Even though Bette Porter had spent years as a psychologist, had studied the human mind, and even went to therapy herself…she was no more closer in understanding the motives behind cruelty. Namely cruelty agains’t animals. She was thinking this as her client/patient, she could never decided what to call them, was detailing her son’s tendency to plunge the family cat in the toilet. She had never actually caught him doing this, but had read his accounts of each plunging in his notebook. Bette had the enormous urge to jump up and scream to the stupid woman that she should plunge HER son in the *****’ toilet. Better yet a filthy outhouse. But instead, in a quiet voice that all her client’s loved, she asked why not discuss the matter to him…or better yet put the cat in a safe place like a relative’s house. The woman had a few chins and enough blubber on her face to look like a whale, she lifted this heavy face to gaze at Bette….”Are you kidding? I want to be his friend not his enemy….but i guess i could put Felix in my mom’s house” Bette nodded and let the silence fill the room, this was to let the woman think a bit about what Bette said. You see, with Mrs. Glinerry, Bette had learned to pause each time she made a suggestion…Mrs.Glinnery would respond immediantly, then pause…take in the silence…then respond again with a much more intelligent reflection. This was not so with most of her other clients. But Bette had learned to ease into a rthymn with each of her clients, to go with their flow. It wasn’t easy.

 After Mrs. Glinnery left Bette got up and sat in the comfy leather chair behind her oak desk. She swiveled around and looked out the huge window that graced her office…the scenery was urban and she could see construction on a skyscraper a couple miles away. Bette knew she would have to call an animal rescue group if Mrs. Glinnery did not stop her son’s plunging of the cat…Bette wouldn’t say that it was her who called of course. She leaned back into her chair and thought about the one thing that had been bugging her all week, Mrs. Glinnery and her psycho son’s plunging was like the “cherry” on top. All week Bette had been thinking about animal cruelty. Ever since she saw that “Peaceable Kingdom” movie at an obscure film festival downtown. After seeing that, and feeling like her heart was wrenched from her chest….Bette set out on a campaign of research. She spent most of her time in the library looking up on the subject and on the internet. Tina was starting to think Bette wanted to divorce her and marry an animal. It was something that Bette never really thought about and once it was in her head it stayed there. She even bookmarked the PETA website. But there was something, something that was still a sort of divide…that lay between her and what she wanted out of it all. What she wanted was a sort of seal, a sort of conclusion that told her she was a good person. In the eyes of the animals. Her entire life Bette had not really thought of them. Her childhood was devoid of animals really. Her father was not an animal man, he was a man of the literary word and her friday evenings were mostly spent reading with him in their library during her adolescence. She had liked to think of herself as being “one” with Mother Earth, but since seeing that movie and since reading more on the subject. She didn’t know anymore. She felt like a piece of her was trying to find it’s way back. She was trying to instill in herself a sense of dignity on the matter.