Me and My Manny

by M. A. MacAfee

  Gripped by a sense of urgency, I rushed to the pantry for the rope I’d used to lasso Wolf at the Seafair parade.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here to help you and keep you from hurting yourself. Or anyone else.” I looped the rope over his midsection and circled him, binding him to the chair. Mindful to keep Harry from harm, I had to safeguard the manny. “Now, isn’t that comfy?” I took a knife from the wooden block and cut the rope so I could knot it at his shoulder.

  Just as I returned the knife to its slot, the front door slammed shut and Harry, back from shooting hoops, entered the kitchen.

  “It’s the damnedest thing,” he said, washing his hands in the kitchen sink. “I’m on the basketball court down at the park, and these two women start watching me, pointing and whispering.” He dried his hands with a paper towel and removed a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge. “Next thing I know a cop shows up and questions me about assaulting them some months ago. I never in my life saw these old babes.” He uncapped the bottle and took a few gulps. “Lucky for me, the cop believed me and let it drop.” Lowering the bottle to the table, he eyed the rope around Wolf then looked at me, a quizzical expression on his face.

  “I’m just keeping Wolf put. So he doesn’t fall over.”

  “You’re now into bondage?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  Harry next curled and uncurled his fingers as if to loosen them. Afterward, I noticed the pinkie finger of his right hand had swelled to twice its normal size.

  “What happened to your little finger?”

  He raised his hand and wiggled the digits. “I jammed it shooting baskets.”

  I turned toward Wolf, sitting with the backs of his hands resting on his knees. The tip of the reattached pinkie finger was almost as visible as the middle finger, turned upward as if to flip me off. Now, forced to suspend my disbelief, I wondered if Harry had begun feeling some of what Wolf experienced.

  Seeing an opportunity to grill the both of them at the same time, I situated a chair across from Wolf. “Sit down, Harry.” I handed him the length of rope I’d cut after lashing Wolf. “Hold this.”

  Harry took it without question, yet as soon as I began tying him up, since I couldn’t tell how far along either was in the changeover, he flung the rope down and sprang to his feet.

  “What the hell are you trying to pull?”

  “Nothing. Just having some fun.”

  “I was right. You’re into bondage.”

  “Ah, c’mon, Har. I was only playing.”

  “Hard to tell with you,” he said, narrowing his eyes.

  Dinner being done provided a good diversion. Wearing oven mitts, I removed the hot dish and scooped a generous serving of spicy meatballs and spaghetti onto his plate.

  “Enjoy,” I said, sitting across from him.

  As Harry again settled in his chair, it occurred to me that over the past six to seven years in the navy, he had traveled much of the world, a point that aroused my curiosity.

  “Har, are you at all familiar with Collodi, Italy? It’s a town named after an Italian author.”

  He paused with a forkful of twirled spaghetti halfway to his mouth. “No, why’d you ask?”

  “No particular reason. It’s just… maybe someone from the area would know something about repairing Wolfs eyes.”

  “Speaking of which”—Harry swallowed and jabbed his fork toward Wolf—“You’d better untie him.”

  “He isn’t going anywhere,” I said with a nervous hitch in my voice.

  “Suppose there’s a fire. We can’t take the elevator. How you going to haul him down four flights of stairs in a chair. Unless you plan to leave him—”

  I quickly loosened the rope and turned back to Harry. “Feeling any better?”

  He held up his puffy finger. “A hot shower and I’ll be loose as a puppet.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I mumbled out of earshot, moving toward the sink.

  Scrapping Wolf

  It was after eleven, well past my bedtime, when I’d finished a glass of warm milk and padded into the bedroom. Harry was under the covers with one arm flung over his face.

  “Harry, are you still awake?” Hearing him snort, I sat on the edge of the bed and peered at him through the shadows. “What would you say if I give up the idea of running my own business?” This time he grunted. “Kadee Harper said there may be an opening for me in accounting.”

  “Sounds to me as if you’re about to scrap the manny,” he said in a tired voice.

  “Might have to, all things considered.”

