Trash 2

I started getting involved in rescuing cats when my girlfriend’s cat got really sick. She was working so I had to take him to the vet. He was walking around the house crying, and he kept going in and out of the litter box. When I called the humane society they told me he might have a urinary tract infection. And if he didn’t pee soon his kidney would explode, and he could die a horrible death. He kept whining around the house like he was already dying. So I rushed to the nearest vet - around the corner from my house. I couldn’t get an appointment at the humane society that day. While I was waiting at the vet, a little Latina lady walked in the office with a teensy kitten that was obviously almost dead. The poor little creature looked as if it had suffered so much in its short time on earth. It was just lying there panting, all skin and bones. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks old. The lady was upset, she spoke in Spanish to the receptionist. I asked the receptionist what had happened to the kitten for it to be in such bad shape. She told me that the lady worked in a factory. That the cat there had kittens and one of the guys that works there threw this one against a wall because it was trying to take some of his food. It was obvious that the kitten was starving. It stank like shit. He was filthy yet so beautiful. A perfect little tabby lying there barely alive.

I asked the receptionist to ask the lady if there were any more kittens there. She said there were three more and they kept them in a garbage can in there own shit. That’s when the vet called me in.

He was a nervous impatient man. He didn’t like that I asked him so many questions about what he was doing. I let him give my cat an injection to help him pee and then he said the cat would have to stay overnight for observation. He also said the cat may need a complicated operation where they stick a tube up his little penis. He would tell me if it was necessary after observation.

I called my girlfriend to ask her if I should leave her cat there. I told her it didn’t feel right. I told her about the kittens at the factory. I told her they kept them in a garbage bin in there own piss and shit. I asked her if I could get them and bring them home. I was crying and talking too fast. I agreed to leave him overnight even though it felt wrong in my gut. She calmed me down and suggested I let the vet do his job. She knew I had a deep distrust of organized medicine. And then she said of course I could rescue the kittens.

I insisted on putting our cat in the cage myself. The back of the clinic was sparse. It felt more like a torture chamber than a place to heal. It was cold and hard with a lot of metal.

I went back out front to give the receptionist a small deposit. I asked her to ask the lady if she wanted me to come and get the kittens and try to find them homes. The lady was really happy. She said yes. She started talking about god. The vet called the Spanish lady in. I asked her if I could come with her while the kitten was examined. She said yes. The doctor checked the little guy for broken bones, then gave him a shot of fluids and put him on a rack under a heating light. The kitten lay there on a little towel. He told the receptionist to tell the lady to leave the cat overnight. I wanted to tell the lady not to leave him there, that the little kitten needed love and warmth. But I held my tongue because I wasn’t sure I could keep him alive. I think he may have been too far gone. But I should have tried. I was in so much pain from all this suffering. I felt confused and overloaded. I wanted to rip out of my skin and not feel any more.

So the little Spanish lady and I went back to her work place, a sweatshop on the fourth floor of a big factory type building. In the corner of a bleak cafeteria kitchen, there were two kittens in a big blue trash can. They were in their own shit and diarrhea. Skinny little hissing things. I ask the lady for a box. Then a Korean lady came over and asked me what I was going to do with them. She was the boss lady of the factory that made rip-off label tee-shirts. I told her I would find them a home. Then she asked me if I wanted a dog too. She had a small dog at home that barked too much. I wanted to slit her throat. Instead I smiled and said no, but I would be back for the other kitten.