You're the Man Now, Dawg! - 1. One of Those Days

A small and runty man with ridiculous ears was staring at him. In both texture and color, his hair resembled strands of wheat. His beady black eyes had the look of someone who always seemed to be begging for something. And he was staring at Danny because Danny was staring in a mirror.

Because he had long ago come to accept that you cannot squeeze a horse into a thimble, Danny was smiling. There was not even the chance of finding a horse-sized thimble these days, but that didn't mean that Danny couldn't smile. Even if it he didn't want to, it was still a wedding!

He perked up his ears. Nobody seemed to be outside the door. His eyes darted around the small room. It couldn't hurt, not here, not now, not really. All the while keeping his eyes on the dapper bloke reflected before him, Danny turned to the side and stuck his rear-end out. He started to wiggle it enthusiastically.

That ended rather abruptly when his parents walked into the room a second later.

"Hullo, Danny."

"Hi," he straightened his black tie and jacket. The smile was a different type now, but it didn't leave his face. "Are we about ready to begin?"

His dad chuckled and pulled out a notepad. "Not nearly, but you just sit straight, I'm sure we'll start sooner or later this afternoon."

His mom put her hand on his forehead. "Temperature's normal." Dad jotted something down on the notepad.

Danny frowned. "Did you have to bring the notepad? I'm okay with friends and family knowing how neurotic you are, but think of the other side for once, won't you?"

"Nonsense." She sat in a velvet chair by the window. Her eyes careened across the room like a drunk driver, stopping on various objects until they hit their next casualty. Dad slid his pen down the metal rings of the notepad.

"You have something to say," Danny smiled.

"We do."

"Look, I know you love me and just want the best--"

"We don't."

"Excuse me?"

"Love you. We don't love you. Though that doesn't mean we aren't fond of you. We do wish you the best."

"That isn't the best way to start, Harold."

For his part, Danny had only cocked his head to the side and stared at them.

"What would you classify that reaction as?"

"I don't know, we'll have to check the footage afterward, and consult with Dr. Holmshlebeckien. That's more his area, I'm afraid."

Dad sighed and wrote something on his notepad.

Danny took a deep, long draught of oxygen into his lungs. "There is no one named Dr. Holmshlebeckien. That's absurd."

His mom objected, "That's a ru--"

"And I know I'm adopted."

They all gave each other a look. Mom darted to Danny's side and peered into his eyes.

"You do?" Came his dad's voice.

"Yes!"

Mom turned back at her husband, "Clearly exasperation, Harold. Strike one for H."

"Right, my dear."

"You guys should be committed," Danny shook his head, but the smile was back.

Dad snorted. "That's not the only surprise Danny." The smile was gone. "We think you should know this before you start a new life with that fetching blonde out there." The smile had run away to India. "Something like this really shouldn't be kept a secret forever, if possible." The smile had been swallowed into a black hole. Danny knew what was coming.

His mothe--foster mother's eyes sparkled, never leaving Danny's, as she whispered a curt H back to her husband after every sentence he spoke. More scribbles on the notepad.

And then, from his fath-- foster father's lips, out came the words Danny had feared for so long.

"You're part Chihuahua, Danny."

In the movies, there's always the part where they don't believe it. This can be very enjoyable. But we're going to skip that part.

Suffice it to say the guests waiting out in the chapel heard voices shouting loud enough to cut through the organ music for a good 10 minutes. Many of them were used to this sort of thing before the ceremony. Though why on earth the shouting seemed to involve dogs did puzzle quite a few of them.

It was when Danny had launched into a tirade that the practical jokes his pare-- foster parents always played needed to stop, that it hit him.

His mind flitted back to a young Danny on the floor of his living room, gripping a video game controller. The sound of a bell made his ears go erect -- they had started ringing a bell when he wouldn't answer their calls for dinner. Those moments slapped him in the face, one by one.

Or the time, during his goth phase, they had presented him with a black, spike-studded collar for his 15th birthday, with the words, "Sit Ubu, Sit" embroidered on it. That memory punched him in the guts.

Or the laughs that came when he would try to go upstairs to his room and they would shout, "Stay!" right in front of his friends and by some magical force born from the ether of parenthood, he would always stop immediately. Those memories were like a torpedo kick straight to his crotch.

H and D! All those H's and D's in the notebook. Neatly scribbled upon a grid laid out to the hours of the day and his emotional state. They weren't recording the success of all those pranks and practical jokes. Those weren't the jokes of eccentric psychologist researchers. H and D. They didn't stand for humorous and dumb.

Back in the present day, Harold immediately picked up on the sudden change in his experiment's face and shouted, "Sit!"

