This Monkey's Gone to Heaven

Chapter 14, This Monkey's Gone to Heaven

Chapter Fourteen




I didn’t want Mom to wind up selling my dad’s electric wheelchair, so the night he left for Canada, after sobbing into the crabgrass, hurling foul-mouthed my grievances to the dark world of the creeping earthworm, I pulled myself together and I drove the wheelchair to my dad’s van which was parked down the street. I lowered the lift and locked the wheelchair inside the rusting hulk. The neighborhood was quiet, even the whippoorwill, making life feel somewhat artificial.
It wasn’t until the following evening that I picked up my cast and crew at Stanley’s. I had to wait all day in my room, avoiding Dorothy at all costs, pacing back and forth on my knuckles like a caged gorilla, wondering when Mom was going to show up with my Grecian formula and what reasonable story I could tell to explain my wild facial tick. Plus, I felt sick to my stomach. Ever since eating that sandwich my mom made me. There was an explanation for this I would later discover.
I pulled into the driveway at Stanley’s. They were all waiting for me outside on the lawn. The first thing Stanley said as he hopped into the van was, “Wow, Dad’s letting us use his van?”
I told him about Canada. Taking a seat in back, Stanley said, “There’s no way.”
“Yeah, brave, huh?
“I can’t believe it.”
“I know. Same.”
“He didn’t even say goodbye to me.”
I looked in the rearview mirror. Stanley looked crushed.
“Stanley, he probably tried, but you weren’t around.”
“Well, when did he leave?”
“Where were you last night?”
“I was here at home,” Stanley said. “Tori and I were going over some scenes.”
“What were you doing the night before?”
“God, Emmett. Just tell me. When did he leave?”
Pause.
“Last night.”
“Fuck.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe he didn’t say goodbye. I mean, I’ve got a phone. He could’ve at least called.”
“Well, if you can call ‘saying goodbye’, rolling down the window as the van raced by, sticking out his head and shouting, ‘I’m going to Canada, boy. I’ll call you when I get there.’ I mean, that’s all I got. A quick wave and a shout. He didn’t even stop. He could’ve stopped to give me a hug, but he didn’t. I feel just as bad as you do.”
But Stanley wasn’t buying it. He withdrew into his mind and I felt bad for him. For the most part it was a quiet ride. Even Tori and Johnny were keeping to themselves. It was a little awkward. Johnny had this aura about him. He created tension wherever he went. Sometimes he could be so uptight. (That’s why Tori, among other reasons, never cared for his company.) Also, Stanley and Johnny apparently had gotten into it yesterday when Stanley found out that it was Johnny who had cracked the windshield on his wife Nastasia’s car by tossing the Power Ranger doll out into the street as I drove by unaware that he and Tori, tired of waiting at Wallmart, had started walking home and from the side of the street had seen me coming. When I failed to slow down, Johnny decided to get my attention by tossing the Power Ranger doll out in front of the car. I jumped on the brakes and momentarily lost control of the car. Jesus, I thought I’d hit a pedestrian. That doll’s plastic head knocked the windshield with the force of small bowling ball, chipping the glass and leaving a long crack from top to bottom. Even so, dressed casually in new plaid pajamas, the Power Ranger looked no worse for being struck by the three thousand pound vehicle that sent it hurling through the air like its powers from TV had temporarily revisited him albeit in a clumsy, pin wheeling manner.
I covered the twitching side of my face with my hand and kept it there for the duration of the ride. No one cared to notice. They all kept their eyes focused on the passing terrain. I sensed that if the car slowed down they’d all try to leap out, roll out of the car, rather go skipping across the pavement than sit there with me. Well, maybe just Johnny. The guy kept sighing and fidgeting like he was being driven to his execution. It didn’t help that last night I called and told Tori to tell him that he’d be playing the part of Jimmy at the last minute. I’d forgotten all about that character, you believe that? Johnny was happy at first, according to Tori, but today he just looked nervous and miserable. How, you ask, would a deaf mute say his lines? He wouldn’t have to in this movie. I planned to shoot the whole thing MOS, without sound, and dub the whole thing later to save time. All he’d have to do is move his mouth like in cartoons.
