This Monkey's Gone to Heaven

Chapter 18, This Monkey's Gone to Heaven

Chapter Eighteen



I wanted to forget it all. I did. Just stay in my tent, but not pop pills, though drink beer chased by shots of cough syrup, and seriously disappear. I was gone. Don’t come looking for me. I don’t remember how long I stayed in the tent. Maybe I never got out, maybe I’m still there, like a mountain climber, frozen in his sleeping bag, except that it was hot as hell in there and I just laid around in my shorts, playing with my ribcage (recently discovered), as I swilled the beer, listening to my mom pamper Stanley while trying to seduce Johnny from a distance.
“Johnny…Yoo-hoo, Johnny….”
“Mother,” Stanley would remind her. “He can’t hear you. The guy’s deaf. How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Stanley? Do you want me to go get you something? You look hungry. Should I go to the café and order you a cheeseburger with fries? Stanley, would you like that?”
She had just set fire to her own house—-our house, my dad’s house, the one we’d lived in all my life—-it burned to the ground and here she was living with us now (she had no choice; Stanley’s house stunk to her and emitted bad karma) and she kept acting like nothing horrible had happened. If cornered, she’d dismiss it by saying that she was drunk and thought at the time that she was setting fire to Dorothy the tramp’s house.
“Those two should rot in hell. You believe that? My best friend and she kept that hidden from me? And all those times I had to lie for her. When she stole all your dad’s stuff, the time she stole his samurai sword?” She looked at me and sneered. “I don’t see why you’re not upset, you’re the one that got jilted. Oh, well. She’ll find out what that Roger’s all about in no time. You know what he is? He’s one of those parasites that prey on lonely old women. When I found that out, I was out of that relationship like Speedy Gonzales.”
She was telling me this as I drove from the hospital (where I’d just been released for smoke inhalation and drug overdose) to the Chicken Coop, of course, making several stops for beer along the way. I wanted her to explain something to me, but it seemed so distasteful especially considering the recent weird event that reduced our house to ashes. I was going to wait, but being naturally melodramatic, I reached into the backseat and showed her what the doctors had pumped from my intestine, preserved in fluid floating in a mason jar, the first thing that my eyes focused on as I came to laying in the hospital bed. Egad, I had thought. What the hell is that?
“What makes you think I gave you tapeworm?” my mom said between sips of beer. “That’s crazy. You and that imagination of yours. What kind of mother do you think I am? I know where you got it. Eating rotten food with those crazy Eskimos. Don’t blame me.”
“Come on, Ma. Don’t lie. I know it was you. I remember the book you read on horse jockeys couple of years ago. You went on and on about how they used tapeworm for weight loss. You and Stanley were talking about it and he told you he knew where he could get some in Mexico. Don’t lie. I was there. He was going to get some for you. I bet he did, too. You’ve been wanting me to lose weight for thirty years. The sandwich you gave me. I was sick as hell after that. Just admit it. Stanley helped you, didn’t he?”
“Oh, and what if he did? You should thank me,” my mom said. “Look at you. At least now you look normal. My God, you haven’t been this thin since you were five years old. What, were we supposed to just wait around until you got AIDS or cancer? I hope that by bringing this up, you’re doing it to say thanks.”
I had to admit it. It was nice being thin for once and, yes, now that there was no doubt, it was all thanks to my mother and tapeworm, in a capsule that Stanley was able to acquire through a connection in Mexico, that she had placed that day in the peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich. Not so strangely, all along I’d been fooling myself into thinking that I had lost weight through high anxiety and kept it off by jogging, prancing up and down on the frontage road back and forth 24/7.
“Well, you could’ve at least told me, is all I’m saying. How long were you going to wait before you told me to go to the hospital and have it removed?”
“Well, I kept thinking, just a few more pounds, then I’ll tell him.”
“I swear to God, Ma.”
“You look great. I’m surprised that fat ole cow could resist you in the end.”
“Is that how you lost all your weight? It is, isn’t it?”
“Are you insane?” She threw her head back and laughed. “I could never. Even the thought makes me shudder.” And she shivered and grimaced, then swilled her beer. “No, I just stopped eating.”
“What about Stanley?”
“What about him?”
“He needs to lose a thousand pounds or so. Why doesn’t he try it?”
“Try what?”
“The tapeworm!” I shouted.
“Oh, that Stanley. He just coughs it up like a cat.”

