“Oh Christ, look – I don’t go about getting into fights in bars.”
She gave a little laugh. “Well, you seem to have a flair for it. So, what brings you back here?”
Bunny drummed nervously on the table. “Well, I know I was here on Saturday but, to be honest with ye, I don’t actually remember much about it.”
“Oh,” said Cheryl, her eyebrows raised. “Well, you were pretty drunk.”
“Ah shite, was I?”
“Oh yeah, big time!” Cheryl gave him a stern look. “You don’t remember what happened?”
Bunny clenched his eyes shut. “Oh Jesus. I didn’t make a show of myself, did I?”
After three seconds of silence, Bunny opened one eye, at which point Cheryl collapsed onto the table laughing. “Relax,” she said. “You were fine. In fact, you were a total sweetie pie. I mean, you were drunk, but you’d also got a fair old knock on the head. You honestly don’t remember?”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“Damn,” she said. “Well, rest easy. You were the perfect gentleman. Here, at least. From what I could gather, some Australian gentlemen may not have such fond memories of meeting y’all.”
“So I believe,” said Bunny. “From what I can gather, this Smithy fella really doesn’t like to be touched.”
Cheryl grinned. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”
Bunny reddened. “Oh right, sorry. Are you and him…?”
“Now, that is a complicated question. Short answer, I’d like to be, but Smithy wants to focus on his art.”
“Really?”
“Well, you know what he’s like.”
Bunny shifted nervously. “Not really. To be honest with you, I’ve been hearing about him all day, but I don’t actually recall him or this Diller fella at all.”
Cheryl’s expression darkened. “Really? Damn, that ain’t good, honey.”
“I know,” said Bunny. “It’s never happened before. First thing I knew, I was waking up at 6am, minus my wallet and phone.”
“Ouch.”
“I’m hoping the two lads might be able to help me figure out what happened.”
“Well, you and Diller left here about 2am.”
“Right. Was Smithy not with us?”
It was Cheryl’s turn to blush. “No. He came home with me. I’m afraid I’ve no idea where y’all ended up.”
“I see. Would you know where I could find either of the lads?”
“Right about now, I’d imagine Smithy is at his current job. Although” – she glanced at her watch – “it is 3pm, so I can’t guarantee he hasn’t quit by now.”
“Is that likely?”
Cheryl laughed. “Man has an artistic temperament, and a bit of a hair-trigger to boot.”
“He sounds like a nightmare.”
“That ain’t giving you the good side.”
“What’s that like?”
Cheryl grinned. “Now that is a personal question.”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll write the address down for you.”
She opened another pocket in her bag and started rummaging around in it. “Oh sorry, I meant to ask. Any luck finding Simone?”
Bunny froze. “What?”
“Your good lady.”
“I told you about that?”
Cheryl looked up. “Yeah. You really opened up. Told us all how much she meant to you. Showed us the photo you got.”
Bunny held his head in his hands. “Oh God.”
“Oh God nothing. A man trying to reconnect with the love of his life, that’s a beautiful thing. It’s straight-up romantic, in fact, and that ain’t something you hear much in this building.”
“What did I say, exactly?”
“You were… a little emotional.”
“Oh Jesus.”
“Oh hush. Ain’t nothing wrong with a man crying.”
Bunny raised his head up. “Oh, for feck’s… I was crying?!”
Cheryl nodded as she reached across and took Bunny’s hand. “Like the sweetest little drunken Irish baby.” She started writing on the back of his hand. “Sorry, no paper.”
“Well, it seems I made a show of myself in a whole different way than I expected.” Those words triggered his memory, and he reached his hand into his pocket, pulling out the pink bra. “Speaking of which, I had this on me.”
Cheryl nodded. “Cool. Aliyah’s been looking for that.”
“I’m afraid to ask, but why did I have that?”
“You were using it to dry your tears.”
