Crazy Little Thing

by Layce Gardner

  “Be careful,” Ollie warned. “The last time I felt a pulse in my pants I ended up married.”

  They were on Elm Street in Dallas on the Grassy Knoll and across the street from the Texas School Book Depository. G-Ray wore his helmet cam. He had made an executive decision and decided that he might as well document the whole wild ride instead of limiting it to just the Claire and Ollie scenes.

  Ollie and Claire stood back and watched G-Ray do his chicken scratch thing around the summit of the Grassy Knoll. He stuck his thumbs in his ears and made moose antlers. He wiggled his fingers back and forth.

  Oscar danced around G-Ray’s feet, barking at his moose impersonation.

  “What’s G-Ray doing now?” Claire whispered.

  “Trying to find a signal,” Ollie said.

  “So you think this alien thing is real?” Claire asked.

  Ollie shrugged. “I think he thinks it’s real. And who am I to pee on his parade? It’s not hurting anybody and look how happy it makes him.”

  “Happy?” Claire gestured to the people who were double-taking G-Ray’s performance. “Looking like a fool in public makes him happy?”

  Ollie looked over at Claire and it was almost as if she was seeing her clearly for the very first time. An unwelcome thought reared its ugly head. How did she fall in love with and marry a woman who was so… so… stodgy? “When did you become so…” Ollie began. She censored herself and stopped mid-sentence. There was no use upsetting Claire any further. They had a long ride ahead of them. And an even longer time that they would have to live under the same roof.

  “What?” Claire asked. “Finish what you were going to say.”

  “Nothing,” Ollie said and walked across the street toward the Texas Book Depository.

  Claire ran to catch up. Once across the street, she grabbed Ollie by the arm and turned her around. “Tell me. What were you going to say?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not important.”

  “I want to hear it. You said, ‘When did I become so…?’”

  “Uptight,” Ollie blurted. “Uptight and square and worried about what other people think. You used to laugh more. You made love on the beach under the moon. You weren’t afraid to have fun.” Ollie was really warming up now. “Ever since you got with Scarlet, you’ve changed.”

  “How would you know what I’m like now? I haven’t seen you since the day you left.”

  Ollie couldn’t believe her ears. “Okay, first off, I didn’t leave. You kicked me out,” she said. “In fact, I think your last words were, ‘Leave. And don’t come back.’” Ollie could feel her temperature rising. She turned and walked away before she blew and said something she truly regretted.

  “Who’s leaving now?” Claire threw at Ollie’s back.

  Ollie ignored her. She wasn’t going to stand outside in the middle of Dallas with tourists milling around and make a domestic scene with her wife. Wife. What a friggin’ joke. They lived together for two months before things became so sour that Claire kicked her out of the bedroom. Hell, she had lived with G-ray longer than Claire. Even whacko G-Ray with his tingly ass was easier to live with than Claire had ever been.

  Ollie threw open the door to the Texas Book Depository and marched inside. She took the stairs two at a time.

  The thing she didn’t tell Claire was that she had seen her with Scarlet. The first time was by accident, at the grocery store. She saw Claire and Scarlet loading up their cart in the diet food section. They were getting all the food that had no sugar, no carbs, no transfats and no taste. Scarlet was as happy as a pig in slop. Claire looked sad. Ollie had even seen her gaze longingly at a box of Ho-Ho’s.

  The second time she had seen Claire wasn’t an accident. She was on her way to the beach when, without realizing it, she had driven over to Claire’s new house. She stopped her van a block away and watched Claire’s front door. She hadn’t even known she was doing it until she had already parked. She waited outside in her van for two hours before she saw Claire and Scarlet walk outside, get into Scarlet’s fancy red convertible and speed away.

  Ollie found herself parking outside Claire’s house several times a week, watching Claire come and go. She told herself she wasn’t stalking Claire. Stalking meant she was planning to do something icky. Ollie had no plans to be creepy. She just wanted to see Claire. She thought if she saw how happy Claire was with her new girlfriend that would put the kibosh on her feelings. She would get over Claire and be able to move on with her life.