For days I wouldn’t leave my tent for nothing. I let my beard grow. I shaved my head. You couldn’t coax me out. All the voices I was hearing from my cast and crew I pretended were nothing but sounds in my head. And looking back on it I wonder if I somehow sensed what was going to happen in a week, the tragedy that would occur. Maybe I was reliving this period, and I understood what final horror would befall us, like driving in a car, knowing up ahead is the place where you lost your family, the apprehension of having to relive that pain, wondering why the earth didn’t crack open there as a result, the pulling screams marking this image of tranquility with a black swirling vortex. This is where they died. This is where we were abandoned by God, our savior.
Brittany became a nice companion and by nice I mean intriguing for half a day. You never knew what she was going to say next. For a two second stint I began to see what my dad saw in her. She was a vulnerable woman with a wild imagination. On some tangent for a second there I started seeing her as my soul mate.
“Here’s your daddy,” she whispered to Take One as she crawled into the tent to lie down next to me, holding the bird out in her palm. She set Take One down on the sleeping bag and the bird maneuvered for balance then just squatted there looking dumb like its brain had melted.
“Do you have a beer for me?” she asked.
“Help yourself. They’re in the cooler.”
She snapped one open and took a sip.
“It’s warm.”
She took another sip, then said after a pause. “I’m breaking up with Johnny.”
“That was fast.”
“I didn’t cash any of those checks I want you to know. I’m not going to either.”
“Probably no money in that account anyway. Not anymore.”
“Are we broke?”
“Probably.”
She looked down and adjusted Take One’s tee shirt. Then she said, “Can I stay here with you?”
“You are staying here with me.”
“No, I mean. Here in the tent with you.”
“Fuck, I don’t care, Brittany. Do what you want.”
“You can’t tell your dad. He still has a thing for me. And don’t tell Johnny, either.”
She took another sip of beer.
“Don’t you want to know why I’m breaking up with Johnny?”
“Why?”
“I can’t believe you don’t know what’s happening. They’re all making a fool of you and I won’t stand for it.”
“Who is?”
“They all are. Howser, Johnny, that French girl. Even your brother Stanley.”
“What do you mean they’re making a fool of me? How are they making a fool of me?”
She swigged the beer.
“Brittany, how are they making a fool of me?”
“Just rewind the camera and see what they’ve been doing. If you think they’ve been doing your movie, you’re sadly mistaken.”
“Brittany, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Just take a look at the camera. That’s all I’m gonna say. That French girl. They all take turns.”
“Oh, Brittany, shut up…”
“You don’t believe me?”
“You’re insane.”
“Yeah, well, then just take a look at these.”
From her shorts she produced four Polaroid’s. In all four Nicole was naked in different positions, one with her fingers spread there.
My first thought was, I’m not falling for this. Immediately, it made me think of Tori and the way she had deceived me with Beth Ann’s Mexican boyfriend. But there was only one problem. These were Polaroid’s and it’s hard to fake a Polaroid. These were real. They had to be. And I could tell by the unmistakable mole below her bikini line that this was my own sweet Nicole. A wave of nausea swept over me. My breath was taken away and my eyes welled up with tears.
“Boy, have they had you fooled.”
“Where’d you get these?”
“In the van. In Howser’s backpack.”
“What were doing snooping around in Howser’s backpack?”
“Looking for pills for you.”
I leapt out of the tent as if to avoid suffocation. The van was gone, it wasn’t parked there, and I started running.
“Wait, where are you going? Emmett, let’s just leave. You can stay with me at my apartment. We’ll report them to the authorities. They’ll be in big trouble!”
She ran to the wheelchair, then ran back to the tent, grabbed the bird, and started following me in the wheelchair with Take One placed in her lap.
“Emmett, just hop on. We can drive to town. Where are you going? Just leave it alone. With friends like that who needs enemies?”
When I got to the farmhouse fifteen minutes later, I saw three figures, Moonshine among them with his nose to the ground, all spread out in the distance in the field, obviously searching for something. I trotted across the field. My mom saw me and said, “Your dumb dog ran off with Johnny’s doll. He buried it somewhere. Help us look for it.”
Stanley made a funny face and mocked her concern. “Yeah, hurry up, Emmett. Johnny’s doll is missing. We have to find it! Hurry! That poor Johnny. His doll’s missing.”
“Oh, you hush, Stanley. You’re just jealous.”
“I’m not jealous. Jealous about what?”
I was bent over, trying to catch my breath. Finally, I managed, “Where’s Howser and Nicole?”
“They’re preparing a scene in the house,” Stanley said.
I turned and started jogging for the house.
“Where do you think you’re going? Emmett, get back here and help us find Johnny’s doll. Emmett!”
Stanley in a mocking voice: “Emmett, we need to find Johnny’s doll! Emmett, you get back here and help us find Johnny’s doll!! Emmett!!”
Here came Brittany in the wheelchair boobs bouncing, shuddering as if locked in a paint shaker.
“Emmett, wait!”
I jogged past her.
“Damnit!” she hissed.
“And tell that girl to start covering herself up!” my mom shouted. “This isn’t Europe you know!”

