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it s true. One of the comforts of marriage has been the daili-
ness that doesn t require or even allow poetic passion. And so
I suppose our vocabulary has become stunted by familiarity.
Often, I will tell her I love her in the perfunctory way of end-
ing phone calls or saying good night. I ll listen with one ear
cocked to the game while she tells me the events of her day.
We bump companionably along, adjusting without thinking
if something chafes. Oh, now and again I ll happen to glance
at her standing in front of the bathroom mirror in one of my
old T-shirts, and my breath will catch unexpectedly. Or she ll
casually disclose some facet of herself that she s just never
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dan in the gray flannel rat suit
happened to mention she can walk on the backs of her toes,
she was state champ in women s archery, she wants to go to
the Galápagos Islands before she dies and I ll have a fleet-
ing rush of admiration for what an amazing, original woman
she is. But for long stretches I am as unaware of Robin as of
my own breath. Only now that I am jerked up short by the
possibility of loss, when I see that love, too, is mortal and frag-
ile, only now do I fully realize what I stand to lose here.
 Is it living in New York? I ask.  I mean, is that what
we re talking about? I m not at all sure that I can quit the
city, but if that s what s required, I want to know.
 I don t want to do this on the phone, Dan. Let s wait
until I get home.
Long after we have said good-bye, I am still holding
the receiver and staring into some vague middle distance.
The phone squawks for a while, then eventually falls silent.
When I bring the receiver back to my ear, I hear the sound
of the sea.
I pass a blank hour before the wardrobe person, Sheila,
arrives with the costume and supervises my dressing. I m
guessing she must have small children at home. She tells me
to strip to my shorts, and while I do, she watches with total
disinterest. Then she hands me one item of the costume at
a time, first the undershirt, then the furry white knee-high
socks, then the crisp blue dress shirt, all the while narrating
her views on street crime as I dress. She holds up the trousers
but then retracts them.
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debra dean
 Do you need to pee first? she asks.
I assure her I m fine, but she is unconvinced.
 There s a girdle in here to keep the tail erect. Once
we ve got you in, you re in for the duration.
She waits while I excuse myself into the adjacent bath-
room. I shut the door and then stand at the toilet and uri-
nate, aware as I m doing so that the sound of my stream is
audible in the next room. When I return, Sheila picks up her
story where she left off. She picks up the rubber tail, which
looks astonishingly like a phallus, except of course that it is
roughly three feet long and ends in a point. A fantasy dick,
the kind you have in your dreams. It s attached on one end
to fabric panels which she wraps and cinches snugly around
my waist.
 How about strapping this on the front? I smirk.
 Don t you wish. Sheila smiles wearily and shakes her
head. Boys, the mother of unruly boys. Then she helps me
into Lab Rat s trousers, threading the tail through a hole in the
seat and tucking my shirt in. She allows me to zip on my own.
We strap on my paws, first the feet, then the hands.
Finally, Lab Rat s head. Sheila climbs onto a chair and lifts
the huge head from the dressing table where it has been star-
ing at me with beady, blank malevolence for the past twenty
minutes. A tie dangles loosely from its neck. She hoists the
monster above my own head, but before she can lower it, I
grab her wrists, surprising us both. A chilly sweat has popped
out of my pores.
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dan in the gray flannel rat suit
 Could we wait on the head?
Her eyebrows lift.
 Just until we get onto the set?
 Suit yourself.
Half-man, half-rat, I follow Sheila down the hallway. I
have a sudden, powerful empathy for the death-row prisoner
being led to his execution. The fact that my dread makes no
sense does nothing to lessen its insistence, and by the time
we get to the soundstage, my heart is fairly skittering inside
my ribs. There are several more people milling around than
were here earlier, and the set is throbbing with hot light.
I m feeling a bit woozy and have to close my eyes for a mo-
ment against the light and noise, the buzz of voices. Under
the drumbeat of my heart, I can hear Pitney s voice issuing
instructions to the cameraman, and another voice saying we
need to get those cables taped down before someone breaks
his neck.
 Is he okay?
 I dunno.
 Dan? I open my eyes and Pitney is standing directly in
front of me, silhouetted darkly against the glare.  Ready to
rock and roll? he asks. Sheila is behind him, and she s got
one arm wrapped around Lab Rat s snout, the other grasp-
ing its open neck. I can t speak, but I attempt a smile and
a nod. Sheila, my executioner, holds out the empty head.
When I peer inside, there is nothing but blackness and, in
the distance, two pinpricks of light, the eyeholes. They are
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impossibly far away, and I realize with a heart-jolting cer-
tainty that there s no way I can get enough air in my lungs
to make it that far. I take a shallow gulp, though, and I try. I
shut my eyes, and I swallow another breath and then another
and then, God help me, I pull the head down over my own,
but just as I feared, I m not going to make it. Waves of panic
crest over me, my air is running out, and I can t find the eye-
holes. When I try to extricate myself, one of my damn claws
gets hung up on something. I am on the verge of passing out
before I finally yank myself free.
 You okay there? Pitney asks.
I find enough breath to whisper the word  fine. This is
so clearly a lie, I have to amend it.  Just give me a minute,
I wheeze.  I m a little dizzy is all. I shrug my shoulders as
though to suggest I m just as mystified as he is.
Teeka swims into view. Her head is shaking slightly, a
little tremor of disgust.  Are you claustrophobic, Dan? She
might as well be asking me if I have gonorrhea. I study
the question carefully. Claustrophobia? No, I wouldn t call
it that, exactly. Perhaps some discomfort in dark, enclosed
spaces. I try to avoid being trapped in dark and enclosed
spaces, how s that?
I was five or six years old, and my brother, Ricky, and
I were playing magician. Ricky tied our mother s red skirt
around his neck, drew a mustache on his upper lip with what [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]