Thirst by Ken Kalfus Read Free Book Online Page A

mud. I myself was looking for bags of dead kittens, bags I expected to number in the hundreds. I didn’t discover any, which made me wonder if they had somehow dissolved. My friends didn’t find any condoms.
    The drownings only limited the growth of the cat population: there were always more than enough to go around for various entertainments and scientific experiments, most of which tested their ability to land on their feet. We threw quite a few cats off Billy Osinski’s roof as, over the years, these experiments became increasingly sophisticated. Five of us, each with a cheap snapshot camera against his face, once lined up alongside the house, while Osinski held the subject cat over our heads. Then he let it drop and, as documentation for a science fair project that would never be completed, we took the animal’s photograph at each stage of its descent. It landed on its feet, smashed its snout against the cement, and then slinked away, sneezing. Each sneeze sprayed a fine crimson mist.
     
    One Saturday afternoon when I was eleven or twelve, we chipped in for a bunch of thirty-five-cent helium balloons at a nearby five-and-ten. At home I removed a half-gallon cardboard container of milk from the fridge, emptied the milk into a pickle jar from under the sink, and cut away the carton’s top. We stapled the carton to
the strings hanging from the balloons, thus fashioning a little gondola. Then we debated our choice for the craft’s passenger.
    “It should be the smartest one,” Nathan said. “Like the way they pick the astronauts. You know, give them tests.”
    “What’s the difference?” I said. “They’re cats.”
    “We should get the smallest,” decided Osinski. “So it won’t escape.”
    None of us could have said exactly where we hoped to send the animal, though balloon launchings had a long history in our neighborhood. We often tied messages with our addresses to them, in the hope that we’d get a response from some distant country. There was never any letter from abroad, however, nor even a phone call from Syosset—so we probably didn’t expect to see the cat again. But then the dogs that the Russians launched into space didn’t come back either. According to the television, they burned up in the atmosphere. Perhaps we thought our cat would do the same.
    We eventually found a young tortoiseshell that had evaded Mark’s culling. Although the kitten was free of visible defects, it was an ugly animal, with metallic green eyes and a wiry, uncuddly body. Nathan wanted to whirl it around in a bucket, to prepare it for the g-forces, but Osinski noted that gas was leaking from the balloons. Already two of them were slumping toward the ground.
    We cut slits in the gondola’s sides so that the kitten could see out. “Where is it going to pee?” Nathan’s little sister Eleanor asked, obliging us to cut a hole in the
corner of the carton. The kitten complained when we picked it up, but once it was placed in the gondola it satisfied itself by sniffing at the milk-encrusted walls. I gave it a piece of lox, as provisions for the trip, but the animal ate it immediately and whined for more. We ended up giving the kitten all that was left in the fridge. It tore at the fish as we carried the balloons out to the middle of the street.
    Perhaps as many as eight of us met there as if by pre-arrangement, or destiny. We were mostly quiet, and each incidental remark or joke went unanswered. Since we had brought home the balloons, the day had turned bitter, and we were now impatient to get back indoors. Just as we were about to let it go, the kitten stuck its face through the hole we had cut. It let out a series of short, uniform, almost electronic mews. Nathan poked its face away with his finger and told it, “Get ready for blastoff.” It returned to the hole and resumed crying.
    Its cries did not change their tempo or tone as the balloons rose. For the first minute or so, the craft’s ascent was slow, almost