Me and My Manny

by M. A. MacAfee

  “What are you doing spending money on him?”

  “It’s his money. He earned it through my escort service.”

  “The dummy escort service? Get real.”

  “You knew about my plans.”

  “You can’t be serious.” For a long time, he stared at me. “You are. You’re actually going to try again.”

  “With a different marketing approach, perhaps.” I bit into my donut; the intense sweetness electrified my taste buds and shocked my imperfect teeth. “It’s an eat-or-beeaten jungle out there. You got to claim your own money tree and give it a few good shakes.”

  Harry cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt your swing through the money trees, but would you mind dropping the vine and passing the milk?”

  I did as he asked and went on. “After all, the price of venting on a nonjudgmental dummy is way less than the cost of seeking relief from some other outlet, booze, sex, whatever.” It sounded odd, but based on client accounts— all two of them—Wolf was a wholesome companion. “Lisa never gets to spend a moment alone. And when it comes to Ruthie, the manny’s at least given her more of a respite than Jason’s pill-pushing shrink, who, for all his credentials, lectures, and public appearances, has yet to make a dent in Jason’s phobic behavior.”

  “You can’t compare a brilliant psychiatrist with a brainless dummy.” Harry sucked cherry jam from his fingertips.

  “You can in my book. Britonia charges double for the house calls he makes, whereas my manny works cheap.”

  “You get what you pay for,” Harry quipped.

  “I never said a manny could handle Jason’s disorder. But in my opinion, neither can his overpriced doctor. Or for that matter, his overburdened wife. She’d go back to work, if it weren’t for Jason’s oddball act. So I told her, why don’t you pressure him into taking the dog out once in a while. Why does everybody around here have to feel worse so that Jason can feel better?”

  “It’s best you mind your own business.” Harry paused then said, “Which from the looks of things appears to be another attempt at pandering.”

  “Minding my own business is exactly what I’m up to. It’s not my fault that customers of the manny-mate operation speak to me in confidence. That’s why I assured them, what happens here, stays here.” I gestured zippering my lips.

  “Whoda thunk it,” Harry mused. “Smart women dating a dummy.”

  Though his comment sparked another idea, I let it slide and finished the last of my donut and wiping my sticky fingers on a paper napkin, said, “Just goes to show how deceptive appearances can be. Wolf may look like a laidback malingerer. But we shouldn’t underestimate what’s going on beneath that glossy veneer.”

  Wolf’s Marketable Functions

  The more I thought about setting up the Manny Ranch, the greater my misgivings. I knew that trafficking mannys would strike some as distasteful, but that’s not what bothered me. My reasons were more practical. On one hand, staffing brothels with Mr. Gippo-style manikins still required that the wooden inmates be hewed out and put together. On the other hand, The Ranch in full operation would probably never yield more than chicken feed. Expenses aside, the forty dollars I had so far earned was hardly worth crowing about.

  So as I blundered along the bumpy road to riches, I felt compelled to ask, why not go into the manufacturing side of the business? Harry would never get involved in procuring customers for a so-called escort service; but egoist that he was, he might be cajoled into soliciting consumers for fabrications based on his own self-image. I had only to convince him to join me in building the foundations of a manny empire that would, in time, turn the both of us into manny moguls.

  “Have you ever noticed how enigmatic Wolf always seems? He’s like a sage or a guru. You know, a silent conduit through which the mysteries of the cosmos may be channeled.”

  “Yeah, he’s a regular woodwind. Ommm,” Harry hummed from behind the book he’d been reading, History of the Coast Guard.

  “You could take a lesson from him, Harry. The manny exhibits exemplary behavior. You’ve never seen him getting all fired up and breaking out in a sweat.”

  “Nope, I never have.”

  “It’s not so much what my manny does; it’s what he doesn’t do.”

  “That can be anything,” Harry said, eyes still on the page.

  “What I mean is interacting with my manny has kind of a rebounding effect. Everything I put out there ricochets and comes right back at me. My manny doesn’t validate or invalidate me. Our connection is like sensory deprivation that in turn leads to an altered state of consciousness.”

