Me and My Manny (14 page)
Authors: M.A. MacAfee
Hours later, I awoke from a fitful sleep troubled by a dream about a storybook character with the word
dunce
written in big black letters on its pointed hat. The faint glow from the streetlight below my window cast a web of shadows across the ceiling over my bed. Far off, the elevator doors swished opened and closed, and then footsteps sounded in the hall. Nothing unusual about that except they seemed to hesitate before my front door. I pushed myself upward just as a metallic scratching sounded, almost like a key aiming for the slide of the lock. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. The illuminated digits read five minutes to twelve. And all was not well, with Harry off for the night and me here alone, except for Wolf who—I recalled leaving him upright on the sofa, partially covered by the blanket I’d haphazardly tossed back before going to bed.
Could he…ridiculous.
My ear caught what I took to be the soft tread of furtive footfalls on the living room rug. Someone was out there, moving in a stealthy manner. A thief must have picked his way in. And now he was prowling about, looking for something to steal. Let him just take stuff and go. It’s better he doesn’t know that anyone’s here.
That’s when my widened eyes settled on the bolt at the center of the double doors. In a flash, I realized my bedroom door was unlocked. Harry often said I should engage the bolt when alone; that way I’d have time enough to dial 911 if someone broke in. So do it now, I told myself as my heart thudded faster. Just get up, cross the room, and slide the bolt into its sleeve. But a crippling stiffness gripped my legs.
The intruder bumped against the entryway table, jarring the hurricane lamp that tinkled. I stiffened, my spine frozen like a column of ice. I next heard what sounded like a grunt coming from someone straining under the weight of a heavy object. It was followed a clacking sound such as is made by a stack of wooden sticks falling together. Or an oversized marionette collapsing on released strings.
My mind filled with a vision of the manny, out there like an eerie cartoon character with a stupid grin on its face as it stumbled around.
Impossible. The manny was not real. No one was out there. The noises came from the surrounding apartments or even the street. I tilted my head, listening. The building was quiet, the street deserted. But I thought I heard Spike sniffing along the baseboard next door.
The dog must have sensed something, the scent of an unusual thing—a wooden figure infused with a new source of energy. Get a grip! Spike smells fear, and I presently reeked of it. For the first time since living at Whitehall, I appreciated that the beast was on guard.
Settling down, I again glanced at the clock. Midnight, the witching hour when fairytale illusions revert to their original form—a carriage becomes a pumpkin and horses become mice and my weirdo manny becomes—
There was a thumping noise followed by a faint comment.
Clumsy old coot! Shush…shush up
.
Though the voice was thin, and too meek to be threatening, it made the hair on my neck rise. I stared at the door until my vision blurred. Two explanations skittered through my frenzied brain, neither of them appealing. Either Wolf was out there messing around, or I was in here losing my mind. It was a no-win situation. Yet the resolution was simple: I merely get up, open the door, and—I couldn’t chance it.
So I cowered, when suddenly, Spike issued two sharp barks. He clawed at the base of the Pritchards’ front door.
“Ruthie, wake up,” Jason said in voice loud enough to penetrate the bedroom wall. “Spike needs to go out.”
“Well, you take him.”
“Not me.”
“Oh for chriss…”
“Please, he won’t go inside and he’ll scratch all night.”
“Then let him use the fire exit. I’ll clean it up in the morning.”
Confident that the beast would rout any intruders, I waited until he started down the back stairs. I then padded over to the double doors, and curled my hand around the lever. I only had to open the door, step into the living room, and make sure my manny was still in place.
Of course, it’s in place; it has to be.
Because it had to get in before the clock struck twelve and reverted to its original form
. Still I had heard other odd sounds, including the scrape of a key sliding in its slot, though it could have come from another apartment.
I stood feeling confused as distant voices echoed up the fire escape stairwell. “Don’t tell me you’re locked out again? Oh, good, you found your key.”
“Come on, Spike, finish up.”
Amid a ripple of departing laughter came the phrases, “It’s past my bedtime. Buona notte!”
I at last engaged the bolt on my bedroom door, returned to my bed, and crawled back between the sheets. Some time later, after the building quieted down, I finally drifted off. But I would again be awakened by my own fears.
