also was good as a laundry detergent, toothpaste, paint thinner, spatula mass, fungicidal remover, and MRE.

Belief, he had learned, was a powerful thing.

For him, the idea of a shampoo called “no tears” was a novelty. It was not a fault of the shampoo when shampoo and eye collided, there was a reaction. That was nature.

A German would have resolved the problem differently. Possibly with a special chair.

An American approached the problem in a distinctly American way. By making a shampoo that if it got into someone's eyes did not do a chemical reaction. It was a monstrous crime against teaching the little children, but he had discovered, if a person could believe in the power of a “NO tears guarantee”, they could also believe in a guarantee that someone would break out in hysterical CS gas induced tears. He had played with the idea of just emptying a bottle of WD40 into the 3d printed bottle. “Do not under no circumstances use on good children” was a bit over the top for his personal taste, but he thought it was a nice touch.

Belief was indeed powerful.

He did not have to wait long. The sounds of the battle ebbed and halted, and suddenly, there was the chittering of a racoon, and the sounds of a cat hacking a cough.

He smiled, and pressed on the bottle one handed, before getting the smell to waft around the door, and out the room.

15…. 14…..

He leaned over, and held the countdown, as he fished out a plastic table, and put it over his legs. Originally meant to be a bathtub for babies, it hung securely above the bath, and could be filled with water.

Two pairs of eyes observed him.

“In with you, Verity, Roku. Please do not quarrel. ”

The two slinked in, and Walter did his best to ignore the fur that was puffed, and how certain parts of them bore the marks of roughhousing. He reached out of the bathtub, put the “all tears'' shampoo aside, and lifted both of them in the small plastic tub.

“I dislike it a lot when you two fight. No counterwords, you two were fighting. But I am very happy that you two have come to an agreement to be good now. ”

The two animals were looking down to the floor, and the man just sighed, taking a plastic cup, and filling the small bathtub with his bathwater. He had quickly figured out that if you did not make a big thing out of it, it was like giving a toddler a shot. You did not act scared, the doctor did not act scared, you figured out that the entire thing was not worth the energy to make a big fuss out of it. A comfy Saturday night. In case of a person suddenly bursting in, the idea was to make it look like an old single retiree taking a bath with just two unusually well behaved animals. Which could not have been further from the truth.

He started with wetting both of them down sufficiently, and then went for the no tears, no bad reaction, cat approved shampoo. He liked to play the occasional mindgame, but was not stupid enough to play any kind of gamers when it came to sitting with possibly very much stronger presences then himself in a bathtub, without any weapons. Sure, they had been with him for months now, but at the same time, he was still not convinced they were as little of a threat asd they displayed.

Predictably, both of them were soon busy washing themselves with the water. The man reached over, to one of the few technological gadgets that he had allowed himself, and opened up the shower radio. He selected the option to tune into the local college radio station, because this late in the night…

Hios thought was blasted into pieces as hardcore hip hop blasted out of his small radio. Quicker than anything, he switched off ktsu (her would have to write the station a strongly worded letter about the acceptable behavior of grown men singing about “get on my level” “neva eva” and so forth), before the next song came on, and he restrained himself from flinging the shower radio into the hallway. He adjusted the volume to an acceptable level (2, he had good ears), and sank back, as “The parliament of funk” invited him to make the small critters “funked up”.

“Funked up…..Now, that is what I call music. ”

The seemingly content animals gathered his vibe, and relaxed as well. He started something that would have dropped him into the annals of pet ownership, and to the classical tunes of funk and horns, that fit more then decently to the predominantly black neighborhood, he soaped up the animals, one with each hand. Both seemed to be appreciative of the procedure.

His thoughts drifted, as he looked at his small family. He was the odd one out here.

His neighbors? Predominantly black, and very very much ghetto. Not the nice kind of ghetto that was acceptable to college kids, but the good old ghetto that he had heard about from the 80’s.

He had more than a handful of stories about the first few weeks.

