by Bill Olver
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It took the Monkey King a long time to get to Africa. First he was drunk, and set off in the wrong direction and got lost. Then he was hung over, and didn’t go anywhere. He just pressed his head against the ice and threw snowballs at the penguins for making loud noises. But eventually, he made it to Africa, where he was sure he would find the elusive Golden Monkey.
He arrived in a land that was warm and dry, a high plateau of grasslands and spreading trees. Large cats prowled the tall grasses, while monkeys danced in the trees, mocking him and each other. Yes, this most certainly was the home of the Gold Monkey. He followed the scent of a cook fire until he came to a small hut sitting beneath a large tree. An old man sat on his heels by the fire, slowly turning a spit. The meat sizzled and dripped.
Sun Wukong bowed to the old man, although he saw that the old man was a spider.
The old man smiled, and his eyes twinkled. “Welcome, stranger. Are you hungry?”
Which is, you must admit, a silly question to ask the Monkey King.
They ate not in silence, because there was quite a bit of lip-smacking and exclamations of satisfaction, but without words. When the meat had been consumed and the bones cracked and sucked clean of marrow, the Monkey King sat back against the tree and rubbed his belly.
“As great a meal as served in the best restaurants of Tokyo,” he said. “What was it?”
The old man smiled at the compliment. “The finest sort of prey, slowly roasted over an open fire, delicately garnished with pollen from the tree above, and a bit of dirt and ash that got stuck to it when I dropped the spit.” He clasped his hands together over his belly. “The monkey is a most ingenious creature, and very difficult to catch, unless you can trick him with his own cleverness. This adds to its flavor.”
This gave Sun Wukong some pause, if only for a moment. While the monkey they had eaten had clearly been an animal, and not a person—and certainly not a god—it still felt somewhat like cannibalism. Still, it had been delicious, and something he had never tried before, so he decided not to worry about it. On the other hand, the old man who was a spider clearly knew who he was, and either didn’t have the sense to fear him properly, or felt that he had nothing to fear. One thing was certain: the old man who was a spider had laid a trap for him, and was confident enough in the outcome that he as good as boasted about it.
But what to do? He could kill the old man, and roast him over his own fire, and feed him to the monkeys. It seemed a fitting response, but without knowing the nature of the trap, it seemed unwise to incapacitate his only source of information. After all, the man was a spider, and could have poisoned him with the monkey meat. And while poisons had never affected him before, a man who was a spider might actually succeed where others had failed.
Or perhaps the old man simply wanted him to think that he’d been poisoned, in order entice him, through his own reactions, into some other trap.
Or perhaps…
No, he could spend all day second and third-guessing himself. Without more information, that was pointless.
“You know who I am,” he said.
“Of course. You are the magnificent Sun Wukong whose greatness is sung far beyond the shores of your own land. I recognized you immediately.”
“And you? Have you a name?”
“Oh, yes!” said the old man. He looked at his hands and wiggled his fingers. “More than I can count, apparently. You can use any of them, or one of your own choosing, it doesn’t matter to me.”
The Monkey King had no intention of being outwitted by a spider, and would not be taunted into a guessing game. “I have not come here to play games, spider,” he said, letting the old man know he knew what he was. “I have come here seeking the Gold Monkey. What do you know of this thing?”
The old man scratched his head, and rubbed his chin. Then he scratched his head and rubbed his chin at the same time. He did this for several long moments before exclaiming, “Ah, yes, now I remember! The Gold Monkey! How could I have forgotten?”
“You have heard of it?”
“Yes, yes, of course. It is very famous. I will tell you how to find it.”
The directions the old man gave were long and detailed, and full of vivid descriptions, like, “Travel a hundred or maybe a hundred twenty miles, give or take, along that road until you see a baobab tree that looks like my thirteenth wife, if you go around off the road and look at it from the other side. You might need to squint a little. Turn left there. That would be before the Olympic committee outrageously accused her of steroid use. If you turn left at the tree that looks like my thirteenth wife after she stopped taking steroids, well, you’ll never find it.”
