Dirty Chick (5 page)

I admired him, but Mike coughed politely. “That's Rabbie,” he told me. “He's not for sale.”

I turned back to Peter and Silas, who were just getting out of the car. “Silas,” I coaxed. “See the 'pacas? Aren't they
cute
?”

Silas took one look at the beasts and scrambled back in the station wagon. “No!
No!
Home!”

Mike looked concerned. “Is he all right?”

“Fine,” Peter assured him. “He just has trouble with transitions.”

But as it turned out, Silas was the sensible one. Beneath their cute façades, alpacas are dangerous beasts. We should have sped back to the safety of home, but instead we went inside for a cup of tea. Into the cold-blooded heart of alpacadom.

Displayed in what was otherwise a conventional living room were hundreds of alpaca sculptures.
Thousands
of them. There were dolls
made out of alpaca fleece. Alpacas made of alpaca fleece. Inexplicably, there were decapitated alpaca heads arranged in rows along the wall.

“They're not
actual
heads,” Gay informed me. “I didn't sever them. I felt the fleece, then I sculpt with it.” She giggled. “I guess I'm a little obsessed.”

Arrayed on the mantel was an assortment of alpaca figurines, and above them hung Gay's masterpiece: an enormous tableau from
The Wizard of Oz
sculpted entirely from alpaca fleece. I gaped.

“Took me weeks,” Gay called from the kitchen. “Sculpting Dorothy and Toto, then the Scarecrow and the Lion. Tin Man was the hardest bit.” She emerged balancing a tray full of tea things. “Tried to send it to my grandson off in London, but the shipping was too dear.”

I looked at the tapestry. It was a full square meter of alpaca fleece, everything rendered in bas-relief: the characters, the yellow brick road, and a multicolor rainbow arching over the Emerald City. That poor English grandson; he'd really missed out.

“The thing is, they're rather addictive,” Gay explained while sipping her tea. “Once you've had alpacas, you'll never
not
have alpacas, if you know what I mean.”

This should have come as a warning. Features in your life that you can't get rid of—a heroin addiction, for example, or genital herpes—are not necessarily good things. But by that stage, I was too far gone.

I set down my tea. “Let's go meet the boys.”

Mike had corralled the older male alpacas, the ones priced between three and five hundred dollars, into a pen near the house, so we wouldn't be tempted by the pricier ones. Silas was calm now, so Peter held him up near the pen and pointed out all their cute features.

“See how fluffy?” Peter asked.

“Tuh-tee!” Silas repeated.

Gay came up behind me. “You know, alpacas cure autism,” she offered. “Really. There are some amazing stories out there. I'll have to send you some.”

Peter and I exchanged a look. We've long since stopped looking for ways to “cure” Silas, and instead we just love him for the weird kid he is. Also, he's delayed, not autistic. But Gay was just trying to help, and the teddy bear camels couldn't be
bad
for Silas. Or so we thought.

“Can we get all of them?” Miranda wanted to know. “I want
all
the 'pacas.”

“No way,” I reined her in. “We're getting only two.”

Mike, who had been quietly scratching them behind the ears, coughed discreetly. “Oh, you can't get just two,” he informed us.

“Why not? Because they're addictive?”

“No,” he replied, quite seriously. “These are herd animals. If you get just two, and then one dies, the other will die of a broken heart.”

This had to be some kind of a sales ploy. “Are you serious?” Peter asked. “A broken heart?”

“No, Mike's right,” Gay assured us. “You'll have to get at least three. They get so attached to each other, you see.”

Then she relayed the alpaca miracles. There were, it seemed, alpacas who hummed to autistic children, making them stop rocking and hitting themselves. There were alpacas who let old people pet them, and then those ancient cripples would rise from their wheelchairs with renewed vigor. I wouldn't be surprised if alpacas had cured cancer and caused the blind to see. “They really are magical animals,” she effused.

What she didn't tell us is how much distance they get.

We heard a quick rush of air, like someone popping a beer bottle. “Oh, Kenny.” Gay sighed, wiping the front of her T-shirt with a rag. She was covered in green slime, and it smelled like an open grave.

