Chapter 3

It was his first weekend with Mano at the apartment to hold Amanda’s attention, and David was not going to waste it. He pulled out his dollar-store sketchbook and New Kids on the Block pencil and began drawing.

First, he tried drawing the lamp, which ended up looking more like a blobbish thing on top of a thinner blobbish thing.

His next attempt at drawing looked like a giraffe in a top hat, and maybe that was a mentally-challenged tree next to it. If you guessed David was drawing a hand, you would be locked up in a loony bin for a very long, expensive stay, but you would also be correct. No one was in any danger of being correct, though.

“You drawing again?”

David jerked in his seat and turned to see Amanda looking down on him. At him, looking down at him. But the other way is probably true, too.

“Yeah,” David said. “I need to keep practicing.”

“Have you been practicing?”

“Well, sure. Can’t you tell?”

Amanda leaned closer to his drawing, giving it a good, hard looking-over. Even though she had no artistic talent whatsoever, that still gave her a leg up on David.

“Sure,” she finally said, nodding. “This one doesn’t look like it was drawn by a five year old.”

David felt a surge of pride and hopefulness; his heart, not used to such things, nearly died of shock. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she said. “This looks like it was drawn by an arthritic six-year-old.”

David’s heart returned to its depressed manner of pumping blood, happy that the whole ordeal was over. The guy it belonged to slouched back into the sofa, wishing he’d paid extra money to get a couch that would devour him whole. Being eaten alive had to be an improvement.

I didn’t know you were trying to be an artist.

I’m not an artist.

Well, obviously.

David glowered at his drawing. The paper didn’t catch fire, but it did feel mildly uncomfortable.

You have an amazing talent for being incompetent at everything you try.

Maybe I’ll try my incompetent hand at rabbit stew.

There was no response. Unlike David, Mano knew when to walk away from a conversation.

Luckily, Amanda had no interest in rabbit stew. Instead, she tried fixing a healthy salad for dinner. David added a lake of dressing, croutons, artificial-bacon bacon bits, a few dollops of sour cream, and two handfuls of grated cheese to make it edible. Amanda drank diet soda, but he refused to sink that low; he could eat a salad, but there were some things that were just too inhuman, even for him. Instead, he drank a bottle of Power-Up Powery Power Drink; it contained electrostatic or some other thing the human body needs.

Mano also had a bit of salad, but Amanda-style salad, not the salad with all David’s add-ons.

After dinner, Amanda made David work off the calories he’d consumed (though not all of them, because that would take a few weeks; the fact that he was still slim was a mystery for science). David would have demanded payment if it weren’t considered prostitution, because he really was helping Amanda with her work (if she ever made money from her writing). He dreaded the day he pulled a muscle on the job; it seemed inevitable.

Selzer was in a better mood than normal. This worried David; better moods for the boss usually equaled more work for employees. He would have to put in extra effort just to keep Selzer’s mood buoyant enough so David didn’t drown (it’s a well-known fact that tyrannical pet store owners don’t drown, so only employees are in danger). David didn't know what it would entail, but it already sounded exhausting.

“What’s up, sir?”

Selzer waved a crumpled wad of papers in the air, smiling. David wasn’t sure, but the papers looked like they might have once been some sort of pet-centric magazine. He’d only been at work five minutes, and already he felt like he might have missed something.

“We’re in Super Happy Pet Love Magazine!”

“Sir, is that a real mag—“

“They featured our Sea Monkeys as this month’s most popular pet!”

Now David was certain he had missed something.

“Um, sir? How can it be the most popular pet if we’ve never sold one?”

“It’s an opportunity, David,” Selzer said. “An opportunity to get more people into Bob’s Pets, buying exotic animals they can’t get anywhere else. Having this year’s most popular pet will certainly get people through the door.”

In this case, exotic actually meant scientifically rejected, but that was neither here nor there.

“Should we lower the price, sir?”

“What?” Selzer seemed genuinely confused for a moment; he had never heard ‘lower’ and ‘price’ in the same sentence before.

“You know, to encourage our new customers to buy one?”

“No, definitely not,” Selzer said. “No, we’re raising the price! It is this decade’s most popular pet, after all.”

“I thought you said—“

“Just change the signs, David. The Sea Monkeys are $75, now.”

“Yes, Mr. Selzer.”

No matter what it said in Super Happy Pet Love Magazine, David was pretty sure raising the price meant they’d sell even fewer sea monkeys than before, and considering they hadn’t sold a single Sea Monkey yet, this meant a hole in the time-space continuum would open up in their store and eat cash from the register while spitting Sea Monkeys at him. It would probably be unpleasant and leave David smelling of brine.

The only time Bob’s Pets sold an entire stock of animals was when they received the Octosquids. (Selzer originally wanted to call them “squidctopuses,” but David was never able to say it properly; the human tongue naturally stumbles over words like “squidctopus,” “otolaryngology,” and “sorry.”) David wasn’t sure what the point of an Octosquid was, but someone had sure wanted them, because a man came in and bought the entire shipment. Incidentally, David saw the same man working as a chef at a local sushi restaurant. Sometimes the world seems like a small place, but there are fewer coincidences than most people realize.

