About the Artist, The True Story

 

Peter Lytchfield was born at the age of zero. In a litter strewn gutter somewhere in New York City, on a rainy night, to a Mother named Cookie. A down-on-her luck hooker who decided she didn't want him at the last minute. She left him at the back door of a night club named "The Kat's Kradle." Cookie rang the delivery bell, and ran. She never looked back. Only the wild cats in the alley, who had seen her often hanging around on the corners with an overindulgent amount of make up, saw her make her getaway. Cookie wasn't the brightest hooker in the neighborhood. The Kat's Kradle had been closed for over a year.

Contrary to the current rumors that Peter Lytchfield was raised by wolves in the mountains of Scandinavia; he was really raised by common alley cats, in the harsh and dilapidated back alleys of the Bronx. That very same night that Peter's Mother disappeared, two alley cats found him and took him into their fold. Johannes was an all black and streetwise cat, and Cleo was of the Abyssinian feline class with huge, haunting, yellow-cab eyes. Cleo could make Johannes say yes to anything with a blink of those piercing and unusual yellow eyes, "Can we keep him, Johannes? Purrrrrrrrrrretty please?" Blink, blink, blink. "We can't keep a human, Cleo! It won't work! What if he wants to go to college, or some crap?" Johannes said flatly. Blink, blink... "How will we pay... ?!" blink, blink...

They noticed little Peter's creativeness at a very young age, and pushed him to pursue it. He had trouble in school. He loved to stretch, and sharpen his finger nails on the blackboard. Always preferring to doodle in his notebooks instead of doing the required assignments; he liked to create creatures that didn't exist, and strangely, he drew very realistic cat's that looked almost human. The only classes that interested him were Mass Media, Art, English, Music and Free Period. Areas he would always excel in, combined with his ability to come up with very creative, original ideas, he was destined to become a free-spirited lunatic unlike any other who walked on the planet's tar paved face before him.

Years later, while strolling down a long alleyway off of 149th Street with Johannes, young Peter Lytchfield popped the big question, "Are you my real parents?"         "Huh?!" exclaimed Johannes, "What brought that on?!"         "You don't look like me" Peter said, "I think I have Cleo's eyes, otherwise the looks kind of stop there, and don't think my friends haven't harassed me about it, they have..." Peter said with a noticeable gulp of despair. "Kid." Johannes said in a Father-like tone. "Ah shucks, sit down over here and munch on this dead rat with me."         "O.K. Dad." They both sat beneath a store's rear entrance awning, which sheltered them from the light rain that was falling. They sat there quietly for awhile, munching and wiping their chins. Finally Johannes leaned up and put a little paw over Peter's shoulder, claws digging lightly into the shirts material. Peter began picking at his teeth with the sharp end of the rat's tail, and Johannes gave Peter the real answer that would hurt any fourteen year old kid. "Your real Mother was a hooker named Cookie." The rat tail fell to the ground with a soft plopping noise. Johannes watched Peter's eyes fill with tears. "No! No! It can't be! Then who's my real Father?" Johannes blinked. "Kid, with a Mother named Cookie, you're never going to know who your real Father is, believe me..." adolescent Peter screamed just as thunder cracked in the distant sky. Everyone and every cat in the neighborhood heard the scream.

Sadly, cats don't live very old. Cleo and Johannes never got to see Peter achieve any of the fame he would acquire after finishing High School. He started landing jobs painting scenic backgrounds for such films as "The Dead Stinky Thing From the Septic Tank" and "I Was a Little Teenage Fart Face." His short story, "Horror in my Pants" became published in twelve Science/Fiction & Horror magazines and as filler in The Girl Scouts Camping Handbook.

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