But after a while I felt happy that they were sad I gotta admit. Especially my brother Stanley. At least now he was acting normal--and not like Tinker bell.
As we were taking the exit into Cucumber Stanley finally broke his silence and said, “Emmett, I might need to take a couple weeks off.”
“A couple weeks off? We haven’t even started yet. What are you talking about?”
He turned and looked out the window.
I looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Stanley, what do you mean you need two weeks off? What’s going on? You getting cold feet?”
“It’s Nastasia.”
“What about her?”
Pause.
“She’s coming home.”
“Shit. Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, when’s she coming?”
“Next week I guess.”
“Damnit.”
Tori asked, “Who’s Nastasia?”
Silence.
“Who in the hell’s Nastasia?”
Stanley looked at her, then hung his head in shame.
“Who in the hell’s Nastasia, Stanley?”
Tori screwed up her face and kept staring at Stanley, fearing the worst. “Well?” she said.
Pause.
“Tell me!” she snapped.
“My wife,” Stanley sheepishly admitted under his breath.
“You’re married?” Tori asked incredulous. “Since fucking when?”
I said, “Come on, Tori.”
“What? You weren’t going to tell me? You bastard!” She slugged him on the shoulder. “I don’t sleep with married men, I told you.”
Tori lurched forward off the bench and, pushing my bag off the passenger-side seat, sat down in a huff, crossing her arms.
I said, “Be careful, Tori. The camera‘s in that bag.”
Curious, Johnny started grunting and gesturing with his hands, but Tori continued to ignore him. Johnny leaned forward and pushed her shoulder. Tori whipped around and snapped, “It’s none of your fucking business! Just leave me alone!”
Johnny sat back, then uttered the first word I’d ever heard him say. “Bitch.”
We weren’t even on set yet and the tension you could cut with a knife. I kept thinking, so Stanley’s nailing Tori. Well, good for him.
I understood Stanley’s concern. Nastasia would not want Stanley wasting his time doing some dumb movie especially when Monk Pharmacy was in such a quandary. They were supposed to be expanding, not losing the only store they had. But Stanley had given up a long time ago I think. He had resigned himself to the competition and was willing to let them have what he had worked so hard to build. There was something else. Nastasia had last seen him some eight months ago, Stanley admitted, at a weight seventy five pounds lighter. She had committed him to Weight Watcher’s before she left. He was supposed to be back to his fighting weight by the time she came home, not huge as two hippos standing ass to ass, for crying-out-loud.
I thought about it, then said, “Oh, fuck Nastasia, Stanley.”
Tori said, “You mean, fuck Tori, cuz that’s what he’s being doing, the big fat cheater.”
I had to believe her. But what was all that talk yesterday at the airport when she complained about the homo act and how she was going to go back to Alaska if Stanley kept it up? She said, “If he thinks that’s going to get me in the sack, he’s crazy.” There’s a word for that special technique of lying, but I don’t know what it is.
Suddenly, there came this horrible blood-curdling scream and Johnny fell forward to the floor. Moonshine had woken up from his nap. He had been sleeping in the back next to my dad’s electric wheelchair and all my gear. Apparently, Moonshine stretched, then stuck his nose into Johnny’s hair and started licking his neck. Johnny didn’t know Moonshine had been back there.
Johnny laughed his awful laugh and got up grunting to give Moonshine a hug. Johnny and Moonshine were more than acquaintances they were good friends. In fact, back in my previous life, when I was still with my family, Moonshine would stay with Johnny while we were away on family vacation. Those two would charter taxi rides around Lousetown, wolfing Korean cheeseburgers in the back seat as Johnny the sex addict prowled for the wobbling dregs of late night parties.
It made me think of Nicole and how much my hound dog loved her. Those two even shared a pillow at night. Moonshine slept between us, twitching from nightmares, and Nicole would wake up and gently nudge him, whispering in French until he stopped.
My broken heart, it was like being haunted I swear. I felt an impulse to turn the van around and drive to Howser’s. Maybe we could work something out. Maybe we could strike a deal and share her. He was my best friend. “You take her Tuesdays and I’ll take her Wednesdays, OK? Fifty/fifty. Even Stephen.”