  “Sounds like daydreaming brought on by boredom.”

  “To me, it’s more like enlightenment. My manny helps put me in touch with my inner self.” This notion seemed logical since sharing thoughts and ideas with an unresponsive manny required that I talk to myself, but saying so would only underscore Harry’s cynicism.

  “Behold the manny’s unflinching calm, its unflappable composure. Staring at a manny is like holding up a mirror. Just look at the manny, and tell me what you see.”

  “I see a poor rendition of myself.”

  “On the surface, yes; but underneath—”

  “Underneath is sawdust,” Harry interrupted.

  “You wouldn’t say that about other great icons of the world. You wouldn’t call Charlie McCarthy or Mortimer Snerd so much sawdust. And that’s the enigma because when you peer into the nothingness, you’re forced to face the inevitable.”

  “Ashes to ashes and sawdust to sawdust,” Harry retorted.

  “So you confirm that an unexamined life is not worth living?” I asked, for no reason other than to keep the dialogue going.

  Harry looked up from his book. “I think you’re reading too much into that block of wood.”

  “I think you’re not reading enough. You’re always picking on him and calling him names. Your resentment prevents you from seeing what sets him apart.” This was where I hoped to start introducing Wolf’s marketable functions. “Wolf is like a mysterious package…an unopened gift.”

  “Don’t try to take him on an airplane; he’ll never get passed security,” Harry said with his nose again in his book.

  Frustrated, I paused to reevaluate my position. Okay, so my initial proposal of a manny-business didn’t work. It wasn’t so much that Harry opposed my turning the manny into legal tender. His defiance stemmed more from his belief that I’d gotten Wolf for the sole purpose of replacing him.

  “It’s often said that humans have a deep need to share their problems with others,” I began. “By talking, people can unburden themselves. But not everyone is willing to lend a sympathetic ear. And that’s where the manny comes in. My manny is the best at listening. A manny is the ultimate confidant. It never passes judgment or finds fault.”

  Harry closed his book and rose to his feet. “No doubt about it. Your secrets are safe with it.”

  “Hold on, I’m going somewhere with this,” I called out when he turned into the kitchen.

  “Lemme know when you get there,” he yelled back as he opened the refrigerator.

  Harry’s snippiness was clearly meant to shut me up, if not out. Yet I was not affronted. Harry’s terse guy-style dialogue was not unlike what I got from my manny.

  Therefore, it was no more pointless to talk to Wolf than it was to talk to Harry. At times, while watching a late-night TV show, I found myself asking his opinion or complaining about the programming or even explaining a joke I knew it didn’t get.

  This activity caused me to come up with another marketable function: mannys could provide a groundbreaking approach to psychotherapy. And here’s the good part: the manny sessions would eliminate scheduled appointments, routine tests, tedious progress reports; and best of all, sticker shock.

  In my dealings with my manny, I found I could plumb the depths of my subconscious, reexamine old horrors, and reveal my most hidden thoughts.

  My manny never rejected me; it never cut me
short or put me down. It was always there for me, present and attentive. For the first time in my life I was experiencing the awe and the mystery of a platonic connection to another existence. I truly pondered the distinction between a fondness for a block of wood as contrast to any other icon and all it symbolized.

  With good cause, I respected my manny. It never overstepped the boundaries, invaded my space, or took advantage of my moments of dependency. It asked for nothing, no monetary contributions, no sexual favors, no sacrifices of any kind. My manny never detracted from my own self-esteem; it, in fact, contributed to it.

  If only I could share my own inspiring experiences with Harry. If only I could elicit his help in my latest idea to make money.

  Clubbing Wolf on the Way In

  Without my knowledge, Harry had divested Wolf of his Prussian medals. In the military, the higher your rank, the better your chance for survival. Evidently Harry disliked being out ranked by a dummy.

  It did not bode well.