“Mama, did you
fart
?” Miranda wanted to know. “It smells like
fart.
”

“Oh, it's just a little saliva.” Gay smiled sheepishly. “Did I mention they spit?”

“Nope,” Peter said. “You didn't mention that.”

“It's very rare,” Mike explained, shifting Kenny to the back of the pack. “They don't like the smell of it, either. See how his lower lip is hanging? That's to get rid of the smell.”

“Oh, I hope you'll still adopt them,” Gay urged. “I promise, you won't regret it.”

So, because we are stupid, we bought three. And they were beautiful. Kenny, Henri, and McTavish were each a different shade of elegant: white, tan, and a deep, chocolate brown. “That's my pashmina,” I informed Peter, pointing at McTavish. “At the very least, I've got to make one.”

At first, things went pretty smoothly. Mike and Gay sent us home with a pack of alpaca information: we had each animal's lineage, and descriptions of the various ills that could befall them, such as facial eczema, ingrown toenails, and something called rye grass staggers.

But there were other things they didn't mention. Such as the fact that alpacas have “fighting teeth.” These are long, razor-sharp canines that they sequester in the back of their mouths like daggers. Our teddy bear camels had fangs.

And when they started working out their place in the hierarchy, our alpacas turned evil.

Gay and Mike had warned us this would happen, but as usual
they'd played it down. “Might just take them a few days to get used to each other,” Mike mentioned as he backed their truck down our driveway. “Shouldn't be too much of a bother. They'll need to work out who's boss.”

Then he and Gay smiled and waved and left us alone with the alpacas.

We filled three purple bowls with alpaca nuts and set off for the paddock.

“Can I bring my That Baby to the 'paca friends?” Miranda wanted to know. “That Baby” was the first doll we'd ever given her, back when she was eighteen months old and just learning to talk. She'd called it 'Dat Baby, and the label had stuck.

“Of course you can bring her,” I allowed. “Come on! Let's go feed the boys.”

“Silas, you coming?” Peter called, but Silas shook his head. “
No, no
,” he insisted, hugging his Dart to his ear
.
He was listening to
Peter Pan
, and the grin on his face was huge.

“Have fun,” Peter said, shrugging, and the three of us set off, Kowhai trotting along behind. Phoenix, who was older and more sensible, opted to continue sleeping on the front deck.

We should have stayed home with Peter Pan and Phoenix, because when we got to the paddock, the alpacas had changed.

Kenny, Henri, and McTavish stood there dead-eyed, lower lips hanging slack. Their mouths gaped, exposing rows of yellowing fangs. There was a viscous green fluid collecting on their tongues, sticky streams of it spilling onto the ground.

And then they started to moan. “
Beeeeeeehn
,” they groaned. “
Beeeeeeeehn
.”

“Did they just say, ‘Brain'?” Peter looked at me. “I think they said, ‘Brain.'”

The alpacas were advancing, green drool pooling at their feet. They were very close now, no more than five or six feet away.

“
Beeeeeeeeeehn
 . . .”

“Gay says it's humming,” I said brightly. “But it sure sounds like ‘brain' to me.”

“
Beeeeeeeeeehn
 . . .”

“Mama?” Miranda reached for my hand. “What's wrong with the 'pacas?”

“Well, Magnolia,” I explained, using my special pet name for her. “I think they want to eat our brains.”

“Look at Kowhai,” Peter whispered. Our German shepherd was crouched low like a wolf. Hackles raised, she crept in for the kill.

Then the trance snapped. Kenny spat and charged, shooting a stream of green slime and scoring a direct hit at That Baby's head. Miranda screamed, tossing her stricken doll in the air. Kowhai took one look at the vicious alpaca galloping toward her and beat it, zipping out of the paddock and back to the safety of the house.

We retreated, Miranda wailing and clinging to my leg.

“Did that fucking camel just go for my
brains
?”
Peter wanted to know.

“They're not camels,” I corrected him. “They're
camelids
.”

“My
baby
! I forgot my
baby
!”
Miranda wailed.

