Lizard People Mary Miller (bio) I’m in town to babysit my sister’s lizard. This is how you wrap the lizard, my sister says, and this is how you cut the apples, no skin. If you give him apples you won’t need to give him water. Then she shows me how to give him water anyway, sucking it up through a syringe and dripping it onto his nose. The lizard licks and licks. In the morning and evening, you swap the lights from side to side, like this, she says. This is day and this is night. Don’t let the lights touch the plastic bars or put them on the floor because they’re hot and you’ll start a fire. Jesus, I say. This seems like a lot to remember. And the cords—don’t let the cords rest on the lights. She touches a light and pulls her hand back as if I need to be convinced. Then she places the lizard on my chest, wrapped up like a burrito. Will he bite? No, she says, Bug doesn’t bite. Bug has never bitten anyone. My mother, who has babysat Bug before, says he turns black when he’s angry. I peer down at him to see if he’s turning black but his head looks okay. Bug has his own Instagram page: eating worms and perched on windowsills, wearing a top hat. Bug with a rubber duckie, taking a bath in the sink. The videos are set to music from the 1990s, when my sister and I were children. Bug has a lot of followers, all of the other lizard people. Will he pee on me? I ask. No, she says. His business is solid and I already pooped him. You pooped him? Before you got here. My God, how do you do that? Don’t be dramatic, she says. You’re always so dramatic. It’s easy, he’s easy. I imagine her coaxing him, repeating the same few words over and over like I do with my dog. My dog is smart. I tell her to tee-tee in the grass and she tee-tees, tell her to poopy and she does that, too. She lives to please me. I don’t know how my sister became a lizard person. Growing up we were dog people. I’m still a dog person but my sister’s become allergic, or so she says, so my dog had to stay with my neighbor, Babs. My dog loves Babs because Babs gives her a lot of treats, which I don’t like but I’m too grateful to say anything. I’ll pay Babs in wine, which is the only form of payment Babs will accept. Do not even try to give Babs actual money. There’s a lot to remember, I say. I don’t know if I’ll be able to remember everything. She peels Bug from my chest while I type some [End Page 58] notes into my phone and photograph the lights—how they should be at night and how they should be in the morning—because she has them angled a certain way, the way in which Bug has grown accustomed. We’re going to feed him right now so you don’t have to do it again until Friday, she says. There’s really not that much to do. You just swap the lights twice a day and give him apples and take him out to get some sun if you want, but you don’t have to. He’ll be fine either way. I was going to leave him by himself if you didn’t come. I thought you’d back out. I know, I say, because I usually back out. Having established myself as the kind of person who backs out gives me a lot of freedom in this regard. Sometimes you get the sense that you’ve taken someone up on an offer that they didn’t really intend, however, and I wonder if this is one of those times. I’m surprised she’s even going on her trip, but things are still functioning normally...