-==-

Arnie frowned.

He was good at frowning. In fact, it was one of his favorite pastimes. Some days, he would do little more than stand in front of the mirror in the small, cramped bathroom in his small, cramped apartment building and practice frowning, just to make sure he didn’t lose his touch.

This frown was extra special, though. It was a frown of a magnitude he saved for only very specific things: telemarketers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and puppies.

Like the puppy that was staring up at him even now, its big watery eyes filled with the kind of love and trust only puppies could hold, and its short waggy tail beating out a regular pat-pat-pat on the worn carpet it sat on.

Normally a frown like Arnie was giving the pup was enough to turn even the most stalwart of souls away, but despite every ounce of effort Arnie put into his face, contorting his mouth and brow to the point of pain, the puppy continued to look at him adoringly.

Arnie looked down the left side of the hallway, toward the busted elevator at the far end. Rows of dingy formerly-white doors dotted the dingy formerly-white walls, illuminated by dingy formerly-white fluorescent lights hanging from a dingy formerly-white stucco’d ceiling. Not a soul in sight.

Arnie looked down the right side of the hallway, toward the large window that might have provided some influx of much-needed sunlight if not for the fact it faced directly into the flat brick wall of another, taller apartment building. More dingy doors and walls, but still no sign of another tenant.

“Wurf,” said the pup, in a tinny pup-voice.

“What,” Arnie asked it, turning his frown on it with renewed vigor.

“Murf,” the pup said, doubling down on waggling its little tail.

“Well… shee-it,” Arnie muttered, drawing the syllables out just like his granny had taught him. With a huff and a cacophony of creaks and cracks, he bent over and picked up the pup, groaning as the creaks and cracks reversed themselves on the way back up.

He studied the small, animated and fuzzy bundle much like one might study a rotten potato found at the bottom of the bin, with a mix of horrified disgust and involuntary curiosity.

“Murwoo,” the pup said, kicking its little puppy feet in an effort to swim closer to Arnie. Arnie’s hands easily halted such progress.

Around the pup’s neck was a pink ribbon, and attached to the pink ribbon was a pink cardboard heart with a pink lace design around the edge. Shifting the puppy so he could hold it in one hand, he lifted his other and turned the card over. There, he saw writing, in yet another, darker shade of pink.

“To Arnie, thought you could use it. Sincerely, a friend.”

Arnie frowned yet again, this time trying out his vexed-and-annoyed frown just for a change of pace. Who would give him a puppy, of all things? He’d made it well known in the apartment building at every tenants’ meeting how much he despised dogs, and children, and parakeets, and anything else that made noise and didn’t pay at least as much rent as he did (which, given his rent control, was really very little.) And such silly handwriting, all curlicues and round shapes. Even his name looked wrong, the “r” looking more like an “n.”

“Maybe you really do belong to an Annie and you’re at the wrong door,” he said to the dog. He immediately felt silly for the momentary lapse into sentimentality, but promised himself to frown in the mirror to make up for it.

“Wurpf,” the puppy said, somehow managing to close the distance between them and lick the tip of Arnie’s nose.

“Blapf! Dangit!” Arnie said, shaking his head. “Whatcha go and do that fer?”

In answer, the pup gave him a doggy smile, then proceeded to pee all over the front of his sweater.

“Shee-it,” Arnie said again, this time with more venom behind it.

Wasting no time, he turned around and kicked the door closed behind him, marching through the house with the pup at arm's length, still furiously wagging its tail and occasionally dribbling a bit more pee on their way to the bathroom.

Once in the bathroom, Arnie placed the pup in the old, well-worn tub to keep it out of trouble. “Stay,” he said, waving a finger at the little ball of trouble.

“Murf.”

Figuring that was the best he’d get, Arnie huffed again, then pulled off his now pee-soaked sweater and tossed it on top of the already overflowing hamper in the corner of the room.

“Dag blasted pain in the ass,” he muttered to himself. He glanced at his reflection in the mirror, seeing the familiar old flabby mess that had seemed to suddenly appear about thirty years earlier, replacing the fine, strong young man he would swear he’d been before. He tried to work up another frown, but the effort of the last few he’d given the dog had drained him, and he just wasn’t up to the task.

He continued to mutter nasty nothings out the bathroom door and around the corner, into the small, cramped bedroom attached to the rest of the small, cramped apartment. There was a clean sweater somewhere, and he was set on finding it.

Wasn’t there?

Arnie looked again.

Nope.

With a defeated sigh, he grabbed the nearest thing he could find, a long-sleeved tee shirt he hadn’t worn in probably twenty years. It had been a gift from his wife before she passed, with a picture of a large cartoon rabbit on the front and the words “Hoppy Anniversary!” underneath. He felt it was ridiculous, and had felt so at the time, but he’d worn it regularly up until the day the aneurysm took her away from him.

On his way back to the bathroom, he stopped at the little closet between the two rooms and grabbed a towel.

“You pee on this shirt, and nobody will find the body,” he warned the pup when he entered the bathroom again.

“Rumph,” the pup agreed, waggling its fluffy little tail so wildly that its entire rear end followed.

“Good.”

