Banging the Monkey

by Tod A

  Wulan was undergoing a transformation. Her expression grew unfamiliar, her movements increasingly erratic. The blade swayed cobra-like before her eyes as she worked herself into a state of self-hypnosis. She was becoming something else, something untamed. She stomped her bare feet on the earth raising clouds of dust that wafted across the crowd.

  “Look!” Raj whispered. “Malang has entered her.”

  At first the band had led the dancers. Now the musicians began to follow Wulan, weaving their thrumming melody along with her waving blade. She seemed to have receded into some primal part of her brain. Gone was the demure woman who came daily to my room. In her place was a being animated by fierce carnal spirits. She thrust the kris at the players, coming dangerously close to those at the front. The musicians played on, oblivious.

  The tempo rose to double-time, then triple-time, the syncopated rhythms folding in upon themselves. Flute lines flew like crazed bird calls through the trees. Wulan whirled clockwise and counterclockwise, gyrating her hips, whipping the sword about her. It stirred something in me, something lusty and uncontrollable, and a switch clicked in my head.

  I waved to the boy, signaling for drink. He squinted at me for a moment, then shrugged and filled my cup. It tasted like ditch water but I drained it in one draft, savoring the sweet burn of alcohol in my gullet. I held out my empty cup. The boy’s eyes widened, but he obliged.

  ‘Here we go,’ I thought, ‘here we fucking go.’ The music grew louder and the dancers spun on.

  A sudden gust of wind showered the crowd with dead leaves.

  Wulan’s hair came loose and swung about her neck and shoulders. I had never seen her like this, so wild and unwound. She staggered, grazing the blade against her forehead. A trickle of blood flowed down her face. She seemed not to notice, leaning precariously backward, pelvis pushed forward, face tilted to the sky, eyes bulging, mouth agape in a fierce grin. The line of dark blood ran down her neck and between her breasts.

  I called for more booze.

  Incense smoke wafted across the courtyard. The wine flowed freely, filling my head with fog, as the compound rang with the clash and sizzle of the gongs. Pounding drums echoed off the hills. Cicadas and frogs chimed in, agitated by the human noise. Clouds of flying ants swarmed the florescent lights, and bats swooped in, feeding greedily.

  The music looped and twined, swinging ever faster, building toward a furious crescendo.

  The musicians held for a few distended moments at the peak.

  The dancers froze as one.

  With one final skyward thrust, Wulan fell backward in a faint, caught by the women behind her as the kris clattered onto the tile. They helped her to a chair as the music slowed and finally stopped, the final few beats falling like the last raindrops of a sudden storm.

  “So, Raj, what’s your article going to say?” I asked, back at the guest house bar. I could hear myself slurring but I didn’t care. If I was a whore, I might as well be a drunken one. “Still ‘Sustainable Industry Brings Prosperity to Rural Peoples’?”

  “I’ll put it this way. I don’t think I’m going to make many friends around here.”

  “Well, you are an insufferable bore, old chap.”

  Raj eyed me darkly, but said nothing about my having fallen so precipitously off the wagon.

  “Another Oh-Cha, please, Wulan!” I shouted.

  Wulan was filling in for Muda, who’d gone home to sleep off all the rice wine she’d drunk at the ceremony.

  “I tell you, the closer one looks the more unsavory it gets. If I submit the article I ought to, not many will want to read it. And that’s if my editor even runs the story. It would ruffle some rather important feathers.”

  “Truth is dangerous stuff, brother. Just look how things turned out for your old buddy Jesus.”

  He sat silently, eyeing the rowdy Indonesian loggers knocking back whiskey by the karaoke screen.

