Kittens
My dad had gone on some religious lark to Minneapolis and I was left in charge of the horses. It was mid-april and I was 13. The night was just above freezing so that the air was wet and the ground icy slick. I walked into the barn and found a young cat staring at me in terror. This cat was not yet a year old. On the cold ground by this cat’s feet lay a new-born kitten that looked dead. The cat ran. I scooped up the limp kitten and ran after her. Turning a corner in the barn I found the cat crouching again, staring from me to her ass. A kitten appeared from the end of this cat. The kitten did not protrude from the cat, or advance little by little, but rather materialized immediately below the cat’s ass, as if by magic. The terrified cat crouched there frozen, looking from me to the kitten like the kitten was my fault. She ran again. I grabbed that kitten and followed even as another kitten appeared from her ass—flash bang—and I grabbed that one and leaping over the junk and garbage, followed the cat where she fled behind leaning stacks of plywood. Clutching the three kittens in one hand, I reached in and grabbed the cat. She had no name because there were so many cats on this farm. Over its 35 years I guess that at least 500 cats were born there; my dad killed many of them. Finding a pet carrier I put her and the kittens inside. I brought a towel and laid the cat and the kittens on the towel. Two more kittens had appeared. The kittens mewled and writhed around on the towel. The cat smelled them and licked them and laid down and the kittens crawled over her. But the first kitten did not move; it was cold, wet, limp, not breathing. I had been told that you could bring a technically-dead kitten back to life by applying gentle and steady friction—one reason why the cat has nine lives. I took the lifeless kitten and began to rub it in a towel on my lap. I did this for fifteen minutes until the kitten’s head began to vibrate and it let out a feeble mew. I put the kitten back in with the others on mom and went to bed. In the morning all five kittens were fluffy, alive and wriggling, the mother cat cozy and purring.
