Page 40 of Marcus in Retrograde
“Oh, my God,” I whispered. “There are kittens in the wall.”
He leapt up from the couch and ran out the door of my apartment. I heard him banging next door for a moment and then he was back.
With a toolbox.
“What—”
“We have to get them out,” he said, breathlessly. “We don’t know if the mama can get to them, and we sure as Hell don’t know if they can get out.”
He put the tools on the coffee table as I scrambled to get the food into the kitchen—so we wouldn’t mess it up, and Pollux wouldn’t help himself to a burrito.
I came back in to find him gently tapping on the wall. As he got close to one spot near the end, the plaintive meows grew a little louder. He moved away again, and they grew soft. He checked up and down and finally settled on a spot.
“Here. Hand me the grease pencil.”
Plucking it out of the top tray, he took it from me and started making a square. “I’m going to start above them, and see if we can’t lift them out.”
He dropped the pencil back in and grabbed a yellow box with lights on it, and pressed the two buttons on the side. It beeped and I realized it was a stud finder. He placed it on the wall and found the beams that were on either side of the meowing.
Handing it back to me, he pointed to the box. “Chisel. The thinner one. And a hammer.”
I grabbed the clear yellow handle and presented it to him. He held his hand out for the small ball-peen hammer I was offering and tapped the handle. The chisel plowed through the wallboard, and he made a quick, neat line across the wall. He went up about six inches and made another.
The cries from behind the wallboard were desperate and frightened and I couldn’t believe we were digging a hole in the wall to save kittens.
A quick line of cracks down the center of the wallboard square, and Marcus was able to pop the first piece off in one shot, and then pop the other off.
“Flashlight?”
There was a pen light in the top tray so that’s what I handed him. He pointed it down and I heard scrabbling against the wall.
“Oh, myGod, they are so cute!” he declared. “Looks like…four of them. I think I can just reach in and grab them.”
“Wait, let’s get something to put them in,” I said, and raced for the bedroom. I found my tall laundry basket and inverted it, leaving dirty socks and underwear all over the floor. Didn’t care at that moment. I grabbed a fresh towel from the bathroom and tucked it at the bottom.
Marcus was still peering into the hole, and making soft sounds at the creatures. His eyes were shining with delight as I put the laundry basket next to him.
His hand reached in and he grabbed the first of the litter: a tiny, wide-eyed, big-eared calico ball of fluff.
“Well, hello, pretty thing!” He lowered her into the basket, and fished out the other three: an all-black sleek, thin boy, a black and white tuxedo girl, and a creamy tabby boy. They were all situated at the bottom, looking a little dirty, but no obvious fleas and no issues that we could see.
“Where’s the mom?” I asked, peering in.
“We’re going to have to lure her out with the kittens and food.”
“I don’t have cat food.”
“Tuna?”
“That I have,” I answered. “But these guys need milk and a bath.”
He nodded. “That they do.”
Which was how I wound up running down Thompson Street for the Pet Bar at a quarter to eight, hoping they would be open until I dragged my ass through the doors.
* * *
Mother Cat had been morethan willing to hop out of the wall for tuna and her babies. By the time I had gotten back with flea meds, Dawn soap, Kitten Replacement Milk, bottles, nipples, wet and dry food, and a cat carrier, Marcus had coaxed her out and she was in with her kittens in the basket.
