Critter Magic by Laurie Wagner

I've always been crazy for magical transformation. I had magic rocks as a kid, and always wanted-but never managed to get-those tiny, stunned looking sea monkeys that bobbed stiffly up and down in your aquarium-the ones advertised on the back of comic books. Even the tiny pie patties that moved through the warm glow of my EZ Bake Oven were amazing to me. I'd sit mesmerized, watching the little tins of batter travel the 12 inches of oven runway, rising like a Betty Crocker promise in their final moments, all golden and perfect. I never ate them, but made pie after pie just to watch them make their slow voyage though my EZ view window.

The critters were all about magical transformation. They were called Fun Capsules and were little plastic capsules that, when submerged in water, dissolved into spongy, brightly-colored animals about the length of one finger. I saw them in a toy store and bought a bag for my live-in boyfriend Davey.

Davey and I both had an eye for the ridiculous. We had this passion for lost animal posters. Whenever we saw a good one, we ripped it off of the street post and took it home. People had such cheesy, embarrassing affection for their pets. Buffy, Binky, Ol' Red, Tiger won't you pleeeese come home!

"Ooooh little Tiger!" we'd moan, tickling each other until it hurt. It doesn't seem funny to me now, but at the time it was practically as good as sex. We stole dozens of those posters, filing them away for some undetermined project.

Somehow, the Fun Capsules-these hokey little creatures trapped in plastic touched me. I just had to see capsule turn to critter.

I had choices. I could buy the Fantasy set, complete with the wizard, the unicorn, the magic wand, and the princess; The Dinosaur set with the brontosaur, pterodactyl and the tyrannosaurus; The Farm Set or the Safari set. Curiously, I opted for the Safari set that came with the fox, the alligator, cheetah, rhino and a couple of others. I can't tell you why I was drawn to the Safari. I don't think I thought it out, though I wonder now, twelve years later, if I'd chosen the Fantasy set instead, might things have turned out differently?

Davey and I had a few chuckles during the big birthing ritual. I brought a little glass of warm water over to his desk at the computer and let him choose the first critter. "Bombs away," he said, dropping the yellow capsule into the waiting sea below. It took a minute, and then, slowly, what was capsule began to morph and expand and a little yellow limb popped out, then another. We saw what looked like a tail. A second later we were staring at a yellow cheetah, bobbing up and down in the water. Davey fished out the cat and dropped another capsule in, and then another until we'd run out and it was time to make dinner.

We abandoned the soggy critters in a jumbled pile by the computer and they stayed there for at least a week, forgotten.

All couples have their thing. Our thing was Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Ramen noodles. We'd watch Dan and Tom every night on the little black and white TV that we'd salvaged from someone's yard sale. "Dan!" we'd scream when the news came on. Dan was silly to us, all serious about the Apartheid Movement, and then, moving into a story about some little kid in Arkansas who kept a bear for a pet, he'd immediately get that sappy grin on his face and Davey and I would bury our faces into each other's necks chanting, "No Dan, no." We felt bad for him.

The whole first year Davey and I were in love. I remember ticking off the months as they'd go by, seven, eight, nine months and no fights. Ten months and I still felt a rush when he'd take my hand and walk me into the bedroom. At Eleven months I started to play a game with myself. If I could predict what Davey would say next, we'd have to split up; it would mean he'd become too predictable for me. But he never said what I thought he'd say. Twelve months and my orgasms were only getting longer and stronger.

I'd had other lovers before Davey, but I counted him as my first real boyfriend-mostly because I'd spent the years between 18 and 25 drunk. Davey was the first boy I ever had sex with while sober. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with me, just a terrible case of self-doubt that had to do with growing up in Los Angeles and assuming that my power was only as great as my tummy was tight, my hair straight, and my legs open. Alcohol made me funnier, bolder, less insecure. I never questioned whether the boys I met were good enough for me; it was always the other way around. And while plenty of boys seemed to want me between the hours of midnight and six a.m., none wanted to know me in the light of day, or even take me home to meet their mothers for Thanksgiving.