  Harry flipped onto his side, his face in the pillow. “You’ll need a buzz saw. It’s like you’re joined at the hip.”

  “Sometimes I feel attached to him, like you too might have yourself.”

  “I’m used to him. But if you want him gone, he goes.”

  “Are you actually implying that I should keep him around?”

  “No, it’s just—”

  “Talk to me.”

  Again on his back, he raised his head, his bleary eyes sliding in their sockets. “I was about to say don’t junk him on my account.”

  “So you don’t think it’s a good idea?”

  He sighed. “Doesn’t matter what I think.”

  “But it does,” I said frustrated by his stubbornness. “Tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell.”

  “Please, you know I respect your input.” I waited a moment, watching him drift back to slumber. “Harry?” I gripped his shoulder and shook it. To my alarm, his eyeballs beneath his half closed lids appeared slightly crossed.

  “Can’t we just drop this? I’m dead tired.” His voice trailed off.

  I got up, went into the bathroom, and brushed my teeth. I splashed warm water on my face, patted it dry, and examined my reflection in the mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink. I wanted both of them back to their old polarized positions. Money motivated though I am, I did not relish being a willing accomplice to Harry’s revision.

  I returned to the kitchen alcove, dimly illuminated by the light I’d left on over the stove. Wolf was seated on the stool in the corner. For an instant, I had an urge to chop him into kindling and toss the pieces into the barbeque until I envisioned Harry going up in a spontaneous combustion.

  I looked into the manny’s cocked eyes. “So, Wolfie, anything you should tell me?” I jabbed a finger in his midsection. He jerked a little and I jumped back. “I know what you’re up to. I’m on to you.” I was about to leave, but an afterthought caused me to swing back. “And another thing. One move out of you, and you’re little wooden ass is history.”

  A Phone Call

  The recent turn of events had so disturbed me that I had lain awake the entire night, listening to the mice scratching in the pantry. Now, the next day, to find their point of entry, I’d gone downstairs to retrieve the flashlight Lisa borrowed during the blackout the night of the séance.

  On reentering my apartment, I swept my eyes across the room, a new habit since recently things often appeared out of place. In the midst of my survey, I noticed the answering machine on the end table blinking. Earlier, Harry had taken his vintage Chevy to a nearby mechanic to have it serviced. Thinking the caller was Harry, I pushed the button, expecting to hear his report that the heap had finally reached its expiration date.

  Instead a woman with a syrupy southern drawl spoke. “Wolfgang, it’s me, Bunny from the club.” After a breathy pause, the woman spoke again. “Come on, funny boy, pick up…pick up. It’s me, your honey-bunny girl. Y’all know, the gorgeous brunette with the cutest little tail.” The sugary drawl yielded to a sexy moan. “I’ll be at the club again tonight. Same time, same place. So make it out, okay, Mr. Hottie?”

  The message ended, and I played it again, convinced of its authenticity as opposed to somebody’s idea of a gag. Toward its conclusion, Spike from next door began to howl. It was a feral, wolf-like howl, one possibly stimulated by something wild in Bunny’s voice. Whe
n the recording shut off and Spike quieted down, I stood, trembling, going over certain words again and again. Wolfgang…funny boy…Mr. Hottie! Well, that cinches it!

  I marched into the alcove where Wolf was parked on his wheelie-stand. Grasping him by the collar, I tugged him from his stand, indifferent to the clatter of his limbs. I dropped him into a kitchen chair and stood over him with my hands on my hips.

  “I guess I don’t need to tell you that Bunny from the club just called. Y’all know, the honey-bunny girl with the cutest little tail?”

  He sat motionless, looking innocent as a spring lamb.

  “How do you explain this, Mr. Hottie?”

  “Okay, so maybe I had tried to turn you out for profit, but never without virtue…” I thumped the table so hard that the salt-and-pepper shakers jumped.

  “I try to make something of you, and look what you do. You think it’s easy to become an entrepreneur?”

  Hearing a noise coming from my doorway, I went to the foyer and looked out the peephole for eavesdroppers.

