Twice I had reported such raids to management. On both occasions, I was given sticky traps. The small plastic flat, lined with a layer of strong glue, was to a mouse what the La Brea Tar Pits were to a woolly mammoth.
On this particular day, while heating beans to make burritos, I checked the traps and found a jumbo-sized pair of dead mice.
“Harry,” I called, sickened by the carnage I’d caused. “Can you get rid of these dead rodents? I can’t leave the stove.”
Harry put the pair in a plastic bag and headed for the Dumpster in the alley out back. Almost an hour had passed before he returned, and I was mad because we had planned to eat early to make the matinee before the tickets cost more. I’d already started eating without him.
“Doesn’t matter if I skip lunch,” Harry said, washing his hands at the sink. “I just lost my appetite.” When I asked if he felt sick, he sat at the table across from me and lowered his head. “Not really, just upset over what I just heard from the teller lady who lives downstairs.”
“Heard?” Since the banker was Whitehall’s finest gasbag, my curiosity peaked. “What did you just hear?” Harry was not one to repeat gossip, but I persisted. “Tell me. If you get it off your chest, you’ll feel better.”
“Okay…okay,” Harry began. “I went out back to throw out the mice and old lady Crumble was studying the face of Jesus on a greasy stain down the side of the Dumpster while holding her trash.”
I nodded knowingly. The widow Crumble had been seeing the face of Jesus in food stains and fabric patterns ever since her husband had had a fatal heart attack last year.
“To be neighborly, I asked if she’d like me to toss her trash too. So, I’m separating the recycles she’s mixed with the rest, you know what a ditz she is, when the bank teller shows up. They get to talking, and the teller mentions that one day last week she was working the drive-through window when Ruthie from next door pulls up in her car with this strange-looking fellow in the seat beside her. Ruthie cashes a check for a couple of hundred dollars, places the money on the guy’s lap, and casually mentions she’s in the market for a new appliance. The teller didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but from the fuss Ruthie made over the guy while the teller counted out the money, it looked like something odd was going on between the two of them.”
“Fuss? What’d she do? What, Harry, what?” I asked, giddy with excitement.
“She straightened his hat and fastened his seat belt.”
“You don’t say.”
He nodded. “That’s not all. That ditzy old Crumble then waves her hand and says, ‘Oh everybody knows about Ruthie’s gigolo.’”
“No wonder you lost your appetite.” I felt my own hunger diminish as this was the first I’d heard about Ruthie’s gigolo. I lowered my fork and looked at Harry. “You think the money was payment for services rendered?”
Harry blinked, seeming not to comprehend why any guy would need to be paid for what to him most would gladly do for free, so I reminded him that gigolos don’t come cheap.
I recalled how eager Ruthie was to get her hands on the manny, and I began to guess why. Ruthie intended to use the manny as an alibi to cover up her two-timing ways. Since neither Jason, nor anyone else for that matter, would believe that she actually dated a dummy, and since Wolf himself was worthless as a witness, only I could vouch for her, insofar as I could say, yes, she had rented the manny, but I couldn’t testify as to what happened while he was in her hands.
The duplicity was staggering. Disturbing, too, for it indicated the lengths to which Ruthie would go to get away from her housebound husband.
“It’s best we keep quiet,” I told Harry, who, with lips pinched white, nodded.
I didn’t relish getting caught up in a neighbor’s sexual ploy. So the next time I took my manny out, I made sure he was incognito. That is, clad in Harry’s tan trench coat with the brim of the used Panama hat pulled down over his aviator-style sunglasses.
Later, I had finished parking my car in the garage after returning from picking up Harry’s uniform at the cleaners, when I saw the bank teller, walking away from the storage cabinet in front of her own parking space. Though I pretended not to see her, she started toward me. I quickly moved away from my car, leaving Wolf inside.
We exchanged greetings then I casually said, “Too bad about the Pritchards, they’re such a nice couple. I don’t suppose anyone’s mentioned seeing Lisa out with the same man. A good-looker with a tanned complexion and wetted-down black hair combed to the side.” I wondered myself if Ruthie actually was using Wolf as a decoy or if this was simply a case of mistaken identity.