David debated whether he should make a new sign or just cross out the “$50” and write “$75” to the side. It wouldn’t make a difference either way; it was just a question of laziness. Important questions shouldn’t be decided on the basis of laziness, but David had yet to see an important question deign to appear in Bob’s Pets; important questions had better sense.

In the end, he decided to make a new sign, because at some point Selzer would notice. Never attract the boss’s attention unless it’s necessary, and even then, rethink the options.

When it came time for lunch, he went across the street and to the west of Tossers, passing by it and Apology Bouquets (It was a flower shop where, if you weren’t good with words, you could choose from a number of pre-written apology notes. They offered everything from “sorry I forgot your birthday” to “sorry I gambled away our life savings” and even “sorry I slept with your sister,” which was a lot more popular than you might expect), and walked into Pie’d Piper, because he damn well deserved the sugar. He bought brownies and also a strawberry pie. After all, why would you go into a place that specializes in pies and not get a pie? Exactly. You wouldn’t.

Despite the noise in the bar, Rodney’s laughter was like an alcohol-fueled earthquake. He was laughing a lot harder than David thought was reasonable.

“It’s really not that funny,” David said.

Rodney had to stifle his laughter so he could respond. “Yes, yes it is. Bloody Sea Monkeys, Vid!”

David rolled his eyes. “You and the scientists must have the same sense of humor.”

Or maybe the scientists were drunk, like he and Rodney. Sea Monkeys certainly seem more like a beer idea than a real idea. Real ideas involve reasons for doing things, usually, whereas beer ideas just sound good at the time. David had seen too many beer ideas through to completion in his lifetime. Like pouring honey on his pancakes. And taking vitamins instead of eating meals.

Rodney was still on the same subject. “Those things should sell out in minutes, man.”

David took a drink of beer before he answered. “Nope. Not when Selzer is involved.”

“How much?”

“Seventy-five dollars for one.”

Rodney’s barely stifled laughter came back with a vengeance. “Only your poxy boss could screw up a sure thing like that. You’re the only shop knocking out all these peculiarities, and you’ve got fuck all to show for it.”

David nodded. Selzer spent most of his time doing nothing, and it would have been okay if he continued to do nothing, but he got involved just enough to ensure absolute failure.

“How’s the art going?” Rodney said, looking for something new to laugh about.

David opened his mouth and almost answered him. Then, he paused and looked at his friend suspiciously.

“Are you being a good friend or a bad friend when you ask me that?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you’re a dick,” David said.

Rodney smiled. “Ah, Vid. You know me too well.”

David woke up with a massive hangover, which was an improvement over the usual epic hangover. He must have been on a lucky streak; last night he had managed to enter the apartment and get into bed without waking Amanda or Mano.

David?

So much for the lucky streak.

David tried to think daggers in the rabbit’s general direction. Pointy, fiery daggers. With syphilis. He wasn’t sure what effect that might have, but it seemed like a good idea.

Mano hopped into the kitchen and looked up at him.

“David?”

Well, at least the rabbit wasn’t busting his head open with its telepathy.

“What is it?” David said, urgent to be anywhere Mano wasn’t.

“Get me out of here.”

“What?”

“Get me out of here,” Mano repeated.

“I thought you wanted to be with my girlfriend,” David said.

“No,” Mano said, looking toward the bedroom. “She’s a lunatic. A sociopath.”

“What are you talking about?”

David didn’t know what abject terror on a rabbit’s face would look like, but he was pretty sure Mano was exhibiting it right now. Whatever he was about to say, it had to be awful, the most terrible thing ever. Maybe she ate people when she was alone in the apartment. Ate people, without even using ketchup. It had to be at least that bad, maybe worse.

“She dresses me up in pink lacy things… and photographs it.”

David rolled his eyes.

“Pleeeaaase. I am actually saying please. To you. And I can barely stand you.”

“You’re losing ground,” David said. It was a new feeling for him, to have the upper hand. He wanted to enjoy it while he could, because it couldn’t last long. People with girlfriends never got to enjoy that feeling for long.

“Sorry, sorry,” Mano said, sounding genuinely apologetic. “Please, take me with you.”

David sighed and picked up Mano. There were worse things to take to work than a talking rabbit.

David hurried out the door with Mano in his arms, feeling like a fool carrying a bunny, which is exactly what he was. He threw himself into his beat-up Ford Pinto, landing sideways in the seat like he was trying to dodge bullets. He almost crushed Mano in his haste, but the rabbit kept its complaints to itself. It would complain later, when it was too late for David to change his mind.

“What the hell am I going to tell Amanda?”

“Seriously?” Mano tried to keep the condescension out of its voice.

“I have to call her and—“

“Don’t call her,” Mano said. “That only gives her a chance to ask questions that your mind isn’t quick enough to answer. Text her; it’s less hazardous.”

David pulled out his cell phone and began typing in a message: Brought Mano with me—

“What are you doing? Don’t say that!”

“Well, what am I supposed to type? Huh?”

After Mano finished dictating the text message, David had to admit: the rabbit was a better boyfriend than he was (all rabbits are good boyfriends; it’s part of the reason they get laid so much).

Sorry I missed you last night. You’ll be on my mind all day.

Don’t worry about Mano. He followed me out the door when I left for work, so I took him with me. It’ll be nice to have company.

I love you.

Apparently, the trick to being a good boyfriend is to be an even better liar.