Hall of Small Mammals (12 page)

The brown and gold snake is under his foot on the floorboard. He grabs it by the tail and makes it slither up Laura's bare leg. She slaps it away playfully.

“You know,” Felix says, “I used to have an uncle who kept a rubber snake in his truck.”

“That right?” JT asks.

“Yeah, he said it scared off black people.”

JT is quiet, both hands on the wheel. Laura shoots Felix a quick but discernible look:
Please don't.

“Why are you looking at me like—” Felix begins. “Oh, come on, I'm not saying that's why
JT
has a rubber snake in his van.”

“It's definitely not why,” JT says.

“Right, exactly, and that's not what I meant. The snake just made me remember about my uncle. That's all.”

“Your uncle sounds like a lunatic,” Laura says.

“He wasn't all bad. He taught Bible class to the sixth-graders. He used to take me deer hunting.”

“I can't imagine you hunting deer,” Laura said. “I can't imagine you hunting anything. You get queasy at the grocery store looking at the meat behind the glass. You get this funny face—” Her eyes go wide and her lips part a little, like she's watching a spaceship land. “I always think you're going to pass out right there in front of the butcher.”

“Ha. Ha,” Felix says. “We both know that's not true.”

“You're funny,” JT says, and Felix has to peer across Laura to
see that JT means her and not him. He is accustomed to this. People always seem let down to discover that he—a comedian!—is not particularly funny in most situations. His clever one-liners and retorts arrive days too late. He considers himself more of a storyteller than anything else. Tell us a joke, people sometimes request, and his mind goes empty, not even a single knock-knock joke to be found (not that he's ever told a single knock-knock joke). “It doesn't work that way,” he usually tells these people, and that it does work that way, for some comedians, is a source of not a little anguish.

•   •   •

JT drops them off at the hotel and says Mr. Ash will be by in an hour to get them. The engagement party is the next day and tonight the family will eat together at the Ashes' house. Upstairs in the hotel room—sand-colored wallpaper, white fluffy bedspread, a remote control at the end of the bed—Laura strips down for a quick shower. Felix flips through the channels on the flatscreen and then joins her in the bathroom to examine himself as she towels her hair dry.

“You're a real piece of work,” she says. “What possessed you to say that about your uncle?”

“About the snakes?” He pastes his toothbrush, then hers. “It's a true story.”

“Who cares if it's true? Truth has nothing to do with it. It's not a great way to start any sort of relationship with the guy.”

“Don't you wonder, just a little bit, why he had the snake on the dash? It wouldn't surprise me if—”

“Felix.” Her hair is a damp frizzy explosion of blond. “You don't mean that.”

“I might.”

“If you feel that way, then I suggest you keep your mouth shut about it. Give the guy a chance. You shouldn't always assume the worst about people. The last thing you want is to make an enemy of the man who will be raising your son.”

They are talking to each other's reflections. Felix glances at his own.
Geez,
Gonuts sometimes says,
you look like you just swallowed a furball.
The furball: that JT will eventually be closer to Hank than Felix ever could, that Hank will come to think of JT like a father. It is inevitable. The kid is only four, and JT will be the man in his underwear at the breakfast table on Saturday mornings. With proximity, intimacy. Felix will be just some ghost on a phone line.

“Shit, my moisturizer,” Laura says, digging in her orange toiletries bag. “I must have left it.”

Felix unzips his own bag and produces the small plastic travel bottle that he spotted by the sink just before they left the apartment. He stands behind her and rubs some of the lotion into her shoulders. “See, we're good for each other. I keep you moisturized, and you call me on my bullshit.”

“Well, it's just that sometimes you're your own worst enemy.”

“And that's exactly why I need you here. My enemy's enemy is my friend.”

She bumps him away with her butt and smiles. “Go change.”

He slides into a fresh pair of dark jeans and puts on a gray blazer. “I'm not going downstairs to sit at the bar,” he says. “I'm not going to drink as many whiskey drinks as I can before Bet's dad gets here.”

