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“The Pet Shop” was a finalist in our recently concluded 70th Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.

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photo of Gypsy Rose Lee, c. 1937/LA Daily News, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

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The Pet Shop

by Sherry Shahan

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…..Martha and George are tickled pink to accept a part-time caretaker position at Crazy Goose Burlesque when the theater is temporarily shuttered for archaic public indecency laws. Once a week, the octogenarian couple enters through the theater’s back door because that’s the key they were given. They vow to do what they can to preserve the art form in their continuing stance to protect smutty socialism.

…..Every other Sunday, one of the theater’s stockholders, a pole dancer named Babes-a-Flamin’, pushes an envelope with $100 cash through the mail slot. Martha and George do their chores on Wednesdays—wandering corridors with curved walls. Cracks in the plaster map the 110-year-old history.

…..The couple feather dust framed posters haloed by pin lights: monkeys on bicycles smoking cigars and rats in jockey outfits riding cats around a racetrack. Canvas-covered hoses coil in every room: IN CASE OF FIRE. They love the old building smell. Slightly musty, slightly sweet.

…..George peers at a vintage photo of Gypsy Rose Lee wearing a see-through fishnet ensemble. “It reminds me of something Bob Mackie would design for Cher.”

…..“Oh, my!” Martha squints at a gold-plated plaque. “She performed here in 1928 when it was called the Troubadour! She must’ve put on costumes and makeup in the dressing room downstairs!  She would have been a teenager.”

…..“Society continues to revise itself,” he says. “Shifting grounds of what is permissible and acceptable.”

…..The couple especially love riding up and down the birdcage elevator because a mechanical canary announces each floor. In the theater’s early days, patrons with unruly children watched performances from a soundproof ‘crying room.’ The popcorn machine in the lobby still works if you’re into that sort of thing.

…..George and Martha’s weekly duties include smearing mousetraps with Jif Peanut Butter, hand-washing rhinestone G-strings, and re-stitching ostrich feathers on molting fans. They steam wrinkles from gowns in the shower.

…..Because the closure is believed to be temporary, performers left hatboxes, shoe bags, and makeup bins. A typewriter; a twelve-inch black-and-white TV. Platform shoes made from recycled PVC and wigs on smiling Styrofoam heads.

…..“Look! A sewing machine!” George fluffs his cotton candy comb-over. “Did I ever tell you about taking Home Ec. in Jr. High?”

…..She nods like the bobble-head doll. “I built birdhouses in woodworking.”

…..The theater’s closure turned out to be longer than expected. Much, much longer.

…..Martha and George miss the community of performers, a community where no one looks alike, yet everyone loves and respects one another in the same cozy womb.

…..George dons a tweed cap before polishing brass fixtures in the Art Deco restrooms.

…..Martha wears a satin pillbox hat with a peek-a-boo veil while swabbing toilet bowls.

…..Each Wednesday, before returning to their lilac-imbued house in the suburbs, they linger on stage facing plush velvet seats, enchanted by an oasis of timeless elegance, imagining a packed house. “Let Me Entertain You!” spills from speakers.

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…..One night, while getting ready for a Twenties-themed fundraiser at a women’s club, their daughter Iris and son Jim drop into suburbia unannounced. Martha opens the door in a shimmery satin corset. Her ample breasts, plump as pillows. George looks sheepish in a strapless gown and stilettos from Saks.

…..Daughter Iris tsks in a ritual of disgust. “You retired too soon,” she says, owl-eyed. “Teaching third-graders gave you purpose.”

…..Jim agrees. “That’s how you connect with respectable people.”

…..Questions about their parents’ finances bounce around the room like dingy tennis balls. The children don’t believe in mutual understanding. They believe their parents have lost their marbles and begin making appointments to visit assisted living facilities—those land-bound cruise ships where all hands on deck wear kerosene green uniforms and swimming pools never splash. Days whittle away while grizzled old-timers play shuffleboard. No one misses karaoke or a midnight buffet.

…..Martha and George agree they’ll never sail on one of those ships. “All buffets border on cannibalism,” he says.

…..“At this particular moment, we’re the oldest we’ve ever been,” Martha tells him one night while they eat dim sum in bed. “Tomorrow, we’ll be older.” He sips oolong tea. “We spent most of our lives in a classroom ignoring teachers, and then we became the teachers that were ignored.”