  Fated though I was to populate the world with mannys, I had come to a fork in the hazardous road to financial success. Either I could cave to Harry’s opposition or I could pursue my goals without him. After all, my manny had not simply crawled out of the woodwork; it had come to me for a purpose, something I now saw as a lucrative manny-manufacturing business.

  I resolved to attack the problem head on. I snapped open a can of beer, sat on the sofa next to Wolf, and watched an old TV movie. Afterward, I crawled into bed next to Harry, who, from his snoring, was fast asleep.

  About an hour later, I was awakened by the soft patter of what sounded like cautious footfalls coming from the living room. Ready to dismiss it and go back to sleep, I heard a faintly impish giggle in a distant part of the apartment. Rather than wake Harry and worry him by explaining that this was not the first time I’d heard someone out there prowling around, I pulled off my covers, crept to the closet, and seized his golf putter. My heart racing, I stepped into the moonlit living room and in the next instant glimpsed a hump-shaped shadow move toward me from the front door.

  Thinking it an intruder, I swung the golf club sideways and struck something that gave off a hollow thunk! From the squeak of the rolling wheels, I knew too late that I had clipped Wolf on his stand. I dropped the club just as the dummy fell forward. Its limp limbs flailing from the impact of the club, it landed on me and set me stumbling backward toward the sofa.

  I still wrestled beneath my manny when Harry switched on the light and cried, “Well, this is a pretty sight.” He glared at me. “And you have the gall to think I’d been deviant with that doll.”

  As Harry marched off, I scrambled to my feet, adjusted my nightgown, and scanned the surroundings. It’s not like I’d been caught with my pants down; but, given the context, I didn’t bother to explain. I rarely attempted to justify myself when Harry’s ego got inflamed.

  “Okay, sailor boy, up you go.” I hefted Wolf onto the sofa. “So what do you have to say for yourself? Come on; speak up. Speak, speak,” I demanded, and Spike next door barked.

  I touched the small dent the golf club made in Wolf’s wooden head and winced, despite his lack for feeling pain. His cocked eyes and puckered lips around the cute little oval made him appear more inebriated than anything.

  “You were supposed to be dependable,” I began, finding it hard to stay mad at him. “You’re starting to act like all the other jerks on the planet. So maybe I do treat you like a human being. That’s no reason for you to behave like one…” I plucked his pancake-shaped cap off the floor, slapped it on my knee, and placed it rakishly on his head.

  On the sofa beside him, I brushed carpet fibers off his dark blue sailor suit when a papery crackle came from inside the breast pocket that held his whistle. I slipped my fingers into the pocket and produced a crisp new twenty-dollar bill. I stared at the bill, not knowing what to make of it. At the front door, the deadbolt was on as I’d left it. But the manny was not on the sofa as I’d left it. I again looked down, turning the bill over in my hand. What you’re thinking is crazy. Wolfie going out…scoring on his own?

  While sitting there, watching Wolf keep to himself, I was thrust headlong into a more likely explanation. This was just another of Harry’s tricks to sour me on my business aspirations. Here I’d been racking my brains to give Harry a piece of the manny action.

  I then stomped into the bedroom and switched on the light. “Wake up, Harry. We need to talk.”

  “Huh?” He lifted his head, scrunching his face.

  “I know you think I’m some kind of manny-iac who imagines that my manny simply manny-fested out of nowhere and has manny-ipulated me into pursuing a manny-manufacturing business that I’m now in need of a mental manny-cure.”

  “Stop that! Just stop it!”

  “Stop what?” I asked, perplexed.

  “Stop with the manny-speak.”

  “I didn’t even realize I was doing it. If so, I might have called it manny-lish, a dialect of English. Oh, and the twenty-buck tip didn’t fool me, though it was a nice touch.”

  When he bolted upright with a pillow balled in one fist, I turned away from the scene. A barrage of pillows hit the bedroom door just as I pulled it closed.

  A minute passed before I again pushed the door open and poked my head inside. “You missed.” Just as I once more slammed the door closed, Harry’s slippers hit the other side with a loud thump.