As Danny's posterior hit the velvet chair his foster mother had been in a moment earlier, he noted that it was still warm. At any other time, Danny would spring up again, because he hated that feeling. But the memories had started to dance around his head like sugar plum fairies and it did not occur to him yet to scream or panic or laugh nervously or pee on the rug.

It was the third grade and Danny was running around the classroom like a chicken suicide bomber. He couldn't hear his teacher's pleading ministrations or feel the sweaty hands nick his slippery eight-year-old body as he flitted around like Tinker Bell on crack, shouting, "Earthquake! Earthquake!" But when he dove underneath his desk and gripped the legs like a boy possessed and, galvanized by the overwhelming cognitive dissonance, several other students did the same, he heard his teacher scream, "For Pete's sake!" Then the room did start to shake and in the days that followed, he gained the nickname, "Psychic Disaster Danny."

He was 14 and massaging his sore forehead as he stared at his naked form in the bathroom mirror. "Are you okay, Danny?" He assured them he was. Danny heard whispering. He snorted. Danny wasn't doing what they thought he and all the other 14-year-old boys did in the bathroom to hide it from their parents. He was in here because the urge overwhelmed him and there was no other way to quell it. He had to satisfy himself with his own body. There was no other way. After all, how would you explain to your teacher or best friend how much you yearned to sniff their butt sometimes?

And then there was the utter befuddlement when a scared six-year-old Danny looked into his parent's eyes after they'd heard how he had run off the other day. He had begged Melissa not to snitch on his bad behavior, but his babysitter sadly informed him that some things were simply too weird to keep secret -- even if he did do it because he felt abandoned by his parents and their sudden weekend away from him. He thought they would be angry or shocked and maybe there would be a spanking involved. He didn't expect his dad to examine him as if he were one of those beetles they caught together, pull out a notepad and say, "And how did it make you feel when you peed on the fire hydrant at 3rd and Crescent?"

Slowly, like a paraplegic trying to swim 100 meters, Danny's mind returned to his body in that little room off the side of the wedding chapel. He gazed into the loony, loony eyes of his foster mother, who was stroking his right hand soothingly, and asking if it would be more therapeutic to scratch his ears.

"You said that it had to be a Chihuahua. Why?"

Harold snapped his fingers and pulled a crumpled envelope out of his black dress pants. "Almost forgot! This will explain everything in the detail you'd expect for a government-sponsored program of this scale." Danny ripped it open and his eyes absorbed the black ink, even his heart wasn't quite ready to yet.

"I almost died in a freak construction accident when I was four? How come I don't--"

"Hypnosis. Wouldn't do for you to remember anything before you became part-dog. Those who did remember didn't offer very encouraging results."

"Child suicide is so sad." His foster mother's hand fluttered in front of her eyes to keep from ruining her makeup.

There were no flies in the little room, so fortunately none could enter Danny's gaping mouth. He kept reading.

"In a coma for a year? No hope for rehabilitation?"

"Now you see why we thought you'd be a good candidate!" Her eyes were sparkling.

"Though those pathetic deadbeats who were your real parents used the government subsidies to get high and died of a cocaine overdose."

And from his better half, a sharp, "Harold!"

Danny kept reading. "Well, I suppose you guys were a definite improvement to my real parents."

"Oh, Danny, always so sweet. And if you don't mind me saying so, I don't think that's from the Chihuahua brain parts we used to revive you."

"Harriet! That could provoke a deliberate bias in the results from now on!"

"Now on?"

"Don't feel like committing suicide then?"

"No, of course not!"

"Splendid, we knew you weren't like the others!"

"You're a miracle, Danny!"

"Others?"

"You remember Ellen, don't you? Girl you said acted like she had been a preening poodle in another life?"

Danny shot out of his chair. "Sit!" He went back down again.

"Her too?"

Harriet was wringing her hands. "I'm afraid she took her life after the third time she was caught in a compromising position with a neighbor's dog--"

"Oh my God! That's horrible!"

She crouched next to him. "Now Danny, dear, when you say 'God,' is the image you have in your mind of a Sistine Chapel-like grumpy old man or something closer to say, Anubis from Egyptian mythology?" Harold licked his lips and readied his pen just above the paper on his notepad.

"Mo--err, Harriet, not now!"

"Well, if you want to continue the experiment logs, there's a signature I need from you. You'll find it last among those documents. You'll get a generous stipend from the government. You're only the third who ever made it to conscious evaluation. Congratulations."

Danny nodded. "Cool. Pen?"

"Catch." Danny caught the pen in his mouth and signed. "Good boy." Harold bent down. Danny licked the scientist's face near his chin stubble.

