I nodded. “I’m sure that he’ll come in handy warding off road-ragers, car-jackers, and sexual-predators too. Dogs need to be licensed, exercised, and trained; my manny requires no care at all.”
Kadee, a black woman with her hair styled in cornrows, asked if manny’s come in different races. Ever since her husband moved out, Patrick, her five-year-old son, had been sleeping with a nightlight. I, in turn, told her I didn’t see why not. As Gippo’s creations were made-to-order, they ought to come in all races and both genders—womanikins and manikins alike. If she got one for her little boy, however, she might prefer to present it as a rip-roaring action figure.
Ruthie, who lived next door to me on the fourth floor, said that getting a manny was tempting, but she thought that neither Jason, her clinically phobic husband, nor Spike, her gigantic Rottweiler, would tolerate the competition.
“Well, I think it’s perverted to sleep with a dummy,” Lisa said.
“I don’t exactly sleep with him,” I said. “I put him on my husband’s side of the bed, but we’re far from intimate.”
Ruthie offered a sly grin. “Speaking of which, would you mind if we took a peek at his under parts?”
“I don’t, if he doesn’t. What do you say, Wolfgang? You wanna give ’em the Full Manny?” I turned from the silent manikin and, feigning surprise over his detachment, said, “Well fancy that. I hadn’t thought of him as an exhibitionist.”
Kadee moved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “They’re all alike when it comes to the jewels. I never saw a one that didn’t want to show them off.”
Slowly I unfastened Wolfgang’s trousers, one button at a time. To tease the girls, I imitated the bumping and grinding music of a stripper.
“Take it off; take it off,” Lisa encouraged.
The flap came down and the room fell quiet.
“Not much to see, is there?” Ruthie remarked.
“That’s the beauty of it. Because mannys are anatomically incorrect, you can have all the fun you want without any of the trouble.”
After a long silence, Kadee took the floor. “Judy might be onto something. We’d all like to spice up our lives in the romance department. So what if it’s often just fantasy.”
Lisa issued a cynical laugh. “The rate women in relationships end up in hospitals or morgues, I’d say it could be less dangerous.”
“After a night spent with a manny,” I said in agreement with both of them, “you might wake up hung over, but unharmed and never full of regrets.”
The idea of using a manny to enhance a love life began to appeal to me. No matter a woman’s situation, kids, jobs, and so on, she could keep her hand in the dating game without all the distractions that accompany actual courting. The anticipation, the excitement, and the wonderment of a new relationship may not be as intense, but neither would the emotional consequences.
“You make a good point when it comes to dogs,” Ruthie said in reference to a previous comment. “I can’t stand it when Spike drags his anus across the carpet or drools all over the kitchen floor at dinnertime.”
“Wolfgang never does that.”
Lisa scowled. “Miss Kitty is a terrific mouser,” she said of her red tabby cat, “but I hate it when she jumps up on the dinner table and eats off the plates before I have a chance to clean up.”
“Wolfgang never does that, either.”
Ruthie said that while Spike was a great watchdog, she tired of scooping poop off the sidewalk, and Lisa said it was brushing up cat fur that got to her.
“Wolfgang neither poops nor sheds,” I said with a modicum of pride. I wasn’t actually trying to sell them on the idea of getting a manny. Manny-owning wasn’t all sweetness and light, but at the time, I couldn’t think of a downside. Little wonder I suffered a mental block, what with all their fussing over Wolf. Right before my eyes, they poked, prodded, and otherwise groped the poor dummy. Bothered by the way they made over him, I plucked him from their eager clutches. “Get your own manny.”
Openly offended by my gesture, Ruthie said, “I don’t believe it’s possible to have a forbidden kind of relationship and still be faithful to your partner. A manny could be similar to a gateway drug. You start out trying a little of this, and you end up hooked on a lot of that.”
Lisa nodded. “You must admit, there is something kinky about getting emotionally attached to an object.”
“Men do it all the time,” said Kadee. “Take those freaky fembot sex dolls. All humanlike with realistic skin and special orifices with motors in them. Gynoids they’re called. The androids are males.”