  “Look, Mark,” he said, finally. “On the surface everything looks peachy. The loggers spend their wages, so the barkeeps are happy. The villagers get jobs on the plantation, a clinic and a school, so they’re happy as well. The headman gets the glory, plus what he makes from leasing the land to the logging company—not to mention all the kickbacks. Even the local hunters are happy because KGV pays them to shoot the orangutans that eat the baby palms. The logging company gets their quote-unquote sustainably-harvested hardwood to sell at a handsome profit. KGV gets their palm oil. And a veritable army of bureaucrats gets its cut, right on up the food chain, from the local police, to the Minister of Forestry, to the regency level, to the General’s Office, and on, and on, straight up to the bloody president—all one hundred percent certified, stamped and approved.”

  The loggers kept calling for fresh ice. They ogled and pawed at Wulan whenever she came near the table. It was starting to get on my nerves.

  “Civilization is ugly,” I said, nodding toward the karaoke screen. “But can you honestly blame the people of Dimana for wanting a little slice of the pie? You’ve seen how they live—hand to mouth, dirt floors. This palm oil thing is a big deal for them.”

  “Of course I don’t blame them for wanting to better themselves, Mark. But you’ve seen what’s being done to the forest. Does that look sustainable to you? And now that they’ve uncovered deposits here, who knows what will happen.”

  “Deposits?”

  “Gold, silver, copper. Quite common to find precious metals in volcanic strata.”

  “Shit. From the minute we got to this beautiful place, I had this feeling that something was missing. And now I know what it is. A huge fucking mining operation. Jesus fuck.”

  As if on cue, the roar of rotor blades shook the bar, then slowly faded into the distance.

  “There they go,” I said.

  “Good riddance.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be back.”

  “I tell you, sir, it depresses me to think about it.”

  “Hey, at least your conscience is clean. I’m a cog in the machine,” I said. “Hang on a sec.”

  I’d just seen one of the loggers grope Wulan’s ass. Muda may have put up with that kind of stuff—maybe even encouraged it. But Wulan was not like her sister—she was just too polite to say anything.

  “Hey! Hey, guys!”

  They either couldn’t hear me above the music, or were deliberately ignoring me. I stood up.

  “Hey, brothers!” I shouted.

  This time they all turned to see who was interrupting their fun.

  “Why don’t you just drink your whiskey and sing your little songs and keep your fucking hands off the waitress, okay?”

  The song had ended and suddenly my voice sounded very loud.

  I was pretty sure they didn’t speak English, but their taut expressions told me they’d got the message.

  “Mark, you’re drunk. Please let me handle this.”

  Raj said something very calmly in Indonesian.

  The men looked at us, then at Wulan.

  It was a Clint Eastwood Moment, everyone in the bar had frozen.

  Except me—the alcohol had taken its toll. I wavered on my feet, and fell back into my chair. The biggest logger muttered something about mayat, and the other two burst into raucous laughter. Then they went back to yowling into the microphone.

  “What did you say?” I asked Raj.

  “I said that, as our sister, she deserved their respect.”

  “What did the big guy say?”

  “He said, ‘The mayat has a lot of balls—for a maho.”

  “What the fuck’s a ‘maho’?”

  “I believe it translates roughly as ‘queer’.”

  “Queer? Me?” I said.

  “They appear to have mistaken us for a homosexual couple.”

  “Yeah? And so fucking what if we were?” I shouted, rising again.


  The big one now got up and went to the end of the bar, ordered two drinks from Wulan, pointed toward us, and winked. It was the guy with the missing ear.

  “Shit. It’s Van Gogh from the Whammy.”

  “Remain calm. He’s stood us a round. A peace offering, let’s hope.”

  It wasn’t. As Wulan came around the bar to bring us our drinks, Van Gogh groped her bosom, while staring directly at us.

  “The fucker.”

  “Mark, I know how to deal with badmashes like these.”

  Raj stood up and scolded them like an angry schoolteacher, pointing his cane at Van Gogh. It was the first time I’d ever heard Raj raise his voice. The three loggers didn’t look pleased. The two guys at the table got up, one of them grasping the whiskey bottle by its neck.

  “What did you say this time?” I slurred.

  “I said that such behavior reflects badly upon their mothers.”

  “Shit, Raj. You brought their mothers into it?”

