The Higher the Monkey Climbs

by Bruce Geddes

  Then, unable to sleep, I turned on the television and watched Survivorman Les Stroud pass an entire day (his traps yielding no fish, his shelter inappropriate against the surprisingly chilly nights) wondering aloud if he would make it through his week in an alligator-infested Georgian swamp. Dinner for the Survivorman that night was a measly frog, cooked on a rudely carved spit over an open flame. The next day’s labour was wasted when the log raft he had constructed proved unstable.

  Night fell, the program cut to commercial, and I felt sleep coming on. I closed my eyes and listened to convincing voices in the television and realized two things:

  One, that I was glad that Sagipa hadn’t been able to track down Marty Schuller.

  Two, that I had forgotten to ask to speak to Inés.

  The alarm buzzed at 5AM, waking me from a shallow sleep. Instead of getting up, I spent the next few hours spinning the dial from one local station to the next, listening to repeated run downs of Wanstead news—reports from last night’s city council meeting, the winning poem in a creative writing contest (8 years old and under), a story from the food bank, its director claiming the busiest spring he’d ever seen. By the time each story was over, I had forgotten how it began. At 10, I called Lydia at the office.

  “Another bout with the flu?” she asked.

  “I’m stuck in Wanstead. Car trouble. Damn rentals.”

  I showered and checked out and sat in the driver’s seat of the Focus, adjusting all three mirrors, getting the heating just right. By now, if I ignored what Pat had told me at the convenience store, I could convince myself that the notion of Al Forzante having something to do with my father’s death was nothing more than a product of Tony’s bitter imagining. A small part of me admired Tony’s ambition. Or maybe it was naïveté, thinking he could satisfy his need for revenge by toppling Al Forzante. But mostly, as I tried again to remind myself that there was nothing to anything Tony had said, I was relieved that I would have no further need to pursue the matter, to ask any more questions whose answers I did not want to hear.

  Which doesn’t at all explain why I turned the Focus around and drove back down to Tony’s house.

  When I arrived, instead of talking about my father’s attempt to overthrow Al Forzante, I first had to ask Tony about his right arm, which was wrapped in a white cast up to the elbow.

  “I broke my hand.”

  “How?”

  “Punching a wall.”

  He wore a short-sleeved, knit baseball shirt, the numbers fading, his gut stretching the thinning fabric.

  “What were you doing punching a wall?”

  “It would have been okay, but I hit it right where the stud was, so . . .”

  “But why were you hitting a wall in the first place?”

  “What’s funny about that is that I don’t even remember now.”

  We sat at the kitchen table.

  “The worst thing is that they make the casts out of fiberglass now, so you can’t even sign it. You can’t write on fiberglass at all. The pen doesn’t work on it.”

  I picked up a fork and began to jab it lightly into the thin crack where the table separated to accomodate more people. Tony scratched at the edges of his cast.

  “Hey, I saw Drew yesterday,” I began.

  “You saw Drew? You came down to see her? You were at her house?”

  “Anything wrong with that?”

  “What did you see her for?”

  “I figured I might as well visit. She was my friend, remember.”

  “No. That’s not how I remember it at all.”

  “Anyway, I paid her a quick visit, that’s all. I met her husband. He’s a bit of a tool.”

  “From what I hear she steps out on him,” Tony said.

  “Is that right?” I said.

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “By what? Nothing.”

  “She’s the mother of my son.”

  “I know. I wasn’t thinking anything.”

  “Jesus, Tricky. I need to know you’re on my side here.”

  “I am. I am on your side,” I said, and then, “You think Gus knows?”

  “Maybe. Who knows. People do what they do, right?”

  I put down the fork and folded my fingers into each other. “She told me that you lost your job at Krulls under some strange circumstances.”

  “What would she know about that?”

  “I guess word gets around. It’s a small town.”

  “What would you know about that?”

  “She said you held a work stoppage. All by yourself.”

  “That’s about right,” Tony said. “What an ignorant twat I am, I forgot to get you something to drink. Special Old, okay? I have cream soda or Pop Shoppe lime for mix.”

  “Just the lime. Lots of ice, please,” I said. “So what happened at Krulls?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.”

  He picked up the telephone and began to dial. “Hang on,” he said, “I was just going to make a call.”

  “I thought we were talking here. Can’t it wait? What happened at Krulls? What did you do?”

  “Later. I have to make this call or I’ll fall behind. I’m being disciplined about this. Self-discipline is the engine of personal success, you know. There’s a cordless in the living room there, if you want to listen in.”

  I went to retrieve the phone. “What happened at Krulls?” I repeated, now back in the kitchen.

  Tony raised a hand, demanding silence. I held the receiver to my ear and listened. Tony danced through a phone tree, all of the options memorized, the keys pressed before the instructions could be completed. Finally, a man with an Indian accent identified himself as a customer service representative at Bell Canada. He asked Tony how he could be of service.

