sammy

by Jake Creps

It’s been 25 years since I took Sammy’s life but only 6 days since I understood why. Maybe not why but how. The story I told everyone was a lie. I used to lie a lot for no reason. Sometimes I had a reason. Lying about killing Sammy had a reason, I’m sure. I just don’t know what it is. Neither does Sammy. We buried him behind our apartment building. I cried.

It’s interesting that you can lie about a story but not about a reason. Not to yourself. I think it’s unfair that killing on purpose and killing by accident only have their own words when you’re in court. I didn’t kill Sammy on purpose. You don’t judge yourself in court. I’ve never been to court.

I still haven’t told the truth.

My sister had a teacher who had over 40 animals in her classroom. She even had a bat. I remember she had an animal that was once alive in a jar. It was no longer alive. It was in a jar. I can’t remember what kind of animal it was. She had it on a shelf that kids couldn’t reach.

My sister wanted to be a veterinarian when she was little. Every girl I had ever met wanted to be a veterinarian after getting their first pet. At least if they liked the pet. Some girls didn’t like pets. I never liked those girls. No one actually became a veterinarian. All veterinarians were strangers to me.

The first pet we bought from my sister’s teacher was a bird. It came with a cage. We kept it in my sister’s room. But then she couldn’t sleep, so we put it in the living room instead. The bird was loud, and it stank. I can’t remember what she named it. Then my sister’s teacher sold us hamsters. She taught science.

My dad likes fish. He had piranhas we fed goldfish to. Sometimes we fed them mystery red meat cubes from metallic sleeves that looked like medication. Those were more expensive, though. He also likes dogs. At some point we had 3 dogs, but I don’t know if that point was this point.

My dad made me feed the piranhas when he didn’t feel like doing it. I fed them every day. We bought the aquarium from a German guy named Rudy. One time the aquarium cracked, and it flooded the apartment. My mom told everyone Rudy cursed it. My dad called her an idiot. My mom also bought TY Beanie Babies from Rudy. They’re worth zero dollars now. My dad doesn’t own piranhas anymore. You can grow out of piranhas.

Before TY Beanie Babies were worth zero dollars, one of them was worth quite a lot. The Germania Bear was the one worth quite a lot. Rudy didn’t know how much it was worth when he sold it to my mom. Once he found out, he wanted it back. My mom didn’t want to give Germania back, so Rudy got mad. My mom told me and my friends that if we saw Rudy, we should run. Rudy was strange.

I also liked animals. I didn’t like them as much as my sister did. I didn’t want to be a veterinarian. I used to wear a plastic snake around my neck like a scarf. It was a long black snake with fake teeth. When it wasn’t around my neck, it coiled up into a spiral. One day I was walking with my snake scarf when a car stopped and the driver rolled down their window.

“Nice snake you’ve got there. Can I see it?” the driver said. The driver was a man. I don’t remember what he looked like. I thought it was Rudy. I ran.

My sister had so many pets that I lost count. I wanted a pet too. It’s normal to want more of what’s around you all the time. You have to be careful about what’s nearby. 12 years later, I would work at an electronics store. I’ve never had so many electronics. After I quit, I threw most of them away. I liked the hamsters my sister had. There were 3 of them. I decided I wanted a guinea pig instead. We got one from my sister’s teacher. I named him Sammy.

Sammy was brown and white. He was a lot bigger than my sister’s hamsters. I used to let him run free around the apartment. He would poop under the couch. His poop looked like kernels of rice but dark brown. He pooped all over the apartment. One time, Sammy got stuck in the recliner while trying to poop under it. He’d squeak a lot, so he was easy to find. I was scared that my dad would recline the chair and kill Sammy. My dad didn’t kill Sammy, though. I did.

Our apartment was on the third floor. It had a balcony. All apartments in my neighborhood had balconies. When 9/11 happened, parents stood on their balconies and told their kids to come inside. We got around to it. The attack played on TV for a week. I missed a lot of cartoons that week. I watched the reruns later.

After 9/11, we got a cat named Loco. She would jump off the balcony and plummet to her death. Cats had 9 lives, though, so she died a few times. Loco would meow at the front door of the apartments to be let back in. The neighbors would let her back in, eventually. My parents were too lazy to go downstairs. One time my sister cut Loco’s whiskers off. She thought she needed a haircut. Loco lost her balance. Black cats were supposed to be bad luck. Were they supposed to have bad luck too?

My weekly report card always said “excessive talking”. My dad used to tell the teachers, “maybe he has something to say”. They didn’t laugh. I had good grades, As and Bs. They would have made me take pills if I had bad grades. Other kids had to take pills, but not me. I also got in trouble for doing math in my head. Teachers would ask me to show my work, but I just memorized the answers. It’s a lot easier to memorize that 9 times 9 is 81 than to do the work. I’ve never forgotten my times tables.

I can remember things I want to remember for a very long time. Everything else I can’t remember for shit. My mom used to have a Volkswagen Golf. It was orange and didn’t have air conditioning. She spray painted the Blair Witch Project symbol on the hood. It looked like shit. She gave the stick figure an alien-shaped head. That was 25 years ago. I can’t remember why I just walked into the kitchen.

