Anatomy of an Unintentional Nazi Salute

I see her across the other side of the grocery section in my local HEB - our local HEB because I knew she also shopped here. I knew it could only be a matter of months before our paths crossed once more, and that it would be awkward; although at the same time, having been struck from my list of acquaintances, she's someone I never expected to see again, and so somehow - just for a second - I don't recognise her.

My wife signed on to a social networking site called Meet Me, or something of the sort. She was spying on her friend's husband, acting in the capacity of both concerned friend and private detective. She described the site as a car crash of angry, unloveable losers and as such found it unwittingly entertaining. This is how she met Kelli - who likewise passed time on the site chortling at misspelt tattoos proudly displayed or people posing with their guns or fighting dogs - and it turned out that Kelli lived in our neighbourhood.

As they became friends, Kelli explained that she too was in a relationship with a person from across the other side of the Atlantic. Whilst Bess and myself were now married, Kelli remained regrettably separate from her partner, the bass player of some death metal band over in Sweden. Occasionally she'd phone or text, needing a sympathetic ear or a virtual shoulder to cry on because she hadn't heard from her hunky Swede in over a year.

'What do you think is wrong?' she asked my wife. 'Do you think it could be over between the two of us?'

The most recent email she'd received from the guy hinted at his seeing someone else. 'What do you think he meant?' Kelli wailed.

Kelli worked as a merchandising manager for some company which routinely sent her out on tour across the country with bands such as Aerosmith. On one such occasion she needed someone to go in and feed Buster, her cat, for a couple of weeks, and Bess obliged. There was also an occasion during which Kelli somehow ended up in jail at the other end of the country, and Bess once again stepped in to feed poor Buster.

I'd just finished painting a book cover, the one for The Brakespeare Voyage by Simon Bucher-Jones and Jonathan Dennis, so far as I recall. The cover had taken me a long time but I was pleased with the result, as were the authors and publisher. My wife posted a photograph of it on facebook. Kelli responded with a meme, an image of Mike Myers' Austin Powers character grinning inanely whilst holding up an inept looking sketch, something of comically poor execution.

Did somebody say something about a drawing? ran the caption.

The joke is that the comedy Brit is showing us his drawing, but he doesn't realise that it's shit. Ha ha.

This struck me as fucking rude coming from someone I'd never met and who had presumably deduced my character to be an assemblage of hilarious clichés about drinking tea and playing jolly old cricket with Prince Charles. It particularly bothered me because I've always viewed the Austin Powers movies as fucking shite.

Fuck you, Kelli, I thought to myself.

It sinks in. I've seen her here in HEB before. Last time she was stood in the queue at the place where people cash cheques or arrange insurance or whatever that thing is. She was dressed like a 1950s teenager, cut-off denims revealing cellulite, and with way too many polka dots for a woman in her fifties - a look which serves only to accentuate how many years have passed since she was a teenager. This is all down to a hitherto unsuspected fascination with the Stray Cats - a rockabilly revival band amounting to what the Cramps would have sounded like had they been formed by Michael J. Fox.

Kelli's next drama was when the former drummer of Slipknot kidnapped her cat. She moved to a different apartment, was somehow tracked down by this famous ex-boyfriend, and so he kidnapped Buster as part of some poorly defined act of revenge for something or other which wasn't quite clear. Bess and I began to wonder about Kelli. She was unreliable, regularly agreeing to meet but then failing to show, and her accounts of herself began to seem increasingly far-fetched. Also, there were the selfies on facebook, a new one every fucking day and always with some weird filter which smooths out the wrinkles, transforming the subject into a sparkly-eyed anime character. We had met her in real life, so we knew what she actually looked like - an aging Siouxsie Sioux with the biggest nose you've ever seen, about an inch of foundation, and the sort of chin only Basil Wolverton could truly capture - all of which at least explained the angle from which she took her daily facebook selfies, head on so as to disguise the enormity of that hooter, looking up into the lens with the big brown eyes of a Japanese child.

We met her in real life at a bar on Broadway in the company of her friend, Greg, a surly Vietnam veteran who ignored us for the entire hour that we were there. Maybe we were cramping his style.

She broke up with the uncommunicative death metal bass player from Sweden, and announced there was someone else in her life. The only problem was that this one lived in England. He came to America and we met him. He seemed okay, but I couldn't help but wonder if he knew what he was getting into with Kelli.

Kelli had seemingly given up on Meet Me, her energies being devoted to cyberstalking Greg's new girlfriend. She couldn't help but wonder if Greg knew what he was getting into with this woman.

They had never met in person, but she was moving to San Antonio to buy a house, and the two of them were going to get married. They already knew they were made for each other due to a mutual love of buttplugs. Kelli found this hilarious and took delight in sharing what information she could glean with my wife.

Then one day, Bess found herself blocked from all of Kelli's social media accounts. I asked the latest transatlantic boyfriend whether he had any idea what could have happened. Kelli told him that Bess had sent her a message which seemed abrupt and rude, gloating over Greg and his buttplug-based relationship whilst failing to enquire after Kelli's wellbeing, like Kelli was just a source of cheap laughs. My wife was puzzled and went through all the crap stored on her smartphone, eventually finding the conversation which had given such offence. It bore no relation to what Kelli described because neither Bess nor myself had particularly taken to Greg and had found it difficult to care about what he chose to stick up his ass and with whom.

