“We had one just like it when I was a kid. Look.” She touches the plastic that forms the bunny’s blue coat. On the elbow, a small blur of white-yellow light bleeds through scratches. “Ours was even worn in the same spot!”
Her brown eyes sparkle and plead beneath the brim of her gray flannel cap, the one with the hugging penguins on it. “Come on! It’s only fifty cents.”
I have visions of it glowing as an embarrassing beacon of midwestern tack on our front stoop. But fifty cents it is, because she works at a zoo and loves animals, even plastic electric ones, and because it’s my week to pay for our night out. Besides, maybe I’ll get lucky, and the wiring’ll fry out.
When she gets it home, she sets it on the kitchen counter next to the empty wine glasses from last night, a stack of plastic fish-shaped dishes and a spinach-encrusted pot from last week.
“I need to clean him up. He’s pretty full of gunk.” She puts the headset for her cordless phone on her ear and pushes buttons on the hand unit. “Could you get the rest of the stuff out of the car, honey?”
Like all the china dishes at a dime each, the fake Japanese black orchids in a pink vase, the scarf peppered with cartoon-style colonial men, the butterfly candelabra and other stuff that is far more interesting and didn’t leer at me in the rearview mirror the entire ride home.
“Suzi! I have to tell you about what I just got!” she squeals into the phone. She pulls dirty dishes from one side of the sink and clanks them in the other side, then turns on the water.
After she cleans behind its ears with cotton swabs and shines it with glass cleaner so it looks as new as a thirty-year-old electric Easter Bunny can look, we start the ritual of finding the place he would work best with our décor. I had never thought of an Easter Bunny as a year-round thing, especially in rooms with gilded-edge mirrors and velvet couches, eggplant-colored walls and Canadian Goose bookends on mahogany shelves. But when I say, “I had thought we’d only leave him out a couple of weeks out of the year, at Easter,” she gets that look on her face, the same one she got last year after the plumber gave her the estimate on repairing the upstairs john. And of course she wants my opinion on how it looks next to the leopard-print floor cushions or on the marble vanity in the guest bath.
I suggest the trash can, but she won’t hear of that. The thing’s sardonic grin brightens a little when she says, “Oh, don’t you just have such a sense of humor?”
The project stops when she gets a phone call from her fashion-designer friend Avery. She sits on the bed with the phone on her ear and sips her wine like she always does, and I am glad to have a break from finding a home for Demon Bunny (that’s what I’ve decided to call him).
I settle in the overstuffed leather chair and flip channels, and of course it’s right there, next to me. Staring.
I hear the water in the kitchen sink running again, hear the bong-bang of heavy pots being pulled from their cabinets. Making dinner. She’ll be awhile.
Classic movie channel.
Damn I wish that thing would take its blue plastic ass and walk away with disinterest—
—Holiday Inn with Bing Crosby. A rather strange choice for the beginning of August since everybody thinks this is a Christmas film, which it isn’t really, and also because August doesn’t have any holidays (well, at least not one Crosby would find worth singing about—who ever heard of United Nations Day)?
Astaire is doing that dance with the firecrackers. At least in the film it’s July.
I glance at Demon Bunny. “You like this?” I settle back and put my feet up on the ottoman. I’m wearing flip-flops, but my bare heels stick to it. We should close the windows and put on the air conditioning. “It’s called Fourth of July. Not one of the holidays with which you’re familiar. You’re away by then. This is when we eat lots of dead cows compressed into patties and pig guts crammed into long tubes.”
Hissing from the kitchen. Obviously my wife is making something—oh, shit I hope it’s not those veggie burgers. I’d rather eat a whole box of Steak-umms than those things.
Just when I think he should have a proper name—(Demon Bunny is too cliché, yet too strong, and it reminds me of movies and TV shows with talking dolls, killing dolls, possessed dolls)—that smile starts to unsettle me. I turn him to face the wall. I wonder if his grin is still there, or if it actually vanishes when people don’t look at him . . . snap-crackle-bang-bang. Firecrackers . . . I’ll just close my eyes for a minute and listen to this dance sequence . . . I’ve seen it a hundred times anyway and I’ve never seen the end of this movie but I’ve always gotten at least this far and I’d love to see what’s on the other side of this number . . .