“Be down in a minute,” Laura calls from the bathroom.

The bar, Felix discovers, is empty. None of the little glass
bowls have any nuts in them. Rod Stewart rains down from the overhead speakers. Felix sits down on a stool and drums on the bar's wooden lip. “Helloooo,” he calls, but no one emerges through the door between the liquor shelves. He considers hopping the bar and grabbing a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He doesn't require any ice.

“Felix,” Mr. Ash says. He is standing at the entrance to the bar in a dark blue suit, his red tie loose. “I thought I might find you in here.”

Felix isn't sure if he should be offended or not. He settles on
not
.

“I'd offer to buy you a drink but”—Felix gestures at the bar—“it's like
The Shining
in here. Do you get that vibe? Redrum.”

“I was told you were bringing someone.”

“She's upstairs. Down in a sec.” Felix taps on the bar. Then scratches his face. Then lets his arms hang. He can't seem to find the right thing to do with his hands. “Excited about the wedding?” The easy question.

“Of course I am. So long as Bet is happy, I'm happy.” He sits down at a table and kicks out one of the chairs for Felix. “I won't lie. JT isn't exactly who I had in mind for her. But then again, neither were you.”

“Please, tell me how you
really
feel, Nick.” Felix rarely uses Mr. Ash's first name. Even now, after all these years, it feels indecent. He sits down across from the man. “But it did happen kind of fast, didn't it?”

“Eight months.”

“Has it been that long? I feel like I only heard his name yesterday.”

“Selective hearing, I guess,” Mr. Ash says.

Neither of them says anything for what feels like minutes. “But the thing about Hank is,” Mr. Ash says, as if continuing some conversation that has been playing out in his head, “he's really a sweet kid. And smart. I've already got him reading. It's incredible. And he's taking piano lessons, did Bet tell you?”

“He played ‘Baa, Baa, Black Sheep' for me over the phone the other night. Not too shabby.” Felix knows all about the reading and the piano breakthroughs and about Hank's recent gummy worm addiction. Bet—dependable, lovely Bet—keeps him informed. Her name for these updates:
Another installment in the Adventures of Hank
. Mr. Ash is a recurring and popular character in Hank's adventures, the one who makes Hank the three-layered grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, the one who brings home new sodas from all over the world. Though Mr. Ash had naturally been upset to discover that his daughter was pregnant by a foulmouthed comedian, one who had no intention of “doing the right thing” (not that he would have been much happier if she'd done the “right thing” with Felix), Mr. Ash fully embraced his role as a grandfather. He loves Hank, and for that Felix is of course grateful.

“How's Susan doing?” Felix asks. Bet's mother has rheumatoid arthritis and recently had her knee replaced. “She back on her feet yet?”

“She's still on a cane,” he says. “You should have seen what they replaced her knee with. She's a real bionic woman now. They're doing the other one after the wedding. You know, I think once this wedding hoopla is over with, Susan won't know what
hit her. I don't even think she realizes yet how different things will be once Hank and Bet are out of the house.”

Felix nods. Out of the house. Part of his anxiety about the wedding stems not from the fact that Bet and Hank are moving
into
JT's house but that they are moving
out of
Nick and Susan Ash's. He can't help but wonder if this change will somehow put the boy at a disadvantage.

“How far away does JT live?”

“Little less than an hour. Just outside of town. It's not going to be easy.” He seems more wistful than Felix has ever seen him. He uncrosses his legs. His eyes narrow. “So, Bet tells me that show of yours is really taking off. I confess, I haven't seen it yet and I don't claim to understand half of what they put on television. But that must feel good? Some validation after all these years?”

“Sure,” Felix says, “I suppose so.” Though he in no way considers his success on
Pets!
a validation of all his hard work, he doesn't want to squelch that idea for Bet's father, who until this moment has never offered Felix a single encouraging word regarding his career. Early on in their relationship, after too many drinks, Mr. Ash once let it slip that he thought Felix was a silly man, not at all serious, one of those types who complained about everything but never
did
anything. “Well,” Felix said to that, “I've actually considered jumping into the soda industry. I have an idea for a soda that comes in a baby bottle. Get 'em started early, right? First, though, we might have to wipe out the milk lobby.”

