This Monkey's Gone to Heaven

Chapter19, This Monkey's Gone to Heaven

Chapter Nineteen




I had to believe that things would get better. This couldn’t continue. At the same time I sensed it would take a catastrophe to pull me through, to knock me senseless. Something horrible had to happen. I knew that. And somehow I longed for it. Begging the question: what the hell did I do so wrong in a former life that I’m still punishing myself for and will the next tragedy ever measure up, that is to say, to finally wipe the slate clean so that I can live in peace again?
That morning I got into my dad’s van and drove away. I abandoned my cast and crew. Since I had tried heading west to go to L.A., I decided to try my luck going south this time. I had the wheelchair in back. For some reason I took the bird, too. Don’t ask me why. In a way I felt like a ghost trying to relive life from the other side, trying to laugh at jokes I could barely hear, trying to snuggle with lonely women in sad dark homes where none could sense the touch of the other. I was just going through the motions, as if that would give us both something to hang our hat on.
I didn’t get far. I turned around at the Minnesota-Iowa border. I was gone half a day. I wonder what I was thinking. If I’d kept going maybe it wouldn’t have happened. I should’ve disappeared from the face of the earth. Without ever knowing I could have imagined a better future for my mother and in fifty years I could have ended up with both of them in heaven, none the wiser. Oh, is that how you died, Mom? I never knew. You mean to tell me you were dead that whole time when I thought you were alive and living large in Argentina? It could’ve been some kind of joke and we could have all slapped our knees laughing about it.

When I pulled into the driveway it was evening and a figure was silhouetted on top of the roof of the farmhouse. It was my mother and she was calling for Johnny, waving her arms, trying to get his attention.
“God damnit, Mother. Get down from there! You’re going to get yourself killed!” I shouted.
I ducked back into the van to get Take One when I heard the scream. I dropped the bird and ran as fast as I could.
Howser and Nicole were already there, kneeling over her, looking shocked with their mouths hanging open. When I got there and looked down, it was obvious, what with her head and the odd angle. She was laying there on the ground, her face frozen in shock. Then Stanley and Brittany came running up.
Stanley said, “Oh, my God…Mother?”
We were all standing around her, looking down, except for Johnny who was still in the middle of the field staring off in the opposite direction.
I said, “Well, just don’t stand there Stanley, do something.”
I knelt down beside her and was about to move her, but Brittany said, “She has a spinal injury. Don’t move her. Someone call the paramedics.”
Stanley started moaning.
I said, “Stanley, stop that. Don’t just stand there, do something.”
“Someone call 911,” Brittany said.
I said, “Howser!”
“My phone doesn’t work here.”
“God damnit.”
I started running for the van. I was about to open the door when I saw the hole in the fence. If I ran across the interstate, I’d be at a payphone in two minutes, as opposed to twenty minutes driving all the way around. I started running. When I got to the hole, I took my time, making sure I wasn’t going to get hung up in the cut strands of wire. It didn’t occur to me then, but it was my mom that had used the wire cutters to make this hole so that she and Dorothy had easier access to beer when they ran out, and now I was using the hole in the fence to try and save her life that was put in jeopardy by the very force that made her cut the wires in the first place.
The traffic was unbelievable. I was on the shoulder, waiting for my chance. The tractor-trailers went roaring by like an endless freight train, pulling the air from my lungs.
Suddenly, in the corner of my eye, I caught movement behind me. Something was crawling through the fence.
“Moonshine, no! Bad dog!! Go back!!”
I’d been gone half the day and he wanted to greet me.
“Moonshine, no!! Damnit! No!”
I grabbed him by the collar and tried to force him back through the hole, but he wasn’t having it. He sat down on his haunches and refused to budge.
I had Moonshine by the collar and at the first crack in traffic we made our dash. But it only got us across one lane. The whole world was honking and gesturing, giving us the evil face as they swerved and hit their brakes. It was crazy. But they were slowing down and eventually both the east and westbound traffic were pretty much stopped and Moonshine and I started running across.
An angry man rolled down his window and started shouting. I said, “It’s an emergency. There’s been an accident! I need to get to a phone, I need to call 911!”
The man started pulling over to the median, shouting, “Wait. I’ve got a cell phone. I’m calling right now! Come here!”
Eventually, this Good Samaritan even got out of his car to flag the traffic so we could get back across. Now people were curious and as they drove slowly past they were rolling down their windows asking questions and sooner or later someone said they were a doctor. It was a woman on a motorcycle dressed up in biker leather. She took off her helmet, and long flowing auburn hair unfurled as the helmet came off. I led her through the hole in the fence and we went running up to my mom.
I kept hearing this strange noise and of course it was Stanley wailing like a siren in the haze. It was so irritating I told him to stop it as the doctor knelt down beside my mom and started checking for a pulse. Then she felt around her neck.
When the doctor looked up at me, moving her hair away from her face, I saw the look in her eyes and I knew the game was over.