Harold retrieved the pen and wrote down "D" on his notepad.

"Did we mention the cameras before he signed, Harold?"

"No, but I read about it. S'cool. Always thought they were for you to play back your 'jokes' anyway. Used to it." Danny was chewing on a dog biscuit Harriet had given him.

"Are you going to tell Bridget?"

"I--" and in that moment brilliance shone inside the half-Chihuahua, half-human synapses that made up Danny's brain. A brilliance that slotted itself so quickly and wonderfully together, it was if someone had made the Statue of Liberty out of Lego bricks in the space of a second.

Danny shot out of his chair for the second time and wiped the biscuit crumbs from his lips. "Will you stay here until I come back? I've got someone else you need to explain this to."

"Certainly, that makes sense."

"After all, without us, who's going to believe you?"

There was a kiss to both of them and a "Thanks" before Danny rushed out of the room and reappeared a second later to add, "By the way, I'm gay."

Harriet clapped her hands. "Do you suppose--?"

"Harriet, that's an awful thought. I bet it's just as random as a normal human."

"I know, but we must be objective." And because Previous Butt-Warming Syndrome didn't phase Harriet, she retook her position in the velvet chair.

When Danny burst into the bride's preparation room, barking furiously and shooed away the bridesmaids like they were bothersome hens, they didn't even question it. Most of them were used to it by now.

Bridget Kensington only looked perturbed for a minute until her entire face lit up in a way it certainly wouldn't have at the altar later that day. "Oh Danny! Are you sure it'll allow us to get out of this wretched marriage?"

"Absolutely positive! Your father won't want to have a thing to do with me! And you'll have the perfect reason to dump me at the altar! And I won't even have to come out to anyone!"

She collapsed into his arms and kissed his face like a woodpecker on a mission. "Oh Danny! That's wonderful!"

Danny led the blonde beauty in her stunning wedding dress out the door and behind the little room off the side of the chapel. He sat her down in the mud and handed her the envelope. On the way, the two managed to attract some stares from people who really didn't think this was the time for one of Danny's fits or appropriate that Bridget always seemed to enable them. Bridget shushed at her cousin to be quiet and go away, as she pursed her lips and started reading, making sure nobody from inside the room could see her crouching there. Her cousin gave up just in time as Danny burst back into the room on the inside, dragging Mr. Kensington. He surreptitiously opened the window for some air, standing not two meters away from the mud-splattered bride kneeling on the other side.

So the concerned cousin didn't hear Mr. Kensington say, "I swear to God, Danny, if this about your urges again, I thought we agreed you'd get counseling!" But Bridget did hear it and also the words that came from Harold Donovan.

"It's tangentially related."

Mr. Kensington spun around. "Mr. and Mrs. Donovan, I thought we also had an agreement that you two would--"

"This is no joke, Mr. Kensington," Harriet smiled.

Mr. Kensington had one of those premonitions you get sometimes when you think, "Maybe I shouldn't make popcorn on the stove tonight" and sure enough, you get a nasty burn.

His premonitions had to do with all the connections he had made. Bridget meeting and falling in love with a stunt dog trainer on the set of her newest movie was enough to make his face go purple with the indignity of his daughter's ridiculous romantic choice. But when digging for dirt to keep him away turned up an astonishing trail of amazing predictions tied to animal-related stocks and a eye-ball popping amount of profit from them, his view had softened on the boy. He didn't regret the way he had practically forced the two to marry by pulling strings behind the scenes, not even when the boy had come to him with that ridiculous confession that he only liked to hump Bridget's leg. He was prepared to accept certain queer indiscretions for such a financially valuable son-in-law. Mr. Kensington was even prepared to overlook that night he came down for a cup of brandy and caught Danny shoving his Doberman pincher's dog food down his gullet.

But no matter how much he wanted to ignore it for the sake of Danny's value to his production company and the assets his amazing predictions in animal-related markets could bring to it, somewhere nestling deep inside Mr. Kensington's psyche was not the niggling discomfort from Danny and his daughter's obvious objection to their marriage, but that maybe Danny really was deeply disturbed.

So that's why, as Mr. and Mrs. Donovan supplied a litany of incontrovertible facts and evidence, it took less than 5 or so minutes before the guests heard the shouting about dogs die down again in that little room off the side of the chapel. By this time the minister had turned to the organ player, and shook his head. "I think we've got another bum wedding on our hands, Charles." So the guests weren't even comforted by bland organ music anymore.

But it was only after Mr. Kensington misunderstood a distant snicker he thought he heard, not from the window of course, where his daughter was hiding, but somewhere in the room, did he break out of his reverie and set his eyes on the beaming Mr. Donovan. Mr. Kensington saw red. His hands snaked out in a death grip and locked around Mr. Donovan's throat.

