I determined to bring him home the finest living meal my stomach could stand the thought of.
I checked out lizards, turtles, and snakes. I mean, I like reptiles, and still, in my heart, believe that reptiles are the ultimate pets and . . . in terms of my own experience, the most rewarding companions. But every iguana, turtle or garter snake in the place looked as though it would be a severe letdown after a plump meal like Dorothy. Mrs. Brisbee, that is.
I settled for two obvious and inexpensive and—as it turned out—fortuitous choices: ten goldfish and two white rats.
The pet shop guy was the same one I'd been dealing with every month for the last five years, and yet he didn't seem to recognize me at first. Me or anything else. He was slow, distracted, disturbed. He mumbled under his breath.
Suddenly, his female coworker came running and crying out of the back room.
"It died, Charlie. It just fell . . . apart," collapsing into a sobbing fit right in front of us. Charlie tried to calm her down, walking her back towards the rear of the store, whispering to her, but when he stepped back behind the counter I could see that he was just a hair's edge more composed than she, and was fighting back tears as he looked at me and smiled.
"Sorry, sir, one of our . . .” His expression changed, his mouth and eyes widening. "It's you."
"Me? Yeah, what about me?"
"I mean, I'm sorry, sir. It's just . . . you are the gentleman who bought that fifty-five-gallon tank and that black rock, and was . . . um, having problems with your water clouding up?"
"Yeah, that's me."
He smiled and then looked over the countertop, his face flushing, looking at the selection he'd helped me pick out and package, as though seeing it for the first time.
"Omigod," his voice screeched up an octave. "What are you going to do with all these animals?"
"I'm going to skin them and make clothes out of them."
"I'm sorry. Ha! Ha! Ha! I don't know what came over me, sir!"
He shook his head, moaned, and tried to smile. "Bad day, bad day."
I lifted my packages off the counter and was almost out the door when I realized that I'd been there for half an hour without going down the long, picturesque aisle of tropical fish, the unworthy goldfish being far off to the side of them. I decided to take a stroll up and down the aisle before leaving.
And as I did, an indescribable, inexcusable mixture of horror and joy came over me.
I could read the signs. The rocks, the porous, thorny rocks, some in clear, heavily populated tanks, others in tanks that were in various stages of clouding, the occupants crowded and huddling on one side of the tank—always the side farthest from the rock. Some were empty, some were no more than empty spaces where there used to be tanks. The whole fish department was going to hell. And no one seemed worried about it. Not when they had a dying . . . dead thing in the back of the store.
It was silent and unmoving when I entered my living room with its groceries. The water was beginning to cloud a rich reddish-brown again, which I took as a good sign.
I believe that when I killed the colony off with fresh water, I was cutting off its final food supply. Even now, I could see it shrunken and shapeless. For a moment, I was sure it was dead.
I didn't see the goldfish die. They just disappeared, one by one, over the course of the evening.
Within a day, the water reached its rust-colored opacity again and within a day after that, I could actually hear activity in the tank again, even an occasional smack of glass on glass as it swatted the thermometer against what seemed to be all four sides of the tank.
So I hung on to the white rats, not because I had a problem feeding them to such a hideous creature, but because I was concerned about the ideal time to give it another big feeding. After all, I didn't want to spoil him.
And in the meantime, I began talking to him. I called him Robert. Don't ask me why I gave him my own name. It began as an occasional comment. But as the days passed, I talked to him more and more, in an increasingly confidential—no, confessional—way. I'd ask him questions. Big, important questions. And when I finally fed him the white rats, it was with the firm conviction that he hadn't really wanted or needed them until now. Just as I was convinced that he knew all about the rats because I'd told him about them.
I took a drive out to another pet shop—where I wasn't known—for my next run. I got a dozen goldfish and a half a dozen white mice. When I finally returned to the neighborhood shop, the whole fish section was closed off for renovation and remodeling. Strangely enough, they had more mammals than ever. Today there was a run on rabbits. I bought two, and three customers in front of me at the counter all had them, too.
Charlie, the guy behind the counter, was a changed man, cheerful and wise-cracking as he got us all our rabbits (no questions asked) and took our money. I felt like asking him about the . . . thing or things in the back of the store, but I didn't have a chance to. He just talked on and on about how popular these rabbits were and how we had to take good care of them, not recognizing me so much as recognizing all of us collectively.
But time was running out for me . . . for us. Soon, a fifty-five-gallon tank would be too small for him. Soon there would be too little water to keep him comfortable, to keep him masked from my squeamish scrutiny. I tried aging water as long as I could, but no matter how long I left it sitting out, it killed off the planktonic colony as soon as I added it to the aquarium, sending Robert into a whining frenzy.
I was missing more work. I was getting along poorly with the rest of the staff. Dorothy wouldn't answer my calls.
And he was beginning to wear away at the cabinet supporting him. When he went into a frenzy, the cabinet would sway too much, cracking way too much. Even during his somnolent periods the cabinet would creak.