I noticed that Tori had craned her neck around. She was staring at me with a puzzled look. “What the hell’s the matter with your face? It’s all twitching and shit.”
I put my hand back up to my face.
She leaned back in her seat. “Damn, Emmett.”
“I guess I’m a little nervous.”
“Well, something,” she said.
Stanley said, “Let me see.“
I removed my hand, turned my head to show him.
He said, “You just need a muscle relaxant. Next time we go to town, we’ll stop by the pharmacy.”
I was moved. “Well, thanks, Stanley.”
Tori asked where we were going. I told her we had to go pick up Brittany.
“Who’s Brittany?”
I looked at Tori. “It’s a long story,” I said.
“I thought I was going to be the only chick on set.”
“Nope.”
“This chicky-poo better not be competitive. God, I hate that. She’s not going for my part, is she?”
“No.”
Pause.
“Well, if she is, I’m going back to Alaska. No way am I gonna put up with that.”
I looked up at Stanley in the rearview mirror. He still looked depressed.
“Stanley, you getting hungry? Should we stop and get something to eat?”
“I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
It took us two hours from Cucumber to drive the six miles to get to the Chicken Coop. We had to get groceries, and supplies at the hardware store. I used the checks from the escrow account and I confess that I felt like a bigwig using them. But mostly the delay was caused by Brittany. She was freaking out. Literally. I heard her mumbling to herself like the crazy woman in Jeremiah Johnson as I approached her apartment door.
When Brittany answered the door, she looked like shit. It blew me away. She looked possessed. It really scared me. I thought, I don’t need this on set. It’s the last thing I need. It took her a while before she realized it was me standing at her door. She screamed, “Oh, thank God you’re here.” Then she took me by the collar and searched my eyes frantically. “Where is he? Have you heard from your dad? Did he break up with me? Emmett, please, I’m losing my mind here. You gotta tell me. Am I too much for him? Is that what it is? I’ll quit asking for jewelry, I’ll stop lying. Just tell me. Did he talk to you? Where is he? I need to talk to him, please, Emmett, I’ll do anything. Name it and I’ll do it, OK? Can you tell me, where is he? Emmett, please, I’m begging you.”
She explained that he left yesterday for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. My dad didn’t smoke. I kept my mouth shut. But I could feel myself losing patience with the young woman; after all she’d done to me, all that lying and stealing. Now it was her turn to hurt. I said the first thing that came to mind.
“He went to Australia to go live with the Aborigines.”
She stared at the floor, then looked up and said very calmly, “I knew it. That’s all he ever talked about. But it wasn’t for the Aborigines. I think there you’re mistaken.”
Now I was confused. Did she know I was lying or was she just defending her pride? As she packed her bags she told me the rest of the story. According to her, my dad must have gone to Australia, probably Perth because a week ago he’d made contacts there on-line. There was a bush outfit called Daring Roo and the guy that ran the show, his name was Walter Bath. They talked on the phone. Dad had bought a calling card just so he could make the expensive call. She’d told him, no worries, he could dial direct on her long distance carrier, she’d gladly pay because at the time she explained he’d wanted her to go with him; they were going as a team. Together with Walter Bath they would give aid to an endangered species of pygmy kangaroos. The kangaroos were being abducted by an ex-pat living in Hong Kong who’d made a fortune on bootleg music. He had a private zoo on his estate, which was being populated with the rare and exotic from all over the world. But these pygmy kangaroos, they kept dying during transport. The reasons varied. So this ex-pat, he had to keep coming back for more. Walter Bath had a plan to capture the kangaroos, keep them safe at Daring Roo’s compound until the ex-pat grew weary or was killed by one of the guards fifty caliber machine guns after which Walter Bath—-his nickname was “Bumby”--would then set the kangaroos free again.
Brittany didn’t believe it when my dad told her he was going out to get cigarettes because she knew he didn’t smoke. She knew he was going to Australia, but had changed his mind to take her along since sometimes men need to experience such journeys in life alone, and he was too shy to tell her. Until I came knocking on the door, she’d lapsed into the common rut of denial, which had caused her temporarily to lose her mind.