…..“Our children treat us like Jurassic ammonites. Labeled. Classified.”

…..The pair hatches a plan of their own: Sell their home of sixty years, energy-efficient cars, and Weekend Romper RV. They liquidate retirement and bank accounts and anything else that might leave a greenback trail.

…..If their kids want to find them, they’ll have to look really hard.

…..Martha and George doubt they care that much.

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…..The dressing room both embraces and ignores them. A blissful dichotomy. The expansive space is a floor below the stage and without windows—a gift, really, not to be sucked in by life outside. Imagine the relief of not having to read the novel everyone is talking about. They look ahead to each new day, rarely behind, and never get on one another’s nerves.

…..Tupperware bins sparkle with rhinestones, beads, sequins, satin hair ribbons, and imagination. They love the effect of disorder—things not quite in their place. They have what they need, even a commercial coffee pot and a crockpot suitable for saucy meals. No need for take-out.

…..Their only purchase is a queen-size bed with adjustable lumbar support and cotton Egyptian sheets with a 1,500-thread count. The bed fits between racks of costumes labeled with performer’s names. Pop a Cherry and Tessie the Tassel Twirler. There’s a behemoth papier-mâché cow with brush-bristle eyelashes. A hat box in the shape of a rhinoceros head. They discover Frownies.

…..A million dollars in large bills is stashed in velvet seats fitted with seamless zippers—their way of opening a risk-free savings account.

…..“A side benefit is we’ll never have to imagine our possessions in a garage sale,” Martha says. “VHS classics, obsolete dinnerware (glossy, eggshell finish), mother-of-pearl butter knives. Everything pawed over before being discarded.”

…..George agrees. “People’s possessions speak of them—both reflective and betraying.”

…..The heater clicks on one brisk morning and the intoxicating scent of stale beer wafts through the dressing room. George swaps his tweed cap for a shaggy Warhol knockoff and wears the satin opera gloves he found in a loggia seat. Black-rimmed glasses without lenses are a nice touch.

…..Martha likes to curl his eyelashes through the frames. It’s freeing to see herself in the eyes of her husband.

…..George ventures out alone one day while she practices the hoochie-coochie in front of a full-length mirror. She’s getting good at it. The only part of her body that doesn’t move is her mouth, an achievement that shows commitment to being ‘linguistically disempowered,’ a way to honor the tease.

…..He returns in the early afternoon swinging a wire cage. Inside, a calico guinea pig. Shredded newspaper lines the bottom like 70’s shag carpet. A Log Cabin syrup tin cut in half makes a cute little bed. He sets the cage on the makeup counter.

…..“Oh, George!” Martha gushes. “She’s beautiful. Look! Her fur glows in the vanity lights.” She names the rodent GRL after her favorite ecdysiast—often referred to as deciduous. “At one time or another, Gypsy Rose had a turtle, rabbits, lambs, cows, a monkey, and a white rat named Hercules.”

…..“Part of her act?” he asks. “At first, but they all became beloved pets. At the height of her solo career she purchased a twenty-six-room house in New York. Imagine having a pool on the patio and more than a half dozen bathrooms.”

…..George puts on the movie soundtrack. “Gotta Get a Gimmick” rises like a fickle cock.

…..“Her son Eric went everywhere with her, from one five-star hotel and Baroque burlesque palace to another,” she goes on. “Imagine crouching in the wings of a theater while your mother strips for a sold-out audience!”

…..“A charmed life for a child.”

…..GRL twitches her whiskers—the first of many moments showing delight—and sips from a saucer with milky coffee. She hiccups often and can balance a cumquat on her head. Martha lets her loose in the dressing room for daily exercise and trains her to use a fleece pee pad.

…..“It’s like having a vegan Chihuahua,” George says.

…..Martha believes she can train her to play a tune on a small whistle. “If Gypsy Rose Lee could do it, so can I.”

…..She sets a whistle with the mouthpiece next to leafy greens from a dinner salad. GLR loves a good dinner salad! She breathes into the whistle while nibbling lettuce and is quickly rewarded with a broccoli floret.

…..In less than a month, GLR is whistling the first chorus of “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”

…..George buys her a large dog crate and installs swings and a spiral staircase.

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…..They pluck a sliver of paper each morning from a silk top hat: A trip to a zoo, museum, art gallery, double-decker bus tour, or beer tasting on bicycles. They eschew supermarkets in favor of bakeries and cheese shops and drink café con leche anytime they choose. Sometimes they pretend to be tourists.