We lived in a small town. Small towns allowed small businesses to exist with little competition. Small businesses with little competition gravitate towards obscurity. Some people call it charm. Kat’s Pet Store smelled like cat piss. We bought pet food and supplies from a place that smelled like cat piss.

My mom said, “It smells like cat piss in here” out loud the moment we walked in. The cashier heard her. We bought Sammy a cage, a water feeder, and guinea pig food that came in a tall cardboard can with a plastic lid. The cashier was the owner. Kat was the cashier. Kat wasn’t very polite to my mom, but she was nice to me. My mom said we were never going back to that shithole.

My mom went back there the next day. She didn’t have a choice after all. It was either Kat’s or 60 miles to Springfield. This was before Amazon was Amazon. We forgot to get Sammy a food bowl. My dad passionately believed that the bowls we had were just fine. The smallest bowl we had was a cereal bowl. It made sense in his head until he saw it in Sammy’s cage.

I was too young to play sports but too old to play with toys. So, my friends and I chased each other through the woods with sticks instead. I had a Game Boy Color. It was turquoise-colored, but I lie and tell people it was yellow. When I wasn’t chasing my friends through the woods with a stick, I was playing my Game Boy Color. You had to have a snake light to play it at night. I had a snake light. I liked to play strategy games. I played less Game Boy Color when I had Sammy. Sammy was an asshole.

Getting bitten by a guinea pig hurts more than you would think. They don’t bite you and run away. They bite you and see what happens next. Sammy bit my finger all the time. It’s hard to play Game Boy when your fingers hurt. When Sammy wasn’t biting me, he was leaving rice-shaped turds everywhere. Rice-shaped turds are hard to get out of carpet.

One time we put him in one of those hamster balls. He mostly said “Weeeeh, weeeeh, weeeeh” when he was happy. He didn’t make a sound. Maybe he was claustrophobic. We took him out of the hamster ball and set him on the carpet. He crawled back into the hamster ball, pooped inside, and climbed out. I put him back in his cage. I wanted to keep his cage in my room. I couldn’t sleep, so we put it back in the living room with the bird.

My sister told everyone at school that Sammy was my boyfriend. When I told people he was just a guinea pig, no one believed me. She also told people my favorite color was pink. My favorite color was yellow. No one believed me about that either. I used try cry a lot when people made fun of me. I didn’t want to cry, I just couldn’t help it.

Sammy was a fat ass, and I loved feeding him. He had regular food and snacks. His regular food was in a tall cardboard can, and his snacks were in a short cardboard can. He used to say, “Weeeeh, weeeeh, weeeeh,” whenever I pulled out the snacks. I’d give him two snacks every time I fed him. Sometimes he’d bite my finger. I’d only give him one snack when he bit my finger.

My dad would complain that I was feeding him too much. He said, “If I step in shit one more time, that’s it”. He took a sip of his beer. “You think I’m made of money or something?” He’d forget all about this soon enough. The next morning he might not even know I had a guinea pig.

The next morning he stepped in Sammy’s shit. I was grounded. No TV or Game Boy for a week.

I brought Sammy’s cage into my room. I didn’t know what would happen if I left him in the living room. I took Sammy out of his cage to play with him. I’d rather play Game Boy, but it was taken away. I fed him again. He got 2 snacks. I ran out of guinea pig food. I turned Sammy’s food can into a toy. He liked the plastic tunnel in his cage. He’d crawl in the can and say, “Weeeeh, weeeeh, weeeeh”.

The food can was twice as long as Sammy’s body. Every time he crawled into the can, he’d get stuck because he’d go in headfirst and couldn’t turn around. I’d help him out when that happened. I’d have to flip it like an hourglass to get him out. He’d slide out ass-first. One time I put the plastic lid on while he was in there and slid him back and forth. He didn’t like that.

I waited until my dad was asleep to ask my mom if we could go back to Kat’s. She asked me what happened to the food we already bought. I explained the situation. She said, “Do you think I’m made of money or something?” It seems neither of them was. We argued about buying more food. I made her feel guilty about letting Sammy starve. My mom would always assume that we had to leave immediately when I asked her to go somewhere. We could go tomorrow. Sammy would be fine for the rest of the day. I thought about Sammy when I started to panic.

I sprinted back to my bedroom. The door was shut. I fumbled around the doorknob until I could get a grip of it, turned the handle, and barged in. I leaped over my bed to the far side of the room, my eyes hunting for a tall cardboard can. To my horror, the plastic lid was still on the can. I dove for the can, tore off the plastic lid, and slid Sammy out ass-first. Sammy wasn’t breathing. Sammy was dead. I remember his face around his whiskers turned white. Maybe it turned grey. My heart sank. I could feel my pulse in my forehead. The next few hours were a blur.

I can’t remember how I told my mom, but I told her about Sammy. The next thing I remember, we were digging a hole to bury him in. I killed Sammy because there are some things I can remember forever, but there are also some things I can’t always forget. I didn’t forget on purpose. I just forgot. But there isn’t a word for killing when it isn’t on purpose. Not unless you’re in court. I’ve never been to court.

Photo of Jake Creps

BIO: Jake Creps writes about the strange nature of ordinary life. Based on a few true stories, his work wanders through the uncertain space between truth and imagination—serious, but not always sure about what it’s serious about.