“Something is always wrong with you,” she told him.
“A fool,” he said.
“There’s always been something wrong with him,” she told us.
The fat guy held his ferret like a watermelon slice, kissed it on the belly, one two three.
The vet tech led me to an overlit office. Windowless, clean. White enamel sink under three wooden cabinets. Laptop asleep on a caster-footed standing desk. Stainless-steel exam table bolted to a wall with a chrome, pneumatic stool at either long side. The tech said the doc would arrive momentarily, cracked about how I should work on my t’s, left the clipboard he’d taken from reception on the desk, then went out the door.
I perched on the stool that was farther from the laptop, set my elbows on the table, and cradled my forehead, but soon I thought better of being discovered in so meek a pose—I didn’t want the doc to fall under the impression I’d resigned myself to receiving bad news—and I sat up straight, squeezed the blur from my eyes, and, having failed to bring a book, tried to find a thing to look at that would make me seem formidable, or at least like a person who shouldn’t be refused medicine even if that medicine might hurt the environment. There weren’t many options. To watch the slow-motion bouncing of the words Paws & Wings across the screen of the laptop, entrancing as that was, would signal mental deficiency. To study the springs in—or futz with the dials near—the complicated joints of the overhead exam lamp could, perhaps, indicate an analytical mind at work, but might just as easily come off as childish. My only viable option was the large, framed poster that hung on the wall to my immediate right, which (owing, I suppose, to a displaced, vestigial sense of resentment I’d developed as a teen who’d become fed up with psychiatrists who asked him to describe what he “saw” or “believed [he] saw” or “found so intriguing” in this or that piece of wall art that was hanging in their offices; wall art at which he was only ever looking in order to avoid their overbearing eye contact) I had so far avoided gazing at directly.
The poster was a photo of a pale axolotl floating in a pitch-black body of water—perhaps in nature, perhaps an aquarium—and must have been three times larger than life; the axolotl’s smiling head was the size of a plum; the pink hornlike emanations at its neck as thick as pencils. Most of the poster’s bottom half was black, and in the lower-right corner, beneath what I suppose was the title of the photo, “The Gracious Axolotl Greets the Night with a Grin,” was a rather long caption in too small a font to read from where I sat. I scooted my stool a foot closer to the wall. The hornlike emanations, I learned, were called gill stalks, and what made the axolotl “so notable, apart from its endearingly friendly mien” was that it was neotonic: whereas other amphibians, such as frogs and salamanders, begin as tadpoles, develop front legs, develop back legs, then at last become sexually mature and terrestrial, axolotl tadpoles never undergo complete metamorphosis—after growing all their legs and reaching sexual maturity, they get a bit fatter, but remain aquatic.
That’s as far as I got before the door opened, and in walked Kleinstadt, who could have been George Costanza’s handsome cousin, or Costanza himself if Costanza’d spent most of his life being happy, saw in 20/20, and had gotten daily exercise: late forties/early fifties; shorter than I, but with broader shoulders, and a cleaner shave; all easy smile and confident handshake; stubby fingers, hairy knuckles, a double-wide wedding band, and a New York accent. He inspired confidence on sight, this Kleinstadt.
“So neotony,” I said, coming out of the handshake.
“What’s that?” he said.
“Wouldn’t that be the noun form of neotonic?” I said. “I was reading your poster.”
“Oh, right. Yes. The ol’ ever-grinning neotonic axolotl. Strange little beast. I used to have one as a patient. Long time ago. What a creature. A real Jekyll-and-Hydesky. That smiling mouth, I tell you, when it’s chomping down a feeder fish? Sucking on a bloodworm? Oof. You know they have these little…teeth. Always gave me the willies. Name was, lemme think here…Ghostowitz? No. Ghostbloom—Ghostheim! Ghostheim, that’s it. That was its name. Willies aside, I always liked it. Haven’t seen it in years. But speaking of patients I haven’t examined in a while—you know, soon as I was told you were coming in, I had Mary in reception look through the records. I haven’t seen a cure in here since 1994. Nearly twenty years ago! Not something you’d think I’d be too keen to advertise, but I’m certain our competition—not that anyone within a thousand miles of here can compete with Paws & Wings, our staff, our reputation, our in-house diagnostic technologies (you know we have a CT scanner here, right on the premises)—but, as I was saying before I started bragging, ha: our ostensible competitors couldn’t claim any better. Most of them, I’m sure, have never worked with Curios. They’re not even qualified.”
“Oh no?” I said, not really caring to hear him expand, but pretty sure that he wanted me to care, and afraid that if I didn’t seem as if I cared, Blank might not receive the best treatment possible.
“Noooo,” said Kleinstadt. “V-school students only studied the Curio for three, four years at the start of the nineties. Lucky for you, my friend, I happened to be in V-school the first of those years.”
“Well, I do feel lucky.”
The doctor waved this off. “You’re nervous!” he said. “You don’t have to be nervous. You’re in good hands. Now open that sleeve up, and let’s examine…” he said, looking at the clipboard he’d taken from the desk, “little Kablankey.”
“Thing about that,” I said, removing my luchador mask from my pocket, “is before I let Blank out, I have to put this mask on, which I know sounds weird, but—”
“Sure does!” he said.
And then I explained. Except for Blank’s age, which I told him was eight, I stuck to the truth.
“Mr. Magnet,” he said, once I’d finished explaining, “I’m a professional, not some little kid. I feel it when I’m about to overload, and I’ve never had any trouble stopping myself.”
“Have you ever seen an eight-year-old?” I said. “In person?”
“I’ve seen Inhuman Self Denial about twenty-five times, and that Basho was something, I’ll give you that, but I’m certain I wouldn’t have been one of these tree-rushing nutsos had I visited the monastery, and Basho was—what? Eleven years old. I can handle the sight of an eight-year-old, believe me.”
“You’re probably right,” I said. “But still. I just—I can’t show you Blank unless it’s wearing a mask, and it won’t wear the mask unless I wear one, too. If that means you won’t examine it, then I guess…I mean I’ll still pay for the appointment, for your time, but…”