…..Today, to keep from being recognized, they wrap themselves in beaver-skin coats—flour their cheeks and seam their eyes with Hey, Sailor makeup. Most  people look away in pity. But then, most appear to have plasma hangovers. The air smells like a gunnysack full of fish heads. Every lamppost is a turret of speckled bird shit. Totally inappropriate for a Sunday stroll.

…..George burrows into his molting collar. “It’s impossible for all families to be the same.”

…..It’s a story they both know—yet Martha chooses to tell it again. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting a breast reduction or daring to live like a palimpsest—used and altered—while still bearing traces of my earlier form. Besides, the surgery was supposed to be a birthday present. Eighty-two years is a long time to be anywhere.”

…..“They thought you were spending their inheritance.”

…..Martha shakes her head. “It isn’t like they were raised by refugees.”

…..“We should have made them use a manual can opener.”

…..“My God, we sent them to Sunday School with the neighbors. Iris couldn’t stop crying after hearing the story of Noah’s Ark. ‘The little animals could have drowned!’”

…..“They talk to us in the past tense even when we’re present,” he says.

…..“I remember when you drove me to the plastic surgeon’s.” She smiles, a twinkle in her cataract. “I sat topless on a cold table in a sterile room. The doctor had perfect teeth but couldn’t smile through his Botox.”

…..George laughs. “He cupped your perfect melons, measured them from each nipple outward, and drew an even line with a purple Sharpie. Then he said, ‘My patients would deal with the devil for breasts like yours. I suggest trying a different bra.’”

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…..The lovebirds descend subway stairs and hand out Benjamin Franklins to buskers.

…..GRL travels in Martha’s coat pocket, which is always damp inside.

…..Months pass. Then, a year.

…..Martha and George feel themselves transforming as if Crazy Goose had chosen them to carry on its traditions. At first, they can’t wait for their beloved theater to reopen. Now, they dread it. There isn’t any substitute for living in a dressing room. They buy flip-top burner phones in case of an emergency but never have to use them.

…..Their former selves might have taken naps, but here they’re never tired, and constantly remind each other how much living they’ve done since leaving their old life. One day, they wander by a sleazy bar, The Spunky Monkey.

…..A playbill on the door advertises a burlesque show. “It’s on our anniversary!” Martha says. “What shall we wear?”

…..“The possibilities are boundless!”

…..A missing person’s poster glares from beneath a notice for Taco Tuesday. “Thank God we don’t look like that anymore.” Martha fingers her bob. “Why can’t they leave us alone?”

…..“Obsession is nine-tenths of the law.”

…..“What’s next?” she asks. “An Amber Alert?”

…..“Nothing would surprise me.”

…..Their day ends at the library where they perch on wooden stools.

…..Martha settles in with Gypsy: A Memoir. “None of Gypsy’s three marriages lasted very long,” she says sadly. “Otto Preminger was her son Eric’s father. But Otto and Gypsy never married.”

…..George looks up from DRAG: Design Your Inner Makeup Queen. “Think I’ll wax my eyebrows and paint them cobalt blue.”

…..GRL explores the nonfiction stacks.

…..A while later, the librarian brings her back. “Look who I found.” She feeds her raisins from a  paper cup.

…..“Thank you Mabel,” Martha says.

…..She flips to a new page. “Gypsy believed if you wake up with happy dreams, you must tell them to someone before breakfast. Otherwise, they won’t come true.” She glances up. “Gypsy took her name because she liked to read fortunes in tea leaves.”

…..Mabel settles GRL on Martha’s shoulder and trots off.

…..“Telling fortunes is illegal in several states,” George says. “Gypsy’s lucky she wasn’t arrested.”

…..“Oh, she was arrested in plenty of police raids.” Martha snorts. “But never for fortune-telling.  Gypsy came to me in a dream last night. I was wearing a hat with fishing lures and pigtails sewn in. She wants us to put an act together so we’ll be ready when the theater reopens. All we need is a gimmick.”

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…..Chicken Tikka Marsala simmers in the crockpot while Martha folds twenty-dollar bills into origami swans for the burlesque show. She drinks Gallo, not because it’s cheap, but because she likes it. GRL practices “Cherry Pie” on her whistle.

