Page 83 of The Auction
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Ask the internet.” I pulled up a tiny bottle, with a tiny nipple, already filled with what I called kitten juice. “This is condensed milk, an egg yolk, a little yogurt, and some corn syrup. If the little guy makes it on this for a few days we can get some kitten formula from the vet in town. Hand it over…Wait.”
He looked down at the matted fur in his arm, then back at me.
“We have to name it something we hate, so if something happens we’re not associating it with something we love. Trust me on this. I’ll never have a horse or baby girl named Abigail because of this mistake.”
“How about Pimplefuckingface?”
I nodded. “Angie Pimplefuckingface it is. Give her.”
“How do you know it’s a she already?” he said, dislodging the matted, dirty kitten from his arm.
“That’s the name we gave her.” I said. I had a towel and the bottle ready to go.
He gently placed her in the towel, her eyes were closed, but not because they hadn’t opened yet. I suspected she was between three and five weeks, but so tiny. Walking her into the living room, I sat in the chair, and pushed the nippleagainst her tiny kitten mouth. One drop, then another, fell onto her tongue. Then her whole body shuddered like she understood, at least in her tiny kitten mind, what was happening.
Momma was back.
Like the survivor she was, she started sucking away on the nipple.
“There you go. Fight,” I told her.
“She’s covered in fleas,” he said, and I watched him pick a few off his arm.
“We can give her a bath after she eats. We want to give her as much strength as possible first.”
Creed stood and watched over me like a nervous father. “How late do you think the vet in town will stay open? Maybe we should get this kitten formula now?”
“You can call them. Number’s on the back of the pantry door.”
He walked into the kitchen and a few minutes later he was walking through the living room with his keys in his hand. “Vet said he’d stay open a little late until I got there. We need anything else beside the formula?”
“Tell him a few more bottles and nipples, in case her teeth puncture this one.”
He nodded and then he was off.
And it was just me and Angie Pimplefuckingface, fighting for her life.
“Please don’t disappoint him,” I told the little creature. “He wouldn’t want us to know it, but I think he’s a softie inside.”
Angie Pimplefuckingface just continued to pull on her bottle.
“What if itgets in her eyes?”
It was later that night. Creed had returned with enough kitten formula to feed all the world’s kittens, I was pretty sure. And enough nipples that we’d probably be donating them back to the vet at some point.
I knew it. Fucking softie.
Two solid feedings later and it was time to wash our little matted piece of fur. We were at the kitchen sink, and I had a pot full of just a touch over lukewarm water. I squirted some Dawn on my finger and ran it around AP’s neck.
“It’s not going to get in her eyes. When the fleas start to move, they won’t cover her face this way. The soap traps them.”
Holding her carefully by the scruff of her neck, I dipped her body into the pot where she howled as loud as any kitten I’d ever heard.
I smiled because it meant she was stronger than I gave her credit for.
“She hates it,” Creed said, looking over my shoulder. No doubt seeing all the fleas evacuating her tiny, little body as they floated in the now dirty water.