  “You’ve not only betrayed me,” I said upon my return to my manny, “you’ve blown my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  If Wolf had a cover, I might have thought that such a tongue-lashing would cause him to blow it, but nothing.

  “Here I give you every benefit of every doubt,” I tore into him again. “And all the while, you’re out rolling around like hell on wheels. Well, this time you’ve shown your true colors, Mr. Hottie.”

  I struggled to compose myself. “I’ll admit that most of my focus has been on the bottom line. But not anymore. I do not make deals with the Devil. So get it straight. Harry’s anatomy is nonnegotiable!”

  Hearing keys jingling in the hallway, I pressed my finger over my lips. A second later, the front door slammed shut.

  “Clunker’s fixed,” Harry’s voice sounded. “Should be good for another five to ten miles.”

  He emerged from the entryway and glanced around. “What’s all the yelling about?”

  “I wasn’t yelling. I was talking to Wolf.”

  Harry strode closer, frowning at the manny. “I think when you scream at my facsimile loud enough to be heard all over the building, I’ve got a right to be let in on the subject.”

  I ran my tongue over my parched lips. “Harry, I have a problem.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Seriously. I know I’ve been acting weird, but for a reason. Things aren’t like they used to be. Things have changed, and we’ve changed with them. Take the way you’ve been behaving lately. Like combing your hair all slicked back. Craving Italian food. And a bunch of other things. I thought you were joking when imitating Wolf. But now I’m not so sure.”

  “Come on. It was a joke. I was just trying to amuse our friends. As for the rest, I was trying to amuse you.”

  “Maybe you thought that’s what motivated you.”

  Harry turned contemplative. “If I have changed, it’s for the better, right? I’ve been too one-sided. Too full of myself. So now I’m into give-and-take.”

  “Give-and-take?”

  “Because of me,” he said as he pulled off his jacket, “a lot between us has been on your shoulders. You’ve had to move often, quit business school, and change jobs. It’s only right I go halves.” He turned to hang his jacket on a hook in the entryway.

  Poised though I was on the edge of insanity, a rational thought pierced my brain. The phone message, coming on top of everything else, had so upended me that I failed to see that Bunny’s Mr. Hottie could have been the identity thief who had used our address and phone number to spend thousands in my manny’s name. The call was a mistake, nothing more. No sense in mentioning it to Harry. He’d only wig out as he had when Wolf received preapproved offers in the mail.

  “But, sweetie,” I said, making nice as I sidled over to the phone and pressed the button to erase Bunny’s message. “I love you just the way you are. Were. I mean, it’s perfectly okay that you’re a self-centered egomaniac. That’s the bigheaded guy I married.”

  Harry facing me again shook his head. “Negative. I’ve learned from my mistakes. You put crap out there; you get crap back.”

  “But some crap’s okay.”

  Harry seemed transformed, his face going almost as jolly as Wolf’s, his demeanor flirty. “I ever tell you I like the cut of your jib?”

  “At ease, sailor.” I gestured toward the stack of dirty dishes piled in the kitchen sink. “I have work to do.”

  “Okay,” Harry said, looking at Wolf. “Judging from him, you’re not all that exciting right now anyhow.”

  I, too, gave Wolf the once-over. Though he looked simple-minded as ever, his head had dropped to one side and his eyelids hung half closed, a position that seemed he’d stopped trying as if already satisfied with past achievements, at least temporarily.

  Interring Wolf

  The idea of putting Wolf in handcuffs and leg irons had crossed my mind. But, on recalling Harry’s reaction to my rope trick, I knew he’d again accuse me of dabbling in deviance. That was all the straight-arrow Harry needed to pooh-pooh the notion that he had it right in the first place—a takeover really was in the works.

  But when had it been initiated? When will it be completed? I went into the alcove and looked at the calendar on the wall over my desk. It was November, and the picture over the numbered days showed a bright moon beaming down on a snow-covered ground. Would it be many moon cycles, or a single moon cycle? Neither, if I could help it.

