Alfred Little did not own an animal, hated them in fact. They were frequently bi-polar, filthy little creatures with terrible habits of licking themselves and excreting whatever bodily fluids they had in stock over whatever was available. Thus, it was a bit of a shock for him to discover, one morning, a wet spot in the middle of the living room rug that reeked of animal urine and stained his socks yellow.
He was livid, of course, and fired Lana the maid immediately even as she tearfully disputed owning such animal. In the end he relented, but only because she was such a good maid and good maids were rather difficult to find. Still, it did little for his temperament to know that someone had let an animal into his house to urinate on his carpet.
He retired to the study to ponder the matter a while longer, and perhaps to nurse a glass of bourbon, before he stepped in yet another wet spot and instantly ruined a second pair of clean white socks.
Alfred was beyond outraged and had he found the offending animal, he had no doubt that he would have immediately expelled it off of the very top of his thirty-first floor balcony to the ground below and damned be to whomever was standing underneath. As it was, he knew of no animal in the building as they weren’t allowed in the first place and there were certainly none to be found on his floor to which he maintained exclusive rights.
The maid came to him later and told him she had seen Ms. Howard on the twentieth floor with what could’ve been a dog hidden away in her handbag. Didn’t he recall Mr. Peake three floors down once telling him he allowed his son to keep a snake? Did snakes urinate on things, he wondered?
When his wife Constance returned home that night, he asked her very pointedly if she had purchased any sort of small animal which she contained in a handbag, perhaps.
“A dog, Alfie? Seriously?” She sighed as she washed her face. “Why on earth would I want a dog? Besides, I thought they weren’t allowed?”
“Well, something is piddling on the carpets,” He said and told her about his socks.
“And today I had Lana clean another spot in the kitchen…on the hardwood floors. Do you have any idea what urine does to wood floors?”
Constance sighed in reply, breathy and wordless.
“You don’t think snakes…piddle…do you?” He asked.
“But they must, wouldn’t they?” She said, and then paused in her washing. “But where would a snake come from?”
“Bill’s son has one I thought.”
“Mmm. No. It died last year, remember?” She laughed. “They had to call the plumber after he tried flushing it down the toilet!”
“Oh, right,” He sighed. “Well, something is going on the carpet. Are you sure you don’t have a poodle or some small kitten hidden away somewhere?”
“Alfie, I think we would both notice something like that,” She said, turning off the water. “Did you ask Lana if she got one from somewhere?”
Alfred rubbed his temples. Carpets didn’t simply urinate on themselves. “She said she doesn’t have one and where would she keep it? Don’t they eat their dogs and cats?”
“No, I think that’s the Asian’s, dear,” She said, shutting off the light and crawling into bed. Her feet were like ice when she curled them up to his thigh.
He knew Constance didn’t feel the same way as he did about animals, which was why he was only slightly suspicious about her, but he also knew she wasn’t one to willingly break their well-established ground rules. She would bend them, certainly, but never break them. In fact, it was that wild side to her character that he had fallen for, though after all these years, he felt he had grown to know her limits.
He sighed and turned off the light.
“Maggie’s pregnant again,” Constance mumbled.
Alfred frowned, but only grunted in reply. He knew his wife had babies on the brain and the thought of a screaming, crying, pooping child rubbing mustard into the rug and crayon on the walls filled him with panic.
“I suppose it was only an accident,” He finally said.
“No, I think they planned it.”
“I meant the piddling.”
“Oh,” She paused. “Well they did plan it. She wanted another one so badly…” She trailed off.
“Goodnight, dear,” He said, turning onto his side.
The next morning after Constance had left for the day, he discovered the small pile of poo, still glistening and warm, as it soaked into his three hundred year old Persian carpet he kept between the entry way and the bedrooms.
Normally, one does not simply put a Persian carpet on the floor and Alfred, knowing this fact, had kept strict rules that shoes were not to be permitted under any circumstances. Lana was already hard at work in the kitchen and nearly dropped the breakfast she had been cooking when she heard Alfred scream.