By the time the old man had finished the first third of the directions, the Monkey King’s head was splitting. By the time he had finished the second third, the Monkey King had forgotten the first third, even though the old man had made him a doll of his thirteenth wife, constructed of twigs and twine, two cotton balls and a nutcracker for legs. “She was a runner,” he told the Monkey King, as he fit a kola nut in the doll’s crotch and cracked it with ease. He sighed. “She had amazing legs.”
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“You will need this,” the old man had said, after he had finally consented to acting as guide on the quest for the Gold Monkey. He handed Sun Wukong a tan hat with a wide, slouched brim. It did not look good on him, giving his skin a sallow tone, and making his wispy beard and fine, silk robes appear ridiculous and pretentious in comparison.
“I do not want it.”
“It’s necessary,” the old man said, adjusting it on Sun Wukong’s head so that it sat at a rakish angle, low on his brow. Then he handed the Monkey King a leather bullwhip. “Also, you will need this. You will never find the Gold Monkey if you are not prepared.”
They traveled for many days across the hot, dry African plain, and Sun Wukong grudgingly conceded the usefulness of the hat under the equatorial sun, and of the whip in driving away poisonous snakes and lions, though not the necessity of either. He was, after all, a god, and could certainly have found some other way to deal with such unpleasantries.
They followed a river down the plateau into the lowlands, avoiding the desperately poor men and women panning for diamonds, and the armed men who watched over them. They were of little interest; Sun Wukong had his eye on a greater prize. They made their way past elegant resort hotels and military bases, subsistence farms and refugee camps, and a Baobab tree that looked very much like the old man’s thirteenth wife, and eventually into the dense jungles of the Congo.
Sun Wukong had been bitten or stung by thirty-seven different kinds of bugs by the time they reached the Congo River. By the end of this stretch of the adventure, he had been assaulted by over two hundred distinct species of insect, nine of which had yet to be discovered and given Latin names, and by one arachnid. Neither the hat nor the whip were of any assistance. The bugs crawled under the brim and bit him on the scalp, and when he snapped one enormous hornet out of the sky, a swarm rose up behind it and chased the Monkey King into the river.
The old man laughed then, and laughed again as he burned the leaches off Sun Wukong’s flesh. “If you keep feeding the bugs like this,” he said, “you’ll be half your size by the time you reach the Gold Monkey. Maybe it would be wisest to hire a boat to take us up the river. It will be faster, and there are fewer insects on the open water.”
Sun Wukong agreed, and they hired a boat and set off upstream that very day.
The old man who was a spider watched very carefully, and noted both the place where the Monkey King hid his purse of gold coins, and also where he later moved it when he thought no one was looking.
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They ate well during their weeks on the river. The old man had a net to which the fish practically stuck, so there was no shortage even with the Monkey King’s prodigious appetite. They supplemented this with food brought to them by traders in canoes and dinghies, who would s
warm from the beaches at the sight of a boat. They brought fresh fruits and vegetables, and a variety of unidentifiable meats.
After three weeks of puttering slowly against the current, the old man pointed toward the shore at a clump of bushes that appeared indistinguishable from any other clump of bushes. “This is the place,” he said. “From here we must travel on foot.”
The jungle was denser here than along the coast, and there were no paths. Sun Wukong tore at vines and brambles until his hands bled. Low hanging branches swept his hat from his head time and again, and the whip coiled at his belt snagged on the underbrush every other step.
“A machete would have come in handy right about now,” he said. “Why didn’t you give me one of those, instead of this stupid hat and whip?”
The old man stepped easily through the broken foliage, chuckling lightly. “It wasn’t necessary.”
Their progress through the jungle was torturously slow. The old man kept them fed, catching birds and snakes and monkeys in his sticky net, and though they sometimes traveled less than a mile in a day, they never went hungry.
