Day Twenty-Nine

   ****NAMES CHANGED TO PROTECT PORTLAND'S STREET KIDS***** 

It is not a good day to wake up to today. We know what we have to do but neither of us want to do it. In the morning I take Baby Kitten to OI while her momma goes to go get her dose from the clinic. I get my usual eggs, bacon, potatoes, and of course my oatmeal. However, even my oatmeal tastes sticky and sour.

Tailia desperately wants to play so I unzip her bag and let her head hang out even though that means a better chance of staff seeing her. It is heart breaking to watch her as she plays with her front paws, frustrated that the back ones don't work. Kitten Momma comes in earlier than expected because the line is too long for her to dose. I let her eat while I feed Tailia some rice pudding off of a spoon. Some staff lady comes up and starts hassling us about the kitten.

"She's dying," I yelled at her, "Just leave it alone she's dying."

She tells Kitten Momma to put her in the kennels outside where she had been bitten and essentially killed a few days earlier. This makes both of us go ballistic. How can you tell someone to abandon their dying kitten right where she got hurt? The staff lady takes things too far when she tries to grab the kitten from me. I start screaming and smack her hands away from the bag.

"What the hell are you thinking?" I scream like a raving lunatic, "Don't fucking touch her. You can hurt her."

"I'm not hurting her," the lady says swinging the bag up with Tailia's head sticking out. I snatch the bag back as gently as I can, supporting the kitten's head with my other hand, "Are you stupid? She has a broken spine, you can't just pick her up like that. Goddamn."

One of the staff people from the interview comes running to us spouting bullshit about health violations and Baby Girl shutting down the whole organization. "I get that," I say, "But there's a right and a wrong way to do things and just grabbing someone's dying kitten is the wrong way."

I take this whole fiasco as an opportunity to demand bus tickets. Then Kitten Momma has to go back to the clinic to get her dose. Tailia and I sit around the block where a guy selling Street Roots asks me to buy the paper. I used to ignore these people before but now I say, "I am in the same boat man." He starts huffing and puffing and I can't help but think he has a lot of nerve complaining to a paralyzed kitten.

She is content though, playing with one of the giant cotton swabs we took from the doctor's office. A police officer comes by and I am sure he s going to yell at me to move; in his defense I am sitting in front of the most expensive coffee shop in Portland. He doesn't though, and instead asks about the kitten. When I tell him her sad story he tells me it isn't the only one he's heard recently. An employee of a local pet shop down the road from OI had the same thing happen to him recently.

As soon as the officer leaves I go to find Tailia's mom. I tell her what the officer told me and we go right up to that pet shop. We are lucky the guy who was attacked by the pitbull was working and he describes what sounds like the exact same dog and the exact same owners. The pitbull had attacked his lab and ripped him open, causing a $900 pet bill.

We share stories and say we'll be in touch. Many people; employees and customers wish us luck. One old guy gives Tailia a kiss and tells my friend to get another cat as soon as possible, that it will help her heal. With dread there is nothing left to do but get on the bus and begin our journey into a horrible day.

We let Tailia eat all the rice pudding she wants. Instead of putting her in her carrier we hold her in our arms as we travel. We want her to be able to see the world before she dies. I hold her the majority of the time as Kitten Momma was too sad and heart broken to even look at her.

We have some time to kill as our vet lady is in surgery until the afternoon. We go up to the college so I can try and figure out exactly how much I owe. It is closed though and when the campus police officer sees us reading the sign on the door with the hours he starts hassling us saying all too aggressively campus is closed and we need to leave.

I used to live in the apartments right behind the school. I used to come on campus all the time even when it was closed to use the track and even to just hang out. The officer was was lying about us not being allowed to be on the property. Especially since it's a popular bus stop and all I was doing was getting the hours for the financial aid office. I never once was treated by a campus officer like that before. Most of them knew me and would escort me home safely when I stayed late to work on the paper. To me it is the clearest time I've been treated differently because I appear homeless.  It infuriates me.

We decide to go across to the yogurt shop on the other side of the intersection. I buy us a thing of frozen yogurt and when the clerk explains we can't have Tailia in the store I quietly explain the situation and she agrees to overlook her. After we finish eating the yogurt Kitten Momma decides to refill it without paying and people stare which makes me nervous. I really hate stealing. I insist we leave after that because I don't want the clerk to notice she stole after she was kind enough to ignore the kitten. We sit outside of Starbucks to use their wifi and put Tailia on the table.