“Poo…” He pointed at the offending gobbet of excrement that seemed to him to wiggle with malevolent glee.
“Aye Dios Mio!” Lana disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of cleaner. “No hacer nada…I’ll take care of it, Mr. Little.”
“NO!” He howled, picture the hard chemicals dissolving away the silk and gold threads, stripping the colors, and burning a frothing hole in the carpet. “No chemicals! Just…pick up the poo and I’ll call someone…” He tore at his pockets and dialed the guy who knew how to restore Persian’s.
When the guy had come and went, shaking his head and clucking his tongue at the disaster, Alfred sat in his study nursing a cup of coffee with a shot of whiskey added. His breakfast sat largely ignored, his scrambled eggs doing nothing but remind him of animal waste.
“Lana?” He called to her. “Are you sure you didn’t see anything in the apartment today? Nothing followed you out of the elevator? A snake…or a cat or something?”
Her eyes darted back and forth around the room. “You saw a snake?”
“No. It’s just…an example,” He said. “I mean, nothing came with you?”
“No, Mr. Little,” She shook her head. “Perhaps there are cameras in the elevator?” Alfred snapped his fingers.
“Cameras! That’s the answer!” He laughed, picking up his phone. “I’ll have a surveillance system installed and catch the beast in the act.”
It had cost him more than he was expecting to pay, but in the time that it took to install the system and route everything to his laptop, he had stepped in no less than four more wet spots over the matter of a couple of days and found another poo next to the toilet in the guest bathroom.
His hands shook when he found the poo next to the toilet and he began to wonder if someone really was playing a trick on him. Perhaps someone had trained the animal in question to taunt him, like a little monkey thief which intentionally made a poo next to the toilet instead of in it just to spite him.
Despite his anger, he was almost giddy when the server was turned on and the three grainy split-screens flickered to life on his computer. Whatever it was, no matter how smart or small, he’d find out where it was coming from and put a stop to it. Even a little poo-making monkey had to come from somewhere. That night, he told Constance about the cameras and his idea about the monkey.
“But dear, how would it work the door handles?” She wrinkled her forehead and studied the new camera angled directly at the bed.
“They do have hands,” He grunted. “And it would explain how it’s been getting in.”
“Through the balcony?”
“Possibly. I didn’t consider that. I meant through the front door or even through a duct. I bet he’s been slipping in and out of here all week, casing the place and trying to locate the valuables,” He said as she slipped into bed.
“Mmm.” She turned off her light. “Well dear, I hope you don’t go overboard with this. All this talk of snakes and monkeys has given me a headache. Besides, I can get used to the idea of little feet running around the house.”
Alfred sniffed. “Dirty little things, spreading germs and getting into everything…”
“I was talking about children, Alfie, not the monkey.”
“So was I,” He grumbled under his breath.
In the morning, he shot up like a boy at Christmas and spent the better half of the day watching empty hallways and blank screens where absolutely nothing made a spectacular entrance. By the third day, he had begun to suspect Lana of more nefarious intentions and had started watching her as she cleaned the house, waiting for the appearance of a hidden animal. Unfortunately she had caught on to him and demanded a raise or she would quit, which he was only too willing to pay. Feeling frustrated, he spent the rest of the afternoon napping until Constance returned home.
“Honey?” She paused in the doorway. “Did you mean to leave that there?”
“Leave what where?” He turned around and noticed the poo for the first time. Next to it was a fresh piddle spot.
“Are you kidding me? You didn’t smell that?” She wrinkled her nose.
“How could I? The whole house smells like shit!” He screamed. “Damn that…that…”
Constance surprised him by laughing. “At least your cameras weren’t a total loss, huh?”
He leapt from the sofa and started the digital playback immediately.
He saw himself typing at his computer, his back to the open door which led to the hallway adjoining the bedroom, while the room behind him lay bare. After which, he rested on the sofa for a short nap. He had been waiting for the thing to make an appearance for so long that he didn’t realize he had been holding his breath until the animal appeared on screen and he let it out all at once.