At long last, they came to a hill—broken rock that rose out of the jungle like the rubble of some vast, ancient structure. Behind a curtain of moss was a tunnel. Should I tell you of the traps and pitfalls that awaited the Monkey King on his quest? The poisoned darts, the iron spiked pits full of snakes and spiders, the collapsing ceilings and pressure-triggered spears? It would be anti-climactic, after having faced down a centipede the size of his forearm. Suffice to say that they came at last to the surface, in a bowl of green carved from the center of the mountain. As dense as the jungle beyond the tunnel, trees filled the valley and creepers reached up the sides.
But in the center, untouched by the foliage, stood a giant statue. It rose, gleaming in the sunlight, above the towering tree-tops. Its eyes glistened ruby-red, its teeth were diamonds the size of your fist.
“Behold,” the old man said, “the Gold Monkey.”
It looked nothing like the Gold Monkey on the label of the empty beer bottle still concealed in Sun Wukong’s tattered robes.
“Now,” the old man added, “all you need to do is toss your hat over that motion sensor over there, and then use the whip to hit all those switches on the other side of the mine field, and it’s all yours.”
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The Monkey King’s rage is legendary, and he did not disappoint. The spider who was an old man leapt from tree to rock to earth and back as tree trunks and boulders flew. He laughed as he sprang over great fissures that opened under his feet, and as the Gold Monkey sank forever into the center of the earth.
Fortunately, this particular Gold Monkey was far enough away from human habitation that none were harmed. Even the animals had seen what was in store and had fled, as if from a forest fire or tsunami. The next time, we would not be so lucky.
When the Monkey King’s rage was spent, the valley of the Gold Monkey glowed red with molten stone, bubbling from the depths. Sun Wukong waded from the lava and sat on a fallen tree trunk, which smoked under his buttocks.
The old man who was a spider sat down beside him.
“Is there a problem?” he asked.
“This is not the Gold Monkey I was looking for.” Sun Wukong’s voice hissed like steam escaping a smoldering tree.
“Oh, well, why didn’t you tell me that before you dragged me halfway across Africa?”
“I? Dragged you?” The Monkey King’s fingers dug into the bark, which burst into flames around his hands. He was dangerously close to flying into another rage.
The old man seemed oblivious. “You think I’d go tromping around and neglect my garden and my twenty-sixth wife if you hadn’t insisted I bring you here? If this wasn’t the Gold Monkey you wanted, you should have said so from the start.”
Sun Wukong pulled the empty beer bottle from his robes, thrusting it in front of the old man’s face. “This!” he said. “This is what I am looking for.”
The old man pushed Sun Wukong’s hand away, until it was an arm’s length from his face, then adjusted the distance a bit more. “Old eyes,” he explained. He studied the bottle carefully. “Well, I’ve never seen anything like it, and I know Africa like I know the back of my twenty-third wife’s hand. She was Italian, you know.”
“I must find it,” Sun Wukong said. “I must.”
“Then,” the old man said, “you must travel north. To Europe.”
“Europe? What do they know of monkeys?” Sun Wukong’s voice dripped with contempt.
“Not just any Europeans. You need to find the people who have traveled across the world in search of fame and fortune, raping and pillaging and crushing all those who stood in their path, taking what they want and leaving smoldering ruins behind.”
“You want me to go to Britain?” Incredulous.
“Only if you want tea. No, if you want to find the best, most robust, most perfect beer in the world, who better to lead you to it than the Vikings?”
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The chill evening wind cut through Sun Wukong’s tattered silk robes. Just half an hour prior he had been sweating in the Congo’s rainforests, watching the lava cool and painfully extracting information from the old man on where to best find the Vikings who could help him find his Gold Monkey. It had been mid-afternoon in Africa half and hour ago. In Norway, it was getting dark—and cold—very fast.
He stumbled out of the woods, a dense forest of pine and fir with a small clearing of newly fallen trees where he had landed, and into the road. A car swerved and beeped frantically, narrowly missing Sun Wukong before skidding to a halt in a cloud of burning rubber. The driver leapt from the car.