…..George sets up two TV trays as per his habit. “What would you like to watch tonight? Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel”

…..“You choose, my love.”

…..George fiddles with rabbit ears while Jimmy F. does summersaults in a blizzard. He stares in disbelief when their children appear.  “They haven’t aged well.”

…..Martha turns from the crockpot. “Why are they wearing Cheerios necklaces? They aren’t twins.”

…..“Solidarity,” George says. “Against us.”

…..Iris and Jim lean into the camera, as if peering into the dressing room. “Our mother and father are addled and are making poor choices,” Iris says, tight-lipped. A stallion brooch gallops across her chest.

…..“We fear they fell prey to scammers after they went rogue.” Jim’s new veneers accentuate his overbite. “They’ve lost their house, bank accounts, everything.”

…..GRL snorts and puffs up her fur, a sign she’s pissed off.

…..“We’ve filed reports with APS and the local police department.” Iris holds a photo of her parents in front of the camera. Fortunately, it’s an old one, long before Warhol’s wig and Martha’s Dutch boy bob.

…..In a shocking acceleration of time, the photo is swapped for a squirming, pudgy-faced newborn. “My daughter has never met her maternal grandparents.” Iris sniffles. Blots crocodile tears. “Please, whomever is holding them, do the right thing and send them home.”

…..“Whoever.” George grumbles, correcting her. “Whomever is an object pronoun.”

…..A 1-800-number flashes across the screen.

…..“She had a baby at forty-two?” Martha asks.

…..“Not entirely unheard of.”

…..“Do you think we could ever coexist with our children?”

…..George turns off the TV. “Maybe if they were wordless and frozen in time.”

…..They guess baby names for a while, then fall silent for a while, and settle on Bea for Beatrice.

…..“Iris was a lovely infant.” Martha hates to admit it. “Remember her newborn smell?”

…..“Then she started talking and we were controlled by a toddler who always demanded more. One endless therapy session.”

…..The scent of highly fortified dessert wine wafts from the crockpot. “Let’s eat.”

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…..They never think about how each day will end when it begins. When each day ends, they never consider how tomorrow might begin. Except for their children, they’re rarely irritated by the actions of others. They pardon rude people on the streets and continue to tip buskers in the subway.

…..“Something’s been bothering me,” George says, out of character. “Something I can’t explain.”

…..“Maybe it’s better not to try,” Martha answers. “We’ve never worried or been sad since moving here. We continue to revise ourselves. To ride a tide in which nothing is unmentionable and most of it is mentioned all the time.”

…..“Have you noticed? The envelopes have stopped falling through the mail slot.”

…..“All right, then. I think we should.”

…..George uses his burner phone to call Babes-a-Flamin.’ The news is unexpectedly grim. “Without ticket sales, the theater is woefully behind in rent, taxes, insurance,” he says after their conversation ends. “Even sales from the online store have tanked.”

…..“Then we must shop!”

…..“Sorry, dear. It’s much too late for that.”

…..George and Martha unzip rows of velvet seats and remove $250,000 to help their beloved theater.

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…..They try on costumes for The Spunky Monkey. GRL chirps over every outfit—sounds of a happy rodent. “Think I’ll train her to bark like a dog.” Martha steps into a gorgeous rhinestone gown, but it’s too heavy and cuts into her shoulders. She forgoes platform shoes, because she doesn’t want to look down on her husband.

…..“Living must always be a matter of protest,” George says while rubbing foundation over his stubble. He outlines his cupid bow with red lip-liner and struggles into a faux leopard-skin unitard. “Are you wearing fishnets?”

…..“I enhanced my spider veins with Magic Marker.” She struts over and pins a corsage to his spandex chest.

…..Martha chooses yolk-yellow chiffon soufflé, which gives the illusion of seeing things you can’t really see. It has a precipitous neckline. Wig tape holds her beauties in place. Faded ink on the tag says Gypsy Rose Lee. “It’s probably an imitation, but who cares? I feel like a 15-year-old tart!”

…..George smiles, ear to grin. “It’s the cat’s meow!”

…..“Let’s turn on the fan,” she buzzes. “So I can see how I look in a breeze.”

…..George obliges. “Stunning!”

…..Before walking out the door, Martha slips a dainty little G-string over GRL’s head. Her paws are positively elegant in satin booties.