  “I’m having problems with my internet,” Tony said.

  “I apologize for your difficulties, sir. Could you please provide the number you are calling from?”

  “254-7351.”

  “Okay, sir. I’m just going to locate your account.”

  With the man on the other end punching keys, I held my hand over the speaker. “Where’s the computer?” I asked.

  But before Tony could explain, the rep was on the line again. “I’m not showing an account attached to that number, sir. Could you please repeat it?”

  “945-4543.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “We have no account under that number,” the rep said.

  “Are you sure?” Tony said.

  “Did you say 945-4543?”

  “That’s right. 258-7130.”

  Silence.

  “Hello?”

  “Which number, sir? You gave me different numbers.”

  “Is there something wrong?”

  “Do you have your account number, sir?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, but this is actually for identification purposes.”

  “So you can check who I am?”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “I like that. That’s a good idea. Fire away.”

  The rep ran through the usual list of questions, his address, his date of birth, and so on. “Now how may I be of service today, sir?”

  “Wait. I think I better verify your identity first.”

  “I’m sorry, sir?”

  “I have some questions of my own. How about your name, for starters.”

  “My name is Santanu.”

  “Okay Santanu, what about your phone number?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Let’s have it. Your phone number.”

  “Sir, I am not—”

  “Hang on. I want to write it down. Let me get a pen.
”

  Tony held the phone in his hand and twisted his wrist to look at his watch. Less than ten minutes had passed. Amused, puzzled, I pressed my shoulders to my ears and held out an open palm for an explanation.

  Tony spoke quietly, his face serious, anger brewing. “I was a loyal customer for fifteen years,” he said. “And one thing after another all I got was shitty service. My phone was down. You know how long it took for them to fix it? A damn month. I’m late with one bill. Two days. I pay it but they send it to a collection agency anyways. They harass me for three months. It takes me dozens of calls.” Tony glanced at his watch again and held the phone to his ear.

  “Okay, I’m back. Give it to me. Better start with the country code.”

  “As I was trying to explain, sir—”

  “Whoops. This pen doesn’t work. Dammit! I just bought it a month ago and already it’s out of ink. Hang on, would you?”

  His phony joviality disappeared again. And then, to me, in that same quiet, angry tone, he continued. “The internet goes down. No explanation. A software problem. A hardware problem. Never their problem. All of this for what, sixty, seventy bucks a month? Fifteen fucking years.”

  He returned to the rep, forcing brightness back into his voice. “Okay, Santanu, pal. Now, I have a pencil. Where are you anyway, India?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s it like now? It must be hot, right? I bet it is really hot there now.”

  “Sir, I’m really just here to help you fix the problem with your internet connection.”

  “I told you my problem. The internet doesn’t work.”

  “I’d be pleased to help you with that, sir.”

  “Great. Because I’ve got a lot to do.”

  “Could you tell me what operating system you are using?”

  “How the hell would I know?”

  “If you look in the bottom left hand corner and click on the Windows icon . . .”

  “All I have is a blank screen.”

  “Is your computer turned on, sir?”

  “Mmm. I don’t think so.”

  “You need to turn the computer on, sir.”

  “Oh! That makes a lot of sense. Hang on. Should I plug it in first?”

  Tony put the phone down, drank from his Special Old and lime soda, and started chewing on a plastic straw. “So when you add it all up,” he said to me, “I figured I paid these assholes something like nine thousand dollars of my money and got nothing but shit service. Every time something went wrong, I asked for a rebate for time and trouble. It never came. When my phone was down that month, you know what I got? A five-dollar gift certificate for Tim Horton’s.”

  “But this isn’t going to get you anywhere,” I said. “Why are you calling the help desk?”

  “You don’t get it. Listen. All the time the service was down, all the time I spent trying to get some rep to do something about it, I figure it adds up to maybe 100 hours. Give or take.”

  “Sure. So what?”

  “I figure my time is worth $35 an hour. That’s what I was getting at Krulls in those days, anyway. So that’s $3,500. I brought it down to $3,000 and sent them a bill.”

  “And?”

  “More timbits. He removed his hand from the telephone receiver. His eyes were keen, focused.”

  “Santanu? It’s not starting. Should I try again?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, they’re not going to give me the money, so here’s what I’m doing about it: I’m calling the customer service reps and wasting their time. It’s my revenge. It’s the only honourable thing to do. Otherwise, I let them take advantage of me. Tony passed a small black phone book across the table, showing pages of dates and time spent on calls to Bell’s Help Line. “Back when they were in Canada, I figured the reps were making the same as me. One hundred hours makes for one call a week for two years. But then they moved the techs to India where they’re making what? Four bucks an hour at the most? When you add it up, I now have seven hundred calls to make. I’m going along at a pretty good clip, but I have to keep the discipline.”

