The Mad and the Macabre

- 10 -

The next evening, a policeman showed up at his door. Charlie told him that a girl had indeed tried to sell him a magazine subscription, and that he felt bad turning her down, but that he couldn't bring himself to do anything that might encourage further door-to-door solicitation. The officer seemed satisfied with his response, gave Charlie his card, and asked him to call if he thought of anything else that might be helpful. Charlie promised him that he would.

* * *

"So are you coming?" Alicia asked, as Charlie shut down his computer.

He'd decided that he wasn't. She'd only asked him to join them as a way to be nice about turning down his request for a date--not even a date, coffee as friends--and he didn't particularly like the other people he worked with. He knew their names and whether or not they had kids (mostly because they talked about it so loudly in the aisles) but not much else, and wasn't interested in knowing more.

"Nah."

"You really should."

"Okay, I'll go," he heard himself say.

"Great!"

Oh well. No big deal. He'd survive this. Worst-case scenario, he'd have a miserable hour or so, and then he'd go home and spend some quality time with Kutter. Wednesdays were now Frisbee night--he'd stop at the toy store on the way home and get the nicest plastic Frisbee they had.

* * *

Five of them sat around the table in the restaurant. Mike, Gary, and Jessica had all expressed surprise that Charlie was coming with them, and it looked like Jessica had purposely picked a seat where she wouldn't be next to him, yet they were all reasonably pleasant. Everybody ordered alcoholic beverages except Charlie--Gary had pushed for him to get a beer, but Charlie needed to remain in full control of his mental state. He'd never been drunk, and could see no positive outcome to having too much to drink and accidentally blurting out something like "Say, were you aware that during my non-working hours I slaughter innocent women?"

They started by talking about tedious job-related stuff that Charlie had no interest in. He didn't care about the whispered rumors about possible mergers or layoffs in other departments or suspected affairs between bosses and their administrative assistants. Charlie did his own job as well as he possibly could, and expected others around him to do their jobs correctly, but outside of his area, he didn't much care what was happening. None of this conversation affected him personally or professionally. What a waste of time that he could be using to choose the perfect color of Frisbee. His thought was blue, if they had it, though dark green might also work.

"So, Charlie," said Alicia. "Tell everybody about your new dog."

Charlie's stomach clenched up. He hated being the center of attention, even in a small group. "Kutter," he said.

"What kind of dog is it?" Mike asked.

"Boston terrier."

"Oh, I love those!" said Jessica. "Those cute little faces. You didn't get him from a puppy mill, did you?"

"No."

"Charlie found him under a park bench, badly hurt," said Alicia.

"Not badly hurt."

"I thought you said he was hurt."

"He just had some scratches. But he was freezing to death, I think."

"So you saved his life."

"I think so. Yeah."

"I had no idea you were a heroic puppy-saver," said Mike. Charlie couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Then Mike smiled, and Charlie decided that he wasn't.

"He isn't a puppy," Charlie explained.

Charlie noticed Jessica rolling her eyes. He was screwing this up. He never should've agreed to this torture.

"I just meant that if he was a puppy I probably wouldn't have been able to save him. It's good that he had grown up."

Charlie wasn't sure if that explanation helped things or not.

"Why the name Kutter?" asked Gary.

"It's my grandfather's name," Charlie lied, as he'd planned in case anybody ever asked him.

"Kutter Stanlon?"

"Yes."

"That's a pretty bad-ass name."

"Thanks." Charlie took a long drink of his Cherry Coke, and then checked his watch. Alicia kicked him gently under the table. He thought he'd been more subtle.

"Do you have a picture?" asked Alicia.

"Not with me." Charlie did have to admit to himself that he appreciated the way Alicia was trying to keep him involved in the conversation. Yeah, he'd rather be at home, but all things considered, this really wasn't so bad. If nothing else, this place knew how to make a good Cherry Coke--he hated the weak ones. He couldn't see himself joining his co-workers every single week...but perhaps once a month, just to be nice.

Maybe he'd try something new. Something he couldn't remember ever having tried before in his adult life. Maybe he'd ask somebody about themselves without any motive except to hear the answer.

"Do any of you own dogs?" he asked.