But Davey was different. The first time I saw him he was leaning over a drafting table in the office of this art magazine where we worked on the weekends. The afternoon sunlight was streaming through the window and when he stood up there was a halo around his head like he was glowing. I gave him a ride home later that day and we were boyfriend and girlfriend by the following week. The first time we made love we'd tumbled from the living room into my bedroom and as he worked the straps of my bra I said, "unleash me," and he did, in so many ways. His pelted me with poems and kisses, and stashed secret notes in drawers and under pillows. He walked me to piano practice, and joined me later as we painted for fun on big pieces of paper in the kitchen. We became buddies. His love enabled me to finally step out of the L.A. girl beauty contest that I was trapped in and become a real person-a partner to someone. Sober, intelligent, and solid.

Our life together was simple. We had our little apartment overlooking the Lucky supermarket, and we worked-he at the college newspaper and me at the bookstore. We had our Top Ramen noodles every other night, we had Dan and Tom, we had our local college hard rock station, and we had each other. We liked to read, cuddle, and we did this amazing thing in the dark of night-reaching for each other in our sleep, we would wake up making love.

Life was good, and the critters made it better.

For the first week the critters sat by the computer, but soon found a real home in an empty floppy disc box nearby. Davey gave them names. They became The Hopeful Purple Fox, The Red Rhino of Determination, The Yellow Cheetah of Vibrant Intellect, The Green Alligator of Self Doubt, and The Pink Pig of Popularity. One day, I was off on a job interview and when I returned, I found all the critters in a single line, mounting a pillow as if climbing a hill. The Green Alligator of Self Doubt, affectionately known as Greenie, was leading the rest of the crew up to the top, a little mascot flag taped to his foamy green paw. Right behind him was the Hopeful Purple Fox. It was a funny sight, though it had no real meaning to me at the time. When Davey got home, he explained that they were going on a job interview. "I see," I said.

The critters kept busy. Once I found them huddled in a cluster listening to Greenie, who was stationed near a tiny easel made of toothpicks and foam board. He seemed to be leading a lesson, and all the other critters sat rapt in attention. Another time I found the Green Alligator of Self Doubt and the Hopeful Purple Fox on top of one another, and tucked cozily in an empty floppy disc box behind the computer. That's when it hit me: Greenie was me and the Fox was Davey.

From that point on, the drama of the critters obsessed me. Almost every time I came home from the bookstore I'd go directly to the critters to see what they were up to. It became a way to find out how Davey was feeling-and especially how he was feeling about us.

As wonderful as Davey was, he was also private. Anything that hurt or troubled him got sucked up inside of him, still whole and alive. I became sensitive to his moods. When he was happy, he bounded about like a dog, tickling and cornering me with kisses. When he was mad or upset, he'd shut down, avert his eyes and wouldn't talk to me. Different things upset him. Maybe something happened at the newspaper where he worked. Maybe it was something that I had said-but he would never tell me. He'd stew in silence and then, a couple of hours later, act as if nothing had happened.

I found this behavior unsettling. As a kid, my mother's rage was so intense and so unspent, that you could walk through the front door after school and feel her anger three rooms away where she stood in the kitchen stirring a pot. I grew sensitive to things I could not see, but could only feel. And caught like a moth to the flame, I could not help myself but draw closer to my mother, and later, to Davey, if only to resolve the terrible discomfort of not knowing how they felt about me.

Three years into our relationship, this inability to talk about difficult things became too much for me. There were just certain places that Davey and I couldn't go together; he wouldn't allow it. We started to grow apart. I found myself in therapy-partly to deal with what was coming up with Davey, and also to deal with my little self doubt problem, which tended to surface when Davey shut down.

