This Monkey's Gone to Heaven

Chapter 3, This Monkey's Gone to Heaven

Chapter Three




It was the greatest two weeks of my life, bar none. It was like a dream come true. I'd always imagined myself working every day, writing for hours on end without interruption and that's exactly what happened except for the days my dad came out to shoot rabbits. But it wasn't so bad. That first day I still managed to get three pages finished. Dad was off in the distance across the field in his wheelchair and every once in a while you'd hear the gun go pop and see a rabbit leap high into the air followed by my dad's victory whoop. He was a good shot and like he said there were rabbits all over the place. It was funny. I never even noticed. That first day he shot ten. He had a small Red Flier wagon attached to his electric wheelchair and it was full of the dead rabbits. As he approached, he had the biggest grin on his face.
"Not bad, huh?" indicating the wagon full of rabbits.
"I didn't know you were such a good shot."
"Shot rats on the farm. You never lose it."
"I guess," I said. "So, what are you going to do with 'em all?"
"Toss 'em out in the woods somewhere."
"Are you serious? Why don't you take 'em home and eat them? That's good meat."
"Probably disease ridden, full of ticks and stuff. I'm not going to eat 'em."
"I'll eat 'em."
"I'm not gonna let you eat these. You'll get sick, your mother would kill me. Where you gonna keep 'em all? They'll go bad in this heat."
"I'll think of something. Just leave them with me. I'll clean 'em and everything."
"You know how?" he wondered.
"Alaska, Dad. I've been living in Alaska all these years."
"I don't care. You can have 'em, just don't tell Mom."
It was wonderful. I cleaned and skinned them like the Eskimos had taught me and put them into a cooler, then I drove to the truck stop and found Brittany. She was making the rounds on that silver scooter of hers. She said she had some time, so we drove into Cucumber--just four miles away from the truck stop--and made a copy of the key to her apartment. She let me keep the rabbits in her freezer.
At her apartment, a small two-bedroom, she helped me wrap the rabbits in freezer paper. She finished wrapping one, placed it in the freezer, then turned to look at me. She smiled and said, "You should try and lose some weight."
"You don't think I've tried?" I was a little embarrassed that she would just blurt it out like that.
"Have you heard of that new diet where you just eat meat? My brother was on it and he lost a lot."
"Sure I have," I lied.
She could see that I was uncomfortable.
"Well, I just thought I'd mention it. I like you. You're kinda funny."
I thought this would be the right moment to try and kiss her, but she pushed me away, smiling, and said she didn't want to be that kind of friend. She liked me as a friend-friend. I was pretty hurt. I turned and started fussing with the freezer-wrap. A tear fell from my face and hit the freezer-wrap. It was loud. She dipped her head to see my face.
"Oh, my God? Are you crying?"
If this story were make-believe, I'd invent a scene that would have us end up in bed, her falling asleep wrapped in my arms as I faced the ceiling with a silly grin on my face. But all she said was, "Listen, you lose some weight and I'll introduce you to my sister. She'd really like you. You're her type. But, God, you gotta lose some weight. A lot."
I was fairly disappointed. I mean, I was a writer. I really wanted to fall in love with a prostitute.
"Is your sister in the same line of work?" I asked.
"She's a waitress."
"Does she look like you?"
"Yea, actually. We're twins."
"No way! Really?"
"Yeah. She dyes her hair, but otherwise. She keeps in good shape, too."
I couldn't wait to meet her.
"What's her name?"
"Lilith."
Lilith. (Wow.) I couldn't wait to meet this girl. And now I was bound and determined to lose weight. I was going to get into shape, too. Maybe I could start doing pushups between sentences or something. Or one pushup for every word. There’s six pushups right there.
Sure enough not only was I getting great work done I started to lose weight eating nothing but rabbit meat and drinking nothing but water. I was saving money. I was beginning to feel much better, more even-keeled and less emotional. I was going to tell my brother Stanley about this diet.
Dad came out twice a week to shoot rabbits. He was happy to finally be providing, really doing something that our relationship blossomed. He even stopped asking when I was going back to Alaska and he started confiding in me.
I slid open the door of the van and I made a show of trying to help him get in. He was going back home after a day of shooting. A flock of crows were cawing in the background, harassing some kind of hawk.
"So, how's Mom doing?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't know. She drinks too much. That beer. She's getting fat. And she's over at the Dorothy's all the time. I don't know."
"She does drink too much."
"Emmett," he fixed his eyes on me. "Do you think there's something weird about Mom and Dorothy?"
"How do you mean?" I was getting nervous.
"Like hanky-panky..."
"Well, why do you say that?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I get that feeling. I don't know. Maybe I'm just imagining it. But...Ah, forget it. It's nothing."
"No, what? You can tell me."
He looked at me. His eyes welled up with tears. Holy shit, I thought, Dad, don't start crying in front of me, please.
"Well," I said. "Have a good trip home, Dad. Tell Mom I say hi." I slid the door of the van shut and started walking away.
The van had trouble starting, but finally he got it going, and he drove slowly away, so slow it was pathetic, feeling sorry for himself and hoping I would too I'm sure. Why did I have to go around feeling so guilty all the time? Shit, I wasn't the one who forgot to check the fuel; I wasn't the one who managed to crash into the only tree in the field. You fucked up, Dad, it wasn't me. And you're the fat drunk, Mom, try drinking water. What happened to their ambition? Did they just give up? What did I ever do to deserve my parents? Why couldn't they just take care of themselves? I was approaching mid-life. Realizing your parents were cracked nuts, was that part of the mid-life crisis? I wondered. But then I turned around to watch his van disappear behind a line of bushes and felt horrible for letting him go. What kind of son was I? Why couldn't I at least try to console him?
