Banging the Monkey

by Tod A

  The glow of distant lights drew me forward. My crutch sank into the sand every other step. Finally leaving the beach behind, I threaded the spider web of gangs that led toward the center of town. Groups on foot waded through the streams of motorbikes flowing into the heart of the festival.

  The main street was a confusion of sounds and lights, the air thick with incense and roasting pig. I spotted Cooney across the street, buying cigarettes and beer from a little girl. He saw me coming, and turned away.

  “Cooney!”

  “If it ain’t the bad fucking penny.” He kept his back turned as he lit a smoke.

  “Cooney, we need to talk.”

  “Who’s we, white man?” He started to walk away.

  “Wait a second, would you? Just look at me.” I gestured pathetically toward my crutch and swollen ankle.

  A gang of teenagers danced past, Madunese rap blasting from their boom-box.

  “To be honest, Cowboy, I can’t summon much sympathy for you or your fat foot neither. Forgive me if I don’t feel much like chatting at the moment.”

  A rumble of drums announced that the Rakasa were coming. The crowd pressed forward, craning their necks to get a look.

  “Look, man, I feel awful. It wasn’t you they were after. It was Frank. Or maybe it was me. Fuck, I don’t even know anymore. But I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” He turned to glare at me. “Your sorry ain’t worth wiping my arse on. You should have split with that kraut bastard months ago. I fucking warned you about him. But nobody listens to crazy old Cooney, do they?”

  He pushed back into the crowd.

  I pressed after him, but old women sat blocking the sidewalk. Boys lobbed bricks of firecrackers, as teenagers on motorbikes weaved recklessly through the crowd. The streets reverberated with the clash of gongs, the thrum of bamboo xylophones, the throb of drums.

  “You warned me,” I shouted after him. “And you were right. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. I was green, fresh off the boat, like you said.”

  He stopped and turned to face me. Greasy smoke gyred up behind him from a pig carcass sizzling on a metal prong. Rockets whistled into the air, exploding above our heads.

  “Yeah, well, you bloody Yanks never do listen, do you? Presidents, punters, you’re all the freaking same. You come galloping in and stick your prick into things you know fuck-all about and never fail to make a great bollocks of it all. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, the whole bloody lot of you.”

  He took big slug from the jug, and one from his beer, then shoved his way through the line of spectators to the opposite side of the road. Streetlights flickered down upon upturned faces as scattered raindrops began to fall.

  I tried to follow him, but was cut off by the first of the Rakasa. Teams of half-naked men thrust and swung the demons on bamboo frames, making them swoop and lunge. An announcer broadcast non-stop chatter and crazy laughter through a scratchy PA, raising shrieks and cheers from the crowd. I struggled to keep up with Cooney. I was nearly trampled by a horde of men shouldering a winged blue macaque with glaring eyes and bloody fangs.

  “I’ll make it up to you, I promise!”

  “You ain’t got a bloody pot to piss in. And me too neither.” He took another big swallow of the murky liquid with a beer chaser. “Now if you don’t mind I’ve got a lot of forgetting to do. So kindly bugger off and leave me to it.”

  He tried to leave but the crowd had us pressed us back against a wall. The parade was in full swing. Demons loomed above: unearthly, ferocious. A crimson warrior rode a cobalt boar with flaming nostrils. An Amazon with jutting teats and fiery hair brandished a bejeweled kris. A monster on a motorbike flung throwing stars. The streets rang with the clatter and clang of fifty demented marching bands, each in contest with the other. The racket was ear-flattening. The players stomped and shook, their faces slathered in colored paint, each goading the other on.

  “Cooney, Cooney, remember when we first met? You said when the shit hit the fan, the Titanic II was your back-up plan.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Look up! You see that mountain? Does it look happy to you? The shit is seriously hitting the fan.”

  “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”

  “Just promise me, if you go, you’ll take me with you.”