Inevitably we began to wonder, because the pattern had become difficult to miss. Was her cat really kidnapped by the drummer of Slipknot? If someone took any of my cats I'd move heaven and earth to get them back. Maybe she simply moved to an apartment with a no pets policy, we figured; and never mind the drummer from Slipknot, had the Swedish death metal bassist even existed? Even if he had, did six months of transatlantic silence not suggest that the relationship was probably done? Maybe there hadn't even been a buttplug woman moving to San Antonio to buy a house. Maybe that was Kelli as well. Who fucking knows?

Now I remember that we are no longer on such great terms, and that this meeting is therefore awkward; but it's too late. She's seen me. I've seen her. She's seen that I've seen her and vice versa. My arm flies up to wave just as I would greet any other person. By the time my arm is at full elevation I've realised that Kelli is not to be greeted. I lower my arm and quickly look the other way, realising that the gesture probably resembled a Nazi salute; and as I head for the section where they keep the beer I realise I am quietly satisfied with this thought.

Introducing Charlie

I don't have a huge amount of faith in our city's animal control department. Byron's dogs once escaped from his yard and ran away. He went down to the pound to see if they had been picked up and found them both already on death row, scheduled for the big sleep later that day. Both dogs were chipped with name and address but no-one had bothered to check. I've called to report dogs running loose in my neighbourhood and have been told it would be five days before anyone could attend; but having since learned that they mainly seem to be in the business of snuffing critters, I'm no longer inclined to call them.

There didn't seem to be much point in calling animal control when I first spotted the bunny, so I phoned my wife and asked what she thought I should do. She spoke to a colleague with a pet rabbit, and procured the number of something called Rabbit Rescue.

I was sat at a bench at one of the covered pavilions of McAllister Park, drinking sweet tea and taking the usual break at the halfway point of my daily cycle. I happened to be gazing at a car parked a little way away, and there was a bunny sat looking back at me from beneath the front bumper. It was white with black ears and black rings around the eyes, obviously a domestic pet, and I stared for what may have been a full minute before I realised what I was looking at, simply because it wasn't anything I expected to see.

I decided that someone must have dumped the bunny, and vaguely recalled that domestic rabbits are ill-equipped for survival in the wild. Also, this was McAllister Park, home to foxes, some enormous birds of prey, and even the occasional coyote. The rabbit was clearly out of its element and requiring assistance.

I called Rabbit Rescue, but they didn't have anyone available. As I spoke to the woman, describing the situation, the driver of the car beneath which the bunny had sought shelter returned from walking his dog.

'I've already called animal control,' he said. 'Do you know anything about rabbits?'

Now I found myself holding two separate conversations at the same time, the upshot of which was that animal control were fucking hopeless and that I'd give my wife another call. She might know someone who could come out and pick up the rabbit, maybe Edi or Byron if they weren't doing anything. If we could get the bunny home then I could sort something out from that point on, but I could hardly ferry the bunny on my bike, and the guy with the car had his dog to consider.

'Is it tame?' asked the woman from Rabbit Rescue, who was still on the phone. 'Can you get near?'

The rabbit hadn't moved, and stayed still as I lent down to see if I could pet it.

'Yes, I think it's tame,' I said as the guy with the dog tried to tell me something. This weird bifurcated conversation was an irritating distraction and had begun to get on my tits in the absence of any advice I could actually use. 'Look, I think I can handle this, but thanks for everything.'

I picked up the bunny, which was soft and didn't even struggle.

'I'm going to call my wife again,' I told the guy with the dog.

He made grateful noises and drove off just as the bunny sprang from my arms, then settled down to nibbling at the grass nearby.

'I'll call Byron,' Bess told me. 'He owes me.'

'Okay.'

I sat on the grass watching the bunny nibble at seed heads. I petted it several times and it didn't seem even slightly bothered by my presence.

Half an hour went by and I saw Byron's truck. I waved. He waved back, then drove right past into the woodland. After another ten minutes, I called Bess again.

'I have no idea what's happened but he drove past and hasn't come back, and that way is a dead end. Maybe he changed his mind and has gone into hiding.'

'Okay. He texted me to say he couldn't find you and got lost. It's nearly my lunch hour. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes.'

By the time Bess came, I'd remembered that we have a growing frame which might be put to use. I made it myself a couple of years ago as something in which I could grow onions, potatoes, or whatever else seemed at most risk of being uprooted by trash pandas; but I noticed that my horticultural mojo doesn't seem to work so well in Texas, and never got around to planting anything which the frame might protect. It measures four feet by two and comprises chicken wire over a wood frame with a hinged lid. I'd been meaning to donate the thing to Stephen, our green-fingered neighbour across the way, but thankfully never got around to it because I now realised it would serve as a fairly decent temporary hutch.