As Mr. Donovan's cell phone hit the floor and the picture he'd brought up of his real son George vacationing in Cancun, and Mrs. Donovan started to hit Mr. Kensington with her purse, dog biscuits tumbling about, Danny darted outside and past the murmuring guests who were wondering if they could get refunds on their wedding gifts.

Bridget crab-walked away from the window until she was safely out of range of the various things that were being thrown out it. She put her hand into Danny's. After she had wiped some of the mud from her wedding dress, she found her very recent ex-boyfriend's face panting, tongue lolling to the side in a dopey, open-mouthed grin,

"But shouldn't we do something about them?"

"Nah, they deserve each other. One of the guests will call the police." As they walked, they held hands, but the old lady who saw it said later on that, if she didn't know better, it looked like the bride had the runty man on a leash.

Bridget sighed, tittered and hugged herself as she stepped forward away from the church. "You okay?"

"Never felt better!" Danny frowned. "Well, that's not true. I need to find Connor."

Bridget whipped her hand up to her face to cover her mouth, and winced at the dull pain that throbbed in her teeth from Danny's hand smacking her. "Ow."

She ran forward to the street and hysterically started calling for a taxi.

"Bridget! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you!"

"Oh my teeth are fine, you mutt! I mean--oh, I'm sorry. Is it racist -- you know, in dog terms?"

Danny caught up to her, as she pushed into the taxi that had just stopped. Sitting beside her, he asked, "I don't know, but where are we going?"

"To Connor! He left the chapel about an hour ago!"

"What?"

"He said he couldn't watch you do it! He'd meet you sometime afterwards." She patted around her legs in a frenzy. "Do you have your phone?"

"I'll text him."

After he hit the send button, Danny's gaze was pulled to the rearview mirror reflection of a white-haired, bespectacled cabbie. "Not to interrupt, but do you know where you're going?"

Bridget was the one who answered. "Just drive, get away from this stupid church, quickly." The cabbie's eye widened. Was that the actress Bridget Kensington in his back seat?

As the taxi started to move. It was her! The cabbie smiled -- he might be making a little more than the usual money tonight.

Bridget took Danny's hand. He stared into her icy blue eyes. "I'm so glad you're a gay Chihuahua." The two of them jolted into the backs of the driver and passenger seats.

"Hey, watch where you're driving, pal," said the smaller one and was he imagining a cute growl coming from the back seat? No matter, the cabbie had learned from over 30 long years of service that it was also best to just keep driving.

He heard a sigh. "Part Chihuahua."

It was when the the woman in the wedding dress said, "Would it make you feel better if I let you sniff my butt?" that the cabbie's hands began to sweat.

"If you don't mind."

"Not at all."

"Hey, hey! That type of behavior isn't allowed in this taxi!"

"Oh will you be quiet! He can't even get it up when I massage him unless he's thinking of Connor and besides, I'm not even going to take off my panties." There came a sound that is only made when a human being takes a deep, long intake of breath. It made the cabbie's stomach churn.

"Mud and grass, I get, but Chanel No. 5?"

"I thought you might get nervous and need a little pick me up."

"That's so sweet." A pause. "Remember the first time you let me do it?" Jesus Christ.

"We were watching Legally Blonde and you got so agitated at that Chihuahua in her purse!" Laughter. Oh god! They were laughing now. Why didn't the state allow cabbies to carry guns for protection?

"It might not have been such a bad marriage. It would have been a good excuse for me to mess around with any number of guys without daddy catching wind of it."

"I wasn't unhappy you know. It's just, compared to a life with Connor--" Danny's cell phone started to vibrate. He slapped Bridget in the shoulder. "He's at Robbie's Diner."

The cabbie flinched when the bride's face torpedoed into his line of vision. "You know where that is?"

"Yeah," said the cabbie, gulping. "I know where that is. But my shift's over in--"

"Just get us there and you don't have to take us anywhere else," said the runty one.

"Sure thing, pal."

When the cabbie pulled into the diner on 17th and Wilkinson Boulevard, and the runty one almost did what you might call a barrel roll out of the car and into the parking lot where a black-haired man in a black suit wearing black sunglasses was sprinting toward them, he didn't even stick around to demand the fare after the bride got out and shouted, "Connor! It's a miracle! The government's insipid experiments have saved us all!"

As he checked his rearview mirror to make sure they weren't running after him, and saw the two men embracing in a passionate kiss while the bride circled them doing ecstatic karate chop motions with her legs, he shook his head.

He didn't care about the money. Best to leave that type of thing to the dogs.