Bunny put his head back into his hands again. “Oh, for feck’s sake!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Bunny wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. He double-checked the address that Cheryl had written on the back of his hand. This was the place alright.
The bell above the door tinkled as he pushed inside. There was a waiting room with four chairs and framed pictures of smiling customers with their dogs on the wall. At a quick glance, Bunny saw a lot of people he didn’t recognise and one person who may have been a supporting actor in something that got cancelled. Celebrity is a relative term.
Behind the counter was a woman with jet-black hair and a pinched face. She favoured him with a grin so wide that Bunny was pretty sure he could see every last one of the teeth she possessed. Her smile dominated the room in a way dental work rarely did. Somewhere, a dentist was rightfully proud.
“Hi! Welcome to Doggy Do-Dos. Whether your poodle needs a perm or your terrier needs a trim, we’re the ones to help bring forth the beauty from within.”
“Right,” said Bunny, not sure what the correct response was when greeted in verse. He was girding himself for the possibility that, before the conversation continued, he might be forced to “answer me these questions three”. He didn’t say anything for a moment, which only caused the woman to put even more effort into smiling, which had the opposite result to the relaxing effect she was presumably going for.
“I, ehm, I was actually looking for Smithy.”
The smile went down harder than the Hindenburg, replaced with a scowl and a distinct lack of poetry as she raised her voice. “Smithy, I’m not your fucking secretary.”
A shouted response came from the back. “What now, Bernice?”
“You got a fucking visitor.”
“Could you just say that? There’s no need to… ” Smithy, a four-foot-five white guy in a grey beanie hat and sleeveless T-shirt, emerged from a door to the side of the counter. “Oh – hey, Bunny.” He turned back to Bernice. “Could you not just tell me without all the aggression? Your negativity upsets the dogs.”
“Hippy-addled fucking bullshit.” Bernice opened a door that led into an office. “Just get that fucking last job done. I promised the owner it’d be ready by seven and it’s a fucking big one.”
“Alright, just…”
Bernice entered her office and slammed the door behind her.
Smithy shook his head. “That Swiss finishing school was worth every cent. C’mon in.”
Smithy turned back towards the door he’d just come through and Bunny walked around the counter and followed him in. “You’ll be shocked to know that Bernice and I met on a court-assigned anger management course. She was the ‘fun’ one in the group.”
They entered a workshop where several dogs sat in large cages, either panting happily or dozing. Soft jazz played in the background. Smithy waved a hand around. “Welcome to my office.”
“You don’t seem surprised to see me?”
“Cheryl rang, said you’d be coming over. Hey, can you really not remember anything about Saturday?”
Bunny shook his head.
“Damn, that is messed up. Speaking of which, not that you can remember it, but sorry about the thing in the karaoke bar. What can I say? Like the judge said, I need to get better at controlling my rage. Pull up a seat.”
Bunny sat in the proffered chair. “Ara don’t worry about it. I’ve a few issues in that area
myself.”
“Well, thanks again. You don’t need to be dealing with my shit. You got enough of your own to be handling.”
As he spoke, Smithy was picking up various trimmers, scissors and combs and dipping them in and out of a beaker containing disinfectant.
Bunny found the change of subject they both wanted. “So, you groom dogs?”
“What gave it away?”
“The little limerick the lady did when I walked in.”
Smithy gave a derisive laugh and shook his head. “Don’t.”
He picked up a broom and started sweeping up the black dog hair that littered the floor. Behind him, a bright-eyed schnauzer, which looked well-trimmed to Bunny’s untrained eye, sat in its cage, happily lapping water from its bowl.
“You worked here long?”
“Almost a month. Getting close to a personal record.” Smithy put the broom down and looked around his workspace. “I also don’t get on great with authority. Besides, I’m an actor, so, y’know, lots of part-time work. We talked about all this on Saturday. You really don’t remember?”
Bunny shook his head.
“Damn. That must be scary.”