“In a way, you saved me, Emmett,” she said.
I was baffled. I excused myself, went to the bathroom, and pulled out my wallet to re-examine the business card of Minichisima Lodge which the brother’s had given me. I could no longer be certain which was the truth. There was a phone number for the lodge and I planned on calling it.
When I went back out, Brittany was sitting on the edge of the couch, sobbing into her hands. I looked around the room and noticed all the photographs of friends and family hanging on the wall and set upright on end tables and shelves. There were even some new ones of Brittany and my dad smiling and having fun. She was lonely. My heart went out to her. And here I was seconds away from telling her she was no longer invited to help with the movie. I sat down on the couch and put my arm around her. She leaned into me and started crying so hard it made me sad, too. She was like a wounded bird you find in the gutter sometimes.
Later that night back at the Chicken Coop, watching Brittany make her way around camp in my dad’s electric wheelchair, Tori said, “Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about her, now do I?” It was that night, only hours after we’d set up camp, the tent for myself, and had gotten the girls arranged in the Chicken Coop and the boys in the van, after we’d roasted some wieners over the campfire and shared a few beers, laughing excitedly about the promise of tomorrow shooting the scenes for our very first movie that Brittany started imitating my father. When she climbed into the wheelchair and started driving it around the campfire, I thought she was just goofing around. She had a way of sitting in it, the way she held her body, her mannerisms, that it was obvious she spent a lot of time studying my dad. She had him down pat. I started laughing. I thought she was doing it for a joke. And then she said the way he would nearly in a man’s voice I swear to God, “What’s so god damn funny, boy?” I looked at Stanley. He was dumbfounded. He just kept staring at her. Tori looked at me and gasped. Johnny was oblivious, facing the other way polishing the head of his Power Ranger doll with a rag and beeswax.
I said, “Geez, Tori.”
“What?”
“No, not you. I mean, geez, Brittany.”
A pause ensued. I giggled nervously.
Brittany said, again with that deep voice, “I don’t want you to mention her name again as long as I live.” She turned her head and gave me a stern look like he would when I was a child and said, “Do you understand me?”
I thought, well, this sure is different. If it wasn’t for the discovery of our mascot bird Take One, which would take place the following day, and the need for someone to care of it, I’d have checked Brittany into a place to get some shock therapy, strapped down for a shuddering session of cheery current. Then again, Brittany as my dad was somehow happier, more delighted in things like nature, than my real dad. In a way she made him if not a better man at least one more complex. Stanley couldn’t see it. He pulled me aside and said, “That’s freaking me out. Does she really have to be here?”
“I promised Dad she could help.”
“What’s this shit about Australia? I thought you told me Dad went to Canada.”
“That’s where he told me he was going.”
“Jesus, Emmett. She’s crazy, she’s like…possessed or something.”
I played the devil’s advocate. “Stanley, think of it this way, when the press comes to interview us, we got this to show them. They’ll be fascinated. It’ll get us on the front page.”
“Dad was really going out with this girl?”
There were some things I wanted to say to get off my chest. Good Lord, I wanted to tell him, if you only showed some interest in your family you wouldn’t have to ask me that question. And, come to think of it, there’s a reason Dad didn’t say goodbye to you. He’s under the impression you don’t care. When’s the last time you stopped by the house, living only a few blocks away? You never call. I mean, what the fuck, Stanley. But all I said was, “Yeah, they were going out for a few weeks.”
“Where in the hell did he meet this one, at the freak show?”
“They lived in the same apartment building.”
He shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
I looked at the wheelchair, staring with an absent mind at Brittany’s plump cleavage, and thought of only one thing: we needed to get a portable generator to keep the battery charged. I had to stick with the facts. I convinced myself a normal life was no longer needed. All this was fine by me. The beauty was evident in its design. It proved Higher Intelligence (HI, for short), and the need for clumsy adjustments from fools like me was inherently prohibited.
Tori approached me and indicating Brittany in the wheelchair said, “Kinda cool, huh?”
I said, “Tori, you knew my brother was married. What’s up with that?”
“The hell I did.”
