I read this little book somebody give me back some years ago, and it was a series of cowboy stories wrote by Curt Brummet from over in New Mexico.  One story he told in that book was about how a couple of kids hired out to castrate all the tomcats in this little New Mexico town.  The story was plumb funny.  Mr. Brummet throws out a good question in that story, which was something like, did you know that's it's a lot harder to turn loose of a freshly castrated tomcat than it is to catch him?

Well, my tomcat story ain't as good as Brummett's, but here it is anyway.  This here's a true story 'bout a feller named Don Ray Horton, and also 'bout a tomcat named Opie.  Don Ray was a mechanic down at Horace Grimes' garage, and everybody around Crab Apple Cove knows that he ain't the sharest knife in the drawer, if you get my meaning.    Anyway, Thelma Mayfield come to the garage one day to get her old Buick worked on, and she had a whole basket of kittens with her.  I just happened to be there having Horace look at my pickup, and seen her basket of cat babies.  They was cute little skudders, 'bout seven weeks old, and most of 'em was yeller.

Well, Thelma said the old mama cat was a grey tabby, but the daddy was a tomcat named Opie.  Opie didn't belong to her, and she said right out that she hated that cat with a passion.  In fact, the grey tabby mama didn't belong to her either, since it was sort of a town cat.  But it ended up having a bunch of kittens under her carport awning at the trailer park, and she felt sorry for 'em and had took care of the mama 'till the kitten got old enough to give away.  Then she started in about how the town elders ought to do something about the cat population, especially that ornery tomcat, Opie.

Well, Don Ray's listening to all this palaver, and he steps ups and says that he can take care of the problem for her.  He said he knew just how to get rid of that yeller tomcat, or he could fix him to where he wouldn't be causing any more kittens.  And he said he'd do that for just twenty bucks, if that's what she wanted.  Thelma thought about it, then said she'd give him twenty bucks to fix the old tomcat, but that she didn't feel right about killing him.  Don Ray said he'd take care of it, that she could pay him later.

Thelma went on off down the street then with her basket of kittens, looking for some sucker to give 'em away to.  That's when I turned to Don Ray and asked just how he planned on fixing that tomcat to where he couldn't make no more baby cats.  "Well, you got to whomk 'em, that's how," he said, grinning big.

"I ain't never heard of such," I said.  "What's whonking?"

Don Ray reached in his overall bib pocket and pulled out a small bald-peen hammer.  "You take this little hammer, grab up the old tomcat by the tail, and then you whonk his nuts with this here bald-peen hammer."

"Damn, man!  Don't that hurt like hell?" I asked.

He just looked confused, then said, "Naw, not unless up screw up and whack your thumb or something."

"That ain't what I'm talking about.  I mean, don't that hurt the tomcat?"

"Well, yeah, I reckon so, but hardly any way of fixing a tomcat's gonna hurt, don't ya figger?"

"I reckon you got a point," I admitted.  "But how's that gonna fix the problem?  Just hitting him in the nuts might not do the job.  He might just be sore for a while, then go right back to screwing female cats."

"Don't you know nothing about cats?  It's a proved fact that if you whonk a tomcat, he'll chew off his own nuts," Don Ray said, grinning big.

"That's the dumbest thing I ever heard of," I said.

"It's the God's honest truth.  They'll gnaw off their own nuts, if you get 'em whonked just right.  I've seen it with my own eyes."

"Well, maybe it's right, but it's cruel as hell," I said.

"Maybe . . . but it's twenty bucks," Don Ray said, grinning big.

OK, so that's the set-up for the story.  Don Ray Horton agreed to whonk Opie for twenty bucks, and that agreement is reached about the first week of June.  I went on my way figuring that Don Ray wouldn't never collect his twenty 'cause he'd never catch Opie.  My house is just a block from the trailer park, and I'd seen Opie around from time to time.  He was a good old cat, for the most part, and he was a big cat.  And he was hard to miss 'cause he was so orange, one of them orange tabby cats.  I'm just guessing here, but I figure Opie would've weighed a good twelve pounds, maybe fifteen.  Like I said, he was a big tomcat.

Now, Opie didn't bother nobody, just sort of made his rounds through the trailer park.  He was independent, like most tomcats, and not all that tame.  I figured catching him might be more than Don Ray could handle, so I forgot all about his plans to fix Opie.  Then one day I was down at Chuckie Phat's Rodehouse having a cold one, and Lester Harkin come in with a big grin on  his face.  Lester's is our town marshall, and also is a trained EMT.  When I asked about the grin, he said he'd just hauled Don Ray to the hospital up in San Antonio.  He was still piecing together the story, he said, but then he broke out laughing.  It took almost an hour to get the story out of him, being as how he'd break out laughing every few minutes.

So, here's what happened.  Don Ray went over to Thelma's trailer and set a trap for Opie, a big crate thing.  He'd fixed cats before, so he knew, or thought he knew, what to expect.  He showed up at the trailer one morning wearing welding gloves, coveralls, and goggles.  Thelma wasn't home, but a neighbor from across the street said she saw him pull up and get out to go check the trap.  Sure enough, Opie dummied up for the bait and was in the trap.  This is where the story gets real funny.   Don Ray pulled out his ball-peen hammer, then reached into the cage and grabbed Opie by the tail.  He snatched him out of the cage, held him high in the air, took careful aim, and whacked Opie in the nuts.  In other words, he whomked him a good one.

Opie let out a sound that brought several neighbors to their front porches to see what was going on.  They described the sound as being like some fierce critter from a jungle would make.  Don Ray whacked Opie, and at first nothing much happened, other than the God awful yowl the cat let out.  The cat sort of went rigid, like it froze in pain or something.  That gave Don Ray an opportunity to deliver a second whonk, which he did . . . and that's when Don Ray learned a big lesson about fixing tomcats.  Opie went on the attack, and it wasn't just a defensive one either.

One neighbor lady said it was the most awful thing she ever saw.  Opie shreded the goggles off Don Ray's face instantly, and nothing he could do could get the cat loose from him.  He ran, tumbled, bounced off trailers and cars, screamed and cursed.  Several women came out of their trailers with brooms and mops and started beating at the cat, but Opie was not to be denied his revenge.  He'd beem whonked, twice, and he planned on getting even.  God only knows how bad Don Ray would've been hurt if Joyce Adcock hadn't come out of her trailer with an electric cattle prod.  She juiced Opie, and that's when he gave up the fight and headed for the boonies.

Lester said that when him and another EMT got there with the ambulance, Don Ray was laying on the ground, on his back, staring straight up.  He was shaking like a goose trying to shit a bowling ball, and his eyes was round as plates.  Lester said he looked like he'd been run through a debarking machine at a log processing plant, that there was hardly a place on him that wasn't clawed and scratched.  He said that fluffy stuff out of them padded coveralls was still all in the air, and was stuck to Don Ray.  When Lester asked him what had happened, Don Ray tried to answer, but his voice was so weak he could barely hear him.

Don Ray bent low, asking, "What you say Don Ray?"

"I need a bigger hammer . . . bigger hammer . . . bigger hammer, " he said.

Don Ray was wrong about a lot of things, it turns out.  Opie still has his nuts, so tomcats don't chew 'em off just 'cause they get whonked.  He was wrong to have tried such an idiotic thing, wrong to have done that to any animal, especially an ornery tomcat.  But he was right about one thing.  He did need a bigger hammer.

Percy B. Hand, 1/18/08