In the old farmhouse I ran through the house and up the stairs. There was a small room there at the top of the stairs and Nicole was standing in front of full-length mirror applying makeup for her scene. She glanced at me in the mirror and continued applying makeup. I grabbed her by the arm and spun her around.
“What the hell is this?” and I showed her the Polaroid’s.
Howser came in from the other room.
“What’s wrong, dude?”
“What the hell are doing, Howser? What is this?”
He looked at the Polaroid’s and said, “Where’d you find those?”
“I can’t believe you two!”
Howser started getting upset. “I had those in my backpack. I don’t appreciate you going through my things.”
“What the fuck is this?” I threw the Polaroid’s to the ground.
Nicole turned her back to me and went back to applying makeup.
“Where’s the god damn camera?” I saw it in the other room set up on the tripod. I ran up to it, turned it on, and started rewinding it.
“What’s going on, Emmett?” Howser asked.
“You two can’t fool me.”
“What, you think we’re making a porn behind your back or something. You’re drunk. You need to get some sleep. You’re losing it. Take a couple days off. Go into town. You can stay at my house.”
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
But, then as I was rewinding the tape, seeing for my own eyes that they had been shooting the scenes I’d wanted them to shoot and doing it with a serious attitude to boot, it came to me and tears started streaming down my face. I remembered that Nicole had admitted a part of her past that brought her shame and that she had told me in the hotel room that night in Denver when I got messed up on cough syrup, and that she’d been crying as she told me, but I was too selfish and fucked up to go to her bed and hold her.
I kept looking at the LCD screen on the camera, pretending, but I couldn’t make anything out. It was just a blur as I stood there, hearing Howser explain the Polaroid’s in a soft voice, that it was just the one time and they only did it because they’d been drinking a little. It had been the day that she’d admitted to him the same thing she told me in the hotel room in Denver that while in France living with the woman that took care of her, when she was in Poitier in order to make rent sometimes, since the woman was an amateur photographer, that they’d sell nude pictures of herself as a young teenager with her friends, though to themselves they’d justified it as art and not tasteless porn.
“I’m sorry you had to see those, dude,” Howser said. “But then again, I mean, I had them in my backpack for a reason.”
I was hoping she would come hug me, but she just stood in the mirror, applying makeup calmly like some great queen. Howser came up and offered me some toilet paper to wipe my tears.
He said, “You need to start taking care of yourself. You’re starting to make me worry. I know a lot of bad stuff has happened to you, I mean, your house just burned down…I know that must be hard. And you’re probably missing your kids and all and the divorce and stuff. And I know it’s hard to see me and Nicole together. I know you still like her and stuff, but you’re just making it worse by doing all the shit you’re doing. You need a break from it all.”
Him saying that just made me more emotional and I started crying harder, but I managed to utter, “I’ll see you later. I need to go for a walk.”
The windows were open and in the distance I heard Stanley say, “Found it.”
“You found the doll?” my mom asked.
“Yeah, it’s right here.”
“Yeahhhh! You’re a bad dog, a bad dog, Moonshine…Yes, you are. You’re a bad dog…Johnny! Yoo-hoo, Johnny! We found it! We found your doll!”
Stanley said, “Dang-it-all, Mother, the guy’s deaf! And it’s the last time I’m telling you!!”
I walked out of the farmhouse into a nice warm breeze and the birds were singing in the bushes. I started walking down the long sandy driveway with my head down with no direction in mind. I was not in the mood to leap to the future. I would not be saved. This feeling hung on me like an evil friend. Somehow I knew that I had blown it.
I heard the electric whirr of the wheelchair approach from behind. I just wanted to be left alone. Brittany was the last thing I wanted right now.
“Emmett, wait up…”
I turned around and waited for her. She had a worried look on her face. When she was within reach I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her straight out of the wheelchair.
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? Wait, Take One, the bird. Let me get the bird!” She fumbled for the bird and took him into her hands.
“What’s going on, Emmett? What are you doing? Are you mad at me or something? They’re lying to you. They are. You should be mad at them, not me.”
I sat down in the wheelchair and started driving away. She started walking briskly to keep up. I stopped, pivoted the wheelchair around, and said, “Just leave me alone.”
She looked at me, her face full of sorrow, deeply hurt. But I didn’t care.
I drove out to the bridge and parked the wheelchair facing west, and I watched the traffic go thundering underneath me. I was lost. The image of our burned-down house stayed with me. The only structure that remained was the garage, which had caught fire momentarily only to be doused by the advancing crew of five brave men, saving my ole beater, which had been parked inside, and indirectly drenching it with thousands of gallons of city water.
There was only one question that plagued me. How in the hell did I get here?