There are Pet sitters in Hell
“IT’S OKAY, he won’t bite you,” Maryann, our neighbor says. David and I are standing in her small living room, watching her stroke the back of what looks to be a small stegosaurus, clinging to side of an enormous birdcage.
“Whoa,” David says. “Let me see.”
I take a step back. “I’ll watch.”
“Gila monster or iguana?’ Ranger Dave asks, as Maryann hands the reptile to David. His arm lurches under its weight. I take another step back.
“Iguana,” Maryann says smartly. Since she is a student at the North Carolina State Veterinary School, she knows the difference. Yay.
“So, I just need you to feed him twice a day all next week. I’ll be home Sunday, very early in the morning. You can leave him out of his cage. He likes to hang around up on the curtain rod.” She points to an iron ramp above the bay window. “Oh, and here’s his food,” she says, and holds up a bag of baby greens, the kind I pay 6.99 a pound for at Whole Foods.
“David? David. Maryann’s showing you his food.”
“Whoa! What’s this growth on his face?” David marvels and pivots around with Cyclops on his arm and all I see is a scaly golf ball protruding from the iguana’s face. It looks like a second, albeit smaller, head. I notice his ribs as he breathes, hard.
“Dude. That thing is huge!” David says, grimacing, and slowly pivots the double-headed creature back to Maryann’s arm.
“Oh, that’s nothing. Just a growth. I’m hoping it will eventually fall off,” she says brightly. I have edged back into the kitchen now.
“And do what with it? Play eighteen holes?’ David asks, wide-eyed.
“No, silly. Study it, probably,” Maryann says.
Oh, gross.
“Oh, yes, and one more thing. Dara, make sure you – “ she holds her hand to her mouth and whispers – “sorta stay away from him if it’s, like, you know, that time of the month. He gets a little… aggressive.”
“’kay!” I shriek, and smile, and hightail it to the door. “Ready David I’m gonna go?!”
David is in a genuflect/crouch, studying him. “
Damn. Are you sure he’s okay?”
“He’s fine,” Maryann says. “See you in a week.”
*
HELL FREEZETH OVER
“The iguana doesn’t look so good,” David tells me, shaking his head. It is Day 2 of his Iguana Pet Sitting Service for Maryann.
“How can you tell?” I ask, making a face.
“Well, when I opened the door, he was sitting on the curtain rod, but then the wind blew the door shut and – Thmph! – he just fell to the floor.”
“Did he run away?’ I ask. The hair is standing up on the back of my neck just thinking about that thing running.
“I wish. He just stayed there.”
“Maybe you startled him. He probably can’t see around his second head.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “He won’t eat or drink anything. Watch him keel over.”
*
Lo and behold: the next day, he did.
“Shit!” David says. “The iguana’s dead.”
“Shit!” I agreed. “Are you sure?”
“I’m pretty sure. He’s stiff as a board.” And then: “I think I’ll run over him with my truck, just to be sure.”
“What?! You can’t run over someone’s pet with your truck!” I yell.
Woody trots out of the room.
“Sure I can. What if he’s suffering?”
“David. Maryann may want to see him, or bury him when she comes home. Plus, you’ll flatten that [I gag a little here] growth she wants to study.” Uck.
“Trash pickup is Friday. I was just gonna throw it out. Although, recycling is tomorrow….”
“You can’t recycle it! Or throw it out! Plus, that dinosaur will never fit in the recycling bin.”
“Well, I’ll figure something out,” he mutters pensively.
Less than an hour later he returns, looking relieved.
“What did you do?” I ask.
He beamed. “Froze ‘im!”
“You- what?”
“Froze. Him.”
“You stuck Maryann’s pet in the freezer.” Oh God. I whirl around to our freezer door.
“Not our freezer. Her freezer,” he says. “It’s in a bag.”
“Did you, uh, label it?”
“Hell, no! Believe me, it’s expired!”
“David.”
“What.”
“You must go over there the minute she gets home and tell her what happened.”
“No fucking way. She gets back at like, four in the morning. I’m not getting up that early.”
“Well, leave her a note then. What if she finds it?” I have visions of an early morning snack gone terribly, irreversibly wrong.
“That’s her problem,” he says. “She never should have left me in charge of Golf Ball Boy. He obviously was sick.”
“But… the freezer?”
“So he won’t stink,” he says.
“Oh.”
Maryann arrived home bright and early – and famished.
She never spoke to us again.
*
I make an appointment with a realtor to go browsing at houses back in peaceful, safe, pleasantly boring Cary. I find one on a quiet block, not far from our old house. I tell David about it and he says, “Oh, yeah, about that. “
Uh-oh.
“Remember that huge remodel and cabinet job I bid on in Key Biscayne?”
“Florida?”
“Duh! Yes, Florida!”
“What about it?”
“They accepted my offer.”
“And?”
He takes a breath. All at once he announces, “Bin it, Baby! We’re movin’ to the Golden State!”
“We already lived there,” I say, meaning the Golden State of California. “Don’t you want to try somewhere new?” He can’t be serious.
“Okay, wait a minute,” he says, and leaves the room. I pick up Woody, who is suddenly shivering.
He reappears. “Bin it, Baby! We’re movin’ to the Sunshine State!”
He is holding up something: a check with a lot of zero’s on it. “Deposit it and weep. This is only their down payment.”
I look up close. “Wow.”
“An entire kitchen for the very rich and an entire remodel and bath for the even richer. And lots more to follow.“
Woody shivers again. My baby. My old baby. He’s cold.
“Why not?”