“Women do it, too,” Ruthie added, “only they call them sex toys.”
The comment caused all three women to fall quiet. As I glanced around at their slightly flushed faces, I surmised that each was pondering the merits of owning a manny, perhaps one that came better equipped.
“I think it’s best to start out simple,” I said, thereby bursting their bubbles. “Wolf here’s your basic no-frills issue. Nothing but the bare essentials.” I then rose from the sofa, adjusted Wolf’s clothes, and put him back on his training wheels. I started for the door and was about to bid them all a goodnight when Lisa, in a voice dripping with disdain, asked, “Does Harry know about Wolf?”
Since the reason behind a stand-in for my absent husband was not something I found easy to reveal, I had avoided giving Harry the whole truth. But rather than on the spot invent a story to make up for my deliberate omission, I decided a simple lie would do.
“He most certainly does.”
“You can’t mean he actually approves,” Lisa said. “After all, having a manny is like playing with those sex dolls Kadee mentioned. You know, a motorized android.”
Disconcerted by the comment, I paused near the exit, thinking about how Harry might in fact react to my manny. “I’ll let you know when I find out.” He would be home next month, around the middle of July, the week after Seafair starts.
Jogging in the Park
Funny thing about people. As soon as someone gets hold of a rare and valuable item, just about everyone else wants one, too. Appalled as I was by the way my friends fawned over Wolf, it made me appreciate his importance. I resolved to take better care of him, to buff his finish to a high gloss, and to keep his beanie cocked in a way that accentuated the mischievousness in his character.
Being unemployed and lacking foreseeable prospects, I had ample time to reflect on my past. A late bloomer, I had dropped out of high school, gotten a GED through night classes, and attended a community college. Sometime in my early-twenties, I received an AA in business management. Working while getting educated and moving often to accommodate my husband of seven years, I ended up with a checkered career that to potential employers made me appear a flat-out flake.
To keep busy while only halfheartedly looking for a job, I proceeded to do for Wolf the sorts of things that a real man might appreciate. I cooked special meals, though he never ate a bite. I wore alluring nightgowns, though he never took notice. And I massaged his rock-hard neck until my overworked knuckles ached.
I began to hit weekend garage sales in search of decorative items that appealed to the masculine taste. I hung heavy tweed drapes, bought an old leather Laz-E-Boy done in bombardier-jacket brown, and placed a rack of secondhand pipes on the end table beside it. The scene had become somewhat stagy. With Wolf lounging dummy-like in his recliner, I sometimes felt as if I was living in a department store window, an impression that led me to ponder the power of images.
Not until I owned my manny had I realized how large a part images play in the lives of human beings. From our primal past to the present, images have influenced our thoughts and behaviors. Be they statues in the world’s great cathedrals or popular figures on the covers of glossy magazines, silent images speak to us about humankind. Images inform us about gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines; they embody our values and symbolize our aspirations. In their demonic form, they can also represent our worst nightmares and darkest f
ears. Good or bad, images tell us who we were, who we are, and who we might become. Their purpose is to be larger than life. Though constructed only of material, they are meant to surpass death and reign immortal.
Dizzied by such heady notions, I set about to discover what my manny stood for. What did he mean? What was his appeal? Women are said to be drawn to men in uniform. Certain costumes have an air of authority; certain but not all—clowns are far from sexy. Maybe it was his sailor suit? Maybe I should get him a new outfit and see if people respond differently.
Shopping for Wolf was difficult. Though haberdashers are accustomed to dressing dummies, the few I consulted resented outfitting something they considered a gag. One sales person had become so rude that I was forced to take my business elsewhere.
Like the Goodwill store where I later purchased a pair of used chinos. The pants too big for my small-statured manny, I next pushed him on his wheels into an upscale men’s shop and asked to speak to the tailor. While I stood, admiring an outfit on a figure near the front window, the tailor approached and asked if he might help me. I held up the Goodwill bag and said that Wolf, my companion, needed his chinos altered.
