The Ape Man's Brother

by Joe R. Lansdale

  I don’t remember much after that.

  [15]

  I never knew when we hit. Or at least I don’t remember it. Perhaps it was the impact that knocked that part of my memory away.

  When I awoke the wheelhouse was wadded up around me as if I was a chocolate in tissue paper. The zeppelin had landed on its top; it had stayed completely turned over. I was close to one of the windshields, which had lost all its glass, and managed my way through it, receiving only minor cuts. I got hold of one of the support ropes that contained the gas bag, worked my way briskly to the ground. The leather-winged monster, or at least part of him, was poking out from under the gas bag, dead. I could hear helium leaking from the zeppelin like a slow fart from a grandma. We had been low enough to the ground, that with the zeppelin turning over, the gas bag itself had cushioned our fall. It was still a hell of a drop.

  No sooner was I on the ground than it occurred to me that I had left The Big Guy and The Woman in the wheelhouse, or what was left of it. I was about to climb back, when I heard The Woman call out to me. Just hearing her caused a sudden rush of memories to flood through me; our picnics, our talks, sitting on the hotel balcony with a glass of wine or a cup of coffee, screwing like mongooses.

  I turned and saw her kneeling over The Big Guy. They had been thrown free of the crash. Bowen Tyler was nearby, sitting up, looking dazed, a hand to his bleeding head. I hurried over to The Woman and The Big Guy. The Big Guy wasn’t moving. I pushed her aside and put my head to his chest, peeled back an eye lid and looked at his eye.

  “He’s still alive,” I said. “I’ll see if I can find some first aid.”

  Most everything that had been in the cabins and the storage rooms was scattered about on the ground. I scurried amongst it all, running on all fours as I did in the old days, and quickly came across the small trunk that contained our medical supplies. I dragged it over to where The Big Guy lay. I tore the locked lid off as easy as you might rip the top off a box of cereal. I still had my strength.

  To make a long story short, I bandaged him up. The bullet had hit him in the stomach, and there isn’t a much worse wound, normally, but with the bullet having gone through him, and by some miracle not having destroyed anything major, and with him having such incredible recuperative powers… Well, let me make this story even shorter. He was going to live.

  Our first order of business was we buried Dr. Rice and all the others who had died on the zeppelin; that was everyone but those I’ve mentioned. I dragged what was left of Red off a good distance from us and each day I would watch the huge buzzards of our world descend on him and finish off what was left of him. I stopped there nightly where he was rotting and being eaten away to piss on his corpse. I never did find his head.

  We ended up staying near the wreckage of the zeppelin for a couple of days. We had found and broken out the firearms for safety. Bowen, like The Woman, had only minor injuries. We stayed there a couple of days, and all manner of beasts showed up, as I knew they would. With our weapons, and having built a large fire, we were able to keep them at bay, as well as provide ourselves with breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  Better yet, I knew where we were. It was about a three day walk from where my people congregated. We made a litter, put The Big Guy on it, and started out. It took about five days. It was slower than three days with me and Bowen having to carry The Big Guy, who was no feather, let me tell you. We also had to stop and change bandages. Those ran out after day two, but there were plenty of large leaves, some of which could soak up blood as fine as cotton. I had also sewn his belly shut with a large thorn and some fibers from a plant I knew made good stout thread. Anyway, we took five days to reach my country, across the savanna and deep into the jungle.

  I began to see our people before we arrived at my old homeland. They were up in the trees, hiding carefully at the edge of the narrow trail, watching. I actually recognized one of them, and in my own language, said, “Hey, picking many fleas?”

  It’s a kind of a greeting we have.

  My old friend came out of the brush then, a little nervous. He said my name. I agreed that it was indeed me. He recognized The Big Guy, and though The Big Guy may have fallen into our midst, he was considered one of us. More of my people melted out of the jungle and onto the trail. Bowen looked nervous, but I reassured him.

