Furiously Happy (5 page)

Instead, Rory had fallen in with a bad crowd and ended up as roadkill, but my friend Jeremy (a burgeoning taxidermist) saw great potential (and very few tire marks) on the cadaver and decided that Rory's tiny spirit should live on in the most disturbingly joyous way possible.

(
Courtesy of Jeremy Johnson
)

Rory the Dead Raccoon stood up on his hind legs, his arms stretched out in glee. He looked like he was the most excited member of your surprise party, or like a Time Lord in the process of regenerating.

His bafflingly enormous smile caused people to giggle (usually nervously and somewhat involuntarily) whenever I presented him. Or sometimes they'd scream and back away. I guess it depends on if you're expecting an unnaturally cheerful dead raccoon to pop out at you.

Victor didn't
entirely
understand my love for Rory, but he couldn't disagree that Rory was probably the best raccoon corpse that anyone had ever loved. Rory's tiny arms perpetually reached out as if to say, “OHMYGOD,
YOU ARE MY
FAVORITE. PERSON. EVER.
PLEASE LET ME CHEW YOUR FACE OFF WITH MY LOVE.
” Whenever I'd accomplished a particularly impossible goal (like remembering to refill my ADD meds even though I have ADD and was out of ADD meds) Rory was always there, eternally offering supportive high fives because
he
understood the value of celebrating the small victories. Victor might have refused to congratulate me on the fact that I hadn't fallen down a well that week, but that dead raccoon always had my back and very few people can say that.

“Very few people would
want
to say that,” Victor corrected.

“It's just nice to have unconditional encouragement and praise,” I explained to him. “
Some
people get all stingy with their high fives, but Rory never leaves me hanging.” In fact, it was physically impossible for Rory to leave me hanging and I momentarily considered having Victor one day taxidermied in the same happy, congratulatory pose, but then I realized that no one would recognize him and he'd probably just look sarcastic, like he was only offering me high fives when I slipped on things that weren't there, or when the electricity was cut off because I forgot to pay it again.

Victor thinks taxidermy is a waste of money, claiming that “there are only so many things you can do with a dead raccoon.” But I have proven him wrong time and time again. Victor pointed out that what he'd
actually
said was “There are only so many things you
should
do with a dead raccoon,” and honestly that does sound more like something he'd say, but I still disagree.

When Victor was making Skype calls for work, I'd silently crawl up behind him and have Rory slowly and menacingly rise up over Victor's shoulder until the person on the call froze because they noticed a mentally unbalanced raccoon was leaning in like a furry, eavesdropping serial killer. Then Victor would realize Rory was behind him and he'd sigh that sigh he does so well and remind himself to lock his office door. If anything, though, Victor should have thanked me, because the perfect test to see if your friends and coworkers really have your back is if they're willing to say, “Hey, there's a raccoon creeping on you.” It's like the “Is-my-fly-down?” test, but times one thousand, because almost
anyone
can relate enough to clear their throat and raise an eyebrow at your junk until you realize you forgot to zip, but it takes a really concerned badass to interrupt a conference call and say, “WATCH OUT FOR THAT MOTHERFUCKING RACCOON, DUDE.” To their credit, most of Victor's callers would mention something and I'd point out that they'd passed the test and then Rory would be like, “JAZZ HANDS!” Then Victor would lock us both out and I'd stick Rory's paw under his office door and say in a small raccoony voice, “I'm trying to help you. Let me help you.”

When the mailman dropped off packages I'd open the door a few inches and have Rory peek outside. “
Well, hellllooo!
” Rory would say in a snooty British accent.
“I hope you don't need a signature because I seem to have misplaced my opposable thumbs.”
Eventually the mailman just stopped ringing the bell and would leave the packages on the porch, which was nice because it cut down on awkward small talk.

Sometimes I'd hide him under the covers (Rory, not the mailman) so that when Victor turned down the bed there was Rory on his pillow, as if to say, “SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKER! THERE'S A DEAD RACCOON IN YOUR BED AND HE WANTS SOME SNUGGLIN'.” Then Victor would glare at me and make me switch pillows with him.

Victor can't understand Rory's frenzied kind of love, but I think he's starting to accept that this is my love language. Other women might show their adoration with baked goods or hand-knitted slippers, but mine is channeled through animal corpses. Victor tries to interpret it as best he can but he is a guy who keeps his emotions close to his vest when it comes to dead animals in bed, so honestly it's hard to know what that man is really thinking. He's an enigma, that one.

Last night I realized that Rory was perfectly suited to ride on the cats (as if they were small furry horses and he was a rodeo star) but apparently the cats didn't realize how awesome it would be and so they were
incredibly
uncooperative. I tried to create a photomontage of Rory the Rodeo Raccoon but they weren't having it. (I suspect if my cats had Instagram they'd be all over this, but they don't so they couldn't be bothered.) I'd perch Rory on their backs and they'd stand still for a second but by the time I'd backed up and gotten them in focus they'd turn around like, “What are you doing? Why is there a raccoon on my back?
Why do they even let you be in charge of things?
” and then they'd just flop over on their sides like a bunch of ingrates who didn't understand art. Rory would gently tumble onto the floor, which I suspect sent the cats mixed messages because he was still waving his hands in the air like he just didn't care, as if he were celebrating the cats being assholes, and I was like, “
You're killin' me, Smalls
,” but then he just celebrated the fact that I was frustrated.
Honestly, it is impossible to stay mad at that raccoon.