  But that wasn’t what she saw at all. She saw a progression of Claire going from a normal, happy woman to a woman who was so uptight and rigid that she looked like she had a pole stuck up her butt.

  Ollie had to admit that Scarlet had several things going for her. She had nice tits. Great lips. A perfect nose. And her BMI was like a ten. Which meant, in Ollie’s humble opinion, that she needed to eat a cheeseburger or two. In fact, after some sleuthing (not to be confused with stalking), Ollie had found out that Scarlet’s body had cost more in plastic surgeries than Ollie had earned in her lifetime. She would have had to paint and sell about two million hermit crab shells to pay for just one of those fake tits.

  And then came the inevitable day when Ollie saw Claire come home with two black eyes and a bandaged nose. At first, Ollie thought Claire had been in a fight. But it was worse than that. Claire had been to the plastic surgeon and gotten her nose redone.

  Rhinoplasty.

  What an ugly word.

  “Let’s make a deal with each other,” Claire said.

  Ollie was now on the sixth floor looking out a window at the passing Dallas traffic. It was the same window from where Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot the president. She sighed, but didn’t turn and look at Claire.

  Claire continued talking to Ollie’s back. “Let’s be honest, absolutely honest, with each other. We have to live together until the divorce, so it’s the least we can do.”

  Ollie turned and eyed Claire. “Honesty? That’s what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, fine with me. Tell me something honest.”

  “You go first,” Claire said.

  Ollie didn’t even hesitate. “I hate your nose.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” Ollie said. “I hate your stupid, perfect nose.”

  Claire cupped her hand over her nose, hiding it. “My nose?”

  “It used to be cute. It had a tiny crook in the end. It was so… you. Not perfect, but perfectly you. Now it’s gone. You’re changing. It’s like you’re trying to become something you aren’t.” Ollie took a deep breath. “How’s that for honest?”

  She walked away. She couldn’t stand to see the hurt on Claire’s face. It seemed like everything she did, she ended up hurting Claire. Why was that? Why did she always hurt the people she loved? That was one of life’s mysteries. Maybe G-Ray’s tocks could answer it for her, but she doubted it.

  As Ollie walked out the doorway, she heard Claire say, “Honesty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

  *

  Claire looked out the sixth floor window and watched Ollie stalk to the van and climb inside. She saw EZ sleeping soundly on top of the van and G-Ray walking around shooting footage with his helmet cam. Oscar pranced around, stopping to sniff and pee on every bush. She saw couples, young and old, walking around Dealey Plaza, pointing, talking, taking photos. Claire remembered the film she had seen once. It was called the Zapruder film. The grainy footage clearly showed JFK being shot and Jackie climbing over the back of the car trying to retrieve her husband’s brain fragments.

  Now that was love. Jackie didn’t even have to think about it. She reacted. She didn’t stop and think, ‘That’s gross, I don’t want to touch his brain.’ She just went for it.

  Claire wondered if she would ever love somebody so much that she would react so selflessly. Had she ever loved Ollie that hard? Did she love Scarlet that much?

  Claire didn’t have any answers. If she was going to be bru
tally honest with herself that was why she said yes to this trip. She wanted to reassure herself that she didn’t love Ollie once and for all. And as soon as that foolishness was settled in her mind, she could freely give her entire heart to Scarlet.

  The only problem was sometimes her heart and mind disagreed.

  Welcome to Tulsa Town

  As Ollie drove down I-44 entering Tulsa she pondered how it was that one person (Claire) could make her feel so good one minute and so horrible the next. If that was love, she didn’t want any part of it.

  G-Ray was seated at the table, dozing with his head thrown back and eyes wide open. The only way you could tell he was sleeping was by the snuffling noises he made. Claire was busily typing away on her smart phone. Ollie didn’t understand the fascination with smart phones. She didn’t even own a cell phone. She had a landline. What was that called, a dumb phone?

  “What’re you doing with that gadget?” Ollie finally asked.

  “Facebook,” Claire answered. “Updating my status.”

  “Yeah,” Ollie groaned. “Gotta let people know where you are and what you’re doing every second of every day. Life isn’t worth living unless you have an audience.”

  Claire’s jaw tightened, but she didn’t say anything.

