The apartment is up up up at the top of Manhattan, in Washington Heights. Until I got a bike I didn't really think about the implications of the toponym, but I am now in a position to tell you that the Heights was not named in the same way that Lakewood (no discernible body of water; all trees at least 20 feet apart from each other) apparently was.
From Broadway over to the Hudson, the neighborhood is populated by a mix of young Hispanic families and medical students; walk east of Broadway, and you're entering the northermost outpost of the Dominican Republic. This means color and chaos; bodegas selling plantains; take-out shops offering cheap, plentiful arroz con pollo and mofongo; and occasional boisterous, mystifying parades. It is a lovely neighborhood in many ways—surprisingly quiet, partially patrolled by Columbia Med School police at all times, possessed of a nice little park and ever-present ice cream truck.
The kitty, needless to say, was intrigued by these new surroundings.
He's always been interested in the outside world, but his interaction with it has mostly consisted of growling softly at birds cavorting on the roof opposite my window at Ellery Street, and gazing transfixed at squirrels climbing the drainpipes at Jesse's house. When once we had the idea to "take the kitty on a walk!," the result was decisive. Upon being placed on the walkway, safely strapped into his harness and leash, Icarus hunkered down as low to the ground as he could get, alert and frozen in terror. When a car sped by one street over, he panicked, running back up the steps so fast the line went taught and I had to lunge after him to open the front door before he ran headfirst into it. We never again tried to take him outside.
So I could, perhaps, be excused for thinking that even if he were able to fit through the child-safety grilles that adorn our New York windows, he never would slip himself between them. First of all, there would be nowhere for him to go after reaching the narrow ledge. Second, he would quickly realize that he was now Outside, and remember how much he doesn't actually like to be there.
Obviously, I was completely wrong.
One Sunday, an episode or two into an Arrested Development marathon, I wandered around looking for the cat. We sometimes like to wake him up in the evening in some vain hope that it will make him tired enough not to do horrible, noisy things in the night: this never works, but it's a hard habit to quit. But I couldn't find him under my bed, or under Adrienne's. Diana's door was closed, and Angela's room was open but devoid of cat. Her windows were open a couple of inches, so we closed them ("Just in case. But it's not like he could ever fit out them anyway.") and checked under the sinks, in cabinets, closets, on top of high bookcases. The cat was not in the apartment.
I hadn't actually started to panic yet by the time Angela thought to open one of her windows all the way and look out. I had done the same in the living room, where the windows with the biggest ledge are, and seen no cat on the sill or slinking around the courtyard below. When Angela stuck her head out, she saw green eyes glowing back at her from the fire escape, a few feet to the left of her window and a floor below.
It was a good test of how quickly I could open the safety grate on Adrienne's window, the one that leads to the fire escape. Icky had retreated another floor down in the meantime, but had the sense not to run away from us. We brought him back inside, closed all the windows, no matter how narrowly they had been open, and went online to research microchipping.
The kitty retreated under a bed and presumably slept soundly. He has since tried many times to squeeze his head out of barely open windows, but jumps away whenever he notices that I'm watching him. The one upside of New York summers is that the windows now all have air conditioners blocking them.
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