Authors: M.A. MacAfee
Me and My Manny (2 page)
As it turned out, Wolf’s immobility proved but a minor hurdle. In a world where the dominant species had pretty much given up walking for wheels, all kinds of conveyances were available. Dissatisfied with the shopping cart, I considered the handlebars of a bicycle. Of specific interest was a motorized battery-powered scooter in the form of a sit-down chair, popular among the elderly. I also looked into the Puma, a mini-electric two-seater that purportedly could drive itself, drop its passengers off at their destination, find a place to park then return for a pick up at a designated time. The perfect manny mobile. Loving the concept, but lacking disposable income, I scratched both kinds of locomotion for me and my manny.
One day, while bargain hunting at a fire sale, I noticed a female-shaped manikin on a square metal platform with four swivel-type wheels under its base. At the back of the platform, a rod went up to the manikin’s waist where it then looped around both sides of her hips. At long last, Wolfgang would be ambulatory.
Filled with a sense of freedom for Wolfgang, I took the ticket off the manikin’s dress, fastened it to the stand, and marked it down twice before buying it on the spot.
Shortly after setting him up on his new conveyance, I pushed him out of my apartment, across the short hallway, and into the elevator downward bound for the first floor. Once outside, I took his arm and rolled him over the concrete ramp that paralleled the front steps of my building.
“Wheee, this is such fun,” I said, feeling free as the breeze as we barreled along the sidewalk toward the park.
“Judy,” someone called. “Judy Mason, is that you?”
Stopping in my tracks, I jerked Wolfgang to a halt and stared at the tiny oval inside his rigid rosebud lips.
“It’s me, Lisa Smith. Your favorite landlady,” the woman said as I turned to face the voice’s owner.
To be precise, Lisa, a willowy blonde with a penchant for glitzy jewelry, was my only landlady. She and her husband owned and managed Whitehall, the funky old mouse-infested tenement I called home.
“Whew, you and Harry were really traveling,” she said, jogging up to me.
I bit my tongue and smiled. Wolfgang hadn’t in the least favored Harry.
“So when did you two take up running?” Lisa drew her long red fingernails through her damp hair and the jeweled bracelets around her wrist tinkled.
“We were rolling, not running. Or at least, Wolfgang was.”
“Wolf—” She broke off and squinted at the manikin. “Is he a…is that a…”
I just kept nodding.
“How cute! I love those protruding ears. And that foreign-looking sailor suit.” She touched the red-and-green ribbons around Wolf’s beanie.
“He’s staying with me, a live-in.” I wondered how long Lisa would go along with this charade. But proud of my new wooden roommate, I chose not to hurry things along.
“How utterly charming. I always knew you were clever, but this time you’ve outdone yourself. Where did you find him?”
“I had him made. Made to order, to my specifications.”
“You can do that? I didn’t know you could do that.” Wide-eyed, she sized up Wolf. “I’m having a few of the girls over tomorrow night. Ruthie will be there. Kadee Harper too. She recently dropped by Whitehall looking for an apartment.”
“That’s nice. I haven’t seen her since I was laid off.” Until a month ago, Kadee was my boss at the financial firm in downtown Redmond. Lisa met her last Halloween at a party for Lisa’s two teenage boys, a felonious pair disposed to stealing and selling expensive car radios. The boys had just been released from Monroe’s detention center and, at the urging of a juvenile court judge, were slated to move to their paternal grandparents’ home in Oregon. Lisa had wanted to give them a cheery send-off.
“Why not come over?” Lisa’s bulging blue eyes fixed on Wolfgang’s comical face. “And bring your friend.”
“Thanks for the invite, but he doesn’t go out much. He’s kind of shy.”
“Oh, I could tell that right away. You and your bashful beau.” Lisa flagged her hand and the cubic zirconia rings studding her fingers glittered.
The response Wolfgang elicited caught me off guard. Something seemed not quite right, and I couldn’t tell if it was Lisa, Wolfgang, or me. My curiosity aroused, I decided it was time Wolf made an official debut. I therefore agreed that both of us would show up tomorrow evening around eight.
That night, lying between the cold sheets in my darkened bedroom, I gazed at the vacant pillow next to me. It neared midnight and alone again, I felt restless and vulnerable. A lunatic could break into my apartment, creep into the bedroom, and jump me while I slept—that’s if I slept. With another figure under the blanket, the lunatic would likely just steal something and clear out, happy he hadn’t disturbed the dozing pair.
Oh, why not? I flung back the blankets and padded into the living room.
“Upsidaisy,” I said, lifting my manny to drag him back to the bedroom.
“There you are, all nice and comfy,” I said, tucking him in on Harry’s side of the mattress.
In wordless accord, Wolf closed his big brown eyes and sank into the pillow, a hint of contentment on his humorous face. I went around to my side and settled under the covers again. Relaxing, I sighed, pleased that the bed had felt more balanced and more secure.
The attention Wolf received at the Saturday night get-together astounded me. My gal pals not only accepted him; they also admired him. They flexed his hinged joints, touched his painted face, and stroked his Italian-style sailor suit. He was the hit, if not the very life of the party. Because of the way they took to him, I filled them in on how easily they could acquire mannys of their own. Mr. Gippo, the old woodcarver in this charming little shop near Pike Place in Seattle, could not have been more helpful. Other than a snapshot of Harry and a brief description of him, all the woodcarver required was a surname for his creation.
“In Wolf’s case, it’s Mr. Kin, as in short for manikin,” I said, stressing the last syllable. “For me the term kin was an appropriate choice. My manny’s far from a common department-store dummy.”
“I bet he’ll keep the creeps away,” Lisa said. “A woman with a companion is less likely to be bothered.”
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.
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 fears. 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.