“I'm not going back in there,” I told her. “We'll get you a new baby.” Turning to shut the paddock gate, I cast a wary glance back at the boys.
Did I just see what I thought I saw?
They were standing beneath a tree looking cute, chewing their grass and pretending that nothing had happened. “I gotta call Gay,”
I muttered.

That evening, I rang our breeders. “Oh, don't be silly,” Gay chirped lightly over the phone. “Alpacas don't attack people.”

“These ones did,” I assured her. “They're getting a little aggressive.”

“Try to socialize more. They need to get used to you,” Gay suggested. “Did you know there's an alpaca in China who predicts sports results? They're very psychic.”

So we kept trying. After a couple of weeks Miranda stopped insisting the “mean 'pacas” were trying to “get” her, and we did spend more time with the boys. Usually we did this in the evening, after Peter was home from work and we could go as a group, so we'd be less vulnerable. We'd pour ourselves glasses of wine, fill the purple plastic bowls with alpaca nuts, and wander out to the paddock, hoping for the best.

It did seem that the alpacas were calming down. They'd worked out their ranks according to an uncomfortable racial hierarchy, with Kenny, the large white male, presiding at the top. Henri, the light-brown alpaca, was second in command, and McTavish, the gorgeous chocolate-colored one, got spat on by everybody.

“It's so embarrassing,” Peter complained one evening, offering the food bowl to McTavish. Kenny shoved him out of the way and grabbed the fresh nuts for himself. “We thought they were so cute, and now it turns out they're these racist camel zombies.”

“Who spit,” I added.

“And attack children.”

“Oh, well, at least they cure autism!” I reached out to pet Henri's snout. “And . . .”

Peter looked up. “What?”

I blushed. “No. It's embarrassing.”

“
What
?
”

“Feel Kenny's nose,” I suggested. “Does it . . . remind you of anything?”

Peter frowned. “What?”

“A penis,” I mumbled, half under my breath.

“A
what
?”

“A penis,” I repeated.

Peter snorted, still stroking the nose. “Oh, my God.” He laughed. “You're right. I feel kind of gay right now.”

And that, I am pleased to reveal, is the sole redeeming quality of the racist camel zombie. Their noses feel exactly like a lovely erect penis. Not a menacing penis, but a friendly penis. The sort of penis you'd like to snuggle up with on a cold winter's day. The penis of your best lover, firm yet warm and accommodating, and covered in a delightful soft fuzz.

“I wish
I
had a furry penis,” Peter mused. “I think it would make me more lovable.”

“I don't,” I told him. “You'd have to shampoo it all the time. Just one more thing to remember.”

“G'day,” came a voice from behind us. We turned around to see Hamish, the dairy farmer from across the way. Dressed in his usual getup of olive-green coveralls and gumboots, he was leaning on the gate to the alpaca paddock and frowning. “Feeding the llamas, are ya?” he asked.

“Alpacas,” Peter corrected, finishing the last of his wine.

“Yeah, we're just feeding them,” I chimed in. The fact that we had been performing hand jobs on their noses did not seem necessary to share.

“Was wondering if you had a teat I could get at,” Hamish asked, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. “My ewe's had twins you see, and we've only got the one.”

At first this seemed a little personal, but then I remembered a ewe is a sheep, and I relaxed.

“I don't know, Hamish. We don't have any lambs.” Peter took my empty glass and headed back to the house.

“But we've got some old baby bottles,” I ventured. “Let's see if I can find one for you.”

Once I set Hamish up with a bottle and teat, I went back to the house. “He's always so stern,” I complained to Peter, pouring myself another glass of wine. “Do you think he just can't talk to women?”

Peter grinned. “I don't know, Antonia. Take a look in the mirror.”

I did. My T-shirt was smeared with green alpaca slime, I had a glass of white wine in one hand, and I was wearing a pair of red plush devil's horns. If I'd seen myself on the sidewalk of a major city, I probably would have crossed to the other side of the street.

“No wonder the farmers won't talk to us.” I shook my head. “We really don't fit in around here, do we?”

That was putting it lightly. Peter and I tried to relate to our farming neighbors as if we spoke the local vernacular, but there was no hiding who we really were: urban Americans who talked funny and knew nothing about life on a farm. Also, we did stupid things like keep alpacas for fun.