  All three men were now coming toward us.

  “We’re outnumbered. Maybe you should take it back.”

  “I will not take it back. They are trying even my patience.”

  I struggled to my feet, but the room was unsteady.

  “Look, can everybody please just chill the fuck out?”

  Wulan retreated behind the bar, her eyes wide. Where were Malang and her kris when we needed them?

  “Please, Mark,” Raj said, calmly. “Kindly sit down and let me handle this.”

  He shouted something else.

  “What did you say now?”

  “I have made it very clear we don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

  “Good point. Especially not me. I’m a pacifist. Also a coward.”

  It was too late. The three men rushed us. I jumped in front of Raj, waving my arms in surrender, and got a fist in the guts for my trouble. As I doubled over, gasping for air, a knee caught me square in the face. I flew backward and my head hit something solid. There was a flash of light, then darkness.

  I came to my senses just in time to witness the unexpected sight of five-foot-one Raj Curry deftly beating the living crap out of the three huge Indonesians with his bamboo cane. Two lay crumpled and bleeding on the ground as Van Gogh retreated with palms raised. The melee ended as quickly as it had begun.

  Raj helped me back to my chair, then calmly sat down.

  “Now, would you just look at this?” he said. “Completely ruined.”

  His white suit was spattered with blood.

  “Does my nose look broken to you?” I was tilting my head back, trying to stanch the flow of blood.

  He cocked his head. “No, I don’t think so. I did suggest you let me handle the situation.” He bundled some ice cubes into his handkerchief and handed it to me. “Here. Try this.”

  “Man, Raj, where did you get those fancy moves?”

  “Lathi khela. Traditional Indian art of stick fighting. A proper lathi is about twice this length, but a walking stick will do in a pinch,” he said, wiping the blood from his cane with a paper napkin. “I expect you might need a drink?”

  I nodded and blood seeped out of my nostril.

  “Two more of the same please, Wulan.”

  That night the monsoon finally broke.

  { 11 }

  When It Rains

  It came in AN INSTANT of sweet release. For weeks the temples of Joro had rung with the sounds of supplication, chanting and bells echoing through the suffocating nights, as heat lightning taunted silently from the distance and crows jumped from branch to branch.

  Now it had finally come.

  The clouds rolled in, blotting out the stars. Lights out. No electric city. The temperature plunged fifteen degrees in fifteen seconds. The hair stood up on my arms and neck. The monsoon had finally come, blowing all rational thought asunder. The real show had begun.

  It was a living thing—a monster from a child’s nightmare, a seething black mountain range of cumulonimbus crawling with giant electric spiders—a dark and angry spirit snorting fire.

  Lightning flashed upside down and sideways. Spectral hands shot up from the earth into the super-charged air. Voltaic trees burst forth from the horizon, branching and flowering in all directions, before dying out across the depths of the void. Thunder stomped across the sky. Forty foot palms waved helplessly in the wind.

  The rain pounded down with the roll of a thousand snares. It hung in my face like the tresses of a woman’s hair. Crows clung to their branches, drenched and miserable. I stood naked in the deluge—soaked to shivering—drinking in the cool darkness, until the darkness overtook me.

  When I woke up the next afternoon the rain was still spooling down in thick ropes. My head was pounding. I added back-island rice wine to my list of local beverages to avoid. A note from Raj lay on my nightstand.

  Mark, Tried to rouse you to say goodbye—but alas, no luck!

  I’ll catch the morning boat downriver, assuming there is one.

  See you back in Joro, when I return from Singy.

  Do take care old man, RC

  The morning boat downriver turned out to be the last boat downriver. The current had already grown perilously high and swift, and soon the sea would become too treacherous for the passage back to Joro. Dimana came to a standstill.

  I passed the time like the others, lying in my hut, listening to the water beat down on the roof and the palm leaves high above. It rained for twenty-four hours straight. I must have dozed off at some point. I woke up, shivering in the darkness, feeling seriously ill.

