14

A lump of clay spins as a hand pinches the top and a neck emerges. A knife comes into frame, cuts into the terra cotta, effortlessly patterns the sides. An old man leans back, smooths the ridges with his thumb, dips a wire loop in water, touches it to the sides and a ribbon falls to the floor. A dog barks and he looks up. Stops. The vase stops. The clouds in the window stop. He’s frozen, looking out of frame, his hand caught in a moment of thoughtlessness, the overhead light shining two bright circles on his glasses. Then everything skips. Five seconds. Ten. A closeup of his smiling face. Then, in a series of beeps, he’s gone, nothing but Monkey’s face reflected back in the gloss of his screen.

He puts his phone away, floats in the void looking out to a sea of black.

“Now what?”

He paws the inside of his pouch, the hard tips of the ceramic monkey, the soft rubberiness of the heart, peeks inside and the faint glow is illuminating the leather walls, the white monkey holding a nondescript sphere, its eyes watching as Monkey pulls the heart out, holds it like the monkey’s holding the sphere, guardedly, with both hands, off to the side. He raises it like he saw a cartoon baboon do in a movie once but…nothing. No great light opens from above. No music. No epiphany. No chorus of animals singing. He cradles it in his lap, runs his finger over the veins that bulge their way inside the pink flesh.

“I’m trapped.”

The thought rattles around then settles in his stomach. He frowns, feels his face and chest tighten, tries to ease the tension but the more he concentrates, the tighter it becomes.

"What is there to be upset about? There is…nothing.”

He takes a deep breath. Exhales loudly.

"I'm relaxing.”

His face tenses up.

“I’m relaxing.”

His chest starts to hurt.

“Relax.”

He thrashes his body against the void, loses his grip and the heart floats away, rotates, slowly, slowly, turning end over end as the light dims. A wave of panic floods as he kicks his legs, swims over till he’s holding it again, a warm tingle melting the tightness in his chest.

"I feel good,” he looks curiously at the pulsing pink flesh. “Why?”

He pushes the heart away, watches it rotate, slowly, slowly, turning end over end till it’s a speck of light then kicks his way over, grabs it again, but this time there’s no satisfaction. No relief. Already he’s bored.

"It’s gone.”

The wrinkles spread across his face as he feels his chest tighten.

“Don’t think about your chest. Don’t think about your chest. Don’t think about…” But the more he tries, the more he fails. He fails and fails and fails and continues to fail and somehow does not do anything differently. Each breath boxes him into an ever-tightening space. Each inhale makes the void shrink, grow more geometric, pointy, the edges pushing in on him. "When I want to crush a demon, I whip out my cudgel, dodge every blow and strike, but when I want to do a simple thing like stop my chest from tightening. I can't. It's my chest!”

He hits himself.

"Listen!"

But he does not listen.

“I should stop trying to feel better," he concludes.

He shuts his eyes and tries to not try but after a few minutes gives up in exhaustion.

"I can't do it. I can't get out of here. I keep trying the same thing as if the problem is.....what? I'm not doing it right? How do you do it right? Maybe Tang Sanzang knows.” A sudden pain pushes in. "I'm never going to find him." Then a deeper pain hits. "He doesn't know." It stabs him and he winces squeezing the heart so tight its flesh squishes through his fingers. "All I've done is cause destruction. Wherever I go. People die. I can't save them. I can't. But I need to try. I need to do something!"

He thrashes again.

"Why do I keep doing that? It doesn't help."

He looks at the heart and for a moment he’s mesmerized by the colors, the veins and chambers somewhat visible as it pulses in his hands. He stares at it in wonder.

"The pain went away. Why?” He turns it over in his hands. “Because I was interested." He looks into the void. "What else is interesting?" But there is nothing. “Be interested," he tells himself. But he isn't. The pulsing glow which was once compelling is now mundane. He squints and forces himself to focus but he’s bored. His mind starts racing. His chest tightens.

"You’re failing! Be interested!"

But he is not.