With that verbal contract made, he once again weathered the pains of old age to bend over and pick up the pup. A cursory inspection assured him that, as he’d expected, every ounce of pee had managed to hit either him or his floor, and the pup was clean as a whistle. He wrapped the pup in the towel anyway, just to be sure, then carried the bundle to the little living area.

“I don’t feel like going out today, and I don’t trust you not to eat my shoes and shit on my floor, so we’re going to sit nice and quiet in my chair until I figure out what to do with you,” he told the pup, trying for as much sternness and meanness as he could.

The pup squirmed in his hands, managing enough freedom to lick his hand.

Arnie grumbled but said nothing else as he lowered himself into the well-worn glider he sat in most days. He considered turning on the television and seeing what there was to be mad about for the day, but once again found himself lacking the energy to do so.

The puppy, now in his lap, squirmed a bit.

“Down,” Arnie said, tiredly, laying his hands on top of the bundle to hold it in place. That seemed to be enough to calm the dog, who once again licked his hand before laying still.

Arnie rocked and thought.

Idly, he scritched the pup’s head. He did manage a small frown when he realized what he was doing, but since it seemed to keep the pup quiet, he let his hand continue.

Rock, rock, rock.

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Hmph?” Arnie grumbled, wondering how long he’d been lost in the quiet.

“Mrph?” The pup echoed, equally curious.

Knock, knock, knock at the door again.

With even more grumbles, Arnie rose from his chair, the pup adding only a little more difficulty to the task, then walked to the door and opened it.

At first, there seemed to be nobody there, until a soft, high-pitched squeak drew his eyes down to the short, blonde, blue-eyed girl who stood there, tear streaks down her face but a smile a mile wide as she looked at the bundle in his arms.

“Bunny!” She crowed happily, reaching her hands up for the pup.

“’S not a bunny, ‘s a mutt,” Arnie muttered, but let the young girl take the dog from his arms, the towel falling away in the process.

“You found her!” The young girl said, rubbing her cheek against the little pup’s soft fur.

“Ruff!” The pup agreed, eagerly licking the tears from her cheeks.

“Daddy, this nice man found Bunny!”

Arnie turned to look down the hall where the girl had turned to find a tall, harried-looking young man waving bye to one of Arnie’s neighbors and approaching them.

“Hi,” the young man said, offering Arnie one hand while placing the other protectively on the back of the young girl’s head. “I hope Bunny wasn’t being a nuisance.”

“Bunny?”

“Annie named her,” the young man said, seeming a bit embarrassed.

“I like bunnies,” the young girl said, then gasped. “Dad, he has a bunny on his shirt too!”

“Haha, yeah,” the man agreed, giving Arnie an apologetic look.

Arnie wanted to frown, but something about the look on the young girl’s face stopped him. Instead, he said, “What’s with the card?”

To Arnie’s surprise, it was Annie’s turn to frown. “My doctor gave her to me to help me feel better.”

“Feel better? Are you sick?”

Annie looked at her father, who looked back at her silently. Then the girl looked back at Arnie, her eyes filled with determination.

“The kids at school are being mean to me because I won’t pretend to be a boy anymore.”

“...Oh,” Arnie said, surprised. “You’re trans….”

“Gender,” her father said, finishing the phrase off with a nicer word than Arnie could think of, the harried look of his features increasing.

“Yeah,” Arnie agreed, giving the little girl another look. “Well, you don’t look like a boy,” he finally added, not sure what else to say. That seemed to brighten her mood again, and the young girl beamed up at him.

“Thank you!” She said, wrapping the arm that wasn’t filled with pup around his leg in a small hug.

“Umm…”

“Hey, we’re the Andersons. Me and Annie live up on the fifth floor,” her dad said, smiling down at his daughter. “We were finishing the paperwork for the pup when she got away from us, and we’ve been looking for her for an hour.”

“How’d the dog get up to the third floor?”

“She pooped in the elevator!” Annie said, giggling.

“Umm, yeah. I guess she hitched a ride up with someone,” the girl’s dad agreed, looking embarrassed again. “Well, listen, if you ever need anything, we’re in five twelve. Just stop on by.”

“Uh, yeah. Okay?”

“Come on, Annie, let’s get Bunny home.”

“Oh, okay,” the girl said, stepping away from Arnie. “Thank you, mister! Come visit me and Bunny sometime, okay?”

“Mruph!” The pup added, with its own doggy grin.

“Sure?”

“Byeee!”

Arnie watched the girl and her father walk away, her father taking her free hand while the pup looked back over her shoulder, panting happily and occasionally getting giggles from the girl when it would turn and lick her face. Arnie continued watching until the elevator doors closed.

“I wonder when they fixed that?” He asked himself, then shrugged and walked back into his apartment.

Instead of walking back to his chair, he walked to the bathroom to check the mirror. Something felt strange, alien even, about his face. Looking at his reflection, he discovered something shocking.

Was that… a smile? It looked odd on his craggy face, contorting the well-worn frown lines into new shapes, and it hurt a little, stretching muscles he couldn’t remember using in years.

“Hmm,” Arnie hmm’d, thinking. Odd.

Perhaps he should practice more of them.

-==-

END

NOTES:

As always, comments and kudos appreciated. I'd love to chat with folks about their thoughts on the story. :)