“Don’t tell me Lisa’s been catting around, too,” the woman said.
“I’m not. It’s just that, you being up on the latest, I thought maybe you’d picked up the buzz.”
The bank teller checked around then spoke in a hushed voice. “What I’ve picked up are strange stories about some pretty weird goings on here in Whitehall.”
“Do tell,” I said, feeling out of the loop.
“I can’t say for sure that Lisa cheats on her husband. It’s not like with Ruthie; I haven’t seen her with my own eyes. But according to Sarah Crumble, Lisa’s taken a lot more elevator trips to the fourth floor than even the manager’s wife should.”
“Then the two are in cahoots.”
A smug expression settled on the teller’s face. “You can call it cahoots if you want, but in my opinion, they’re sharing.”
I clapped my hand over my mouth.
“I’m not suggesting they’re swingers into those group things, but you never know.”
The news devastated me. It made me feel as if I were suddenly in an unfamiliar building occupied by a cabal of deviants engaged in all sorts of depravities.
“Who is he? Does anyone know?”
The teller looked at me with pity in her eyes. “It’s just rumor.”
“Then you know?”
“I really wouldn’t want to say. There’s nothing gained by spreading rumors. But most always, the wife is the last to know.”
Nodding in agreement, I glanced at Wolf buckled in the passenger seat of my car. Once again I was grateful to have such a loyal companion.
“By the way, who’s the mysterious stranger?” the bank teller asked.
“Stranger?”
“Your passenger. Not very congenial, is he?”
“Not at all.” I stepped closer to her and lowered my voice. “He’s here to see my husband about a secret naval mission.” To imply Harry was some kind of cloak-and-dagger agent, I held up his dress uniform inside the cleaner’s baggie. “He’s with one of those hush-hush undercover alliances, FBI, CIA, UFO—furtive-types who talk into their shoes.” Quieting, I averted my eyes, signaling there would be no further breaches of security.
Retrofitting Wolf
One day, as I sat on the living room sofa, admiring the cute little turned-up dowel that served as Wolf’s nose, I asked Harry if he’d ever noticed how refined, how almost aristocratic Wolf appeared.
“He’s from good stock,” Harry said. “Probably solid oak.”
For a moment, I mulled over Harry’s dislike for Wolf. I recalled when the two first met, Harry opined that Wolf didn’t really look like him—an understatement. For one thing, Wolf didn’t have the proper masculine equipment, to me irrelevant since my manny as a whole was greater than the sum of his parts, so to speak.
“Harry,” I started, wondering the extent of his resentment toward Wolf. “Don’t you think it’s silly to think that Wolf may be out to take you over? After all, he’s not qualified, considering he’s lacking in the manliness department.”
“That’ll be the last piece of me to go,” Harry said with conviction. “Once it happens, he’ll have all he needs to start on you.”
I was aghast. Did my husband actually believe that his major attraction was in his pants? I had to be careful; Harry’s sensitivity toward his masculinity was a minefield.
“Considering your
attempt to turn Wolf into a drag queen, it seems you’re the one out to emasculate him, not the other way around.”
“You can’t take what’s not there,” he said.
“My point exactly.” I hesitated, since it just occurred to me that Wolf’s limitations might be regarded as a negative rather than a positive. “But it’s not a total loss. Wolf could be modified. A trip to a local woodshop, a few nails, a dab of glue, and viola!”
“You would do that, wouldn’t you?” Harry snapped. “You would actually retrofit him and blow me off.”
“I don’t see that rounding out Wolf’s anatomy would take away from yours.” I had no intention of tinkering with my manny’s deficiencies, I was only speculating.
Harry bristled. “All I’m saying is that the human body can’t tell the difference between an actual sexual act and a simulated one. It responds the same.”
“Are you accusing me of wanting to be intimate with Wolf?”
“Considering the way you fondle him, I’d say you’ve gone far beyond wanting to.”
I glanced at Wolf, a zoned-out space-case, on the cushion beside me. “Fondle what? Nothing’s there. You just said so yourself.”
Harry’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Ahhh, but if you had your way, all that would change.”