Something would change—had to change. And I knew that this change would have little or nothing to do with me. I was just a helpless spectator, overly concerned and uncomfortably close to the action. I kept talking to him, but every once in a while I had the urge to really . . . let him die . . . even to kill him. But such weak moments were few, and were always followed by days of guilt and depression. I was never far from the thought of how dependent he was on me. And how soon this would change.
Then, one evening I came home to the usual dark apartment, kicked my shoes off at the door and took a loud, wet step onto the living room carpet. I gasped so loud it sounded as though I was screaming and swallowing at the same time. I turned on a light.
The aquarium hood was overturned on the floor, but Robert was still in the aquarium. The noduled ridge that ran down his back and the padded extremities that floated at the water's surface were all visible.
"Robbie? Robbie, you nasty little thing, were you crawling around on the floor? Huh?" I scolded him gently as I replaced the light, my voice raised and distorted into what could only be described as baby talk.
He had been roaming the apartment, leaving a glutinous, watery trail. He'd been everywhere he could get without opening a door. Looking for food? It didn't seem possible that he could be hungry again already, and yet . . . he was getting so big . . .
I couldn't stand it. I went out to dinner. I went to the nearest K-Mart to check out guns at the sporting goods department, but I didn't buy any. Instead, I bought every hamster in the pet department—sixteen of them.
Two nights later, he woke me up.
He was often noisy and excitable enough to wake me, but he was quiet now, hovering silently over me as I lay in bed, dripping water and running his padded tentacles across my face and over my body.
I didn't dare open my eyes, though I'm sure he knew I was awake. I was sure that he was, at that very moment, about to make the great gastronomic leap from rodent to human.
I was awake for about ten minutes of this, wondering how long it had been going on, when he suddenly moved away from me, actually straightening his spindly, segmented legs and raised his body almost to the ceiling as he let out a long, shrill
whistle.
I felt a light bounce against the bed and heard him land, strong and sure on the floor. I slowly turned and watched as he moved toward the door.
My first impression was that of a half-dozen creatures all riding on the back of a giant spider. He was mostly legs. There may have been as many as ten of them. Hanging and coiling and whipping amid these orderly, machine-like legs were at least as many tentacles, some thick, some in the shuddering act of turning from thick to thin, as though the tentacles themselves belonged to two or three different creatures, all slung limp into a shapeless mass.
But after those first few unfocused instants, I saw sparks begin to shoot off either side of Robert's great crest, exploding into twisted tendrils of light that at times seemed to cover his back like a great net as the body beneath this display seemed to shudder in and out of focus. And finally, as he rounded the corner of my door, I saw a flicker of red light deep within the torso.
I lay there gripping the sheets, trying to blink the picture out of my mind.
When I heard the crashing, I thought he had just knocked something over in his aimless wandering. But the noise didn't stop. It got louder, erupting finally into the breaking of glass.
I sat up screaming our name, jumped from the bed and ran into the kitchen. He had smashed through the window above the sink, leaving crushed pans and shattered glass in his wake.
And so now he was out. Free. I'd done nothing—hadn't called the zoo, the University, hadn't killed him, hadn't taken the damned rock back to the pet shop demanding a refund. And now it was much more than just my problem.
I didn't go to work the next day. I sat around drinking Cokes, smoking cigars, pacing the apartment, wandering the neighborhood, combing the newspapers and watching the TV newscasts, waiting for the grisly crime to surface, the crime that only I could explain.
Suddenly, what happened on the news had something to do with me.
It was already dark out before I put anything better than cut grocery bags over the kitchen window.
It was two days before he returned, two very long, agonizing and yes, very lonely days, during which nothing happened—with the exception of one or two brief, vague news stories which may have . . . might have . . . and as I would learn soon enough, must have had something to do with Robert.
He returned in the middle of the night, neatly popping off the plywood window patch and following the path I'd cleared for him. I heard him plopping into the cramped, unstable confines of the aquarium, groaning and sizzling as he tried to sink beneath the surface.
"Hello, Robert."
I heard a knocking and groaning from inside the tank. The particle-board beneath it creaked out a warning.
The next morning I stood over him smiling and talking as I did my tie. Two little, slime-coated translucent lumps sat above the surface, and I let myself think they were eyes.
I had the TV on in the background and managed to hear the tail end of a news story that seemed to deal with my own neighborhood. I didn't really catch much of it, but I didn't worry. The reporter's face and voice seemed too cheerful for it to have had anything to do with me.
I had to spend more money on his food. I had to buy a bigger tank, at least a hundred-gallon. I had to find a way to keep him from leaving again. I just couldn't go on this way, worrying about what I might have to hold myself accountable for . . .
I'd have to work more hours. Robert was going to cost more and more as time went on, and I had to keep thinking of his feeding as an over-the-counter, pay-as-I-go, strictly legal, moral, and ethical affair.
That night I drove from work directly to the pet shop. I planned on buying every hamster, rabbit, rat, mouse and gerbil in the place. Who knows? Maybe even a few cats as well. I was just oozing good will.
What I found at the pet shop jarred my little fantasy. The big windows on either side of the door were blown away, the door was gone, the interior was gutted and the whole place blocked off by the police.