“This is Pig’s fault. If he was here, he’d stick his big fat head in and call for me and I’d know where to go.” He sees Pig, his hulking frame next to Mara, small and scowling, his hand on her shoulder, and feels another stabbing pain. “I know you,” he thinks as Pig’s face zooms into monstrous focus. He pulls his cudgel out and swings but there’s nothing to hit. He looks up and the circle of light is above him as if he’d never left.

The blue cloudless sky and the sun and the corner of a fender are above him cut out in a perfect circle. “What did I do? Why do I deserve to find my way out?” He crawls out of Sand’s body, back into the junkyard. His hands splash a swirling rainbow puddle of purples and greens as he gets to his feet. Sand’s body is mangled, pitch-black insides, one hand twisted in a fist, the other an open palm to the sky.

There’s a busted headlight in a tuft of grass, a silver dome with broken plastic bits sprinkled inside. He brushes it out with his fingers, the concave chrome distorts his face as he smiles showing all his teeth, looks angry, happy, sad then doesn’t look like anything at all. The absence like a thick molasses pools in as he dips it into Sand’s body, lifts it up and stares into it. No reflection. Nothing. Like someone punched a perfect circle in the universe. 

He unfastens Sand’s necklace, the skulls fall into his hand, as he scrounges around, finds a Taki bag, lays the silver insides on top of the headlight then tightens the necklace around it. The silver reflective plastic shines in the sun as the colored skulls dance along the edge, each settling, staring off in their own direction.

He carries Sand over to a small tree growing out of an oily patch of dirt, digs a hole and sets him inside, pushes the dirt on top and smoothes it over, stabs a fence post into the ground then scribbles in his best Chinese script, “Sand,” then underneath, “Friend”.

The oily dirt compresses in his hands as he rolls out a long stick, looks for a suitable offering but the only things he sees is a pink spiral-bound notebook. “Amanda’s Secret Diary,” then underneath, “DO NOT OPEN!” He thumbs through. Stops at a page covered in stickers.

A pink horse.
A family of bumblebees.
A bouquet of flowers wearing sunglasses.

He peels off the bouquet and sticks it on the bottom of the post, sets the stick on fire as he sits and prays over the grave.

“I should say something,” he thinks, but there is no one to say anything to, so instead he bows touching his forehead to the ground, stays like that, his nostrils hovering above the earth, then rises, jumps to his feet. A mountain of used tires peaks in the distance. Stacks of cars scatter the yard. “This place is a mess.” He leaps on the tires, tosses one and it sails and lands in an empty field, a single black circle. He tosses another and it lands next to it. Tosses four more and a ring forms. He gets excited and does another ring around that, then another, till the circle is a hundred feet wide. He leaps over to the stacks of cars and rips them apart, organizes them by color. The red metal goes here. The blue metal goes there. And so on.

He flies a hundred feet in the air, looks down at the inner circle made of tires, the outer circle made of color-coded scrap. “Much better,” he thinks, “but…” He lands and hears the manager from the trailer running over, waving his arms, yelling.

“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!?” He towers over Monkey catching his breath, wild-eyed as he surveys the yard. “DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT’S GOING TO TAKE ME TO…” Looks around. “WHERE THE HELL IS DAVE?”

“Dave is dead.”

“GOD DAMN IT,” slaps his side, “I knew he was gonna do this to me! Now I gotta call the cops. Fill out reports. My whole day’s ruined,” swivels his head around. “Where’s the body?” Monkey points to the grave as he walks over to inspect it. “What’s that?” he points to the grave marker. “What’s that gobbledygook on there?” He smears it with his palm trying to rub it off.

“Don’t touch that.”

He rips the marker out of the ground and throws it in the dirt.

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CAN’T TOUCH! YOU’RE LUCKY I DON’T…”

Before he can finish Monkey has leapt on top of him and crushed his head like a grapefruit. The blood spurts onto the dirt, the body limp and heavy as he tosses him over the fence into some brush. The body caught in the branches hangs like a scarecrow, arms outstretched, head back, face caved in like a mask looking up at the sun.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Monkey thinks. “I didn’t want to kill him.” He frowns. “That’s not true. I did want it. I wanted it and I did it in the same second.”