Mike owned a golden retriever named Zak who carried around a teddy bear, and a parakeet named Twitter who said three different phrases in German. Gary was allergic to dogs but owned goldfish, which he flushed and replaced on a regular basis so as not to disturb his daughter, who tended to overfeed them. Jessica desperately wanted a puppy, something that would stay small, but her apartment complex didn't allow pets. And Alicia had three cats, Wilson, Puffs, and Jagged Edge, each named by one of her children. Charlie hadn't known that she had children.

Three kids. Wow. Charlie had never expected to love a dog, but the idea of having a girlfriend with three kids was almost inconceivable. He was really glad that she'd declined his offer for coffee. He smiled to himself, thinking that this had been a productive social outing after all.

They stayed for another hour, with Charlie successfully carrying his fifth of the conversational load. Gary was the first to excuse himself, and everybody else simultaneously agreed that it was time to head home.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" Alicia asked, as they walked out of the restaurant and headed for their vehicles.

"Yeah," said Charlie, surprised that he didn't have to lie.

"Join us next week?"

"I might."

She didn't give him a kiss or a hug or any of the things that Charlie would've originally considered the only possible benefit from going out with the group--just a friendly pat on the arm. And Charlie was fine with that.

* * *

He picked out three Frisbees: a light blue one, a dark blue one, and a glow-in-the-dark green one. That way he'd have extras if any of them got lost or Kutter chewed them up to the point where it impacted their aerodynamics. When he got home, he let Kutter out of the basement, put on his leash, and ran with him to the park, at least for the first couple of blocks, after which Charlie walked fast while Kutter tugged on his leash and stopped occasionally to smell things.

The glow-in-the-dark Frisbee didn't glow worth crap, but Kutter was still able to catch it. Charlie tried to keep track of how many times he threw the Frisbees, until he lost count around twenty-eight and decided that it didn't really matter. This time, Charlie was amused to find that Kutter ran out of energy before him, although to be fair, Kutter was doing the vast majority of the running.

* * *

As Charlie lay in bed, with Kutter asleep at his feet, he suddenly realized that he'd forgotten to worry about the police returning based on new evidence against him. Odds were, he'd gotten away with his impulse kill. Though he never planned to do anything even remotely that reckless again, it was kind of nice to know that even when he had a huge lapse in his better judgment, he could evade arrest.

He got a great night's sleep, and dreamt about working in a dog biscuit factory.

* * *

The next evening, it was finally time for their steak dinner celebration. Charlie dragged his rarely used grill out into his backyard, applied a generous helping of lighter fluid because he enjoyed the whoosh of the fireball, and tossed a match onto the pile of charcoal. When the coals were ready, he brought out two thick New York strip steaks and tossed them on the grill. He liked his steaks medium rare. In the cartoons, dogs always ate raw steaks, but Charlie didn't want to risk Kutter getting worms, so he cooked the dog's steak medium rare as well.

Kutter whined and twitched and licked his chops over and over as Charlie cut his steak into small pieces. "Chill out," Charlie told him. "I don't want you to choke."

The dog, clearly unconcerned with the potential choking hazard, let out an impatient bark.

Charlie set Kutter's bowl on the floor, watching as the dog proceeded to gobble the steak down so quickly that it might as well have been a bowl of Alpo, considering how little time the food spent in contact with Kutter's tongue. Charlie elected to savor his own meal in a much more leisurely manner, and also enjoyed a side dish of a fully loaded baked potato. Because he was in a really good mood, and it was a celebration dinner, Charlie gave Kutter the last third of his steak.

* * *

"Shake! Come on, buddy, shake! Shake hands!"

Kutter never resisted when he shook his paw manually, but Charlie could never get the dog to put up his paw on his own.

"Shake hands, Kutter! Shake!"

He took Kutter's paw and shook it again, to demonstrate what the dog was supposed to do. "Shake," he said, looking into the dog's eyes. "This is called shake."

He let go of Kutter's paw, but kept his hand out. "Shake, Kutter! Shake!"

Kutter preferred face licking over paw shaking as a means of greeting, but Charlie refused to give up. He didn't expect the dog to leap through flaming hoops (although that would be pretty cool) but sometime before the end of this year Kutter was going to learn how to shake!

"Shake, Kutter! Shake! Shake!"

