Hall of Small Mammals

by Thomas Pierce

  “So,” Felix says to Bet, “how long has JT been your rug man?”

  Laura gives Felix’s hand two quick squeezes.

  “His dad started the business,” Bet says. “It’s pretty big. They’ve got three offices now across the state, and contracts with most of the school districts. He’s been doing it ever since he graduated.”

  “Ph.D. in red wine and bloodstain removal?”

  (Another squeeze.)

  “Come see my treehouse,” Hank says, eyes on Felix.

  “I’d love to, buddy,” he says.

  “I’d like to see it too, Hank,” Laura says. She stands with her drink and holds out her hand. Hank eyes it suspiciously, so Felix takes it and then offers Hank his other hand. Through the white French doors, they walk out across a brick patio and down the steps into a neatly manicured lush backyard. Hank breaks free and runs down the hill to a grove of slim oak trees, between which, about five feet up, Mr. Ash has constructed a platform. A rope ladder dangles from a hole at its center. Red tights a jostling blur, Hank ascends the swinging ladder and emerges gopherlike on the other side of the hole triumphantly.

  “He’s very cute,” she says. “Are we going up?”

  “I’m fine down here. You look great, buddy. What do you do up there?”

  The boy scrunches his eyebrows. “Different stuff.”

  They watch him kick some brush off the edge of the platform.

  “So,” Laura says quietly. “Bet.”

  “Bet.”

  “I can see what attracted you to her. She’s beautiful. And young.”

  “You’re not going to get weird on me, are you?”

  “How exactly would I get weird on you?”

  “I don’t know, but the way you just said weird felt a little weird to me.”

  Laura adjusts her sunglasses and crosses her arms. “I’m curious if sometimes when you say things you ever hear a little alarm bell in the back of your head? Whoop whoop whoop. Do you ever think, Am I saying what I think I’m saying?”

  “Alarm bells? I don’t follow. What I say is what I mean. Or what I mean is what—”

  “I think you need to take a deep breath and process what’s happening this weekend. Here’s something good. Actually, you know, I’ll just skip to the bad, if that’s all right. Don’t take this the wrong way, but not everything is about you. Not everything is about Felix. There are seven billion people in the world, and sure, you’re funnier than most of them—you’re in the top three thousand, probably, but—”

  “Three thousand?”

  “Two thousand, whatever. It doesn’t matter. My point is that you need to pull your head out of your ass. You get me?”

  Felix does not get her. Is she calling him selfish? Self-involved? Delusional? He is ready to argue, but here comes Hank, singing and swinging back down the ladder, his business concluded, whatever it was, the rope swishing circles in the dirt at the bottom.

  “Before we go back inside,” Laura says, “is there anything else I should know?”

  “Maybe,” Felix says, irritable. “Probably, yes, there is, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it might be. How far back should I go?”

  “This isn’t funny,” Laura says.

  What else is new? They are almost to the brick patio when the entire family emerges through the double doors.

  “All of us are going for a walk before dinner,” Bet announces. “It’s been decided.”

  • • •

  The first person to bring up Gonuts the Hamster is JT. He’s not only seen the show but is in fact a humongous fan and tunes in every Thursday night. They are on a wide and mulchy trail that follows the conservation easement behind all the houses in the neighborhood. JT and Laura stroll alongside Felix. Bet and the Ashes are a few steps ahead. Hank is between both packs dragging a stick he found in the brush.

  JT wants more details about Pets!, he wants behind-the-scenes dirt. Some of the people at his work, JT says, are in love with the Rhesus Monkey on the show, the one that’s always stealing and swallowing important things like zip drives and legal papers and car keys. Does Felix ever get to hang out with the monkey? Is it funny in real life too? Who is the voice of the monkey, because that dude deserves a frickin Oscar—

  “Emmy,” Felix says. “And the guy’s name is Joel. He’s been in a few things over the years but not much. You’re right, he’s great.”

  JT nods enthusiastically. He asks if Felix could do the hamster voice for everyone, just once, and then he’ll never ask again. He promises.