Bess took charge of the bunny and I cycled home, pausing only to stop off at the supermarket for rabbit food and a bag of hay. Back home I found the bunny duly housed in the growing frame, which Bess had moved into Junior's room. I lay down some bedding in the office - as Bess calls the room in which I have my PC and mile upon mile of shelving - and relocated both bunny and temporary hutch. I'm sure Junior would have been happy to share his room with a rabbit, but he never sleeps and I was disinclined to subject our guest to permanent artificial daylight.

'She's a girl,' Bess told me, following consultation with her rabbit-owning colleague; and for some reason the name Maisie kept slipping into my thoughts, so Maisie it was. The idea was that we would look after the bunny until a permanent home presented itself, most likely through the Rabbit Rescue people; but inevitably we decided that fuck it - one more mouth to feed isn't going to make a whole lot of difference.

The woman from Rabbit Rescue called me back that afternoon wanting to know what happened. She was overjoyed that we had decided to keep the rabbit.

Maisie settled in and began to put on weight, which was a relief. After two weeks I was no longer able to feel the nobbly bits of her spine when stroking her. At weekends we ferried her temporary home outside to the garden so she could eat grass and see the sky while we cleaned up in the office.

Some evenings, when all of the cats are outside, she gets to hop around in the front room. I'm spending this time building her a proper hutch, more or less the same dimensions as the growing frame, but taller with two floors connected by a ramp. Eventually it's finished, and I prime the wood with a waterproof sealant, a non-toxic rabbit friendly brand which has proven harder to track down than you might think.

Bess has told Maisie's story on facebook, specifically joining a group called Alamo City House Rabbits.

You were bunny people all along, writes someone or other who has never met us, you just didn't realise!

Rabbit Rescue holds an adoption event at one of the local animal sanctuaries. Obviously we're not looking to adopt, but we go along for the sake of taking notes. A large enclosure dominates the center of the room, full of bunnies. It's quite something.

'You were rabbit people all along,' observes another woman we've never met and whom we don't even know from facebook, 'you just didn't realise!'

By the third time someone makes the observation it has become annoying. It isn't as though either of us experienced a Damascene conversion following a lifetime of rabbit detestation. Both Bess and myself had rabbits as pets when we were young.

Tina from Rabbit Rescue, to whom I spoke on the phone, says hello and tells us how glad she is that we've decided to keep Maisie as our own house rabbit, because as we know, domestic bunnies tend to expire from the heat of the Texan summer which is why they can't be kept outside. The disparity between this information and what might seem like common sense is that the wild rabbits of Texas know to burrow downwards, away from the heat of August.

'Fuck,' I mumble to myself as I watch Rug, a hairy rabbit resembling a toupée tearing around the enclosure chasing the other bunnies like a lunatic. We don't know his actual name, but Junior has decided it should be Rug, which seems fitting.

By the time we're home, we've concluded that the hutch would take up roughly the same space as the glass display cabinet near the French windows, providing we shuffle a few things around and move the aforementioned cabinet to the bedroom; and now that we have a bunny, obviously we don't want him to catch fire when the temperatures begin to soar.

He settles in to his new home in our front room just fine, and I say he because a trip to the vet has revealed that he's actually a boy, thus at least meaning we have no pressing need to have his rabbit making apparatus decommissioned. The cats get used to him. None of the gang seem particularly antagonistic, and Fluffy is actually scared of the bunny. Strangest of all, the faint bouquet of hay and vegetarianism is quite pleasant so far as front room smells go.

'I don't mind what we rename him,' I tell Bess, 'so long as it's nothing silly, and isn't a character from a game or some lame movie, or from a meme.' I'm on the defensive, recalling Junior's previous form for naming critters after arcade game celebrities or awful characters from the Divergent books, which I'm not convinced he's even read. What really sticks it in and twists it for me is that he seems to believe that coming up with names for animals is one of his unique and special talents.

Surprisingly, the boy comes up with Charles, which I like because it's a proper name and because it will also allow us to address the bunny as Charlie, Chuck, or Chas.

Charlie had a bad case of ear mites, as we found out when Bess took him to the vet, but he's been treated and now has a clean bill of health. He seems to like his hutch, and sometimes won't come out, even when the opportunity is presented. In many respects he seemed an unusually highly-strung bunny, at least at first. During the first week of his residence in the hutch, I took him outside for an hour or two each morning, letting him eat grass and experience sky from the repurposed growing frame, now in use as a run. Each day when I bought him back in, he seemed more and more agitated, and by the Friday he was tearing around inside his hutch, thumping his back foot to signify displeasure with the sonic force of a rifle report, then upturning his water bowl in a way which seemed to be saying fuck this bullshit! We couldn't work out whether he was stressed at the change of scene, or whether he'd loved it so much that he would have preferred to stay out there. Thankfully he now seems to have got used to living with us.

Now that we have a rabbit, we've realised how difficult they are to read in comparison to cats. We can tell when he's pissed off, but his expressions of happiness can be ambiguous. We know the ways of our cats so well that sometimes we may as well be having an actual conversation with them, compared to our attempts to communicate with the bunny.

We'll get there, I suppose.