Kitten Momma feels the back of Tailia's legs and says they are wet. With Q-tips and pressing we get Tailia to pee which is a hopeful sign. If she can pee we don't have to put her down. She may just be a miracle kitty and come back. But, I point out we also don't know if this means her bladder is about to rupture. We just don't know. Anything could happen. I don't want her to get her hopes up but we both know Tailia is not ready to die.

She walks too. When we hold her back legs up with a blanket the kitten will even run. If she can run and she can pee it's possible she may be okay. We aren't ready to give up hope yet. We just can't let her die like this.

When we head to the vet the bus driver says he knows the kids we describe and that they hang out on a certain corner in Portland where they spange for money. He says he doesn't let pit-bulls on his bus if there are kids or small dogs or service animals. He makes a comment about street kids and it makes me cringe. It wasn't even bad, just about how he doesn't like street kids coming on to the bus with big dogs. It still makes me wonder if he has recognized what we are or if he is kind only because he doesn't know.

We are still hanging on to a strand of hope when we get to the vet. We ask her to reexamine the kitten because she peed and walked so that must be some hope. She pushes on the bladder and shakes her head. The bladder is hard and close to rupturing. The little bits of pee are simply overflow. If we don't put her down right away her bladder will rupture causing a painful death. The only humane thing is to put her to sleep.

Tailia's eyes are big and she's sitting up and supporting herself and looking around. She eats Tapioca pudding and plays. She is not ready to die. The vet explains that because she is so young and her back legs are not working she has to do the lethal injection straight in her heart, "You don't want to see that," she tells us, "You don't want to remember her that way."

Poor Momma begins to bawl, "You mean I can't be with her?" The vet shakes her head and says it's a terrible thing to see, but Baby Girl won't even know what is happening. We can be with her for the sedation but then we must say goodbye.

The vet slips behind the kitten and pulls out a needle so huge even I falter looking at. She warns us that it will sting. Tailia doesn't see her coming and when the needle pierces her skin she hisses and throws a fit. In the end it takes all three of us to hold her down so that she can get her injection. She kicks her good legs, screams, bites, and hisses. Three people to hold down a paralyzed kitten; you better believe she was fighting hard for her life.

At this point both of us are crying. I've put animals to sleep before but never before they were ready to die. This is the first time I've seen an animal fight for their life like this. I did not expect it to be like this. I did not expect it to be a shot in her heart. It's not supposed to end like this. The vet leaves us alone to say our goodbyes and I turn my back away and cry.

Kitten Momma holds the baby girl rocking her close to her chest. The kitten's eyes are open and her tongue hangs out and she's so limp she looks like she is already dead. The vet had said the sedation would take five minutes to take effect. I thought we'd have more time with her as the kitten we remembered. But, it's immediate.

"Why couldn't you just pee Tailia?" Kitten Momma cries, "Just pee. Just pee."

It's heart wrenching to put her down over something as small as a bladder. It's unbearable. It's not fair. It's not fair that pit-bull is still alive and walking around and here is Baby Girl limp and dying.

All to soon our vet comes back in and tells us Tailia is ready to go. She is handed over and about to leave the room when I yell for her to wait. I need to say my goodbyes too. Tailia is so limp I almost drop her as I bring her to my chest. I rock her crying, telling her I'm sorry for ever picking her up that day. She isn't even there anymore. I put her against my boob where she used to sleep and rock her, regretting ever removing her from the safety of her mother's arms that day.

I reluctantly hand her back to the vet who will put an injection in her heart, stopping it, killing her. It's not much better than putting her back in the pit-bull's mouth. 

The check out lady from the front desk comes in and checks us out. It will be $50 to have her cremated. We can't afford that, we can't afford any of the things we've done to her so they put her in a box and bring her in. It's just a plain card board box for Greenies pill pockets.

The vet tells us where her head is and that her paws are tucked under her chin. She is curled up in a ball, sleeping. The box is taped closed. We can't see her. We will never see her again. We are still crying. The vet hugs each of us. I'm not much of a hugger but I oblige. She tells us to take as much time as we need before we leave the room. We don't though. We leave immediately, carrying the the brown cardboard box, that carries our dear Tailia's body inside.

It serves as a reminder that fairy tales and Lifetime movies are lies. It is a reminder that justice is a myth. It serves as a reminder that miracles don't happen and you don't always get the happy ending you want, even when you deserve it the most.

-mm