I felt as if zapped by a stun gun.
“Does Howdy Doody have wooden balls?” Harry delivered another shock. “Does a wooden horse have a hickory dick?”
“Harry, your mouth!” I cupped my hands over Wolf’s extra-large ears.
Just because I maybe tended to caress Wolf too much was no reason for Harry to think I’ve iced him out. The idea struck me as outlandish. But human emotions, being the quagmire that they are, I still had to take Harry’s feelings into consideration.
“Okay. True enough,” I said. “Wolf’s many charms thrill me. But no way do I prefer the dummy to my living, breathing husband.
“It’s not like he mimics you in every conceivable way. I mean, plus or minus the wooden parts, he couldn’t even spread the seeds of his own tree,” I said to underscore the claim.
Seeing Harry brightened, I went on. “Sex can be a great experience, or it can result in profound misery, not to mention herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, and a whole host of potentially lethal viruses. In the role of companions, mannys en masse could help ease the downside of human sexuality. On a grandiose scale, they could not only aid in reducing the incidents of sexually transmitted diseases; they could assist in curbing overpopulation and its associated tragedies—mass starvation, depleted resources, violent conflicts, and so on. Mannys could change the course of the world, and it all depends on their deficiencies.
“So you see, Harry, Wolf could never replace you because of his handicap.”
“That’s just grand. He not only gets to save the world; he becomes famous while at it.”
Harry’s hyperbole made me chuckle. “Wolf will hardly ever be famous. But, as more lethal strains of VD spread across the country, he and his kind could catch on.”
By advancing Wolf’s sexual inadequacy, I felt I’d easily dealt with Harry’s sexual anxiety. Harder to contend with was Harry’s bitterness over Wolf’s burgeoning celebrity. The publicity my manny received over our Seafair escapade made it clear that the wooden dude had superstar potential.
Watching me, Harry grumbled, “I’d like to hang him from the yardarm.”
I frowned, aware that lynching Wolf would amount to Harry hanging himself in effigy. Yet I realized that’s not what Harry had in mind. Allowing that Harry usually thought in nautical terms, I began to see Wolf the way Harry must have envisioned him, out on the briny, dangling from the mast with an albatross around his neck.
Harry probably wanted to string him up in a metal cage and make an example of him just as centuries ago sailors had made examples of pirates. It was not by accident that Harry reckoned that the manny was constructed of solid oak, one of the sturdiest woods used in the historical construction of ships.
Attacking Wolf
It was nearing ten in the morning when I had returned to Whitehall after cycling for an hour or so on a bicycle built for two. With Wolf still balanced on the rear seat, I steered the bike out of the elevator and across the hall to my apartment. In the living room, I opened the sliding glass window to the balcony where I kept the bike stored.
“I didn’t know you were out,” Harry said, standing by the slider, watching me remove Wolf’s clunky feet from the pedal’s stirrups and free his thin wrists from the bungee cords on the handlebars.
“You were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.” I removed my helmet and hooked it over the handle bars.
The creases on Harry’s face deepened. “You should have. Then you wouldn’t have had to take him.”
The way Harry pronounced him made me think things were about to get ugly. “I didn’t mind. Nobody seemed to notice he wasn’t real.” Though in truth, it seemed that everyone within a five-mile radius of Whitehall had heard about Wolf and me. On our treks outside these days, neighbors whispered and shrank into doorways as we went by.
Harry appraised Wolf’s outfit, the almost taunting set of his cap and the black-and-white-striped pullover I’d shrunk to fit snuggly on his slight frame. “He looks like a small-time gangster out of some cheap mafia movie.”
“Well, blow me down!” I attempted to lighten the mood. “You always looked like Popeye in that outfit.”
He began pacing the room, at times pausing to rub his temples. “Popeye. How fitting. Popeye in an endless struggle over Olive Oyl.” He punched his fist into his hand. “For months I’m confined to a ship at sea. For months it’s nothing but the same old, same old. And you don’t think I’d like to go on a bike ride when I get home?”
“Well, then why didn’t you say so?” “I don’t want to share you with him,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Wolf is not a him. He’s an it,” I said, hoping to diffuse the tension.