People knocked on the door in the evening, and tried to intimidate him. It was a pure accident that he had come to the door wearing nothing but a towel, his head soaped up , and because he had not unpacked his few possessions back then, he held a machete in his hand that he had used to shave.

That was when he had started to think the ghetto might have been a bad choice to move to. He had seen gang bangers driving by his house, kids with chicken breasts trying to look tough.

So, where others would have folded, and done in, he was more than prepared.

The next day, he had bought the smoker and grill, and had tossed it on, preparing.

The neighborhood never knew what hit them. It was one thing to open the door and find an irate neighbor, screaming about kids, and another accident….

It was another level when it was psychological warfare.

He had stood in front of half the ghetto, distributing grilled sausages, Beer in brown bottles with smiling German gentlemen on it, a good sized helping of sauerkraut, and the broadest accent possible.

“Hallo, ich bin Walter Schuhrich , a new neighbor from Germany. I enjoy grilling, walking around, and das wörking, Now I have presented myself to you, please enjoy this selection of grilled meats. It is beef and sheep, put it in your mouth, it is good for you. Wunderbar, right?”

It raised a few eyebrows, but he was not opposed to this. Raised eyebrows was better than hostility.

The next level had been a few gangbangers that showed up to his cheap house, and wanted to “de gentrify the white fuck”, only to leave an hour later, in perfectly washed and fixed clothes, with their various shit coindition guns oiled and fed. When questioned as to what had happened, they said that he invited them in, sat them down, served them beer and grilled meats, asked them if they minded if he did the laundry while they talked, which ended up with them having their guns taken away from them, clearned, and a verbal dressing down served.

Drive Bys happened during the day, only to see the man, at night, come back from his “dayjob”, sigh, and go to the houses of their parents, to hand back the pullets he had pulled out of the walls with a grabbing tool. Not a big reaction, just a small ziploc bag with 90 bullets, and a lecture about proper gun handling, to “prevent accidental discharge”.

Maybe it was the amount of smiles, ironclad on his german face, maybe it was his steadfast refusal to accept the “ghetto” as something dangerous, or his refusal to go to the police, but after a while, the “accidents” stopped to happen. Even the occasional crackhead that tried to break in, was found later on with the police, expressing his severe desire to turn his life around

Maybe the gangers were used to direct confrontation, and reaction to the threats, not to come home and find the target of their rage in the living room, wearing jeans and a toolbelt, fixing their mothers waterheater, electrical outlet sockets, or other things. Always too german to accept that the attacks on him were anything other than a misunderstanding,

In retrospect, it was unfair.

Walter had only touched his powers of domination and presence a bit. They were mostly overkill, as most of the households around him lacked male role models.

In his mind, the most important thing was to use the story. If he had used just “You will leave me alone, and be a decent person ”, he would have had to fight an uphill battle, but thanks to his habit of getting on well with the local neighbors, he basically knew within a few days what was the talk of the hood. Who was connected to whom, who had beef with whom, who went to what church…

The rest was a child's play.

He just applied a little bit of pressure here and there, and did not press the issue. Most people had learned to just find alternative explanations for why they acted strange around him, or sought his approval. He kept the “weirdness up”, cared for his property with a push lawn mower, and he used his favorite trick, just calling people by their names. It amazed him how effective it was here in america.

It was easy to go up to the white guy who moved in your neighborhood and hate him, but if the same white guy had just before fixed your grandma's fridge, greeted everybody by name, and had the occasional 5 to 10 bucks for you, under the hand, “because I know that you have it hard”, more than one person found it difficult to be hostile. And when he then sat them down, put on some old motown records, brought two beers outside, and worked on his bike, while you talked, people often let slip a lot of things.

He never ever judged, just quietly listened, asked the exact right questions at the right moments, had an open ear for problems, distributed carefully neutral advice, and quietly came to know that a TEACHER, even a retired one, that had worked at MIT, was worth gold in terms of social contract. He had sat down with more than one kid, late in the night, and had helped him study for the big test. Nobody really understood what precisely it was he actually taught, only that he taught classes at the community college, and was precisely that kind of awkward that you did not hate on, but you stepped away from, unless you needed it.