  An Identity Theft

  Because the manufacturing of mannys would be an ambitious undertaking, I was still determined to get Harry on board. I might even find a position for him in the corporation I intended to create. After all, Harry was not a career naval officer. His stint would end in about seven months.

  So sometime later that week, as Harry sat at the kitchen table going through a stack of mail he’d just picked up from downstairs, I began again.

  “Your biases aside, manny making is a noble calling. It could be my life’s work. It could define who I am.”

  “It looks more like you’re trying to define who I am.”

  “Just you watch, mannys could catch on. I realize that manny manufacturing strikes you as a bit far-out.”

  “Absurd would be more like it,” Harry said without looking up from the mail.

  “Everything new seems strange at first. Consider the mannys’ practical features. What a welcome relief mannys could be for busy soccer moms. After a long day spent slogging through housework and dragging the kids from the sports field to band practice, it’d be nice to sit in a quiet space, sip a glass of wine, and commune with a partner who doesn’t expect anything from you.”

  “Your sidekick doesn’t disappoint.”

  “A manny doesn’t care how you look. A manny doesn’t care if you’ve had a bad day.

  “Think of it, Harry,” I babbled on. “A manny craze sweeps the country. Mannys become all the rave. They’re at the top of everybody’s wish list. Shoppers line up at outlets to get the latest addition. Web sites are bombarded with orders that can’t be filled fast enough.” I lapsed into a fantasy about my manny factory in full swing. I could almost see it, carvers whittling away at chunks of lumber, assemblers connecting the parts. Shelves lined with flexible manikins of different shapes and sizes, their blank faces waiting to be painted with the customer’s desired image.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Harry said abruptly. “You finally did it.” He scowled at me and raised an official-looking letter in his trembling hand. “You actually went and opened an account in his name.”

  “Whose name?”

  “Your major employee-slash-business partner.” Harry tapped the name printed on the sheet of paper. “Wolfgang Kin.”

  “Let me see that.” I snatched the letter from Harry’s hand, and right away recognized it as a credit card statement from our bank. “Oh, no!” If I believed the printed page, Wolf eats in five-star restaurants, stays in the best hotels, and shops at the priciest boutiques. In less than a week, he’d spent over three thousand dollars. />
  “This has got to be a mistake.”

  “It’s no mistake,” Harry bellowed. “That’s his name along with our phone number and address.”

  My mind went back to the time that Harry had probably duped me into smacking the manny with a golf club—the night I found the twenty-dollar tip in Wolf’s breast pocket. I wondered if this credit-card caper was another of Harry’s schemes to implicate the manny.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “It means that Wolf is a victim of identity theft.”

  Harry gazed upward as if seeking divine intervention. “It means that, because of you, that stupid dummy has somehow managed to screw up our credit. If you weren’t always out, hauling him around, making believe he was real, this wouldn’t have happened.”

  I did a quick retrospect, wondering how so much info about Wolf had become public. Something began taking shape, and I didn’t like it.

  “The only time I ever wrote my manny’s name and our address in association with a credit card was paying to enter the Skate King. You remember. He won a pair of high-top skates in the drawing.” I made a vapid smile. “When Wolf didn’t show to pick up his prize, somebody else must have.” I held up the bank statement, thinking that the best defense is an offense. “What I have here is an example of credit-card fraud. This never would have happened if you filled in as master of ceremonies, like you were supposed to.”

  “It never would have happened, if you hadn’t pretended he could skate.”

  I headed for the telephone, a move that was in part meant to change the focus—as in blame a third party—so that Harry would cease wigging out on me. “I better call the bank.” I poked in the eight-hundred number listed on the statement and listened to ringing. “It’s really the bank’s fault. Of all things, issuing a credit card to a dummy. No wonder consumer debt is out of control.”

  After going through a menu, and spending fifteen minutes on hold, I finally spoke to a representative of the bank. In my best self-righteous voice, I explained the situation and declared I had nothing to do with it.