  “No promises,” he said. “Too easy to break. You can do what the fuck you like but Uncle Cooney has had a rough day and now he’s on a mission. Take no prisoners. Search and destroy.”

  An angry Christ hurled a thunderbolt that sparkled like a disco ball. Just behind Jesus, a vampire-toothed Santa Claus thrashed a demonic reindeer with a studded leather whip. Cooney laughed like a man unhinged.

  “Happy Christmas, you fuckers! The Titanic sails at dawn!”

  I raised my face to the sky, letting the drizzle cool my brow. My solace was short-lived.

  I heard screams and the crack of a gunshot. A man was reeling in the street, waving a pistol. For a moment I thought it might be Cooney. But it was some other lunatic. Within seconds, two cops leapt from the crowd and tackled him, knocking the gun from his hand and sending it skittering across the tarmac. They beat him with lathis right there in the road, as the crowd watched. Justice here was questionable, and retribution fierce. It was over as swiftly as it had begun, and people returned to their revel.

  I looked around for Cooney, but he had already disappeared into the loving embrace of another bender.

  The chaos of Galung Gong rose up to envelop me. The energy of the festival seemed to feed off itself, building like an electric charge. People poured in from the gangs, spilling into the streets. Small boys ducked between my legs. Girls twisted and twirled in their saris. Drunks zig-zagged around me. Old men waved bottles of arak from rooftops and balconies. Strands of bulbs swung crazily in the monsoon gusts, casting the crowd in the weird light of a carnival sideshow.

  I had been broke before, and I had been alone, but being broke and alone in a strange land full of strangers was the most alone and broken feeling of all. In the midst of this heaving multitude, I felt a depth of isolation I had never known. I longed to find Wulan, if only to thank her for her kindness.

  “Mark!”

  I knew that voice and was happy to hear it. “Raj! What the fuck are you doing here? You should have stayed in Singy.”

  “And miss all this?” He gave me a hearty hug. “I am glad to find you once again a free man.”

  The street reverberated with the rat-a-tat of crackers, the crack of cherry bombs.

  “Say what? I can’t hear a fucking thing.”

  “Let’s get out of this hubbub,” he shouted.

  We escaped into a small gang as the parade thundered past.

  “What has happened to your foot?”

  “I tripped. I’ll be fine.”

  “I hope so. These latest developments have got me concerned.”

  “Tell me about it. Somebody tried to torch Frank’s place today. I put out the fire, but they wound up burning down the saloon.”

  “What did you say?” he shouted.

  I had to wait while another demon and its horde of drummers passed.

  “The bar. Cooney’s place. Burned to the ground. Finito.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I wish I was.”

  “Unconscionable.”

  “Cooney didn’t take it well. He’s off on a balls-out bender.”

  “We need to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Yeah, or get the fuck out of here,” I said. “This whole scene is getting too weird for me. Have you looked at the sky recently?”

  Kebakaran glowered from the distance, scarlet steam rising from her cone. The mountain had begun to come alive. There were real demons afoot.

  “Raj, are you hearing me? I really think we should get out while the getti
ng is good.”

  “I can’t do that, Mark. I’m on assignment for the Post.”

  “What?” I laughed. “You want to die for the Madu Post?”

  “Jakarta Post.”

  “What’s the fucking difference? Look, if you want to be some kind of hero, go ahead. But Cooney’s shoving off from the harbor at dawn—that’s if he remembers anything from tonight,” I said. “But just in case he does, you might want to be on board.”

  “I believe I’ll stick around and see what happens.”

  “You’ve got it backwards, man,” I said. “I’m the idiot that does the crazy shit. You’re the responsible one.”

  “There is such a thing as journalistic responsibility.”

  “And journalistic stupidity.”

  “Perhaps. By the way, I finished reading your manuscript,” he said, handing it to me. “It’s really very good.”

  A brace of rockets screamed and popped above us. Another phalanx of drummers approached, pumping out booming bass.

  “You want to discuss this now?”