  Through his pocket Felix pinches the hamster (his leg) until it throbs: “Somebody better let me outta this cage,” he says, forming a little bubble in the back of his throat. “’Cause I’m about to get wheel on these motherfuckers.”

  Everyone, except JT, turns to shoot Felix the same look: Hank.

  “Amazing,” JT says. “Amazing. It’s so surreal to hear that voice coming out of you. Now, you couldn’t say that on television, could you? You couldn’t say mother-f?”

  “What book is on your nightstand right now, JT?” Felix asks him. “I’m curious.”

  “People recognize Felix’s voice everywhere we go,” Laura says. “We were out to eat the other night, and the waiter figured it out. But he didn’t say anything to us. He just drew a little hamster wheel on our check. It was so cute.”

  “That’s really funny,” Bet says. “You’re famous, Felix!”

  “Or at least your voice is,” Mr. Ash says.

  “What’s the difference?” Felix asks. “I am my voice, aren’t I?”

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Ash says, without turning around. “Are you your anus?”

  Their footsteps are quiet on the mulch. It’s like all the sound has been sucked out of the universe. Where are all the birds? There should be birds whistling up in the trees. Felix is on the verge of saying something, can feel words inching up his tongue. What he will say, exactly, he can’t be sure, but most definitely it will be the wrong thing.

  “In my experience some people are more anal than others,” Laura says then, eyebrows arched.

  A short burst of laughter, like gunfire, escapes Mr. Ash’s tight gray mouth. Felix has never seen him laugh that way. Not once.

  “What’s anal?” Hank asks.

  “It has to do with your bum-bum,” Bet explains, a nervous smile. “Hank, that reminds me, do you want to tell your daddy about what happened with the frog and the sprinkler? Remember that?”

  Hank nods yes, that he remembers, but then he mutters, no, he doesn’t really want to tell that story.

  “Oh, come on, Hanky,” JT calls up to him. “It’s such a funny one.”

  Hank doesn’t look up from his feet.

  “Honey, don’t ignore people when they’re talking to you,” Bet says. “It’s rude. Tell your dad the frog and sprinkler story.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Mrs. Ash says, head turned back. “You can do it, Hank. Remember how it starts? With us turning on the sprinkler?”

  The boy throws his stick into the woods, eyes still on his feet.

  “Hank,” Mr. Ash says, clearly irritated. “Hank, your mother and Grammy are talking to you.”

  “It’s okay,” Felix says, suddenly aware of all those eyes sharply focused on his little boy. He imagines Hank, half asleep, being led downstairs night after night to a room full of strange squawking dinner guests, all of them demanding he tell the one about the frog and the sprinkler. He imagines these people laughing, and Hank not knowing what it was he said, exactly said, that made them laugh so much. Even if it was the funniest frog story since Mark Twain’s jumping frog, Felix does not want Hank to have to tell it against his will. “Leave him be.”

  “But I want you to hear it,” Bet says. They’ve stopped walking now. Through the trees other backyards are visible—trampolines and garden b
eds, a swimming pool.

  “Hank, no one is forcing you to tell the story,” Felix says, leaning toward his son, whose eyes are still trained downward. “It’s totally up to you. Maybe later you’ll want to tell me, or maybe you won’t. Either way is fine. Okay, buddy?”

  “Remember what happened when the frog landed on the sprinkler?” JT asks. “What happened when we—”

  “Drop it,” Felix says, looking hard at JT. “Didn’t you hear me? Lay off him. Can’t you see he doesn’t want to tell it?”

  “All right, calm down, no need to be an ass about it, Felix,” Mr. Ash says.

  Felix digs the heel of his shoe into the dirt. Here it comes: the wrong thing, welling up in him. “Nick, if I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”

  “Enough,” Mr. Ash says.

  “Enough what?”

  “Enough everything.”

  “Does anyone know the story about the old man’s asshole and the sprinkler?” Felix asks. “’Cause that’s a really good one.”

  “Not appropriate,” Bet says.

  “You don’t have to be here, Felix,” Mr. Ash says. “No one said you had to come this weekend. You chose to come.”