He picks up the grave maker, sets it back in place, sits down and draws in the dirt not sure what he’s making. He snakes it around till he comes back to where he began, his finger carving through the earth, making tiny ridges on either side.

“When was there time? When was there time to do different?” He plays through it again. Sees the manager, the anger and bewilderment as his hands crush his skull. A strong wind blows and the smoke takes a hard right, turns to a long grey tail, the ember glowing red, then stops, dies. The smoke rights itself pouring up to the sky. “I’ve done it before,” he thinks. “I can remember how I wanted to kill, but the monk stopped me, and pretty soon…it wasn’t that I learned anything. It was that I stopped wanting to.”

He pulls his phone out. “I should play a song,” he thinks. “This is important.” But it’s dead. Rubs his finger over the slight scratch on the rectangular glass, feels a great urge to crush it in his hand. “Why?” He puzzles over the dark screen. “The scratch,” he thinks. “Before it was flawless. Now,” he feels the tiny ridges on his thumb, “it’s all I can look at and I hate it. I hate that it’s ruined.” 

“You’re libel to lose yourself in all those deep thoughts.” 

Monkey summersaults around to find a light-skinned black man in his 50’s, speckled grey beard leaning against a Buick.

“Nice summersault. You always move like that?”

“Only when someone sneaks up behind me.”

“Flat tire,” he says thumbing to a van parked by the trailer. “Butch and I are headed to a show in Miami. All-Star Wrestling!” he says moving his hand in an arc like he’s displaying some great banner that doesn’t exist. “Heard of us?” He pauses for any sign of recognition. “We’re just getting started. Had a lot of luck in Omaha. Armories. Small town stuff. You a wrestling fan?” Monkey cocks his head and furrows his brow.  “Professional wrestling? Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Mr. Perfect, The Million Dollar Man?”

Monkey shrugs.

The man scratches his head and tries something else.

“My friend and I got a flat. Guess I already said that. Didn’t see anyone at the office so I took a walk out here. Didn’t expect to find a talking monkey and,” he looks over to the body hanging in the brush. Monkey follows his glance. “That’s some mighty Monkey strength you got there. I shouldn't be worried about it, should I?” Monkey shakes his head. “Name’s Sam.” He extends his hand and Monkey shakes it. “Look, maybe he was threatening you. Maybe he pulled a gun. What do I know?”

“He disrespected the grave,” Monkey says then more solemnly, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No. Probably not. But a man’s got to have RESPECT for…” He winces. Cracks his knuckles. “Shit. I’ll level with you. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. There are two things I do know though. Raising money and Wrastlin’.”

“Wrastlin’?”

“There’s that look again. You’ve never heard of wrastlin’?. Screaming fans, music blasting as you take the stage. Two grown men bouncing around in tights, putting each other in headlocks,” he demonstrates on an imaginary opponent. “Or as my friend Butch likes to say, ‘pile drivers, pills and pussy’. Whaddya think? I was talking to some midgets in St. Joe bout coming along, but they’re busy with a convention in Dallas. You ever been to Dallas…uh…”

“Sun Wukong.”

“You ever been to Dallas, son?”

Monkey’s eyes light up as his gaze penetrates the yard, sees another man in a white minivan by the manager’s office, a flat back rear tire.

“If you’re from the Midwest, what are you doing here?”

Sam laughs then gets a serious look on his face.

“Came down for a woman,” he says wistfully then, “You know anything about women?”

Monkey shakes his head.

“Well, apparently neither do I, which is why we’re headed back. You want to come with us? Think we could make a lot of money.”

“Monks aren’t allowed to have money.”

“Forget the money. Come and learn something. Have an adventure or two.”

“I’m waiting for my friends. If I leave, they won’t be able to find me.”

“You’re living in the 21st-century son! You can find anyone with a push of a button. Don’t you have your friends number?”

Monkey shakes his head. 

“We’ll figure it out. In the meantime, I know you don’t seem worried about that body over there but…how should I put this?” He looks at his hands and flips them over. “If you haven’t been able to tell I’m a black man and this is the state of Florida, and personally I don’t want to wait around and see how racist the police are. Know what I mean?”