  “Lacks a definitive ending,” he continued. “Is it tragedy or comedy? I was left uncertain.”

  A gaggle of nubile girls were giggling and pointing at the passing effigy of an ex-pat: a fat pink devil with a lurid grin and a jutting prick. On the surface it was all fun and games. But the crowd’s exuberance couldn’t quite mask the rising undercurrent of tension.

  “Right now, what’s the difference?”

  “There is a huge difference. But which do you want it to be? That is the overriding question.”

  I coughed. Smoke from the fireworks was making it tough to breathe.

  “I don’t know, man. I’m not certain of anything anymore.”

  “Well, clearly he is you,” he said. “So I guess it’s simply a question of how you envision your life.”

  Big gongs rung long and low like peals of thunder.

  “What did you say? He who?”

  “I said it’s obvious that the protagonist of your story is really you,” he shouted over the din. “His tragedy is your 9/11. His loss of family is your divorce. His imaginary friend is your love of alcohol.”

  A thousand tiny hand-cymbals splashed like rain.

  “Mark, my friend, didn’t you realize you were writing about yourself?”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t.”

  “The only question outstanding is: how does it end?”

  I had no answer.

  But as we parted, suddenly I knew what I had to do.

  { 16 }

  Shit Hits Fan

  The rain came spilling down. Cold drops stung my skin and spattered on the road. I staggered through huge puddles as gutter spouts gushed over my feet. Soon the drains were backing up. The gangs became streams, and the streets turned into rivers.

  I had to get to the warehouse, but I only knew the main roads: Kang-Kang was another puzzle I had yet to solve.

  The throng had grown thick and rowdy. There was barely room to move. People swayed back and forth as the demons whirled wildly above their heads. I pushed through the crowd, jabbing with my crutch. Lightning pulsed above the mountain: electric snakes writhing in jets of dark vapor.

  Somebody shoved me off the main street into a tiny gang.

  I faced a small Madunese woman in peasant’s dress and paddy hat.

  In a lighting flash I saw that it was not a woman.

  “Come, Mr Mark,” Sanjaya said.

  Before I could speak he turned and took off down the gang. I loped after him, lagging several paces behind. Sanjaya led me through a labyrinth of dark narrow passages, past dimly-lit dwellings filled with shadowy figures. The noise of the festival diminished, muted behind the hiss of drizzle and the barking of dogs.

  Finally Sanjaya stopped at a metal door set in a concrete wall.

  He looked around and, seeing we were alone, he unlocked the door and pulled me inside, locking it behind him. At first all was black, but after a minute I realized that we were in the rear of the Naga warehouse.

  Sanjaya pointed upstairs. A thin beam of light spilled from the office door onto the catwalk.

  I climbed toward the glow.

  There he was, sitting at his desk.

  “Hello, Mark.” He looked grizzled and dazed—a decade older than the man I had met on that frigid New York balcony three months earlier. “I was wondering when you would turn up.”

  “Wondering when I would turn up?” I said, my voice quavering. “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “That’s a long, long story. And I’m afraid we don’t have much time. She knows I’m here.”

  “Kala?”

  “Yes.”

  “She just tried to burn down your fucking house. She wound up torching my friend’s bar.”

  “They’re angry with me, Mark. I told them no. You don’t tell them no.”

  “The Ah Kong.”

  “You don’t refuse them. You can’t refuse them.”

  “What did you refuse them?”

  “They don’t want you. They want me. Want me to … cooperate. They don’t want you.”

  “That makes me feel so much better.”

  “But I’m done cooperating. In fact, I’ve become downright difficult,” he giggled. “I’m sorry about Neraka. I really am. It simply couldn’t be avoided.”

  “Yeah, not unless you’d gone to jail yourself,” I said. “So I was the patsy, is that it?”

  “No,” he said. He picked up a framed photo from his desk. “No.”

  “So what was it? Mick’s big mouth bad for business?”

  He said nothing, lost in the photograph.