~~**~~
The TV is off. The smell of stale grease hangs thick in the air, and I wish she would remember to put that heated oil air freshener in that makes the house smell like citrus.
I hear the gentle padding of her footsteps upstairs, and I envision her slipping off her bra, preparing for me, trying to make it different than it’d been last time. I climb the hall stairs and notice something’s different about the cast of pale light on our wedding photo. Usually there’s just the glow of her white veil and gown and both of our faces are dark. Tonight, I can see her smile, and there’s an expression of plastered joy, like a shampoo model in a magazine ad: “If you love the scent of green apple, try this!”
Oh, the light is different on that picture. It’s not just me.
I kick off my shoes up here now since we got the new Oriental rug. “It’s soft and reminds you of a lion’s mane, doesn’t it?” she’d asked. “I wouldn’t know,” I’d said.
Our bedroom door. A crack open. That light. A swiss cheese wedge on the floor . . .
. . . I push it open. It cries . . .
Bunny. On the bed, her toes pointed, pig-pink light across her nipples . . .
—a pig-pink light.
Demon Bunny. In the corner. A salivating circus freak hungry for what lies beneath her silks—
“Won’t he just be the coolest nightlight?”
“Not looking at us like that.”
She recoils, motions with her hand. “What do you want me to do, turn him to the wall?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Grin and watch me hump my wife. “Well, rabbits are symbolic of fertility, aren’t they? Honey, that’s the last thing we need.”
I have to admit, the carpet brings out the color of his eyes.
~~**~~
I sit down to dinner, and Bunny sets the cordless phone down beside her; I guess she’s afraid it will ring and she’ll miss a call. I would love it if she’d let us get caller ID like everyone else. Then maybe she’d be like my friends’ wives: a little more fickle about who she talks to, and when.
She pushes the peas around on her plate. “You haven’t said anything about the new dishes.” She reaches for her can of Diet Coke.
I lift my slab of dried-out London broil and peek underneath. Oh, these are new dishes. Maroon stripes with yellow cornflowers spattered all over them. Like the artists had intended to draw imaginary spilled popcorn in the middle of them. “They’re nice.”
“You didn’t even notice. I got them at Joe’s estate sale, up the street.”
“Joe?”
She scrapes some potatoes off her plate. “He died last year? You know, in that Ferris wheel accident at the fair when the bolts popped out?”
I remember something like that. I try to picture Joe. Sure, he was the one who was out watering his bright pink geraniums all the time in his socks and gray flannel shorts. He had three kids. Little girls, I think. They were loud, and he was always yelling at them to stop picking the forsythia. “Oh, yeah. I remember that.”
Silence.
A crow caws outside.
We had agreed not to have children, but I look at the two empty red vinyl chairs on either side of us and the old pink serving platter full of steak between us, and I think maybe that is why couples start families. Because there isn’t anything left to talk about except the
fat neighbor and how he died.
I push myself back from the table. “You know what? I had a thought.”
She just nods. She doesn’t look up from her plate.
I climb the stairs and go into our bedroom, and there he is, Demon Bunny. “Hey, there,” I say. I unplug him from the wall and lift him, noticing a swath of dust in the crook where his shoulder meets his neck, a spot Bunny missed. We’ll have to take care of that, I think.
I walk into the kitchen and pull out the chair next to me.
Bunny drops her knife. “What are you doing?”
I lift him into the seat. “I just remembered—after dinner I have to go out and get him a new bulb, see if they make them anymore. We should have a spare in case he burns out. This should remind me to do it.”
She seems satisfied with the answer.
“That’s better.” I settle back down and roll some peas onto my fork, slide them into my mouth. “Now I can eat.”