  “You know Facebook isn’t real, right?” Ollie goaded.

  Claire looked at her but still didn’t answer.

  Ollie knew she was spoiling for a fight and acting childish, but she couldn’t help herself. Facebook and Twitter were her pet peeves. “And what’s with all the selfies these days? The first time I ever heard somebody talk about a selfie, I thought they meant masturbation.”

  Claire held her phone up and snapped off a picture of Ollie. Ollie grimaced. Several long moments went by without either one talking. Claire continued typing away on her phone. Ollie was never going to be able to wrap her mind around the social networking phenom. Here she was, a real live person sitting right beside Claire, but Claire was “socializing” with people hundreds of miles away that she had never even met in real life and probably never would.

  Unable to stand it anymore, Ollie muttered, “What’re you doing now? Taking one of those quizzes that tell you what animal you were in a past life? Or what kind of cupcake you are? Or what fictional character you are in the Harry Potter books?”

  Claire sighed heavily. “No, Ollie, I am looking up where we can stay in Tulsa.”

  “So now you have to look things up? You used to play it by ear. Last time we drove to Des Moines, we didn’t have to plan everything out in detail. Planning takes all the fun out of it. Whatever happened to adventure?”

  “Well, maybe we should have planned some stuff. Look how our last adventure turned out: D.I.V.O.R.C.E.”

  “I know how to spell,” Ollie grumbled. She crunched on a pork rind. She was hungry for real food. And she was tired. Maybe finding a place to rest and grab some grub would make her feel better. “Find a place with a pool,” Ollie said. Water always improved her mood.

  Suddenly, G-Ray sat bolt upright, held up both hands and commanded, “Quiet!”

  Everyone held their breath and listened. After several long moments, Claire whispered, “What exactly are we listening for?”

  “I can hear them,” G-Ray said.

  “Who?” Claire asked. “Your tocks?”

  G-Ray shook his head. “Tapping. Listen.”

  Ollie strained her ears. Sure enough, she heard tapping noises. There were a series of long taps, interspersed with short taps. “Does anybody know Morse code?”

  “I do,” G-Ray said. “They’re saying… Stop car. Stop car. I have to pee. Pee. Stop car.”

  “Oh my God,” Ollie said. “It’s EZ! She’s awake.” Ollie put on the blinker and took the next exit, which happened to lead directly into the parking lot of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

  Between a Hard Rock (Hotel) and a Place

  As soon as G-Ray untied EZ and lowered her to her feet in the parking lot, she took off running for the hotel lobby. Well, she didn’t exactly run. When you’re tied up on top of a van going fifty-five miles an hour for eight hours on the Interstate, your muscles seize and freeze. So what EZ did was more of a herky-jerky strut. She looked like a puppet that had a drunk guy pulling its strings. She bounced off a couple of cars and a camper before straightening out and finding the front doors of the hotel.

  Oscar led the way on his leash, excitedly pulling Ollie behind him. Claire and G-Ray followed them into the hotel lobby. As soon as the door shut behind them they were swallowed up by loud noises, bright lights and eye-watering smells. Thousands of slot machines whirred, purred, dinged, donged and beeped. Dolly Parton’s voice boomed 9 to 5 over the loudspeakers. Colored lights flashed and strobed. The fumes of stale smoke, old whiskey and White Diamonds perfume assaulted their noses.

  Claire dug in her purse, found her sunglasses and put them on.

  Ollie plugged her ears with her fingers.

  G-Ray pinched his nose and said, “I’mb going to get us a roomb.”

  “What?” Ollie said. “I can’t hear you. I have my fingers in my ears.”

  “I want my very own room,” Claire said.

  G-Ray turned loose of his nose, but continued to mouth breath. “I know, man, I know,” he said. “It was in the contract that Scarlet drew up and I signed.”

  Claire was glad she had a lawyer for a girlfriend. If not, she would probably be sleeping in some skanky motel, sharing a bed with all of them. She looked over at Ollie.