  It was eleven in the morning and gray light spilled through the hallway window when I slipped on a sweater and pushed Wolf out of the apartment and into the elevator. Harry had left for the naval station at dawn, and one of our parking spaces was presently empty. With Wolf rolling in front of me, I guided him out of the elevator and across the subterranean garage to our storage locker adjacent our parking slots. I glanced around and seeing the area was deserted, I fished my key ring out of my pocket and slid the correct key into the padlock.

  The padlock removed from the locker, I opened the big double doors. The space appeared the size of a large closet, about nine feet high, six feet long, and four feet wide. I had stored Wolf’s crate in the locker because I couldn’t fit it in the recycle Dumpster. Now as I took in its hefty construction with old-timey shipping labels, I was glad it was still intact. I had only to wipe away the cobwebs.

  I then lifted the lid of my manny’s crate. Grunting under the strain, I elevated Wolf off his stand and carried him across my arms. Tilting forward, I dropped him into the crate and darn near fell in after him.

  “Maximum security, Wolfie. I’d like to see you break out of this one,” I said as he sank into his shredded bed of packing material.

  I crossed his hands on his chest, took a final look at his closed eyes, and lowered the lid. I hadn’t planned on sealing the crate. If my hunch was correct, Wolf would need the source of fresh air so that Harry didn’t suffocate.

  After angling my manny’s wheelie-cart inside the locker, too, I shut the doors, secured the padlock, and turned to leave.

  “Hello, Judy,” a voice echoed from the shadows.

  I drew back and clapped my hand over my heart.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.” Mrs. Crumble, hunched and gnarled, stepped from the distant darkness, pushing an old-fashioned wheelchair. “I saw the numbers over the elevator pass from the fourth floor to down here. That’s when it occurred to me. I really should get Mr. Crumble’s wheelchair out of my apartment. Seeing it empty everyday is so depressing.”

  Touched by her loneliness, I offered to assist her, but absentminded as she was, she’d forgotten to bring the key to her padlock.

  “Now where did I put it?” she wondered aloud when I told her she needed to fetch it.

  While the old woman struggled with a lengthy senior moment, I suggested she contact me as soon as she found the key. If the wheelchair was too heavy for me when the time came, I doubted Harry would mind helping her stow it aw
ay.

  Crawling from the Crypt

  On the second night of Wolf’s confinement, I was alone in the bedroom, listening to the rising wind. I moved toward the glass sliders and viewed the dim street below. Black branches on naked trees swayed, and the last of the yellow leaves swirled across the deserted sidewalks. The misty late autumn moon had risen, high in the night sky. From somewhere outside my front door, down the long, darkened stairwell and into the subterranean garage below, I imagined stirring sounds arising from a makeshift crypt.

  My ears attuned to the shifting wind, I began to pick up a hint of heavy breathing from behind me. I turned away from the window, drawn by the rhythmic rise and fall of what sounded like respiration with faint snores.

  In the living room, the figure of a man with his head bent forward sat in the leather recliner by the low burning lamp on the end table.

  Though my breath caught, I managed to speak. “Harry, is that you?”

  The figure pushed upward and stretched, causing its joints to crackle. “In the flesh,” sounded Harry’s voice. “I must have dozed off.”

  “For a moment, I thought—”

  From where I stood, I saw the silhouette of another figure, one that was at best only a parody of a man, sitting on the stool in the alcove off the kitchen. I felt shock as if I’d grabbed a live wire. From the outline of its turned-up nose and protruding ears, I could tell it was my manny. I glanced toward the bolted front door and spotted a thin trail of excelsior on the carpet, as well.

  As I stood, a high-pitched voice with an Italian accent flickered through my head. You can’t dump me that easily, girlie.

  Harry peered at me. “The look on your face, you must have thought I was the boogeyman.”

  Unsure if I interacted with Harry disguised as Wolf or with Wolf disguised as Harry, I offered an uneasy smile. The worst of it, the thing that Harry was becoming… the thing that was becoming Harry was not human.