Bunny puts her fork down and studies him a moment. “You know, maybe that’s where we should put him. Right here, in the kitchen. We could get a baby chair or something from one of those piles downstairs. Isn’t that a great idea? It would be like a whimsical kid-thing.” She picks up her fork and knife and starts digging into her meat again. Then she gets up, still chewing. “Here. We might as well make it complete.” She sets one of the new plates down in front of him. Then she pulls out another, smaller one from the stack. “Here’s what the bread dish looks like. The set also came with a butter dish.” She sets her hands on her hips, surveying her work. “I like these.” She opens another can of Diet Coke. “Ever wonder what Joe and his kids ate on these plates? I wonder that sometimes about things. What they were in their past lives before they came here.”
I shrug. “No, not really.”
“Like, were they pasta people? Real pasta or Chef Boyardee? Were they meat and potatoes, or did they eat a lot of rice and beans? What kinds of things did they buy at the supermarket?” She sets her can down on the table and plays with her necklace, a gold American flag she probably picked up at Goodwill for a quarter.
I know I’m annoying her, because I’m chewing my steak noisily. I always have trouble chewing with my mouth closed, especially when it’s a piece of London broil, all dried out and tough. I study Demon Bunny. He sits there, the empty plate in front of him, looking like the only reason he can’t dig in is because I haven’t given him any utensils. I stare at the grin on his face, imagining his lips morphing and moving, asking me where his portion is.
Bunny has almost finished her meal. I can tell she’s hurrying. She probably wants to make a phone call.
I lean back and stretch. “Ever wonder if this bunny had a past life, huh? Sittin’ on the front stoop, cryin’ ’cause he couldn’t run and catch the ice cream man like the other kids?”
She stops mid chew and furrows her brow. “He’s an Easter decoration.” She swallows. “He wouldn’t be out on display in summer.”
Then she gets up, turns, and puts her dish in the sink, knocks back the rest of her Diet Coke, and picks up her phone. I wonder if there are any peas left on the stove, and toy with the idea of giving some to Demon Bunny. You know—just a few.
~~**~~
She’s on the phone again. This time she’s talking about Hamster Face, the woman at her office who Bunny claims had to have gotten married in the dark because she’s so ugly. It’s probably true, of course. There are lots of ugly people in the world, but I do feel bad for Hamster Face. Like, does she know she’s hamster-faced? If she does, and she grew up that way, is it a self-esteem obstacle she’s had to overcome? Or is she simply ignorant? Does she think she’s pretty?
Then I wonder what Bunny talks about all day at work. Does she discuss Hamster Face with anyone else?
When was the last time I had a conversation with her? A really great one, about the validity of short films and the lack of creativity in today’s movie industry?
This is how marriages start to decline. Can’t remember the last time I worried about or wanted to impress her. Like the refills on my aftershave. Let the last bottle shake empty, and now it sits there, collecting dust. Bunny dusts it because it has a ship on the bottle and it matches the bathroom. Although she likes to lay me and asks for it more than most women (at least according to my envious buds), she doesn’t listen.
She talks.
I hear the monotone bell of the phone as she hits the off button on the keypad.
“Going out now,” she says. I hear her disconnect the headset, cradling the cordless phone back on the unit. Thud, thud, thud, thud up the stairs. “I’ll be back in a little while. You don’t have to wait up.”
What to do? Not like she and I had anything planned.
The piranha’s tank needs a water change. Hanging out in the basement full of sheets and old board games—Bonanza (dusty) and Battlestar Galactica (dustier)—doesn’t appeal to me right now. I was supposed to do it last night; what was I doing last night, anyway?
Oh, Holiday Inn. On the black-and-white movie channel. Hey, maybe they’re running it again now and I can finally see the end.
I turn on the TV and take off my sneakers and socks; the backs of my feet stick to the ottoman again. Well, son of a bitch! It is on again! But we’re back at Lincoln’s Birthday, and how many holidays is that from July?
Quite a few.
Boring, so boring. I have to sit through this again. All I want to see is the end. I’d go out and rent it on video and watch it if we still had the VCR. Bunny took the old one away in a box, saying it was outdated. (We did buy it in 1985, but then the technology was new, buttons were buttons, and solid state was still the most important pair of words you could find stamped on the front of something.) So, I have to sit here and watch the movie through to the other side. Again. Alone.