“’Tis. To be honest, this whole day has felt weird – chasing a version of myself I don’t remember. It’s felt a bit like dancing on me own grave.”
“Yeah,” said Smithy. “I can see that.”
“No choice though. I promised a lady I’d help her out, and to do that, I really need my stuff back.”
“I see,” said Smithy, before turning to take a clipboard off the next cage, which contained a Siberian husky.
“Cheryl double-checked,” Bunny continued. “We left before you two did on Saturday night. About 2am.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Me and Diller, I mean. Then, next thing I know, I wake up at 6am in Times Square, and my wallet and phone are gone, but I do have—”
“Sorry,” said Smithy, walking towards the door. “One sec.” He raised his voice. “Bernice! What the hell is this?”
“Fucking what?!” came back the screamed response.
Smithy read from the clipboard in his hands. “‘Make dog look like Gene Simmons from Kiss.’ Are you kidding me?”
“What’s the problem?”
“Gene Simmons from Kiss,” Smithy repeated. “I assume this means the black and white face paint and… ” Smithy flipped the page over. “Oh yeah, look – they included a picture too. Helpful.”
Bunny looked at the Siberian Husky. Bunny didn’t think a dog could manage to pull off trepidation as a facial expression, but there it was, a Siberian Husky proving him wrong.
“Just do your fucking job,” screeched Bernice.
“Do my job? What? Dye the hair? Paint it?”
Bernice’s door slammed open. “Jesus fucking Christ, how hard is it to understand a simple fucking instruction.”
“I understand fine. I’m just not doing it.”
“What the owner fucking wants, the owner fucking gets.”
“Bullshit. This is abuse. I’m not painting a poor dog for no damn reason.”
“He’s paying fifteen hundred fucking bucks – there’s a damn good reason.”
“Give him his money back, because I ain’t doing it.”
“The fuck I will.”
“Seriously, Bernice, I have to know: how did someone who hates dogs end up owning a dog-grooming business?”
“Screw you. Look – do the thing and I’ll pay you double.”
Smithy folded his arms. “No way. This ain’t a money thing, it’s a principle thing. By the way, you didn’t say fuck in that last sentence. You broke a great run you had going there.”
“How would you and your fucking principles feel about getting fucking fired?”
Smithy tossed the clipboard onto the counter. “You won’t find out, because I quit.”
“The fuck you do.”
Smithy turned to leave the room. “Y’know, Bernice, the reason you’re so angry is because you think the world doesn’t like you. Here’s a newsflash: it doesn’t. That’s because the world has met you and you are utterly unlikable. You are a truly terrible person.”
“Fuck you. You can’t walk out on me.”
Smithy took a jacket from a hanger on the wall. “Not only can I, but I’m going to do it moonwalk-style.” Smithy turned to Bunny as he moonwalked towards the back door. “Fancy buying an unemployed actor a drink?”
They sat at the counter in silence and contemplated the drinks that sat in front of them. Bunny had a beer, Guinness being unavailable in this establishment. Smithy had a whiskey.
Bunny scratched at his beard. “Did you really take part in a leprechaun hunt?”
“Really?” said Smithy, sounding incredulous. “You thought now would be a good time to bring that up?”
“Fair point. Sorry.”
Smithy stared at his whiskey some more. “Yes, I did. Most humiliating experience of my damn life. When I make it, with God as my witness, I’m going to find everybody that was there and shoot every last one of them.”
“Oh God.”
“With a paintball.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Although,” said Smithy, “if I ever meet that short-arsed backstabbing midget again…”
Bunny paused for a moment, and then, “Are you—”
“I’m allowed use that word, yes. You, not so much.”
“Right.”
They both went back to looking at their drinks. Bunny ran his finger down the side of the glass.
“So…”
“Y’know,” said Smithy, “I really liked that job.”
“Really?”
“I mean, not Bernice – she’d have been a modern-day Hitler if she’d got the breaks in life, but the dogs were nice. Certainly better than people, on average.”