Sometime around two a.m., Ferris Mewler finally gave up and stayed upright, annoyed but resigned, as he carried an ecstatic Rory on his back and I was like, “YES!
FERRIS MEWLER, YOU
ARE
AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL!
” But then Victor opened the bedroom door and yelled, “
WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT HERE? IT'S TWO O'CLOCK IN THE DAMN MORNING,
” and Ferris panicked at all the unexpected yelling and tore off down the hall but Rory was still stuck to his back as Ferris streaked through the living room. And then Victor was like, “HOLY SHIT.
WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT?
” because I guess his eyes hadn't adjusted to the light (or maybe to the sight of an ecstatic raccoon frolicking bareback on a house cat). I considered acting just as shocked as he was and claiming it was probably a small chupacabra that had snuck in. But then I thought that would just raise more questions so instead I lowered the camera and said, “What was
what
?” as innocently as possible. I prayed he'd just go away questioning his sanity, and he did, but probably less because I'd fooled him and more because he'd married someone who took secret pictures of cats wearing dead raccoons in the wee hours of the morning. It wasn't my fault though. I've had chronic insomnia for as long as I can remember. These are the things that eventually happen when you're alone at two a.m. often enough.

*   *   *

(Editor: Remember three pages ago when you said you lost your arms? How have we not gotten to that yet? Did you forget that's what this story was about?)

*   *   *

(Me: I was just getting there. You can't just start off a story about missing arms without the proper context. Apparently.)

*   *   *

I finally went to sleep at three a.m., woke up a few hours later to take Hailey to school, and then crawled back in bed for a quick nap. It was lovely, but at nine thirty the alarm I'd set on my phone went off. I tried to reach over to turn it off, and that's when I realized that my left arm was missing.

And I thought, “Well,
that's
odd.”

But then I looked over at my arm and was like, “Wait, no, there it is.”

It was flung awkwardly over my head and was completely numb because Hunter S. Thomcat was lying on it and had cut off the circulation. I threw my shoulder toward the phone and Hunter grudgingly rolled over, but my arm just fell forward, zombielike. My hand
almost
grazed the phone but I couldn't get my fingers to work enough to hit the snooze button. I glared furiously at my fingers like I was trying to telekinetically move an inanimate object, except that the inanimate object was my own hand. The alarm got louder and so I tried to prop myself up with my other arm but I ended up just flopping around like a fish out of water because my other arm was pinned behind me AND WAS ALSO ASLEEP. This has never happened to me before and it seemed such an astronomically weird coincidence that I started to worry that I was accidentally in some sort of partial coma that only affects arms. Or maybe I'd been selectively paralyzed, but that seemed unlikely since most people who've been paralyzed say “I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS” rather than “My arms stopped working.”

Hunter walked around to stare at me like “Why aren't you turning off that noise?
What is wrong with you?
” which was very unhelpful. I managed to Frankenstein myself up into a sitting position and kept tossing my helpless arms near the snooze button, but it wouldn't work and it got louder and louder and I could hear Victor angrily stomping toward the bedroom, yelling, “Oh my God,
ARE YOU
STILL
IN BED
?” I didn't want to tell him that not only was I still in bed but also my arms weren't even awake yet, and so I panicked and quickly rolled off the edge of the bed to hide behind it. Obviously I wasn't thinking straight because I forgot that I didn't have arms to help catch me and so I landed facedown with a dull thud and that's when I realized how helpful it is to have working arms. You never think to appreciate your arms until you need them to stop the floor from punching you in the face.

Hunter S. Thomcat looked over the edge of the bed at me quizzically, as if to say, “What in the hell are you doing? Is there food down there?” and he dropped to the floor beside me to check it out. Victor burst in, yelling, “WHY IS YOUR ALARM BLARING?
SOME
OF US ARE ON CONFERENCE CALLS, YOU KNOW,” and I heard him huff and switch off the alarm.

I looked at Hunter like, “Shhh. Say nothing and we'll be fine,” and he stared back at me like, “What do you mean ‘
we
'?”

Victor paused and I saw his feet moving toward the bathroom, where he looked for me, and then he came back in and was like, “
WHERE ARE YOU?
” but I stayed quiet and waited for him to leave so I could sneak out to my desk and pretend I'd been up for hours. My plan would have worked perfectly if Hunter hadn't decided to jump onto my hip so he could peer over the side of the bed and look at Victor like, “Why are you people doing this? Is this a game?”

Then Victor walked around the bed and sighed, and I said, “NO ONE'S IN HERE,” but it sounded muffled because of the floor. He accused me of hiding from him rather than working and I said, “
No, actually
, I'm down here trying to save you from the sight of your disabled and temporarily paralyzed wife BECAUSE I'M TRYING TO PROTECT YOU.” Then Victor gave me what I guess was a look of pity, or maybe love. I don't know because I was still facing the floor but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt because
that's
what marriage is all about.

I suddenly realized that all of this might make a pretty good chapter and I wanted to write it down but I still didn't have arms to write with. So instead I said, “I've actually been down here working on my book but I don't have a way to type. Can you just turn on the voice-recognition part of my phone and lay it by my face so I can dictate notes because my arms don't work right now?” and Victor said, “
Your arms don't work right now?
” and I said, “Yes. Apparently I slept wrong and lost circulation and they're both still asleep.”

“Holy crap,” he said. “You're so lazy that even your limbs are still sleeping while I'm talking to you.”

“
Quite the contrary
,” I explained as I struggled to roll over onto my back. “I'm so hardworking that I'm awake even when my body is still partially unconscious and I'm like, ‘
Fuck you, arms. I'll still be productive without you
.' THAT'S HOW DEDICATED I AM.”