  I reached for the bedside lamp. It didn’t work. I sat up and was hit by a massive wave of nausea. At first I thought it was the rice wine coming back to haunt me. Whatever it was, I suddenly had an urgent need for a toilet.

  I found my flashlight and struggled to my feet. It felt like I’d been drugged. My head was spinning, my limbs rubbery. The flashlight beam waved crazily in the darkness as I staggered toward the bathroom. There was a searing pain behind my eyes. I leaned against the wall to stop the world tilting out of control.

  The light in the bathroom didn’t work either. No electric city. Somehow I managed to find the toilet in the darkness before expelling a torrent of watery waste. Then it was my stomach’s turn to revolt. My guts wrenched violently. The vomit came spewing up as my flashlight fell to the floor. Thankfully, the sink was next to the toilet and I mostly managed to hit the target. I wiped my ass and lurched to my feet, grabbing the sink to steady myself. Finally the nausea subsided.

  Then a violent shiver passed through my body—starting at my scalp and ending in the soles of my feet. It felt like my brain was on fire and my eyeballs were being roasted from the inside. I opened the faucet and eventually cleared the sink of vomit. Then I ran some water over my hands and splashed it up into my face. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and my jaw dropped.

  This was no hangover.

  My whole head was covered in thousands of tiny red spots, like a rash of measles. Even the whites of my eyes were engorged with blood. I ran my hand over the itchy bumps on my face. I shivered again and saw blood leaking from my nostrils. I tried to wipe it away, but only succeeded in smearing it all over myself. I yanked off a stream of toilet paper to stanch the flow, which was now streaming onto the floor.

  ‘Sweet Jesus,’ I thought, ‘I’m dying. I’m going to die here alone in this godforsaken toilet in the middle of the night.’

  A jolt of adrenaline kicked in. I had to find a doctor and figure out what the hell was wrong with me. Careening out the door the front door, I slipped on the steps and fell face-first into knee-deep water. The flashlight shorted out. Rising to my knees, I saw a mini-bar refrigerator from one of the bungalows floating across the garden. The rain was coming down in Biblical torrents. I willed myself to my feet and sloshed off through the darkness.
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  I needed to find Wulan. But I didn’t know where she slept. I spotted the dim glow of a lantern in a workshop behind the restaurant. A weather report played on a crackly transistor radio. The maintenance man working on the stalled generator leapt to his feet when he saw me. He backed away, threatening me with a screwdriver, his eyes bulging with fear.

  I must have been a terrifying apparition, emerging from the darkness, my clothes slathered in blood and muck. I tried to recall any Madunese I’d learned—something to calm him down.

  “Doktor!” was the best I could do. “Wulan? Doktor!”

  Still pointing the screwdriver at my chest, he reached his other hand slowly forward toward my throat. I backed away reflexively, but he signaled for me to remain calm as he placed his index finger on my jugular.

  We remained that way for a few tense moments.

  My adrenaline was spent and I was so tired I could barely stand.

  His eyes narrowed, and he put his palm on my forehead.

  His expression was grave.

  “Breakbone fever, Boss.”

  That must have been when I passed out.

  The next thing I remember was waking to a vision of Wulan’s face—huge and distended, as though projected across a drive-in movie screen. I was under a heavy blanket yet shivering uncontrollably. I looked around. My eyes burned when I moved them, but I recognized my room. Wulan gently took the thermometer from my mouth.

  “What time is it?” I managed.

  “Four.” She frowned as she examined the thermometer.

  “Night? Day?”

  “Night.” She looked at me seriously for a moment but said nothing. Her hair was wet and her blouse transparent from the rain.

  “Wulan?”

  “Yes, Mr Mark.”

  “I don’t feel so good.”

  She stuck her hand under the covers and felt in my armpits and around my crotch. The experience was considerably less pleasant than I would have hoped. I cried out in pain.

  “You have much swelling of your glands. Are you experiencing discomfort in your back?”

  “Hell, yes.” I felt like I had been run over by a truck.