“Yeah,” said Bunny. “I’m sure you could get a job doing it somewhere else. It looked like you were good at it.”
Smithy shrugged. “Maybe. I need to do some work on my one-man play idea anyway.”
“Oh, right, yeah. The acting. That must be tough.”
“It is.”
“I mean, there must be limited roles for… ”
Smithy turned to look at Bunny. “For what? A midget?”
“I thought that wasn’t the good word?”
“I couldn’t give a shit about the word. There are lots of words. In all honesty, ‘little person’ pisses me off more. Makes us sound magical or some shit. No, I don’t care about the word, but I do care about the label. Do you know how many times, in his entire portfolio of plays, Shakespeare specifies the height of any of the actors?”
“No.”
“Never! He never does. Where does it say Hamlet can’t be a dwarf? Or, come to that, that Macbeth can’t be black? That King Lear can’t be an Asian dude with a cleft lip and a limp? It’s acting, for God’s sake. It’s all about pretending, inhabiting a character. How many gay actors have played straight for decades – and not just on screen? A black man can be president, but he can’t be James Bond? Bullshit. Despite their acting chops, Arnie isn’t really a robot, Tom Hanks isn’t really a cartoon cowboy and Andy Serkis isn’t anything that Andy Serkis has ever played. It’s make-believe. Step into any multiplex in America and you’ll see white dudes of retirement age taking on whole cities with their bare hands, played by guys who, in reality, throw a hissy fit and won’t leave their trailers if someone messes up their coffee order, but I can’t be anything but the midget? There ain’t a word for the kind of bullshit that is.”
Bunny tapped a spare beer mat on the countertop. “Fair play. I mean, I never really thought about it, but you’re absolutely right.”
“Yeah, well,” said Smithy, picking up his drink, “it doesn’t mean the next time I’m sitting outside an audition with a bunch of chisel-jawed male models with two facial expressions between them that I won’t be asked if I’m in the wrong place. Diller gets something similar. Do you know why he started talkin
g to you on Saturday morning?”
Bunny shook his head.
“He’s up for an audition for a role in The Field, y’know, the John B. Keane play?”
“I know it well.”
“So he went looking for a real Irish person. Wanted to develop an ear for the accent.”
“Oh.”
“Now, don’t go feeling weird about it. It’s not like you were being used. Hell, he probably told you and you can’t remember.”
Bunny picked up his pint. “That’s true.”
“I ran lines with him. He was really good.”
“Did you two meet through the acting then?”
“Yeah,” said Smithy. “Something like that. We’re in the same situational acting troupe.”
“A what?”
“Ask me some other time. I’m not in the mood to explain it now.”
“Right,” said Bunny. He took a sup of his beer and put it back down. “He sounds like a nice lad, this Diller fella.”
“Yeah, he’s a good guy. You’d like him. Fuck, you did like him? You do like him? You know what I mean. He’s a nice kid and he hasn’t exactly had it easy. His domestic situation is… well, complicated doesn’t begin to cover it. He grew up in and out of the system. He’s skinny as a rake and a sensitive soul and yet, somehow, he managed to not get eaten alive. He isn’t like you and me. He doesn’t have that nasty side he’s holding in check all the time. Despite all the shit he’s been through, only a little of which I know about, he actually seems to really like people. He’s a damn good actor too, and I’m guessing it’s because he had to develop that just to survive. Makes him more real than ten of those Stravinsky method narcissists, and odds are still that the part will go to some California pretty boy.”
“Here’s the thing though,” said Bunny. “He’s got his flaws too.”
Smithy said nothing for a couple of seconds, before adding a reluctant “Yeah.”
Bunny went to speak but Smithy put a finger up to stop him. “You don’t remember my… ” Smithy turned his finger to point at his own head.
Bunny gave him a blank look.
Smithy shook his head. “Man, not for nothing, but that shit is scary. You can’t be blanking out, losing whole days.”
“I was spiked.”
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