Could he…
Early the next morning, after starting the coffee, I stood in the living room, scrutinizing Wolf. He was on the sofa where I’d left him, but not exactly how I had left him, partly covered by the blanket. Like a sailor back from a toot, his cap was knocked back on his head, his necktie loosened, and his flimsy white undershirt lay over the top of his pants.
“It’s been one helluva night,” I said nervously, “if I must say so myself.”
In spite of his disheveled appearance, I persuaded myself that he hadn’t stirred because he was incapable of it. I’d simply forgotten his position when I plopped him down last night. I was the problem. Through a form of self-hypnosis, I had convinced myself that he was more than a dummy.
Poor Harry, listening to me conversing with a wooden thing, asking questions and waiting as if getting answers. Now Harry has joined me, accepting the manny and going along with the lunacy. Still, he had me see Jason’s shrink.
Lenient as Harry’s been, I doubted that even he would go for the notion that Wolf had been letting himself in and out; wilder yet, that he’s been using a key.
My key!
To come and go, Wolf had to have had his wooden mitts on my key.
I hurried to the entryway console where I always left my fanny pack. I unzipped the pouch and pulled out the clanging key ring. I went to the front door, held it part way open, and selected the right key. Again and again, I tried it in the deadbolt, conscious of the noisy jingle of the several other keys.
Can you beat that? Spike, the dog can’t use a key, but Wolf, the dummy can. And he does it with barely a sound.
I stood in the deserted hallway, besieged by misgivings. Yet I knew what I heard, the distinct scrape of a key sliding in the slot. At least I was sure last night when scared out of my wits, but now in the morning sunlight it seemed more of a hazy dream than a clear memory.
I stared down at the keys in my hand, when from the corner of my eye I spotted a small pale object on a dark patch in the blue carpet. I picked the item up and rolled it in my fingers. It was made of wood and shaped like a small dowel, smooth at one end but jagged at the other. It looked as if…as if it were a piece of finger broken off the hand of my manny.
I rushed back into my apartment, kicked the door closed, and went to Wolf scrunched in the corner of the sofa. Dreading what I might find, I grasped Wolf’s right hand and held it up. Lo and behold, the tip of his pinkie finger was clipped clean off to the first knuckle. I compared the piece I found to the top of the broken digit.
It was a perfect fit.
Hurray! The noises I heard last night and the disarray I saw this morning might not amount to much. But the piece of pinkie I stumbled on in the hall could not be denied. I had the evidence to prove I wasn’t crazy.
Implausible as it seemed, my footloose manny had been striking out on his own.
Then a new idea occurred to me. I had valued the manny; I hoped to use him in a business venture. Now at long last, I saw through his jolly façade. Wolf was using me. He was going through me to get to Harry. I was Wolf’s means to Harry’s end.
Fantastic notion, but, Wolf really could be out to overhaul Harry. If so, I had to consider that doing anything that jeopardized one of them would endanger the other.
If only I had listened to Spike. If only I had heeded his cat-paw warning. But not the time for self-recrimination, I had to deal with the issue at hand.
I switched on the table lamp and tilted the shade to shine the light directly on the manny’s face. “You think being a dummy gives you an airtight, ironclad alibi. But that excuse doesn’t work with me.” I tossed the tip of his wooden pinkie up and down. “You’ve been caught red-handed. It’s time to own up. Where did you go? What did you do?”
I gave him a moment before I lit into him again. “So you feel it’s none of my business. Well, we’ll see about that.
“You think that little chip off the pinkie took a piece out of you,” I said with greater conviction. “Wait till I apply the thumbscrews. Or,” I thought devilishly, “the pencil sharpener. You want to become a human being, you gotta suffer like one.”
The hard-shelled manny appeared far from cracking. I leaned closer and touched the chipped finger, half expecting to feel a sticky substance—sap, not blood, not yet, just sap. I gazed into the glass of Wolf’s flecked-brown eyes and saw my own foolish face reflected in stereotypic orbs. I drew back, unsure of what I’d do right now if Wolf jumped up on his clunky feet and broke into a full gallop, yelling, “Catch me if you can!” as he cleared the front door.