"Talk to Davey," my therapist stressed. "Tell him how you feel when he closes the door on you." So I did, starting sentences with the classic, "Uh, can we talk ?" Davey would roll his eyes and reluctantly join me on the couch. "How do you feel?" I would ask him.

"Feeeeelings," he would sing. "I don't know how I feel!" he'd shout. "I feel fine!"

"Well," I'd say, "I just want to be able to talk about stuff when it comes up."

But the boy wouldn't budge. The more I tried pulling feelings out of him, the more he pulled away and three and a half years into our relationship, we weren't so happy anymore.

Things between us got worse. One day, finally, I said I wanted to break up. "Fine," he said, and stormed out of the house.

That evening, when I came home from work, I saw that the Hopeful Purple Fox was missing. I asked Davey where the fox was. "Guess he ran away," he said and headed into the kitchen.

I may have been full of self doubt, but I wasn't stupid. I mean, Davey was in the kitchen starting to make dinner, but on another level he was sayonara baby. Sure, I'd initiated the break up, but I wasn't jumping for joy about it. A part of me had hoped that he would fight for the relationship and that he wouldn't let me break up with him-but taking the fox out of the game let me know that that wasn't about to happen.

The disappearance of the fox made me crazy. There was a passive aggressive quality to it. If Davey had been shutting me out before, now he was locking me out. All week long I pestered him. "Seen the fox?" I'd say. "What do you think will make him want to come home? Should I cook his favorite meal? Any sign of the fox today?" I'd ask.

I started searching for him while Davey was at work. The fox had to be somewhere. Finally I found him stuffed in our old lost pets file between Buffy and Binky, a couple of lost cats. I took the fox out and placed him next to Greenie on the top of the computer. Davey didn't say anything when he saw the reunion. A couple of days later, things were again tense between us. I came home from work, put my keys down and went to check on the critters. And there they were-standing in a dazed semi- circle at the base of the computer, gathered around the remains of the Hopeful Purple Fox-who had been chopped up into itty bitty pieces.

At first I laughed. It was so dramatic, so childish. And then I felt really sad because I knew it was truly over. I was wondering how Davey could have performed such a cruel and heartless act when I caught sight of my own altar-ego-the Green Alligator-sitting on top of the computer and imprisoned in a little jail cell made from those damn toothpicks and foam board.

"What happened to the fox?" I asked Davey.

"Dunno," he said, "but it looks pretty bad."

"Did he fall?" I asked.

"Well, looks to me like he was pushed," Davey said, heading into our bedroom and closing the door. I freed Greenie from her jail cell, and demanded a trial. There must have been witnesses; all the critters were there, someone must have seen something.

The next day a "sueweecide note" was found near the computer, a scrap of paper the size of a stamp. The words, "Greenie didn't do it, I jumped," scrawled on it in child-like writing.

After that, all the critters- The Red Rhino of Determination, The Yellow Cheetah of Vibrant Intellect, The Pink Pig of Popularity and even the Green Aligator of Self Doubt-silently slunk off, one by one. By the time Davey and I were boxed and ready to move out, all the critters had disappeared. They were never seen again.

That was twelve years ago. To this day, Davey-who lives a few miles away- has never talked about what happened during the fox's final days.

Maybe there's nothing to say. Maybe the critters said it all for us. That's the way it is with magical transformation. You assume that what's coming out of the hat, or the EZ Bake Oven, or a little plastic capsule, is going to be something good, something better than what you had before. But you don't know that. Just like in love. I thought that Davey and I were going to be together forever. But as sweet as he was to me, and as surely as I believe that he was the water to my own magic capsule, allowing me to grow limbs and even wings, we dried up in the end.

Maybe if we'd gotten the fantasy set, we would have waved the wand and changed everything. But I chose the Safari Set with all it's unknown danger and adventure. Call it fate if you want, but I think there was something magical about it. I just had no idea what kind of magic I was making that day in Davey's office when we first saw capsule turn to critter.