“How could you not? I was married to your sister for nine years.”
“Meaning what? That I once gave a shit about your family, I don’t think so.”
“Well, keep it mellow. I don’t want you two fighting on set.”
“Man, you’ll never make a good director.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tension. You want tension, dick face.”
“Well, not on my set I don’t.”
“Ah,” she said dismissingly, “I don’t sleep with fat fucks anyway.” She looked at me. “No offense.”
I gotta tell you, I felt completely worn out. I was exhausted. But in retrospect all I had to look forward to that night was the incessant calls from the damn bird who of course would later become our strange mascot. (You know what’s interesting-—after we showered Take One with love and affection he completely shut up; not a peep was heard afterwards.)
I crawled into my tent and tried to pretend it was the same stinky tent that Nicole and I had used on our road trip. I reached into my sleeping bag and retrieved the polka-dot undies and brought them to my nose, sad that they had been washed. I wondered what she and Howser were doing tonight. Fighting, I hoped.
Because of the bird I tossed and turned and by dawn had come to one decision: I would need Howser’s help with the camera. I could deny it no longer. Even with all those hours of practice I still had no clue.
The bird having announced its arrival all night, dawn broke as I started driving away in the van only to be momentarily stopped by Stanley in the back waking to ask what the sam-hell I was doing. I’d forgotten that they were back there sleeping, my brother, Johnny, and Moonshine. I stopped and let Stanley out so he could sleep in my tent. Johnny and Moonshine hadn’t woken up and they slept all the way to Howser’s as I roared down the interstate going eighty-five.
I played the scenarios in my head, reminding myself that it would have to be kept strictly business. I’d knock on the door, politely, adjusting my tie while I waited. Nicole would answer.
“Hello there, Nicole. How are you?” so cheery and polite that I’d drift naturally into a posh British accent.
“Emmett?”
“Yes, I’m here to see Howser. Is he in?”
“Of course. Come in, come in. Let me go get ‘im for you.” As she turned to walk away, I wouldn’t even look at her ass, I’d just keep my eyes to the floor like a gentleman.
I’d wait in the foyer, nervously turning my fedora in my hands. I’d stand straight and tall. Suddenly, I’d hear her scream.
“Emmett!!! Oh, my God…Emmett!!! Come quick!!”
I run in the direction of her screams. She’s in the bedroom…Oh my God. It’s so shocking. I can’t believe my own eyes. She’s kneeling beside Howser. He’s lying there in a pool of blood. He’d cut his own wrists. My best friend, he was dead and it was all because of me. The suicide note read something unintelligible in the frugal French that he’d picked up from Nicole. His last effort to communicate had been in vain.
Before going to Howser’s I first went to Stanley’s to get a key to the pharmacy since it was six O’clock in the morning and the pharmacy was still closed. I found the key, drove to the pharmacy, hoping I’d remember the code to the security system only to find that the alarm hadn’t even been set, went through the prescriptions until I found something that might help my twitching face and took the bottle of Valium, swallowing two of the tiny pills before I pulled in front of Howser’s bungalow. It was still early, so I took Moonshine out for a stroll around the block, then waited another fifteen minutes listening to morning AM radio. I was too anxious; I thought, fuck it. I looked half-normal, not a grey hair in sight, and my twitching had subsided thanks to the pills.
I went to the front door and as I was about to knock I heard footsteps approaching, rather quickly, too. The door burst open and there was Howser, his face red and wet with tears.
“Nicole?”
I looked behind me. There was no one else but me.
“Howser, what’s wrong, man?”
He bit his lip and started crying. Then he shut the door and locked it.
If ever there was a time I could reinvent the past it would be here. I went around to the side of the house and pounded on the window. It took a while to coax him to the window, but displaying the bottle of Valium seemed to help. He told me to go back to the front door and he opened it and let me in.
“Give me some of those,” he said.
I gave him two.
“Couple more.”
“No, two’s enough. Trust me.”
“Give me the bottle, I don’t want to go on living.”
“Jesus, Howser. What’s going on? Where’s Nicole?”