“You’re black?”

Sam raises an eyebrow.

“Are you fucking with me?”

“You don’t look black.”

He laughs.

“Normally I’d be offended, but seeing as you’re a foreigner I’m going to strike that last comment up to what we in the United States call ‘cultural differences’. Here’s a tip though, not so much for you, but for the sake of the next black man you meet. Don’t ever…”

Across the yard a gravelly voice calls out, “We going?!?” 

Butch has opened the door and put one foot out of the van.

Sam grabs Monkey by the hand.

“We don’t want him seeing this,” tugs on Monkey’s paw. “C’mon! We’ll call your friends from the road.”

Just then a small white curly-haired dog breaks across the yard, sniffs Sand’s grave, barks, then turns and runs up to Sam. 

“Some junkyard dog,” he says bending over to pet it. “This is one of those yappy white people dogs.”

“Who are ‘white people’?”

Sam lets out another deep laugh.

“I’m afraid we don’t have enough time for that conversation.”

Monkey picks up the dog, brass tag dangling from its neck that reads, ‘Lil ‘Darlene,’ then underneath, ‘What the hell are you doing with my dog you son of a bitch!’

“I know whose dog this is,” Monkeys says.

“Great. Take it and let’s get out of here.”

Sam rolls a tire over to the van as Monkey climbs in. Butch slams the door, leans back in his seat, closes his eyes as Monkey and Lil’ Darlene sit looking out the window to the trailer, the air conditioning blowing into the yard, the milk crate stairs tipped over. Sam hops in and starts it up and soon they’re cruising down the highway, ocean on either side, Butch silent, Sam occasionally checking the rearview, fiddling with the radio, as they drive down Route 1. Monkey closes his eyes, dips into sleep, a warm comforting blackness hugs him then is abruptly ripped away by the slamming of a car door. The sky is dark, parking lot lights shine from above as Sam stands by the window, An American Inn behind him.

They pile out, wind their way up a metal staircase then find their way to room 432. Sam locks the door and throws the key on the bed.

“We’re here boys! All the splendor $69.95 can buy!”

Butch goes into the bathroom and closes the door as Monkey sits on the floral print comforter and bounces up and down, looks at a roach crawl across the blinking alarm clock. Lil’ Darlene runs around the room. Sam steps over her, bangs on the bathroom door with a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. There’s the sound of rustling. The door cracks and a hand emerges. Sam holds out the pint of whiskey as the hand closes around it then pulls it back in. The door shuts and Sam goes and sits on the bed opposite Monkey.

“He’ll be fine. He needs a minute to collect himself,” looking at the door. “Amazing how much there is to collect these days,” then to Monkey, “suppose you don’t drink on account of being a monk.” He pulls a second bottle from his pocket. “I know it’s silly,” unscrews the plastic lid. “But Butch isn’t much for sharing,” takes a swig then puts it on the nightstand next to the lamp. “So, while he’s busy putting all the pieces back together, why don’t we go over the finer points of wrastlin’ seeing as you don’t know a damn thing about it. First things first,” he looks him up and down. “Are you a babyface or a heel?”

Monkey cocks his head.

“Are you a good guy or a bad guy?”

“There’s no middle?”

“Look. Son. This ain’t a Swedish art picture where we explore the finer shades of morality. This is wrastlin’. Stark lines. Easy stories. Good guys.” He holds out his left hand. “Bad guys.” He holds out his right. “Don’t make this difficult.” He raises his left hand as if it’s holding a small round weight. “The good guy’s a local boy, patriot, man who loves his country, who does right by his woman, loves his mother. The hero that overcomes adversity, that gets the shit kicked out of him and then in a miraculous show of strength, pulls through in the end. Pushes past all the cheating and lying and subterfuge. Jumps from the top rope with an atomic knee drop and,” he raises his arms, “BAM!”

Monkey smiles. 

“Now look, everyone wants to be the babyface when they start. Hell, who wouldn’t want all those people cheering for them,” he leans closer, “but I’m here to tell you the heel is where it’s at. The heel’s the bad guy, the out of towner, the city slicker, the boss, the rich guy, arrogant, flashy, you know, wears a gold cape and...”