“Oi, mate!” he called. “You awright?”
Sun Wukong frowned. Had he missed Norway and landed in Britain after all? “I am looking for Vikings,” he said. “And beer.”
“Come t’the right place then, aye?” The driver walked up to Sun Wukong on unsteady legs and clapped him on the shoulder. His breath smelled strongly of spirits. “Lucky I come along today. Hop in, my friend, there’s a bar just a bit up the street, where there’s a friend you’ve just got to meet.”
The man drove on the left side of the road, swerving into the right lane only long enough to avoid oncoming cars and trucks, and screaming “Arse!” and “Wanker!” as they passed. Yes, Sun Wukong decided, this was Norway, and he was in trapped in an automobile with an insane Englishman.
Against all odds, they arrived alive at the pub. It was an old, steep-roofed cabin, built of stones and logs. Though no name graced the establishment, smoke rose from a chimney, promising warmth, and neon signs flickered in the windows, promising drink. The Englishman squeezed his classic Aston Martin between a beat up Volvo and a rusted snow plow, slamming on the brakes and screeching to a halt a mere fingers-width from a stone restraining wall.
Sun Wukong fumbled with his seat belt and stumbled out of the car, still dizzy from the drive and sudden deceleration.
The Englishman cackled. “I barely hazard now to think how you’ll be after a bit of drink!”
The bar was dark and smoky, crowded and loud. A group of boisterous Finns sang ribald sea shanties in one corner while the Germans at the next table corrected their grammar. The Englishman pulled Sun Wukong in and shut the door behind them, and then spoke, his voice cutting through the din.
“Greetings, once and future friends, for sins long past to make amends, my Asian pal what I just found grants one and all a free next round.”
A cheer rose from the patrons of the nameless pub, and many stood to greet Sun Wukong with warm hugs and claps on the shoulder. When the hubbub settled, Sun Wukong saw his drunken English friend in the far corner, speaking to a tall, thin man with dark hair and pale skin who sat alone at a small table. Both of them looked in Sun Wukong’s direction.
The bartender flagged him down as he walked to the table. “What’ll you have, friend?”
“Gold Monkey,” he said.
“No. It is a beer. If you don’t have it, any beer will do.”
The bartender handed Sun Wukong a glass mug filled with a thick, dark liquid that foamed and dribbled down the side. “You’ve got quite a tab. How did you want to cover that?”
This was how the Monkey King discovered that his purse, and all his gold, had been stolen. By now, he knew, the old man who was a spider would have already have spent half of it on his twenty-sixth wife, and the other half on the woman who would some day become his twenty-seventh wife. He was in a foul mood when he reached the table.
“I am…”
The pale dark man stood, towering over the Monkey King. “I know who you are. Do you know who I am?”
Sun Wukong studied him. Yes. He knew. Fledgling god of mischief and discord for an anemic-looking people whose eyes gave them a look of perpetual astonishment. Barely a few thousand years old, this godling sought to intimidate him, the Monkey King who had bested the great Dragon himself. Even with his fine robes in rags and the ridiculous hat atop his head, with his bramble-torn and insect-gnawed flesh, he had more divine majesty in the tip of his nose than this upstart could dream of.
Sun Wukong let that knowledge settle, unspoken but clear, around them.
Loki—for it was Loki—did not back down.
The bar cleared quickly, patrons shuffling nervously out the door, the bartender rousting those who had fallen asleep in their chairs. He closed the door quietly behind him as he followed the last customer out the door. All that remained was Sun Wukong, Loki, and the mad Englishman.
“You are in my realm,” Loki said. He flexed his fingers like a gunfighter as a slow smile played across his lips.
“I am on a quest, and I will not allow some pathetic Western godling to stand in my way. Especially not one that’s barely out of swaddling and already lost his worshipers. If you aid me in my quest, you’ll be rewarded. If you hamper me, not even the vultures will find your remains.”