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"It was late last night, tried so hard to sleep" Freddie Spruell, Tom Cat Blues
The knock went from tentative to urgent awfully quick.
"Keep your pants on, Jeesus!" Lionel yanked the door open. "Harold? What the fuck? It's three AM. Is somebody hurt?" Lionel looked exhausted, but had clearly not been in bed. He wore a long-sleeved tee with a city league logo across it. Two kittens were scaling him with needle-sharp claws as he supported their tiny butts with an arm.
"What... are those?"
Harold looked taken aback.
"I'm sure you can work it out, Encyclopedia Brown."
"What are you doing with kittens?"
"Feeding them, ya dingus. Come in, before you wake up the neighbors." He ushered Harold in and closed the door.
"On the phone-- you said you couldn't talk. You sounded upset. I thought something was wrong."
Lionel sighed. "Take a seat." He handed Harold a kitten, a squeaking ball of black fluff. He sat in the overstuffed chair opposite Harold's, cradled a kitten on his arm and began dripping formula into its mouth from a plastic syringe. Its front paws flexed and kneaded, pinpoints of claws visible.
"They're my mom's. Temporarily my mom's. She fosters cats 'till they're ready to adopt. They gotta eat every three hours. She had to take my dad to the emergency room." Lionel looked away from Harold, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat. "S'why I couldn't talk. I've gotta keep my phone open. I don't know when she'll call. When they know what's going on."
"What happened?"
"Arm pain, chest tightness. He's getting scans. Maybe nothing, maybe not nothing. Mom didn't want the kittens to go hungry and I wasn't going to be sleeping anyway, waiting. Just, can we talk about anything else? I'm driving myself crazy, worrying." He handed the kitten to Harold, who set it with the other in his lap. They walked, stiff-legged, over his legs, exploring this exciting new world high above the floor. Lionel scooped up another kitten from a nest of towels in front of a plastic pet carrier. He filled a fresh syringe from a gently steaming mug.
"I always liked those books." Harold looked wistful.
"Books?"
"Encyclopedia Brown. I wish life turned out more like those stories. That knowing stuff about the world made it make more sense, solved problems."
"Heh. Yeah. I've got more case-clearing mileage out of knowing people are lying pieces of shit than that lightning comes before thunder."
Harold chuckled, stroking a kitten's head with two fingers. It bit at his cuffs. "That's what we should do. When we retire. Solve mysteries for neighborhood kids."
"We get to retire?" He raised an eyebrow at Harold. He swiped a dribble of formula from a fuzzy chin and handed the kitten to join the lap-mapping expedition. "Sorry to ruin your booty call."
"Lionel. Don't be crude." A kitten tumbled from his knee back to the pair now sleeping deeper in his lap. "I was concerned. And your family is more important than my feeling lonely."
"Hah. You admit you were lonely." Lionel looked up from the last kitten, eagerly lapping at the syringe. Harold looked embarrassed. "Aw, I'm just yankin' your chain. It's nice having you here."
"They're so warm." The three kittens were now a purring pile.
Lionel set the now-empty syringe on the table next to him, turned the kitten over and stroked its round belly. "Cats run hot, they're like little hot-water bottles. They like to be warmer than people do. They'll find the warmest place in a room." The kitten's eyes closed and its head drifted back.
"At Los Alamos, when they finally had enough plutonium for the Manhattan Project, just a little vial, they said it was warm in your hand, like a living thing, like a rabbit. Are rabbits this warm?"
Lionel's phone rang. He snapped it to his ear. "Mom?" His voice was tight. "Ohthankgod. Oh, that's great," he enthused, his relief visible in his whole body. "Ok. Sure. Just call me when you get home. Yeah, they're great. Cute as little bugs." A pause. "Mom. Mom. I've got tomorrow off, let me keep 'em another day. You and dad can get some rest." He rolled his eyes at Harold. "Because you've been up all night! Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Love you too. Goodnight." He tapped his phone off and grinned at Harold. "Dad's ok. Or going to be ok. It's going to take a while to finish up at the hospital." He sighed out a lungful of air. "What were you saying about plutonium?"
"Nothing. Nothing important, anyway." Harold smiled sweetly. "So the cats will be ok on their own for another three hours?"