  “Daddy, that’s not going to help anything,” Bet says.

  “Yes, Daddy, you’re not helping,” Felix says.

  “Felix,” Laura whispers. “Stop.”

  Hank looks at all of them, confused. Felix pivots and starts back for the house. They aren’t far from the house, maybe three hundred yards. He can feel their eyes on his back. Along the trail, at the top of long metal poles, are wooden bird boxes. If he shook one, would a bird fly out? Only now does he remember that he has no rental car back at the house in which to make his retreat. He’ll have to wait for someone to give him a lift back to the hotel. More than anything he does not want to turn back around and ask to borrow a car. The ability to run away: it’s part of what makes one an adult. Laura catches up with him, her eyes wide.

  “I apologized for you,” she says.

  “I didn’t want to apologize.”

  “Never hurts to apologize.”

  They walk fast over the trail and then turn left into the Ashes’ backyard. If he continued walking, maybe Laura would agree to wait and ask to borrow a car. She could pick him up down the road.

  But Hank. Shit, he never said goodbye to Hank. He could leave something for the boy, a gift of some kind, something that would communicate how sorry he is for bailing like this. He fishes around in his pockets and finds his keys. On the ring he has a small metal hamster trinket, a gift from the network when the show started its second season. Felix spots the treehouse. He could hide it for him up there, as a surprise. The rope ladder stretches when he steps onto the bottom rung, bringing it all the way to the ground. It bucks as he climbs, his feet swinging ahead of him.

  “What are you doing?” Laura asks.

  “Just give me a minute,” he says, head and shoulders through the opening now. He barely fits. When his butt clears the jagged and splintery circle, he sits back and admires the new view of the yard. Laura looks up at him, her arms crossed like a none-too-satisfied audience member. Spread across the platform are the corpses of mangled action figures. A small white bucket near one of the tree ballasts contains a dozen rotten crab apples. Felix doesn’t have any paper for a note. He takes out a pen and looks for a suitable place to write a message.

  “You don’t have to go.” It’s Bet, calling up to him. She’s standing beside Laura on the ground. “If you really want to, I’ll take you. But I think for Hank’s sake you should both stay. But Felix, please, take a walk or something. Get yourself together. You’ve been acting strange ever since you got here. And what’s this about the rubber snakes?”

  So JT told her. That makes sense. They are together now, a real couple, and naturally they will share such information. They will talk about people, judge them. Felix is one of those people. He is someone for them to discuss, to judge.

  “I don’t think Felix meant anything by the snakes,” Laura says to Bet.

  “JT was pretty sure Felix was calling him”—her voice drops to a whisper—“a racist.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Laura says. “Not exactly. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not excusing Felix. You’re right. It was very poorly put.”

  Felix watches them talk.

  “I’m sorry about the snake thing,” he says. “I am. And yes, you’re right, we should probably stay. For Hank. I can hang up here for a while and cool off. Go eat dinner. I’ll eat mine up here. I’ll come in for dessert. What’s for dessert? It’s not your mother’s pecan pie, is it?”

  He begins etching Hank’s name into the wood beside his knee. He has to drag the pen back and forth, against the grain, to make the ink visible. The others emerge from the woods, and Bet tells them all to go inside and wait there.

  “You should send him packing,” Mr. Ash says quietly, though not inaudibly, to his daughter before Mrs. Ash drags him off toward the house.

  “Sorry about the snake thing,” Felix says as JT passes.

  “All right,” JT says, and keeps walking.

  The rope ladder shakes. A small head emerges. It’s Hank—small, wonderful Hank up in the treehouse—the red tights stretched thin and transparent at the knees and toes, a somber expression on his face.

  “What’s up, buddy?” Felix asks. “I’m not leaving. Don’t worry. The adults were just having . . . an adult moment.”

  Hank gazes down at the half-finished H in the wood beside Felix’s knee.

  “The frog,” Hank says, and sighs deeply. “It died.”

  Felix smiles. He can’t help it.