I banished the thought in favor of removing the mending kit from the closet in search of superglue. While reattaching the wooden pinkie, I fancied Wolf making bratty faces and sticking out his tongue. Quickly I looked up hoping to catch him in the act, but it was senseless to try. He was more at one with reality than I currently was.
No matter how I tried to sidestep the issue, it kept cropping up and getting in the way. Wolf
had
been making nocturnal excursions. Yet my concerns paled in comparison with Harry’s, as he was about to undergo the alteration in the mystical works.
I had finally begun to appreciate his dread of being taken over as I tossed a cheese curl into my mouth, took a sip of cream soda, and shoved two frozen chicken potpies into the hot oven. About half an hour ago, Harry had called on his cell to say he’d be in around seven. We agreed to have dinner late.
With soda can in one hand and a bowl of cheese curls in the other, I went into the living room and placed my goods on the coffee table. Relaxed on the sofa, I was snacking when I heard a rustling noise coming from down the hallway outside of my front door.
If that dog is out there again, I’m calling animal control—anonymously
.
I opened the door and stepped out in time to see Ruthie coming away from the area of the trash chute. She seemed in a jolly mood, blissful almost as she said something about sharing the good news.
“I’ve been trying out my new vibrator and I just love it. But then
you
understand how attached someone can get to an object.”
“Well, sure.” I hesitated and backed up a few inches. “When it comes to certain objects, that is.”
“If my appliance ever broke down on me, I don’t know what I’d do,” Ruthie said. “I mean, it’s more than just another wiggly machine. I can depend on it to be there for me. And to thrill me to no end. I know it might sound wrong and even strange to love a material thing. But my vibrator is special.”
“Golly, Ruthie, there’s nothing wrong with being self-sufficient. In fact, it’s admirable.” Finally my memory shifted into gear. The money Ruthie got from the bank the day she rented Wolf had been spent on an “appliance,” not a gigolo.
“I knew we could talk. You’re so nonjudgmental,” Ruthie said.
“I try to keep an open mind. Live and let live, that’s my motto.”
“My vibrator always leaves me feeling refreshed and revitalized. How could anything that wholesome and healthy be regarded as bad?”
I offered an amiable smile. “These days, I suppose few would regard it as bad, within reason.”
Ruthie’s face tightened and her eyes flashed with animosity. “Jason thinks it’s bad. He hates the thing. He’s even accused me of preferring it to him.”
“I imagine there’s no comparison.”
“No human being can compete with a vibrator. So what’s he do? He declares his undying love. He weeps and grovels. He goes online and buys me fun presents to be delivered by UPS. Yet nothing can beat the gift that keeps giving.”
I felt a hot flush rise in my cheeks. “I guess so.”
Ruthie nodded. “My appliance is amazing, the swell, the squeeze, the pulsing, pounding sensation.”
“Please, Ruthie, not so graphic.” I recoiled with a raised hand.
“I’m not some kind of doormat for Jason to walk all over,” she said is if releasing pent up anger. “I don’t just exist to fill his needs. I want more out of life.”
Then an almost celestial light brightened Ruthie’s face. “You have no idea. My new vibrator is the latest in penetrating and sucking features. Want to see it?”
“Not right now. Gotta run.” I sniffed the air. “I got pies in the oven. I don’t want them to burn.”
“Drop by any time and I’ll show it to you,” Ruthie said. “My appliance and I have the perfect relationship.”
“I’m glad for you… two.”
Back in the kitchen, I replayed Ruthie’s account of her new vibrator in my mind. I began to see Jason’s issue. In some ways, it was similar to how Harry felt about my manny. The object was engaged in a takeover. Still, it wasn’t as if Ruthie had taken up with a stranger interested in casual sex. She was only flying solo. Yet good ole Jason would rather she’d crash than have a happy landing. I never believed Ruthie had intended to murder Jason, but I wouldn’t wonder why if she had.
I slid the cookie sheet holding the potpies out of the oven and set them aside to cool. I took a sip of cream soda and giggled. Ruthie, a travel agent, had traveled the globe. I couldn’t help but picture her and her vibrating toy, drinking beer at Germany’s October Fest, sightseeing at the Coliseum in Rome, and lounging under an umbrella on a sun-kissed beach on the French Riviera. Talk about your retrofitted manny! I bet something like that would shake Harry up.