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The Flight of Mehetabel (2013)

by James Howard Kunstler
(#3 in Jeff Greenaway)

President Kennedy is entertaining some now-forgotten head-of-state in the White House and eleven-year-old Jeff Greenaway and his best friend Bobby Schindler are in New York City entertaining themselves-tossing water balloons, pennies and one Spanish melon off the fifteenth-floor terrace of the Schindler's apartment building over looking Fifth Avenue. Bobby's cat, Mehetabel, wanders out to sun herself and-inspired by the blustery day-the boys decide to fashion a parachute of Mrs. Schindler's pink damask tablecloth and send Mehetabel for a twelve-foot sail from the balcony of the water tower to the terrace. The phlegmatic Mehetabel cooperates like a flight cadet as they fit her with the parachute, but the wind is unpredictable and the experiment goes awry. Mehetabel takes flight over Central Park with the boys-along with a Park Avenue matron, a couple of winos, a retired veterinarian and the New York City Fire Department-in hot pursuit. James Howard Kunstler's charming tale takes us back to an age when NYC was a natural playground for two little boys on a breezy afternoon, a native would lend you a dime to make a phone call, and cats could fly.