Well, I’m not alone, actually. Not if I count Demon Bunny. As a person, sort of.
I tread up the stairs to the bedroom and unplug Demon Bunny, and for the first time wonder if we even can get a replacement bulb for him or even if the one in his back now is the original bulb. I’ll have to check into it. It would be terrible if his light went out.
~~**~~
. . . spider. There’s a spider on your arm . . .
. . . no, it’s Bunny. Shaking me awake. Did I miss the rest of Holiday Inn again?
“Wake up,” she says, and makes me sit up. I don’t even think to click off the TV or Demon Bunny, just follow her upstairs and lay down in our bed. She settles next to me, smooths the sheets.
The TV is still playing downstairs, the sounds very faint. I wonder what the movie channel has on now.
“I’m pregnant.”
This means the illegal piranha will have to go. I can’t take the risk of little squid-like fingers getting in there. What about softball? What’s that coaching thing I’ll have to do now? What is that called? “I thought we agreed not to have children.”
“We did, yes.”
“I thought you were on the pill.”
She sits up.
“Brad, listen. It’s—complicated.”
Something tells me there’s a third party involved in this, and it isn’t the piranha.
“What’s his name?” The sound of someone slamming a front door across the street carries through the open screen.
“It’s David.”
It’s hot up here. Maybe we should get the fan down. “The guy at work you told me was gay?”
“Yeah.”
Duped? Is that why I’m mad?
Not really. It’s more that I feel bad for the guy. Has she been telling everybody he’s gay? The shadows from the leaves on the trees outside scurry across the ceiling like bird feet.
“Do you know whose it is? The kid?”
A car breezes by on the street. It reminds me of this movie I saw that took place in Queens or somewhere in the city, but all of the houses had little lawns and porches, and I had thought that was very strange.
~~**~~
&nbs
p; The next day Manzino comes over. He’s a train enthusiast; I met him at a workshop on track design once at the Railway Museum. We’ve been friends ever since. I have an electric train set in the basement, so every year for Christmas he buys me another addition to the small universe I’m building. I’m trying to make a university in the middle of summer. Or maybe a big aquarium or a recreation of Coney Island. I’m not interested in classic towns. Everybody does those.
“So, you’re sure?” Manzino asks.
“I’m sure,” I say. The water level in the piranha’s tank is almost down to half. He’s a beautiful red-bellied, and his red bottom sparkles like the shimmer of an elegant cocktail dress under dim lighting on New Year’s Eve, that gauzy stuff. Bunny has a dress made out of that material.
Click, whir. Manzino plays with my train set. “Oh, come on. What do you really need a wife for anyway?” he asks. He always sounds like he’s trying to sell me a washing machine. “Did you know the little light on your caboose is out?” The whirring stops. I think I would like to feed the piranha a live frog today. There’s a bowl in the corner with the usual stock of goldfish, but I’m in the mood to watch something a little more interesting.
“I mean, all she does is talk all the time, anyway, right? Oh, by the way, the glowing Easter Bunny in the living room is pretty cool, you know? I had one when I was a kid. Had the Santa too.”
I glance over my shoulder at him, careful to have my fingers and everything clear of the tank. He’s toying with my caboose. I notice the back of his deep maroon cardigan sweater has a threadbare hole in it. Maybe his cat slept on it. “I didn’t like it at first,” I say, “but now I’m used to it. Except she keeps it in the bedroom.”
“That’s kinky. Why is it in the living room?”
“I dunno. Watching Holiday Inn, I guess.”
“See, companions that don’t talk. Good idea.” The whirring starts again. “I think I fixed this light.” Whir, whir. “I really think animals already went through a talking phase, and they figured out it doesn’t make any difference. It only adds to confusion. So they decided not to talk anymore. They figured they were better off. So they run around naked with their tongues hanging out all day. But if you look at their faces and into their eyes, they have a real Old World look about them, like they’re very wise.”
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