The tailor regarded me with contempt. “We do not alter clothing for manikins.”
I pointed to the well-dressed figure in the window. “Didn’t you alter that suit to fit the model?”
“Yes, but not at the request of the manikin.”
“Wolf isn’t the one ordering an alteration, I am,” I said, thinking this obvious.
After being shown the door, I settled on getting my manny an inexpensive pair of charcoal-colored sweatpants with a matching hooded sweatshirt. This was a practical decision. Due to a lack of funds, I mostly entertained free activities, among them jogging a lot. In Wolf’s case, it was rolling on his platform a lot.
So now we tooled around the park; I in a green tank top and shorts, pulling Wolf by his hand; and he in a hooded sweatshirt, looking like the Unabomber. This part got gnarly because Wolf tended to go in a straight line. The greater his momentum, the faster and straighter he went. Then the situation quickly became out of control.
Suddenly he moved so fast that he pulled out in front of me. I still held on, legs pumping, breath chugging in and out. But my hand got sweaty and the manny’s hand began to slip from mine. Next thing I knew, I lost my grip. Wolf was now a few yards ahead, picking up the pace; and I was running, trying to catch him.
Two women appeared on the pathway ahead of us. Spotting them, I shouted and waved, indicating they should get out of the way. They saw me and Wolf coming, but they closed ranks and seemed to misinterpret the signal. I couldn’t tell if they were cringing in terror or preparing to stop what they perceived to be a departing thief.
When Wolfgang plowed right into the pair, my speculation became moot. All three toppled to the ground, arms and legs tangled. On reaching the melee, I attempted to explain, but the struggling women were in no mood for enlightenment. One whacked Wolf with her tote bag. The other got to her feet and kicked him with her hefty Birkenstocks.
I yelled at them to stop and they responded that he’d attacked them first.
As the pair fled toward the parking area on the edge of a playing field, I picked Wolf up from the ground, dusted off his outfit, and rearranged him on his platform.
“The next time you pull a stunt like that, you are so busted,” I told him as we started to roll back home.
Humanizing Wolf
My ire toward Wolf didn’t last long. Wolf was an innocent victim of my own odd choices. Still, I began relating to Wolf on an emotional level, something I achieved by talking to him in affable terms. My words were aimed at convincing him to look on the bright side, be happy and cheer up. Little did I know that in conditioning myself to think of him as more than a dummy, I’d soon be considering his feelings.
And along with that, I’d begun noticing another change. Something was going on beneath that hard exterior. I couldn’t say exactly how it happened. Perhaps one night a magical moonbeam came through the window, or maybe a falling star had inadvertently dusted him on its plunge toward earth. But something had penetrated Wolf’s rigid framework.
Appearance aside, Wolfgang was no longer just another incompetent dummy; he was his own manny. Wolf’s subtle alteration reminded me of my earlier notions about images. In particular, I reflected on Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that turned into a flesh-and-blood boy. To my mind, Pinocchio was the perfect metaphor for Wolfgang. And I wondered: Would he, too, take on a life of his own?
While I hadn’t considered myself akin to Geppetto, the woodcarver who created the wooden puppet and who, among other curious places, ended up in the belly of a whale, we shared a certain lack of comprehension. Much as the endearing woodcarver, in this instance Geppetto and not Gippo, I could not comprehend by what alchemy my marionette had begun to morph from the unreal to the real.
Renting Out Wolf
Strutting down the forth-floor hall with my manny in tow, I bumped into Ruthie Pritchard, my next-door neighbor, back from walking Spike, her gargantuan Rottweiler.
“Judy, there you are. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about Wolfgang.” She yanked the leash back as Spike raised his hackles and snarled at my manny. “Would you mind if I borrowed him?” She nodded toward the dummy. “I won’t keep him long.”
“I don’t know, Ruthie.” I watched Spike strain against his choke chain, his thick nails digging for traction in the threadbare carpet. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to him.”