  “Why did you do it, Frank?” I pressed on. “Was it over Nung? Or were you trying to disappear?”

  Still, he said nothing.

  “And why was he wearing your clothes, your watch?”

  A distant roar came from the crowd. It seemed to snap him from his daze.

  “I don’t blame Mick. I guess he took what he felt he was owed,” he said. “But I didn’t kill him. Mick was just another warning.”

  “That’s some fucking warning.” I still didn’t know whether to believe him. “A warning of what?”

  “Yow thought he had me wrapped around his finger. He kept pushing me—pushing me to do things—things I couldn’t abide.”

  “What, the stolen sculptures?”

  “Ha! Re-selling a few imaginary gods?” he laughed. “Why should I be bothered by that?”

  “Well, what, then?”

  He gazed long and hard at the photograph, and then turned it to face me.

  “Kristian. My youngest. He was going to be a writer. Like you.”

  I still didn’t get it.

  “He was gifted with words, so everyone said. Published at seventeen. Awards, scholarships. He was well on his way. But he lost his footing. He would have been twenty-seven this month. It was heroin that seduced my Kristian. Heroin took away my son.”

  A volley of rockets exploded not far away.

  “When Yow wanted me to start stashing drugs among my shipments, this I could not stand. In a godless universe—in a world without morals—man must make his own laws. I drew a line in the sand.”

  “Oh, you break my heart, Frank, you really do. The criminal with a conscience. Is that supposed to make everything okay?”

  “I tried to hide.” He laughed bitterly. “But you can’t hide from them. One day they will find you. She’s already on her way. I can smell her.”

  A low tremor shook the building, rattling the corrugated steel roof.

  “What’s to stop them from warning you again—by killing me?”

  “There will be no more warnings,” he said. “I’ve stopped running.”

  “You’re going to cooperate?”

  H
e reached into a drawer. I figured this was it: he was going to shoot me and be done with it. The rain on the roof rattled like a snare drum roll.

  “I need a favor, Mark.” He pulled out a leather pouch.

  I laughed. After all the shit I’d been through, he wanted a favor.

  “150,000 euros.” He tossed it across the desk. “Take what I owe you, and deliver the rest to my daughter in Jakarta.”

  I opened the pouch and looked inside. It was stuffed with bricks of five-hundred-euro notes. There was a scrap of paper with a name and address.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll take what I’m owed.” I took out a thousand euros and threw the bag back on the desk. “Take the rest to your daughter yourself.”

  “I won’t be leaving the island.”

  A door clanged downstairs.

  “Why? What are you going to do?” I asked.

  There was a cry, and the sound of wood clattering on concrete.

  Calmly, he got up and placed the pouch in my hands. “You will do it. Won’t you, Mark.” It wasn’t a question.

  “How do you know I won’t take the whole one-fifty?”

  “I don’t.” He passed me and went out onto the catwalk. “But what choice do I have?”

  From the doorway I could see Sanjaya at the bottom of the stairs. He lay, slumped against a towering statue of Malang, mouthing words I could not hear. A torrent of red flowed from the cataract in his neck.

  I felt sick. I’d never watched a man die before.

  Frank looked dazed. “Couldn’t be helped,” he mumbled. “Couldn’t be helped.”

  I heard the jangle of ankle bells on the steps.

  “Frank, Frank, Frank,” a voice echoed in the darkness. “I looking absolutely everywhere! Where you been hiding?”

  Like a Hollywood star stepping onto on a red carpet, Kala revealed herself at the top of the stairs.

  “I’ve been waiting,” Frank said.

  They faced each other from opposite ends of the catwalk.

  “You been a very naughty boy, Frank. Everybody so disappointed.”

  She sashayed toward him, the kris in her hand leaving a trail of blood-drips on the planks.

  “Why you so ungrateful, Frank? Mr Yow been very good to you. He make you a rich man. Now you like to walk away? You don’t just walk away.”