His golden tongue, and ability to talk everyone down, also helped to secure his status as a welcome addition to the hood. He was the one security blanket that most of them had. Out of pure miraculous powers, he could write letters of recommendation for colleges, he let people borrow his tools, he went out of his way to make sure that he was asd white and as trustworthy as possible…

But whilöe his few friends in the inner city stared in amazement at the fact that he was not shot yet, or robbed, or stabbed, and his colleagues wondered out loud if the various gangs had hits on him, his true value was in the fact that people out here had a sixth sense of danger.

White person, drives a motorcycle, is not impressed by the ghetto around him, greets people by their first names… people knew when something was too good to be true. It started with the fact that he got a lot of deliveries that seemingly disappeared inside his house. Deliveries like crates full of MRE’s, crates that seemed military, and a lot of buckets from places like kmart, or from companies registered in china. The inside of his house would smell, often for days, like gunpowder, he paid all bills in full, and ahead of time, he was always able to get some money, but no one knew essentially where he got it from.

Most locals just took a big step back, because that level of calm made them nervous. They knew when a deal was too good to be true, and when looking too closely at what happened there was too bad. When even a police patrol entered his house, and later on exitted with grilled meats, bottles of beer, and a confused look on their faces, the rumor mill went into overdrive.

He liked that, and did not stop the rumor mill.

He grabbed the towel, and towel dried both the racoon and the cat off, before placing them on his shoulders. Making his way through the carefully decrepit house that had cost him 90.000 dollars to buy, he headed for the door in the corner, that was his walk-in closet.

He figured he had a good thing going, before people would get antsy. Some time, someone would ask too many questions, like, why 90 % of the off brand ammunition on the market in Houston's underworld seemed to come from the same machine. Why the one guy in the area prepaid his bills, and always added a bit more, so nobody had any reason to come inside.

He opened what should have been a regular closet door on all building plans, and stepped on the sides of the closet, carefully filled with trash that you expected in a single male retirees house. Bag of bags, bag of electric chargers, shoebox, toolbox….He did need his enhanced hearing to notice the locks on the door engaging. At the same time, he pulled a cord from his pocket, and placed it where he knew there was a hole.

He did not need a light, and even with the two animals on his shoulders, he managed to go through the trap door into the unregistered cellar, switch on the light, and wait. He managed the power draw perfectly, so it did not seem more than a few freezers full of stuff, when in reality, he stretched it. Batteries flipped into action, and at the bottom of the ladder, the LED blinked to life.

He arrived at the bottom. Carefully closed the trap door above him, and waited in the utter darkness for the click. Most people could not hear it, and if you were not familiar with the noises of a generator, you could miss it.

It was good that people did not look closer at what was straight under their feet.

Walter adjusted to the almost chemical light, as he closed the door to the bunker behind himself, and set the animals down.

“Hush, you two”

He went over to the workbench, switched on the radio, and sat down, grabbing the first of the exotic buckets, full of gunpowder, and a scale. He relished the idea that down here, there was as good as no oxygen in the air. He had been through the room with diagnostic equipment. Carbon monoxide to dangerous levels.

How good, that certain people did not need to breathe, he thought.

He remembered the talk he had given. Had even one out of the hundred students understood what he had said? What it meant to be normal, and as expected? What it meant to sell the story?

He smiled, and set the scooper to a good level, before looking at the mechanical clock in the corner. He had a good three hours of night left, he could make some progress on the order.

All in all, he thought, as the gunpowder and his personal mix of additional chemicals went down into the bullets, he was normal. If you added everything he did, all the little tricks he pulled, all the shenanigans he had to go through, he was one average human male. He awakened the bullet press to life, and began putting the first shells in. He was proud of being average. Average took a lot of work, and even more if it had to be convincing.