“I’ll keep him safe, I promise.” Ruthie winced when Spike, agitated by the restraint, whipped around and snapped at her hand. “I just want to sit with him awhile.”
“I’m not sure, Ruthie. It’s not like I can replace him.” Knowing that Spike had gnawed gaping holes in every one of his toys, I added, “I wouldn’t want to see him all chewed up.”
“I’ll take him to the pool area where Spike can’t get at him.”
Since dogs tend to dig up plants, swim in the pool, and crap all over the well-kept lawn, the pool area was off-limits to them.
“In that case,” I began with my eyes on Spike’s jaws now clamped on Wolfgang’s right leg. “I could let you have him for a four-hour minimum at no less than twenty dollars.” I figured this a sort of token payment toward future repairs.
“You got it.” Ruthie handed me the leash and reached into her shoulder bag.
Spike released the manny’s wooden leg but hung onto the trouser’s bell-bottom. Growling, he shook his massive head, causing Wolf to flop on his stand like a rag doll.
“Stop that,” I said, doing my best to get between them. “It’s okay, Ruthie; if you haven’t got it, you can pay me later.”
Taking money from Ruthie troubled me. Ruthie’s husband, a schizoid agoraphobic, pretended that he didn’t work because he was independently wealthy, not because he was afraid to go outside the building. If not for the inheritance Ruthie received from her late mother about a year ago, the couple would have been destitute.
“It’s right here.” Ruthie took the leash and gave me the twenty. “This means a lot to me. When Jason and I first got married, I thought he would complete me and make me whole. Instead, with all his imaginary fears, I feel more like he’s taking me apart piecemeal.”
“I’m no marriage counselor,” I said, sorry for Ruthie. Everyone knew that Jason’s phobia led him to tolerate, if not encourage, Spike’s mean disposition, something he rightly assumed scared people off.
“I know you’re not. I wasn’t thinking of you.” Ruthie focused on the wooden sailor. “Like you suggested at our little gathering last month, I’d get my own manny if it weren’t for you-know-who.”
Nodding, I again sympathized; Spike had clearly intimidated her. I had once, and only once, been inside her apartment, a place that Spike had trashed. While I visited, sitting on the torn-up sofa, Ruthie attempted to occupy the seat next to me. Before she could claim it, Spike jumped up and growled at her, taking the spo
t for himself.
“You shouldn’t let him bully you like that,” I told her. “You got to stand up to him. Show him who’s boss.” Spike must have disliked the comment. With homicidal rage in his eyes, he stood on the adjoining cushion and pressed his twitching muzzle against the carotid artery in my throat. Should Spike ever get hold of my manny, it would end up a pile of go-fetch sticks. Once the beast seizes an item, you’d lose a hand trying to get it back.
“About the you-know-what,” I said, agreeing with Ruthie’s tacit observation that a manny would not likely survive a perpetually pissed-off Rottweiler. “Maybe you could keep one somewhere other than your apartment.” I thought the storage cabinets reserved for tenants in Whitehall’s subterranean parking garage would be a good place. “Like in a garage locker. That’s where I stowed my manny’s crate.”
Ruthie sighed. “Just storing him wouldn’t make much difference. I’m almost as housebound as Jason.”
A former travel agent, the woman loved going on trips far and wide. Though always up on the best hotel rates and airline deals—brochures from resorts all over the world spilled from her mailbox—she could go no farther than a radius of about two miles. Given the attention demanded by her husband and the dog, she might as well be the one collared and leashed.
Ruthie thanked me for the input and promised to have Wolf back before dinnertime, right after she finished running a few errands.
Having rescued Wolf from the jaws of death, I arranged to leave him in the garden on a lawn chair beneath an umbrella near the pool out back. With Spike again locked in Ruthie’s apartment, and clawing the inside of the door to get back out, I checked Wolf’s leg, riled that it was chewed like a wooden pencil during a difficult math test.
Back in my own apartment, I apologized to my manny and thanked him for making us twenty bucks richer. “Suit up, Wolfie. You’re going out,” I said, preparing him for his first date.
Me and My Manny Page 2