“Do people really think you're funny?” Mr. Ash asked. “Because I don't see it.”

“Honestly, I don't either,” Felix said, which like all good jokes
was grounded in truth. Throughout all of it—the club circuit, the bit parts here and there on bad television shows, the one-hour comedy special that almost happened but didn't—Felix's career had bumped and bounced, but it had certainly never soared. The closest he might ever come to mainstream success is as Gonuts the CGI Hamster whose most popular catchphrases are increasingly difficult to voice without feeling a little sick.

When Laura comes downstairs, finally, they leave the hotel in Mr. Ash's car. Laura sits in the front passenger seat. With the air-conditioning on full blast, Felix can't hear their conversation, but Laura is smiling and nodding quite a bit, her hands prim in her lap.
Prim
is not an adjective Felix frequently associates with Laura.
Vivacious
, maybe.
Vital.
Voluptuous.
Felix is stuck on
v
's. For the dinner she has changed into a conservative blue dress that falls just below the knee, but she still has on her giant white sunglasses.

The Ashes live in a three-story house with dark colonial shutters on all the windows and squat dome lights planted in the mulched beds on either side of a brick sidewalk that connects the circle driveway to the front door. Susan comes out first on her metal cane and gives Felix a frail hug, then hugs Laura. Bet comes outside next, a new pixie haircut, eyes bright and blue. Felix has been slightly uneasy about this moment, about introducing these two women, Bet and Laura, past and present, and he watches them examine each other surreptitiously while they make small talk, moving toward the house. Hanging behind the group for a brief moment just outside the door, Laura squeezes Felix's arm and mouths the words,
She's very young,
before moving ahead of him into the foyer.

•   •   •

Describing his relationship with Bet to others—particularly to women his own age—Felix has learned over the last few years to omit certain details. For instance, that Bet was a sophomore art history major when he impregnated her. Why mention such a thing? There is no need to vilify himself unnecessarily. She looked young then too, yes, but not
that
young, and he certainly didn't need to convince her of anything. She was a more-than-willing participant.

But there are other details he omits. For instance: He has not told Laura about what happened the winter after Hank was born—when he flew down to Atlanta for a two-week visit with his new son. He was staying in a room at the Commodore but after the first two nights, since he was already spending so much time at the house, Mrs. Ash insisted that he stay in one of their guest rooms. That way Felix could find out what it was like to rock a six-month-old back to sleep at three a.m.—a gift, she said, that no new parent should be denied. Mr. Ash, in particular, seemed giddy setting up the baby monitor in Felix's room.

“Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it,” Bet said before bed. “Besides, babies are mostly math. Ounces eaten. Hours slept. You'll see.”

The crying began sometime just after midnight. Felix did his duty, creeping down the hall and peering in on the little red-faced crank, who shook his tiny arms like they were meant for flight. Felix hoisted him out of the crib and nestled down in the rocking chair across the room, humming a little Van Morrison. The Van
Morrison worked nicely. Hank calmed down, his eyes heavy again, but when Felix tried to deliver him back down into the crib, Hank went off like a car alarm.

“There's a trick to it,” Bet said, small face in the door. Felix wasn't sure how long she'd been watching him. “Do what you were doing before.”

He sat back down in the rocking chair and started humming the horn section of “Into the Mystic.” Bet, in a loose and ghostly nightgown, hovered near the crib. When Hank quieted down again, she motioned for Felix to bring him over. At the crib, she told him to blow gently on Hank's face while lowering him down.

“Really?”

She nodded and smiled. He blew gently, and Hank's nose scrunched up like he might sneeze. But when his butt hit the blanket, he actually stayed quiet. In the hallway, Felix asked her what that was all about.

“I have no idea why it works, but it does. I figured it out by mistake.” She blew gently in Felix's face. “Feels nice, right?”