Suddenly, a crazed looked jumped into Harry’s eyes. Bellowing like an expert at martial arts, he angled his hand and charged Wolf, ripping him off the bicycle seat. Throttling Wolf, Harry pinned him to the wall. His wooden joints clacked as he jerked like a shaken puppet on strings.
“Stop it! Stop it! You’re hurting him.” I tried to pry Harry’s fingers, but they remained curled around the manny’s neck. “Let go; you’re squeezing the life out of him,” I cried, slapping Harry’s knuckles.
Blinking as if coming to his senses, Harry opened his hand and Wolf dropped to the floor. Harry stepped back, shaking. He lifted his palms to his face and stared at them. “I don’t know what came over me.” He looked at Wolf’s limbs, in a mangled heap. “I could have snapped his scrawny little neck.”
I knelt on the floor, sat Wolf upright, and examined his face. He looked like a cartoon character just beaned over the head, now sinking, and cross-eyed as cuckoo-clock birdies encircled his head.
“Oh my gosh, you’ve given him a concussion.”
“A dummy can’t have a concussion.” Harry raked a clawed hand through his short hair.
“Then explain his crossed eyes. He was normal until you attacked him.”
“He was never normal. Not the way you mean.” Harry sounded worried.
I let Wolf drop onto his back, watching as one of his eyeballs, now slanted inward, opened and closed slower than the other. “He’s cockeyed. He never used to be cockeyed.” I glared at Harry.
Harry inspected Wolf’s misaligned eyes. “He’s just shaken up; he’ll come around.”
I jiggled the manny; his eyes rattled in their slots, but remained off center. “I knew it…I knew it, he’s brain damaged.”
“Don’t be ridiculous; he’s got sawdust for brains.”
I slid my arms under the manny’s body, rose, and dragged him to the sofa. As he lay with his head raised on a pillow, I looked into his skewed eyeballs.
“He’s ruined…ruined.”
“No he’s not. I’ll get him fixed. I’
ll take him back to where you got him,” Harry said in an apologetic voice.
“What if he can’t be fixed?”
“Oh geez.” Harry dropped his arms to his sides.
Dismayed, I scrutinized Wolf’s anatomy, trying to figure this out. I’d seen Harry lose his temper before, but never resort to violence. Harry’s outburst indicated that I should never again request Wolf’s company in our bed.
As a precaution, I transferred Wolf from the sofa to the entryway closet. While Harry decompressed, I removed the matches from the kitchen and the hacksaw from the toolbox. Harry was no longer trustworthy.
The Rink
For an entire week after the attack that left Wolf cockeyed, I kept him in the closet out of Harry’s sight. Sometimes, when Harry wasn’t around, I would visit Wolf’s dark enclosure and commiserate with him over the injury he’d suffered.
On one such occasion, while Harry was back at the naval base, I happened to nudge against my old high-top roller skates. I lifted one of the skates and a wad of rawhide shoestrings fell out. Getting an idea, I unraveled the strings. Since Harry wouldn’t be home for hours, Wolf and I could go to Skate King, a local roller-skating rink where, owing to the dim lights, Wolf’s imperfections would go unnoticed.
Less than an hour later, I purchased two tickets and filled out two chances to win a new pair of skates that came with an opportunity to stand in as master of ceremonies at next month’s roller derby. I then sat Wolf on a bench, put my own skates on, and tied Wolf’s ankles to mine with the extra set of rawhide strings I’d found tucked in my high tops. The lights dimmed, the disco ball over the rink began turning, and music played from large speakers in the corners. I rose with the soles of Wolf’s painted-on shoes affixed to the tops of my feet. I then took his hands and, holding him face to face, maneuvered him backwards onto the hardwood floor.
In time with the music, we glided along, moving smoothly as we circled around. That night, as often happens at this particular rink, a group of hardcore skaters hit the boards for a workout. From their similar glitzy shirts and helmets that matched their knee and elbow guards, I could tell that they were in the same club. “Oops, pardon me,” I said, trying to get out of their way as they moved in one fluid motion past me.
Me and My Manny Page 5