  Ollie was standing still with her mouth hanging open, her fingers still plugging her ears and her eyes bugged-out. Claire followed Ollie’s gaze. “Holy shit,” Claire muttered. And she didn’t use that phrase lightly because personally she had never understood how shit could be holy. But this time the phrase was warranted for its unrealistic appeal if nothing else. Because what she was seeing was totally unreal and made her wonder if they had somehow been transported to another dimension or another plane of reality or perhaps sucked into the Twilight Zone.

  The hotel lobby was crawling with animals. Big animals. Big, furry animals. People-sized animals, clad in fur head-to-toe, with tails, and walking on their hind legs. There were dogs, cats, kangaroos, coyotes, birds, and a wide assortment of cartoon characters.

  “What the…?” Claire said under her breath to Ollie.

  “You can see it too?” Ollie asked without turning her head away from the sight. She unplugged her ears and winced.

  Claire slowly nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “Can you maybe do the Google thing on your smart phone?”

  “Oh, so now you like the smart phone.” Claire dug her phone out of her purse and typed the words fur, costumes, people, Tulsa. “Here we go,” she said. “Have you ever heard of Furries?

  “Nope.”

  “Well, according to Wikipedia it’s what these things are. Furries are people dressed up in fur costumes and role-playing animal characters.”

  “Why?” Ollie whispered.

  “For fun,” Claire whispered back. She did some more scrolling and said, “This week in Tulsa is the International Convention of Furries. The FurCon. There are Furries from all over the world - hundreds of thousands of Furries - are coming here and joining together for the first time in fur history.” Claire giggled. “Furstory. History with fur, get it? Furstory?”

  Ollie said, “Yes, I got it.”

  “And it says right here,” Claire tapped her phone’s screen, “that they walk around squeaking at each other and hugging. This is a complete culture unto itself. Those fur suits cost thousands of dollars. The personality that they create through the art of fur is called a fursonae. Like a personae with fur, a fursonae. Get it?”

  “I got it.”

  “And they have dances at night and runway fashion shows and talent contests.”

  “Fur-tastic,” Ollie muttered as she watched a large, cartoonish, purple rabbit hop by. The rabbit was followed by a lifelike Corgi dog. The big Corgi looked at Oscar, and sna
rled as he walked by.

  When Oscar saw the big Corgi he yipped and ran, yanking his leash out of Ollie’s hands. He made a beeline for the Corgi and before Ollie could intervene, Oscar was humping the Corgi’s leg. The Corgi shook its leg and yapped and yipped and yelped. But Oscar had his legs firmly wrapped around the Corgi’s leg and was humping like his life depended on it. Finally, the Corgi gave up, put his front paws on his hips and stood patiently until Oscar finished his business.

  When sated, Oscar turned, kicked his back paws like he was tossing dirt over a doody. “I’m so sorry,” Ollie gushed to the Corgi. “He’s never acted that way before. I’ll dry clean your leg. You can send me a bill.”

  The Corgi growled at Ollie and walked away.

  Ollie spun in circles looking for Oscar. He was nowhere to be seen. She weaved through the furry crowd, calling, “Oscar! Come, boy!” After a few minutes of not finding him, she tapped a polka-dotted dragon on the shoulder, asking, “Have you by chance seen a little Weenie?”

  “Honey, have I ever,” the purple dragon lisped. “My ex had a teeny weenie.”

  “I meant weenie dog,” Ollie said.

  The dragon pointed a claw over to a corner of the lobby, saying, “There’s some dogs over there,” the dragon said, disdainfully, like being a dragon was so much better than being a dog. Ollie saw five large dogs huddled together, scratching each other behind the ears. It looked like the canine version of a circle jerk.

  “Um, yeah, thanks,” Ollie said.

  Ollie wandered around the room, calling Oscar’s name until she finally found him sniffing a giant French Poodle’s butt. Ollie quickly scooped Oscar into her arms and apologized, “Excuze-moi, mon chien est fou.”

  The poodle put her nose in the air and sashayed away. Ollie cooed to Oscar, “Don’t pay any attention to her. Poodles always think they’re so much better than everybody else.”

  *

  By the time Ollie found Claire, G-Ray was standing next to her wearing his helmet cam. Its red light was on. Claire had that look on her face. The look that said she was mad as a wet hen. Ollie knew that look well and it was a scary sight.