  “Honey, that’s not the best way to tell the story,” Bet says, from below, and then appeals to Felix. “I mean, the frog did die, he’s right, but it’s not as bad as all that. The other way he tells it is actually funny.”

  But it is funny. Can’t they see that? That no one is laughing is proof of that. It is beyond laughter. The frog died. Bah-dah-dum. End of frog. Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, flaps: Which was it for the frog? The boy looks up at him thoughtfully, with what Felix wants to interpret as an expression of mutual understanding. He stands and lifts his son off the platform into a high, soaring hug. “You told it perfect,” Felix says. “I’ll bet that frog never saw it coming.”

  Hank’s little arms give Felix a squeeze. The boy’s red legs dangle loose at first but then begin bicycling wildly, ready to touch back down on the platform. “Let go,” Hank says, squirming, but Felix resists. He’s not ready to let go just yet. If he does, those little red feet might carry the boy away at a tremendous speed. Laura and Bet watch from below. Bet has her hands out like she thinks Hank and Felix might both come tumbling down off the platform. “Careful,” she says. “Please.”

  “You told a good one,” Felix says, and sets his son down gently. The boy smooths out his shirt. “Let’s talk about these tights. What’s going on? And where can I get myself a pair?”

  Hank walks to the platform’s edge and steps off. Shit. God. But no, the fall is barely five feet, and Hank is fine. It seems that he does this all the time. He lands on all fours, catlike, then sprints across the yard. Bet follows him up to the house. Felix approaches the brink, gazes down at the patchy grass. “I guess I’ll jump down too,” he says to Laura.

  “Your choice,” she says, “but don’t ask me to take you to the emergency room when you break your ankle. I won’t do it.” She turns for the house without him and climbs the grassy hill to the patio door. Felix takes out his pen and finishes the H and then lays the metal hamster there beside it, a terrible gift. But he’s still here, in Atlanta, and he has more time to make it up to the boy. He considers the distance to the ground, which really isn’t so far, just a few measly feet. The yard is quiet and empty now. A bright glare across all the windows on the first floor of the house makes it impossible to tel
l if there’s anyone left to watch him drop.

  Videos of People Falling Down

  How NOT to Ride Down Stairs HUGE FALL

  A boy with floppy brown hair and freckled arms pedals his mountain bike toward some concrete steps outside of a high school. There are twenty-five steps, and they lead down to the teacher’s lot. The boy’s friends are waiting at the bottom to see what happens. When he reaches the first step, he leans back in his seat to keep from toppling over the handlebars. His name is Davy, and he can draw a hand perfectly. Nobody draws a hand like Davy. His art teacher wants him to apply to art schools next year. She believes one day Davy will draw not only a perfect hand but also a perfect wrist and a perfect arm and, if he is diligent, a perfect shoulder too. Beyond that she dares not hope. Necks are the most beautiful part of the female body, and no one has ever captured one as it really is.

  The art teacher possesses a neck more elegant than most. If it wasn’t indecent, she’d pose for Davy. At the moment of his stunt, she is locking up her room, a box of school-bought art supplies under her arm. She doesn’t see Davy fall, but she’s the first adult on the scene. Davy is conscious, on his back across the bottom three steps. She orders him not to move an inch. The bone has punctured the pale skin of his left arm. She calls the ambulance and follows it all the way to the hospital in her beat-up Acura. In the emergency room, she finds a seat beside a big man whose leg is wrapped in a bloody towel. The teenager to her right doesn’t cover his mouth when he coughs. She flips through a Golf Digest. The old woman across from her is reading a novel with bees on the cover. “What happens in it?” she asks the woman, and the woman says, “Two beekeepers fall in love but it’s impossible for them to be together.”

  Old Woman FALLS into Polar Bear Habitat

  The book about beekeepers is Now a Major Motion Picture starring Julia Roberts. “Swimming,” one of the songs on its sound track, has become very popular on the radio. The song was written and performed by Simon Punch, a whisper-voiced guitarist with a hip Rasputin beard and a long thumbnail painted black, and the lyrics are based on something that happened to him as a boy at the zoo with his grandmother.