  16

  After he hung up, I tried to indulge my cousin with a knowing chuckle, expecting his mood to be light. But Tony, his face flushed and tight, his fists clenched, his sharp, seething stare fixed on some blurry spot on the kitchen table, had taken no pleasure from the call.

  “I hate those bastards,” he said.

  No shit.

  “What were we talking about?” he asked.

  For a moment, I didn’t know the answer to the question. And then, I remembered. “The reason you left Krulls.”

  “What about it?” Tony leaned his face into his one good hand, pushing folds of cheek skin into his eye.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s not important. Pass me your glass.”

  “It might be important.”

  Tony fixed another pair of drinks, leaned back in his chair and reached for a fresh straw.

  “You pretty much know everything. I just stopped working one day.”

  “I’d like to hear your side of the story.”

  We were silent. Tony passed a hand through his thinning hair. He might have forgotten I was even there. “I need a smoke,” he said quietly. He rose from the kitchen table and pushed through the screen door to go outside. I followed.

  On the back deck of his mother’s house, Tony wedged a cigarette between two nubs of finger poking from his cast and lit it. He spat thickly onto the grass. The back lawn was still matted from winter and showed brown in patches. Rotting leaves banked against the chain links. It smelled soggy, of upturned mud.

  “Sounds like you were protesting?”

  “Yup.” Tony peeled at a chip of paint on the railing, revealing fresh, tawny wood next to exposed bits of grey. “That’s exactly it.”

  In a steady voice, Tony related the story of Wally Del Col, a fellow Krulls employee, a 27-year veteran of Plant A. His years of service meant that Wally had one of the cushiest line jobs, inspecting the way the robots applied the silicon sealer along the joint where the car’s roof attaches to the body. But then Plant A was retooled and the company brought in a computer-guided laser, an artificial eye that was able to make the inspection without having to slow the line for Wally to have his look. It saved them two-and-a-half seconds per vehicle, Tony said. With three month’s severance and a 60 percent pension, they let Wally go. When Tony told me this, I was surprised.

  “Don’t they normally find another job for a guy when that happens?”

  “That’s what they always used to do, but like I’ve been telling you, things have been changing.”

  “And the UCF didn’t grieve it?”

  “They should have. But when I talked to the steward he said there’d be no grieving anything. They were in the middle of negotiating the next contract and Krulls was the target that year. They weren’t going to do shit for Wally. I’ll tell you something, if your dad was alive, Wally Del Col would have worked at Krull Motors as long as he wanted. But Forzante? Forget it. That man stopped giving a shit a long time ago.” Tony held out the bottle of Special Old.

  “Have some,” he said. “It’s no good tomorrow.”

  I held out my glass and thought back to my father and Marty Schuller and about the messy business that might have been. “Gord was always pragmatic.”

  “He knew what was right.”

  “He saw forests, not trees.”

  “He knew which side he was on.”

  For a moment I wondered if we were talking about the same man. It’s not that Tony was wrong. Everything he said about Gord was right. It’s just that, at that very moment, I needed to be more right.

  “He knew that it was never that easy,” I said.

  “It was easy. That’s why I stopped working. You have to take a stand.”

&nbs
p; “It cost you a good job.” A great job. For a guy like Tony, who never finished high school, there was nothing better. By the time he started, successive UCF victories at the bargaining table meant that the company paid a regular line guy better than anywhere, more than teachers or nurses, more than cops even.

  Vengeance-minded Tony claimed he didn’t care. “It cost them more. A couple hundred thousand at least. Even when you compare that with a few months of me being unemployed, I came out on top.” He spit again and took a long drag from his cigarette. “You know what, Tricky? It might have only been sixteen hours in total, but you ask anyone: For those two days, in the whole of Krull Motors worldwide operations, I was the most powerful guy anywhere. Every executive, every engineer, every foreman, they were answerable to me.”

  He tasted his whiskey.

  “That felt pretty good, for a change.”

  He crushed the end of his cigarette against the railing, drawing a carrot shape with the smeared ash, letting the delicious memory linger.

  Then he said, “The only thing that went wrong is that I thought they’d re-hire me after things settled down. I always figured they would, but they didn’t, so . . .”

  He used the railing to pull himself to his feet and walked heavily towards the garage. Facing the wall, his feet spread shoulder width, he unzipped and pissed, painting an apron of wet on the cinderblocks. With his back to me, I dumped the remainder of my drink into the wet earth beside the porch.

  “Is that why you’ve got this thing against Forzante? Because he didn’t let you back into Krulls?”

  Tony looked at me, surprised, maybe a little hurt.

  “This ‘thing’? Is that what you’re calling murder?”

  “There was no murder.”

  “I thought that’s why you were here. I thought you were ready to listen.”

  In another yard, I watched a squirrel jump from one branch to another and scramble to the stability of the trunk.

  “Let me ask you this,” I said. “This power struggle. How do you know about it?”