  That’s how we came to spend about six months among my people. The Big Guy healed up quickly. Within what I estimate to be about six weeks he was fine. We even went hunting together like in the old days, and though I had lost the taste for our hairy females, what the hell, I humped a few of them; it seemed the least I could do so that no one might think I had gotten too high above my raising.

  The Woman, who I thought might find this a pretty uncomfortable world once she was introduced to it with the idea of staying, fooled me. She took to it like a cow to grass. Like The Big Guy, she had abandoned her clothes, and had gone native. I got to tell you, she looked fine like that, brown-skinned and sweat-glazed, her hair standing out from her head like an electrified halo.

  She and The Big Guy even built a home. A tree house. Constructed between two massive trees with spreading limbs and great overhead foliage so thick it could hold off a pretty serious rain. Not that it mattered. The Big Guy put a thatched roof on their house, and those digs were quite large for being built so quickly; four big rooms and a veranda that ran all the way around. The Big Guy even rigged up some kind of device that held rain water and could be tapped into for drinking, and bathing if they chose, though most of their bathing they did in the nearby rivers, streams or ponds. His time in the civilized world had made more of an impact on him that I expected, and his ability to construct that house out of native materials surprised me. When we had lived here in the past, a crook in a tree was good enough for us, but now, with The Woman, he wanted to give her the best of both worlds. I think another thing that made it easier for her was that she didn’t really have any family to go home to. Her father, Dr. Rice was the end of it. Her mother had died when she was a child. Dr. Rice had raised her. I think she liked the idea of being near his grave.

  As I have said, I had grown to like civilization, and missed it. Bowen was ready to go home as well. So on a cool night with all of us up in the tree house, drinking wine we had gone back and rescued from the zeppelin crash (surprisingly most of the bottles had survived), I said what I had dreaded to say. Me and Bowen were going home.

  The zeppelin was beyond repair, but the biplanes, both of them, were in fine shape. We would have to release them from the zeppelin and turn them over on their wheels, but I thought with the help of a lot of my people, that could be done. A plane couldn’t carry us all the way back to America, but Bowen had charted out the possibility of Greenland, the place The Big Guy’s folks had flown from. It was a close possibility, and he wasn’t sure we could make it, but since there were a couple of intact cans of gas along with the planes’ filled reservoir, and me being quite nimble and able to gas it up in flight by means of a can and hose and good strong rope, we thought there was a good chance we could manage it that far. I reminded Bowen that The Big Guy’s parents had made it from Greenland to here, and that gave me hope. He reminded me the wind patterns were different, and we would be pushing against the wind in spots. Still, we missed home bad enough we were willing to give it a try.

  The Big Guy cried. I mean he cried, just let loose with a howl and started leaking tears. He clutched me to him, and damn near broke me. He begged me to stay, but I was stalwart in my plans, and told him so. The Woman cried and hugged me to her naked body as well. I clung to her as long as I could without getting an erection. I thought, considering past events, that would be bad form. Another thing, I couldn’t stay close to her for much longer because the old feelings still existed, and I didn’t want anything to fan that little blaze into a fire.

  Bowen shook hands with them, went on down. I stayed for one last drink of wine. I should add that I was drinking and The Woman was drinking, but The Bi
g Guy was not. He had sworn off the stuff forever, in any shape or form. He drank a kind of coffee made from jungle nuts. It was pretty awful, and hard to get used to. It tasted to me as if it were goat shit boiled in sewer water, but he had a hankering for it and drank it by the cups.

  When we had our drinks, I said, “You know, there’s something I feel I must tell you.” I told them about the serum, and that The Big Guy had, at least according to Dr. Rice, received it when he was a child, that it gave him everlasting life, and that he might remain as he was forever, provided he wasn’t killed or got some kind of disease. I explained this as best I could, and The Big Guy sat there mulling it over. The Woman let out her breath and jerked a hand to her mouth. “He won’t age. And I will?”

  I nodded.

  She buried her face in her hands.

  I said, “I think there might be a way where you can both continue to be as you are now.”

  The Woman peeked through her fingers. “Really?”

  “Maybe.”