Kutter lifted his paw. Charlie grabbed it and shook it. "Good dog! Good doggie!"

Next up: Rolling over.

* * *

Charlie found himself speaking to Mike, Gary, and Jessica about non-work-related matters. Only brief, trivial conversations about pets, television shows, and prior night's meals, yet he enjoyed the contact. The next Wednesday, he went along for drinks, even though Alicia couldn't go because of a prior engagement. They talked about their favorite movies, and Charlie made a list of things he needed to rent on DVD.

* * *

A month later, Alicia announced that she was engaged. Charlie wished her the best, and meant it. Then he joined his co-workers in speculating about whether or not the ridiculously short time frame between meeting the guy and agreeing to marry him was somehow related to an unexpected pregnancy.

When she brought him to their next gathering, Charlie decided that no, they were simply in love.

* * *

On a lark, Charlie entered Kutter in a small local dog show. They were eliminated in the first round, though at least Charlie was pretty sure that their scores were better than the bulldog that took a dump in front of the judges. They didn't get a trophy, but Charlie gave Kutter lots of treats.

* * *

"Hear me out before you say no," said Alicia. Charlie didn't like her wicked grin. There was no question that her intentions were evil.

"All right."

"I have a friend--"

"No."

"She just moved here a couple of weeks ago. If you don't count me, she doesn't have any friends outside of work. She's really nice. She likes dogs. I think you two would really hit it off."

Charlie thought about that for a moment. "You mean a blind date, right?"

"Yep."

"Uh-uh. No."

"You're not going to take pity on my poor friend? My poor lonely friend, who got really excited when I told her all about you?"

"Sorry."

Alicia lowered her voice to a whisper. "She's been unwillingly celibate for the past two years."

Charlie broke into a cold sweat and hoped that Alicia didn't notice. "I'm busy."

"I didn't say when."

"When?"

"It's open-ended. Anytime you two are able to make it work. And here's the best part, I thought that you could do a 'dog date,' where you take your dogs to the park together. She has a Yorkie. So Kutter can have a date, too. It'll be fun."

"Is her Yorkie mean?"

"Her Yorkie is just fine. Can I tell her you said yes?"

"I don't know."

"You need to say yes, because I'll harass you about this as much as I can without violating any HR policies."

By the official company rules, Charlie thought that the "unwillingly celibate" comment might have been a human resources violation already, but of course he wasn't going to report her. "Fine," he said.

"Cool! How about Saturday?"

"Afternoon or evening?"

"Do you already have plans for either?"

"No."

"Then let's go with Saturday afternoon. You'll love her. I promise!"

* * *

Despite the badgering from his hair stylist, Charlie still refused to add any highlights.

* * *

He had no idea what to wear. He wanted to dress to impress, but he also didn't want to look like an idiot running around the dog park in formal clothes.

"You're lucky," he told Kutter. "All you have to wear is fur."

Kutter woofed in agreement. Or disagreement. One of the two.

Charlie settled on jeans and his nicest red polo shirt, with an extra spritz of cologne.

* * *

She was seated on a bench, waiting for him as he and Kutter arrived at the dog park. Unless it was some other curly-haired blonde with a Yorkie on her lap.

"Elizabeth...?" he asked.

"Hi, Charlie!" she said, standing up.

Charlie had hoped it was a case of mistaken identity. She was remarkably unattractive--overweight, bad complexion, and crooked teeth. Her hair was nice, and Charlie liked her yellow blouse, but she wasn't one-tenth as good-looking as Alicia.

Was that how Alicia saw him? Her ugly co-worker? She hadn't set up the blind date to be nice to him; she did it because there was nobody else who'd go out with her repulsive cow of a friend.

Okay, "repulsive cow" was too harsh.

And he had to be honest: he was not a handsome man. Not even if you graded on a curve. For all he knew, she was thinking the same thing, that Alicia must've picked her ugliest co-worker to set her up with on the date.

If nothing else, she looked a lot better than some of the junkies he cut up.

"Hi," he said. He gave a gentle tug on Kutter's leash. "This is Kutter."

"Nice to meet you, Kutter," said Elizabeth. "This is Cooper."

"After the singer?"

"Alice Cooper?"

"Yeah."

"No, but I like his music. Are you a fan?"