“You have a gold cape?”

“I’ve got an entire van load of that crap. But here’s the deal. Butch and I are going to go out for a little bit and I want you to sit here and think about your character. Who do you want to be? What’s your name? And before you start getting all philosophical on me, just remember, you’re a talking monkey. Play to your strengths. I don’t want to come back and find intricately laid plans of how you’re a businessman from Texas or, I don’t know, a cross-dressing beast from Brazil.” He thinks for a moment. “Well, that last one might actually work. Alliteration is your friend.” Waves his hand. “You know what I mean. And think about what you want your intro music to be.”

“I get music?” Monkey’s eyes swell.

“Sure you do! Whatever you want.” He looks over at the door. “Seeing as we have some time, let’s go over the basics. First wrastlin’s not like other sports. It’s not about who can hit the hardest or run the fastest. That’s boring, right? Who can run fastest? Who cares. Wrastlin’s about teamwork. You’re in that ring and you’re both trying to make each other look good, BUT, and here’s the kicker, you gotta pretend you hate each other’s guts. The fans are screaming for blood and you’re in there dancing and improvising and leaning into that elbow. You’re selling it and I know you can take a hit, and you sure as hell got the strength, but, you have to know when to use it. You have to learn how to read the crowd and give ‘em what they want, and then take it away. I know that’s a lot, and there’s no way to get it besides stepping in there and feeling it out, but there it is.”

Sam holds his fist up.

“Now don’t kill me but I’m going to lightly hit you and I want you to pretend I punched you as hard as you’ve ever been punched before.”

“I’ve been punched pretty hard.”

“Just take the punch and go down and this is the important part, don’t kill me.”

Sam delivers a slow right hook, his fist smacking into Monkey’s face, who doesn’t flinch. 

“So, you’re not a natural. That’s ok. We’ll have plenty of time to figure this out. Just fall down when my hand touches you, but make it look like you got hit hard.”

Sam delivers his right hook again and this time monkey falls down on the bed then springs back up.

“Better! That was better!”

Monkey smiles as the bathroom door opens and Butch comes out in a big cowboy hat, jean jacket and matching pants, looks over to Monkey then to Sam. Lil’ Darlene runs up and sniff his boots.

“Hey Sam, how’s it feel not being the ugliest motherfucker in the room anymore?” Butch laughs at his own joke then walks to the door. “We goin’? C’mon. I gotta move!”

“We’ll pick this up later,” Sam says standing up. “Lock this thing behind us ok?”

He winks at Monkey as he closes the door and just like that, they’re gone.

Lil’ Darlene’s curled in a ball on the bed, her dark eyes eagerly watch as Monkey looks around the room. Two beds, an end table, lamp, alarm clock, all of it squeezed into a beige square, the walls economically spaced, the vinyl trim around the doors and windows. He closes his eyes and it all disappears. Feels his face. His chest. His arms. The cushion of the mattress. A tv is playing in the next room. He listens to the soft voices through the walls. Muffled laughter. The crack of a beer can. More laughing as music starts up. The pulsing bass overtakes everything as a woman squeals in delight.

His eyes open and the room is still there. He hops off the bed and wanders into the bathroom. The shower curtain’s been pulled down. The bathroom mirror’s lying on the sink. The perforated tiles of the ceiling reflect down from above, his strange monkey face looking even stranger at the odd angle as he reaches in his pouch and takes out the headlight. The Taki’s bag crinkles as he unties the skull necklace, stares into the black circle settled at the bottom then angles it so it pours onto the mirror. It’s edges growing, slowly, slowly, till they stop. He wraps the glowing heart inside the shower curtain, ties it off with the necklace then dips it in the hole, places the ceramic monkey as a weight holding it there then climbs up on the counter. He sticks one leg in then the other. Eases himself down to the waist. Then his armpits. His neck. His eyes. The top of his head. His small monkey fingers, still grasping the edges of the mirror, let go, as the blackness rises up and envelopes him completely.