I joined a group of three people who were talking to one of the cops. He looked half bored to death as he stood there leaning to one side with crossed arms, listening to these three people, all of whom seemed on the verge of hysteria.
"Sorry, sir, the shop's closed. Ha! Closed for the duration, you might say. Ha! Ha!"
"What the hell happened?"
"No one knows, sir."
The woman next to me burst in: "This and three other shops in the area."
"Four others," piped in an old man.
"Totally ruined. Everything gone . . .”
"Everything!" I was beginning to feel a little bit hysterical myself. "Omigod! Shit!" It must have been a little loud and I must have looked a bit wired, because everyone jumped or at least flinched and a cop thirty feet away turned and looked at me.
"Hey, fella," the cop intoned. "Settle down, will you?" he looked at all four of us and shook his head in disgust. "I don't know what's got into you folks."
"Listen, pal," I snarled, pushing my way through the group and standing face to face with the cop, "I need rodents, and I need 'em fast!"
He laughed. He stopped and thought about it. He laughed louder and harder and longer and turned away from us completely.
"Hey, Stuart! Ha! Ha! Get a load of this group over here!"
The three civilians on the scene didn't seem to think it funny at all. They were withering, withdrawing into their own dread, muttering to themselves. I could only make out one audible phrase, and I couldn't even tell who said it: "What am I going to do?"
We all nodded sadly.
~ * ~
All the way home, my head swam. The things, breaking out and destroying the shop. Those three people. And the cop, laughing not so much at me, but all of us as a group.
And god. Oh, God, God. Me walking in the door. I can barely stand to think of it now, let alone pass it on in print. He was gone, of course. The apartment didn't look so bad, considering.
The slime trail was much more purposeful this time. There was no more than ten inches of water in the aquarium. And there was . . . there was . . .
I do feel responsible. I do. But not this responsible.
There was a slimy mess on the floor, a regurgitation, as it turned out.
I didn't mean to examine it. I picked it up with about forty wadded up paper towels and noticed immediately beneath the soft, flowing slime was something hard. Something long and thin.
It flopped back onto the floor as I tried to lift the mass into the garbage can.
It was an arm.
I turned away, screaming, and let out three dry retches. It was an arm, a human arm, and it . . . it . . . was . . . It wasn't very big.
He hasn't come back. At first I thought he would. I left the arm—wrapped, of course in the refrigerator for an entire day, thinking he would return to me, hungry, remembering the little morsel he'd left behind.
And then things started happening that made me realize that he probably wouldn't be coming back at all. It was on the evening news. A string of grisly the reporter actually used the word monstrous—crimes in this and two neighboring towns stirred recognition in me.
There is way too much food out there, too much room, too much darkness, and too much water running beneath our streets. He's never coming back.
For awhile I was sure there was a chance. I began to call Dorothy, trying to reconcile with her, trying to show how much I've changed, explaining why I'd behaved so foolishly for all those years, telling her how beautiful she'd looked that last time I saw her and how good and kind and patient she'd been with me all those years and all the while thinking about what a great meal she would be for Robert.
Ultimately, it didn't work out. It couldn't have worked out. I see this now, now that it's all over and I can reflect on my abominable behavior. Things are going to be different now. I'm putting in more time at work. I'm bathing more. I'm socializing more. I catch myself falling into the same old traps, but I fight the urge to make abusive, astringent comments about subjects
of which I know nothing. I find I have less to say because of it, but that's all right, too. There will be other things to say. I'll think of something.
And the murders continue. People are, quite simply, being eaten, their scraps scattered in bouquets of blood. The news folks have had a great time with all this, always wondering just how much gore they can get away with showing—especially now, during Sweeps Week. I recognize Robert's handiwork, his and his kindred. I know I should feel worse than I do. I'm working at feeling bad about all this carnage, trying hard to fight this feeling of . . . pride. I should be afraid. Everyone is afraid. But not me. I'm marked. I'm a friend.
And then there are the fish dreams. They've come back. Last night the twenty-foot scorpion fish in the aquarium-labyrinth called me a traitor to my phylum. Which, of course, I am. That and . . . much worse. But I'm working on it.
And I think of all those people buying rabbits that day. And that other day little more than a week later, with those three people talking to the cop in front of the trashed storefront. If only we could have acknowledged our link, our kinship. Ex-changed phone numbers . . .
The store is no more. And Robert is gone. And there's no way to replace him . . .
Wait a second! Where did I . . .
Yes, that's it! There was a second rock, a smaller one I didn't use. Where the hell is it? Where would I put it? In the closet with my aquarium maintenance supplies? In a dresser drawer? In any kind of drawer? In the pantry? In a closet?
In the cabinet under the sink!
Oh, yes, oh god, here it is! No, no, it isn't so small at all, is it? And here, deep in this central hole, the light crackle of something dry and soft, a chrysalis deep within the rock and the tiny form within, barely noticeable beneath my fingertips.
Don't Clean the Aquarium! Page 4