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…..The Spunky Monkey smells like a pet shop or maybe it just sounds like one. The stage is a rectangle cleared of pool tables. A host flits over wearing a loincloth and cowboy boots. His mascara is so thick a bat could land on his eyelashes. He licks his finger and smooths an eyebrow. “You can call me Rainbow Sprinkles, because I’m the best donut.”

…..Sprinkles leads them through an aquarium of scintillating lights beneath disco ball balloons. Party favors smother their table: Wax lips, latex gloves, naughty peel-and-stick tattoos.

…..Martha slides into her chair going ga-ga over the display of flavored condoms. “I fear my heart will explode!”

…..GRL scrambles onto her shoulder.

…..The MC enters through crimson curtains dripping in gold tassels. “Ladies and Gentlemen! Señors y Señoritas! Mesdames et Monsieurs. Everything beautiful and inappropriate will be on stage tonight!” She shimmies in an enviable sequin corset, her skin glowing like a waxed canary. “You may not touch the performers—but the performers may touch you.”

…..The audience goes ape shit.

…..“If a costume happens to go astray, you may steal a quick whiff before returning it.” She pauses with unspoken meaning. “Did everyone go potty?”

…..Topless servers pour generously. Martha drinks the same way, tossing back vodka-laced lemonade without a cleavage of regret.

…..Drum-roll!

…..MC: “So I opened a strip club called Erectile Dysfunction. What a flop. Then I called myself a ‘ho’ and the money flowed!”

…..Crumpled dollar bills shower the stage.

…..Giggles Galore appears in Pampers with pacifiers for pasties. One slips, showing an airbrushed nipple. “Oh, you gorgeous thing!” She winks at the crowd. “Tell them they’re beautiful and they’ll love you forever.”

…..Martha overhands origami twenty-dollar bills.

…..Giggles Galore twirls a powder puff. “Who wants to dust my derrière?”

…..Martha snorts. “Is she pulling a boa from her, uh?”

…..George: “It’s a snake.”

…..MC:  “Pass the basket like you’re in church!”

…..The music is so loud Flirty Fatale’s G-string plays itself. “Any guesses what’s in my magic box?”

…..Martha: “It’s getting hot in here.”

…..George (drops a packet of cashews): “My nuts are going everywhere!”

…..MC: “Any anniversaries in the audience tonight?”

…..George springs to his stilettos. “Sixty years in the same bed!”

…..MC: Let’s hear it for the newlyweds! Introduce yourselves!”

…..Martha: Cling Wrap.

…..George: Blow Hard.

…..MC: Do you two lovelies have an act?

…..A spotlight encircles the octogenarian couple.

…..Martha: Never put French fries in the refrigerator.

…..George: Why not?

…..Martha: It makes them hard!

…..George: Hey, that gives me an idea!

…..A flock of dollar bills land on their table like they’re returning to a gilded cage.

…..Martha: Darling, would you like a mint?

…..George: What flavor?

…..Martha (winks): Blue.

…..George: Will it give me a stiff neck?

…..The music swells. “Curtains up! Light the lights! You’ve got nothing to hit but the heights!”

…..George sniffles; his glasses fog.

…..Martha passes him a tissue. “There, there, dear.”

…..After the show, they return to the theater, shed their eveningwear, and slip between the sheets. In the blue dawn morning, they put on matching duck dresses with pinafores and ruffled bloomers. Then they unleash another 250K from the velvet seats. This time to grease the palms of lawmakers who filed to foreclose on the theater, citing ‘singing in the bathtub’ (Bathroom Singing Prohibition Act of 1969) and mooning a security camera.’

…..Martha unplugs the coffee maker and crockpot and wraps the cords in figure eights. She launders the sheets, remakes the bed, and packs their bags. George books an Uber.

…..First, they’ll stop at the mall and buy onesies for Bea —because this is what life does, plain and simple. There’s nothing profound about it. It makes sense that it doesn’t make sense.

…..Martha snaps a leash onto GRL’s collar. “Maybe we should change.”

…..George peels away his false eyelashes. “Maybe we should.”

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Sherry Shahan is a 76-year-old woman who studies ballet and pole dancing in a small California beach town. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, has been nominated for 2 Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, and Best of the New Anthology.

 

 

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War. Remembrance. Walls. The High Price of Authoritarianism – by editor/publisher Joe Maita

“The Sound of Becoming,” J.C. Michaels’ winning story in the 70th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest

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