Pipsqueak by Brian M. Wiprud

paintings of songbirds crowded out the bare walls.
    “I’ll be the judge of that, Dudley. I have seen a lot of bird mounts in my day.” I put out my hand. Oops: I forgot. He’s a tactilophobe and doesn’t shake hands with anybody. In fact, he tries to avoid touching anything he doesn’t have to. The way he sees it, New York is a hotbed of influenza. Dudley’s paranoia has some validity in fact, once you start to look around at the infectious threat of everyday things—elevator buttons, ATMs, doorknobs, handrails. Whenever possible, Dudley uses his pinky finger to operate ATMs, elbows to push elevator buttons, and he’ll shoulder open whatever doors he can or time his entry with someone else’s exit. Gloves? “They just collect germs,” he says.
    “Voilà!” With a flourish, he whisked a white silk hanky from the blue-jay mount.
    Perched on a birch branch nub, the jay sported an erect crest, his beak parted and his wings partially open. Not like he was about to take flight, rather like he was warding off an approaching rival with bluster and a long chatter.
    I beamed, turning the birch log so as to admire the mount from all sides. “Ve-ry nice indeed. Truly, one of a kind.”
    “And where’s mine, ragpicker?” He tried to fold his arms, but they were too bulky.
    “Voilà!” I put a small black velvet ring box in his paw, and he eagerly snapped it open with the silk handkerchief. “Three-quarter-carat pinkish oval, flanking aquamarine baguettes, platinum setting. Here’s the supply invoice.” Bartered services, the tax cheat’s best friend.
    “I de-clare!” He gasped. “It’s stupendous! I tell you, Carmela is going to go ape!”
    I swallowed a burp of laughter. Only the other day Angie remarked that Carmela was hairy as an ape. “When you going to pop the question?” I thought of adding “You dog, you!” but behaved.
    “This very eve! Today! Maybe right now!”
    “Down, boy!” I heard myself say. “Take her to a candlelit dinner tonight and do it then. Romantic, you know?”
    “Says you. What do you know about it, Romeo? No ring on Angie’s finger.” He squeezed the ring onto his pinky and admired it at arm’s length, alternately giving me a suspicious look.
    “Can’t go wrong doing something romantic. Besides, it’s the way they do it in the movies, a reliable touchstone for what women hope men would do if, in fact, men weren’t fundamentally insensitive louts.”
    “Carriage! A carriage ride, maybe? Or the Empire State observation deck!”
    “Corny as all get-out, but probably win you points in the long run.”
    Dudley struggled to get the ring off his pinky. “Now, how come that clever gal of yours never compelled you to bend your knee and look longingly into her eyes?”
    “Marriage? She could just as well propose to me, thank you very much.”
    “Hilarious. Really, Gawth, how come?” He grunted, then smiled in relief as the ring came off.
    “I guess I never felt she—or I—had to be conscripted into marriage in order to commit.”
    “Unusual.” Dudley shuddered the subject away and pointed at the jay. “Now, this mount can be put on a table, like it is now, or hung on the wall. See, I flattened the back and installed a recessed hanger. Wanna cream soda or a Fab Form?”
    “Fab Form?”
    “Health drink.”
    “Right. That stuff from the billboards.”
    “It’s quite tasty! Here.” He snapped open a can, poured me a shot. I gave it a try, suspicious.
    “Bleck. Tastes like Kaopectate and mango juice. Quick, a cream soda to cleanse my palate.”
    “Been ads for it on TV, and I like it.” He waved the Fab Form can at me, opening the fridge for my soda. We toasted the air and took long sips.
    “Dudley, you have an encyclopedic brain. I got a real-life brain teaser for you, something that’s got me puzzled.”
    “Do your worst!”
    “Remember that trouble I ran into out in New Jersey?”
    “TV-squirrel mount, Cola Woman, dead biker, loon full of