  I had brought a little box with me that night, along with the wine, and now I opened it. Inside were items from the medical supplies. Hypodermic needles and big glass syringes.

  I put a needle in a syringe. I said, “If I can draw some of The Big Guy’s blood, and then put that blood in you, it may serve as a serum for you as well. I can’t guarantee it, but we can try. It’s one of your father’s theories.”

  “He told you all of this,” she said.

  “He did. Me and him, we got along well.”

  “I knew you did,” she said, “but this… It’s amazing.”

  “I can’t guarantee it will work,” I said. “But I thought we should try.”

  “Oh, my heavens,” The Woman said. “We must. The idea of growing old, and losing him… I can’t face it.”

  “Your age doesn’t matter,” said The Big Guy, which was spoken like someone who had never fucked an old lady. I am not suggesting that I have… Oh, hell. A few times, at fundraisers for charities back in the States.

  “You should inject yourself as well,” said The Woman to me.

  “I can try,” I said, but Dr. Rice and I had discussed this, and it was possible that I was a different enough species it might not take. I didn’t mention that to them, but as you can tell, sitting here with me, my fur as gray as cigar ash, it didn’t work.

  I drew The Big Guy’s blood into the needle, gave a shot of it to The Woman, in the rump, which was a pleasant experience for me, if not her. When it was done, I put the medical tools away, hugged them both, and climbed down to sleep until the break of light. That was when Bowen and I would start our trip to Greenland, and then home. Or we would crash in the ocean when our fuel ran out. I was, of course, hoping for the former.

  [16]

  We didn’t make it to Greenland. We crashed in the ocean, and damned if the plane didn’t float for a full day and night, and only began to sink the next day. By then we had spotted a steamer and it had spotted us. We were rescued by the crew, and as the ship was on its way to New York City, we were saved.

  So, now, here I am, in my modest apartment, quite aged, having never gone back to my lost world. For the most part, my money is gone, except for a little old age pension, which, of course, is why I have to charge you for the pleasure or my company. And need I mention that I prefer cash, not a check?

  Bowen died some fifteen years ago of a heart attack. Dr. Rice is now a figure of ridicule, as am I and The Big Guy. Who we were, what we did, and where we came from, has been poorly remembered, taken out of context, or forgotten. What is remembered has been mixed with lies. People these days believe more than ever that our story is nothing more than a swindle.

  The entire world from which we came, all that happened to us, is now thought to have been a big fat lie, that I am a man with a strange, hairy condition, and nothing more. Finally that lion screwing event has become even better known, and with the crassness that has become the Americas, it is now shown at a number of venues, and presented frame by frame in numerous magazines. It has robbed The Big Guy of what reputation he once had, and with the money mostly played out from our films, both our reputations have taken a greater hit. Money keeps the paint fresh. When it plays out, the paint begins to peel.

  It’s not all bad. Explorers say there is no such place as we claimed those years ago. There are also plenty who have said my insistence on its existence is merely senility, that I have come to believe the story myself. This protects The Big Guy, and I know you don’t believe me either. I can see it in your eyes.

  That’s okay. I have aged. The serum didn’t work on me. I think it has to do with a different number of chromosomes or something. Yet, I am not senile. I have described it as it was. My mind still works and I still like to visit the ladies. It’s probably a good thing that my species can’t reproduce with yours, or the world would be filled with hairy folks with long toes.

  I am growing tired. I doubt there is anything else left to say that is worth saying. I sit here and remember the old days, and from time to time wonder if I made the right decision to come back to civilization. It’s not a thought that occupies a lot of my time, however. I am for the most part quite happy being civilized; in my old world the weak, the tired, and the wounded die young.

  Looking back, it’s strange the way The Big Guy’s path crossed mine. Stranger yet, the ape has become the man, and the man has become the ape. I was fortunate to know him, and to know The Woman.

  I wonder what happened to them. Did the injection I gave her work? Are they still alive in the jungles of the lost world, hale and hearty, dwelling in their tree house, having adventures, lying together, loving together until the end of time?

  It is certainly nice to think so.