I went back to the table under the canopy and started working. I had forty five pages done. Only forty five left to make a ninety minute movie. In the script the fat man and his alter-ego were going back and forth, playing word games, trying to entice the other into revealing the knowledge of their wife's death. The fat man was mostly bedridden in a room of the decrepit farm house while his alter-ego came throughout the day bearing deliveries of chocolate milk and egg nogg using a delivery tricycle as transportation, the large kind with a big box in back so you could carry stuff. The alter-ego's name was Jimmy. He was a skinny little guy who had to drive great distances on those rural highways on that damn trike of his in that stifling heat. It was awful. It took forever to get from one place to another and he dreamed of getting a motorcycle as a means to escape. There was money under the fat man's bed kept in a paper grocery bag. One night Jimmy goes into the house and attacks the fat man in his bed, beating him viciously with a flashlight the size of a small billy club. But, you see, this was the thing. Each time Jimmy came close to freedom--like stealing the money so he could get a motorcycle and drive away--a great change would appear in his personality. The very next day in the morning when he would make his appearance he'd be dumb and docile and fall under the influence of the fat man. He would become the fat man's stooge. They would play strange games, like badminton while sitting in camp chairs two paces away from each other and the fat man would go on and on ad nauseam about his silly dreams for the future, how'd they'd get extraordinarily good at playing this game and eventually win tournaments around the world and become overnight sensations and get carried out on the shoulders of their fans after every match. Anything to keep from thinking about the condition of his wife and the fact that he was lying on top of her decomposing body. It was absolutely ridiculous and I loved every scene. I thought it was hilarious.
I kept hoping Brittany would come by and visit me, maybe even find the hole in the fence and start crossing the interstate. I was so certain of this that I even took an old grass rake and started cutting down weeds on a section of frontage road so she could use her little scooter and go looking for birds. I imagined her coming to my table as I was working and catching me unawares while I was deep in a scene, writing with the concentration of Dostoevsky. She'd pick up a few pages and start reading. "This is pure genius," she'd say, astonished that someone looking like me could write so well. She'd become so involved with the story she'd insist on helping me block scenes. She'd become the dead wife and I the fat man and I could practice lying on top of her. "You're a genius," she'd coo from beneath me. "Would you mind taking off your clothes for me, please?" I'd suggest stupidly, foolishly adding, "It helps me concentrate." "You're the genius," she'd respond cheerfully, quickly removing them. She'd start treating me differently in the fashion of a geisha, always bowing before me and humoring my poor taste in judgment. She'd quit her job and become my secretary. She would stop complaining about my extra pounds. "Just look at Matisse. He was fat," the former whore would say adamantly.
Reality has a way of changing things. Not only did she not come by and visit and use the freshly mowed section of frontage road to go looking for birds, an ugly, new attitude crawled out from some place and she started asking for half the rent, if you can believe that. I was at her apartment, pulling a couple of frozen rabbits from the freezer. She came out of the bathroom, looking disheveled and sick, a way I'd never seen her before. It blew me away. She looked horrible. Shit, I thought, this chick's got AIDS.
"We're late on rent, you got your half?" she plopped herself on the couch and turned on the TV.
"My half? What do you mean, my half? You're joking, right?"
"You got a key to the place, don't you? You trying to tell me you're not going to pay your half?"
"You want me to pay rent? For keeping a few rabbits in the freezer?"
"That was your choice. I gave you a key and you accepted it. I told you what room you could have. It was your choice not to use it. I told you, 'This is your room,' I said. And you smiled, you accepted. I even told you the rent and you said it was cheap."
"Yeah, but, come on, Brittany. You can't be serious. I mean, this is insane. You knew...You gave me a key, so I wouldn't have to go looking for you all the time...so I could keep the rabbits in the freezer. That's what this was all about, don't you remember? It was just for the rabbits. And I don't remember you showing me any room. Which room? Why would I take a room here when I'm happy at the Chicken Coop? That's where I live, Brittany."
"I don't fucking care. If I rented this place and chose to live in an abandoned car in a field, I'd still have to pay rent. Come on, don't try and get out of this. I need the money. It's been a slow month."
"Well, how much do you need? Maybe I could lend you the money."
"Listen, you fat fuck. Don't try and squirm out of this. You're paying your half."
"Brittany, you must be putting me on. You have to be. It doesn't make any sense. You knew I was living at the Chicken Coop, I told you. All I needed was some freezer space. I mean, if you want I can pay you some rent for that, I guess. Ten bucks or something, whatever sounds fair."
She got up from the couch and disappeared into the back bedroom. When she came out, she was holding a paper. She handed it to me and I looked at it. It was a rental agreement. At the bottom along with Brittany's was my own signature. How'd this happen? I didn't sign this. What the hell? But it was right there staring at me. My own stupid signature...the one with a lot of flare. (Earlier in life I'd practiced, creating a signature with personality...for when I'd be signing my books and girl's boobs.) There was no way. I didn't remember signing this. I had never seen this rental agreement and I told her so.
"Of course not, you were fucked up. On that cough syrup."
"What, that first night?"
"Yeah. You silly guy you." She sounded so insincere. I felt queasy and weak at the knees. It was a con, she was conning me. I turned away and starting walking towards the door.
"Hey, where do you think you're going? You owe me, you son of a bitch," she said.
"Yeah, I know. I'm gonna go to the car and get my checkbook."
"Oh." She was surprised. "Alright."
I walked down the hallway, went down the stairs, got into my car, and drove away. I was numb. I drove away, not thinking, not feeling anything. When I got back to the Chicken Coop, I went straight to the table, sat down, and worked throughout the night. For the next few days I worked day and night, only getting up from the table to pee. I don't even remember eating anything. The story flowed through me like water. In less than a week I'd be ready to drive to Hollywood, providing my car was up to the task.