He looked at me and his face broke as he started shaking his head. He started crying again. He ran into the living room and threw himself onto the sofa with his head buried in his arms. I sat on the coffee table in front of the sofa and tried to get him to talk. I promised more pills later if he’d just tell me what was going on. Finally, into his arms, I heard him say, “I thought it was you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your car. I saw your car and I thought it was you.”
“My car? My car was stolen.” I didn’t understand. Howser must be mistaken.
I said, “Well, where’s Nicole?”
He lifted his head and rather angrily shouted, “She went with him! God…” like somehow I was supposed to know.
I screwed up my face and asked cautiously, “She went with who?”
He lifted his head again and screamed, “Her old boyfriend, the guy that stole your car!”
Did everything go white? Did I lose my vision? Did I collapse to my knees? Did time stand still? Should I just jump ahead and pretend it never happened? Should I go back and edit her out of my life?
I simply chose not to believe it at first. Even when my mom told me as she flirted with Johnny an hour later while I was on the phone in the kitchen re-reporting the car stolen, “Hey,” she said. “Did you hear the good news? Some Good Samaritan found your car. He found the address on the vehicle registration, you believe that? He had stuff for that French tramp in the car, so I told him he could find her at Howser’s. Isn’t that incredible? See how lucky we are? It just falls in our lap every damn time.”
Sure it did. I remember thinking, God, Mom… How would a perfect stranger know who Nicole was? And if he drove the car here to return it, where in the hell is it now?
I made Howser a stack of pancakes. He just stared with his head down.
“You need to eat,” I said.
I spent the following hour with him and he seemed to slowly start coming back to his senses. He told me he’d help with the movie, but give him a couple days; he needed to be alone to think.
“I was in the bath when she left,” he said.
“Oh, yeah?”
“Are you wondering if she left a note?”
“I guess.”
“She did.”
“Huh…”
“You wondering what the note said?”
“What did it say?”
“Well, one, she said goodbye to you if that helps any.”
“Huh…”
“You know, she made the bath for me and everything. She even had the candles lit and everything.” He started crying again.
Apparently, from what I could piece together, she’d left yesterday evening. He’d gone for a jog and she had the bath waiting for him as a surprise with candles flickering romantically. They had rented some movies and they were going to share a bottle of wine with take-out pizza. While he was in the bath, he heard someone knock on the door. She went to go answer it. He could tell by her awkward response that something was up.
“Who is it, honey?” he called from the bath.
“Oh…No one. Juzt the mailman. ‘e has a package for you.”
“You can sign for me, OK?”
“Alright.”
“What is it?”
“Oh, juzt an envelope.”
“Who’s it from?”
In retrospect, she was moving too quietly. The floors were creaking and he knew she’d gone to the bedroom, probably to pack her things.
“Who’s it from, hon?”
“Oh, I can’t read it, it’z to mezzy.”
“Bring it in here, let me see.”
“’old on.”
That was the last thing he heard her say. She snuck out so quietly he didn’t even hear her leave. He called out for her a couple of times and there was no answer. Now suspicious, he got out of the bath, stepped into the living room, and called for her. The front door was left wide-open and he could see through the screen door my car parked in front. The old beater was having trouble getting started. He went to the door and saw her sitting next to some guy in the front seat. She kept her eyes facing forward. Incredulous, Howser opened the door and stepped out. The car finally started and went squealing away and that’s the last he saw of her. She’d been in such a hurry all she left for a note was, Sorry. Goodbye, I love you. Tell Emmett I love him, too, and goodbye. I’m sorry.
I asked how he knew it was her old boyfriend.
“She kept a picture of him. First she told me it was her brother, later she admitted it was the guy who stole your car in Colorado.”
Mr. Fuckems. I had to hand it to him. The guy had nerve.
Let’s say it started to sink in. Maybe I started to believe it—-Nicole left us. OK, I could accept that little by little. Yes, she left, she’s gone. Maybe I could see it as a challenge. It wasn’t going to be easy. She wasn’t living down the block from my mom’s anymore. I had to go find her. Somewhere in the world. She could be anywhere. Geez, was I up to it? The fact that she had kept her old boyfriend’s picture, that I couldn’t understand. It really bothered me. The solution? Fuck if I knew.