"Uh-huh." Charlie didn't listen to music very often, but School's Out was one of the few CD's he owned.

Charlie awkwardly shook her hand. A soft breeze was at her back, and he noticed that she smelled nice, sort of like cotton candy.

"So Alicia says that you rescued your dog...?"

"Yeah. Not from wolves or anything like that, but yeah."

Elizabeth giggled. Charlie smiled as well. The wolves line was kind of clever. He didn't usually ad-lib things like that.

"That's pretty cool of you. I got Cooper from an animal shelter. If my sister hadn't stopped me, I probably would've taken home six of them."

"That's a lot of Yorkies."

"Yeah."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. Charlie frantically tried to think of something to ask. "Do you go by Beth?"

"Liz. Or the full Elizabeth. As long as you don't call me Lizzie, it's fine."

"I won't."

"Thanks."

"Do you want to see Kutter catch a Frisbee?"

"I'd love to."

With the pressure on, Charlie half-expected Kutter to develop performance anxiety and completely botch the Frisbee-catching game. Fortunately, with the exception of one miss that was Charlie's fault (a bad throw, but not a bad enough throw to be humiliating) Kutter caught them all.

"He's really good at that," Liz said.

"He was that good when I found him. Can Cooper catch?"

"Yeah, but not one of those Frisbees. They're bigger than she is!"

"What can she catch?"

"A bouncy ball. I have to do it at home, though. It won't work on the grass."

"I'd like to see that," Charlie said.

Had he accidentally made a suggestive comment? Charlie sure hoped not. He couldn't honestly say that he was attracted to her, but he still didn't want to screw the date up this early, if for no other reason than to have to face Alicia on Monday.

She smiled. "Maybe you will."

Okay, that had been a suggestive comment.

They spent another hour at the dog park. Though the conversation didn't always flow freely, they were able to fill the silences by watching the dogs play. Liz suggested that they get an early dinner, so they drove in separate cars to Charlie's favorite seafood restaurant. Never having brought a guest there before, Charlie suddenly became very concerned about the quality of the food--maybe he only liked the flounder because he didn't know what good flounder tasted like!--but decided that he really couldn't worry about it.

"Please don't destroy my car," Charlie told Kutter as they pulled into the restaurant's parking lot. "You have no idea how happy it will make me if I come back and you haven't wrecked anything. You went to the bathroom before we left and you haven't eaten anything that you should need to vomit, so there's no excuse. If you have to slobber, slobber, but don't chew up the seats. Okay?"

As Charlie ate his baked flounder and Liz ate her salmon Caesar salad, Charlie decided that the date had gone from "much less painful than he would have expected" to "absolutely fantastic." By the time they'd finished their crab cake appetizers her physical appearance didn't bother him at all. In fact, her smile and the way her eyes lit up when she spoke made her more appealing to look at than a lot of genuinely pretty women he knew. And she was easy to talk to. Almost as easy as Kutter, and the best part was that she talked back.

They had similar tastes in movies and television shows, both hated sports, had differing political views (Liz was a passionate Democrat, while Charlie had no interest in the subject whatsoever and had never voted in a single election), both read very few books, and neither had travelled extensively. Charlie wasn't thrilled with her choice of dessert, since bread pudding was among the nastiest concoctions ever devised by humankind, but he happily shared it with her.

She asked if he wanted to go back to her place to watch a movie, and he enthusiastically accepted her offer.

Aside from a drool mark on the steering wheel, Kutter hadn't harmed his vehicle.

Liz apologized for the condition of her apartment, which was only sparsely furnished and had boxes everywhere, but Charlie didn't mind. It was a nice little apartment, and he was glad that she hadn't asked to continue their date at his house. Kutter and Cooper chased each other around the apartment until finally both dogs fell asleep halfway through When Harry Met Sally. When the movie ended, Liz asked if he wanted her to put in another one. Charlie said sure. A moment later he realized that "sure" wasn't the answer she was looking for, but it was too late to change course now. She put in 9 1/2 Weeks.

About half an hour into the movie, she asked if he wanted to kiss her, and this time Charlie gave the right answer. Her lips were...perfect.

Half an hour after that, she asked if he wanted to move to the bedroom. He gave the right answer to that, too.