New Jersey Me

by Ferguson, Rich;

  Those words did little to ease Jimmy’s worry or resentment. His jaw tightened. His sleepy eyes drew into slits. His hands curled into fists, then relaxed. Fists, relaxed. I’d rarely seen him so upset, the only other time being when I’d discovered him at Lucy the Elephant after he’d first learned of his dad’s cancer.

  Observing Jimmy’s fists, Mr. Jeepers latched his arms around my thigh, burrowed into me.

  I stood there as calm as possible. If Jimmy threw a punch, so be it. I deserved it.

  It was during one of those moments when Jimmy’s hands weren’t all bunched into fists, or his face wasn’t wadded up in frustration, that he brought an index finger to his mouth and chewed the nail. One of his Vans sneakers tapped rapid-fire against the concrete floor. Regarding my question, he uttered: “Let’s wait a little longer.” Then he glanced down at Mr. Jeepers still latched to my leg. Despite his concern and dissatisfaction, Jimmy couldn’t help but let fly a tiny smile—a smile as miniscule as a roach joint. Looking more at the chimp than me, he said: “Fucken lovebirds.”

  I shrugged. “Just killing time waiting for you.” Then I added: “Let’s give Mr. Jeepers a proper tour of his new home.”

  We led Mr. Jeepers through the basement. He sniffed and picked at the milk crates chock-full of family photos and board games, including my Ouija board that I’d brought over a few days prior to screw around with whenever Jimmy and I were bored. The chimp knuckle-walked across the messed-up pool table, slapped at the poster collection. He even explored The Dark Side of the Moon. There, he climbed all over the water-stained cardboard boxes stuffed with rusted tools, banged-up kitchenware, old clothes, and other family junk. He tore open one box, yanked out one of Jimmy’s dad’s moth-bitten flannel shirts. He brought it to his face, sniffed it, flashed another toothy grin.

  Seeing that shirt made Jimmy brighten. He bolted back upstairs. When he returned he didn’t have to say a word. His face—unplugged from fun—said it all.

  We continued introducing Mr. Jeepers to his new home. But it was hard for us, especially Jimmy, to completely enjoy the rush of being brand-new chimp parents. Every time the house would creak or groan, Jimmy would shoot upstairs, thinking his dad had returned. Every no-show only made his mood grow more and more dismal.

  At one point, I said: “Let’s do like the Great Adventure drive-thru safari. Let’s let Mr. Jeepers roam free.” I figured if nothing else, watching Mr. Jeepers explore the basement solo might provide a few laughs. Maybe take our minds off Jimmy’s dad for a while.

  Right off the bat, Mr. Jeepers returned to Jimmy’s poster collection. He sniffed at Chuck Norris and Lord of the Rings. When he got to Bella Donna—Stevie Nicks standing in a sheer, dripping chiffon dress, a huge white cockatoo perched atop her upheld right hand—he licked Stevie.

  Jimmy brightened. “You see, asswipe,” he said, firing off an elbow nudge to my ribs. “At least he’s got good taste in music.”

  Just as he’d said that, Mr. Jeepers ripped the poster from the wall.

  I nudged Jimmy back. “You got that right, fuck face.”

  The chimp made a beeline for the milk crates. He yanked out my Ouija board. Ripped the lid from the box. Took a dump right on the board.

  That one cracked Jimmy up to no end. “E-A-T that one!” he roared.

  His laughter excited the chimp even more. Mr. Jeepers hopped atop Jimmy’s lumpy mattress—sans box spring and bed frame—sitting on the basement floor. The chimp latched onto the down pillow; the one that, for so many years, had concealed Jimmy’s stash of his mom’s codeine cough medicine. Mr. Jeepers raised the pillow above his head, brought it crashing back down onto the bed. He repeated the gesture, then tore and bit at the pillow. Feathers went flying. Sure it bummed Jimmy out a bit, but he didn’t make a move to stop Mr. Jeepers. Neither did I. We were thoroughly entertained by the chimp’s unpredictable antics. He continued ripping at the pillow. More feathers went flying. He bounced up and down on the bed, grabbing at those feathers, tossing them about wildly. Then, armed with a blanket and sheet, he leapt to the floor. Sat cross-legged by the bed, encircling himself in those feathers and other soft, warm, Jimmy-smelling items.

  As the night wore on, Jimmy and I gained more energy and alertness. Mr. Jeepers dittoed. Shedding layer after layer of inhibitions, grogginess, and worries, the three of us sang and danced along to Pink Floyd. Hopped up and down on Jimmy’s wrecked bed. Leapt repeatedly over the broken gnome. We pulled out the Twister board—left hand, red; right hand, yellow; left foot, blue; right hand, green—as Mr. Jeepers clambered all over us. At one point Jimmy tied a blanket to an overhead pipe, let the chimp swing from it. He kept one hand gripping that blanket, while the other slapped at his chest. When he tired of that, he launched off, bounded through the basement. Grunted, hooted, smacked his lips. Bobbed his head, swatted his hands against the floor and cinderblock walls. Jimmy and I did our best to keep up, mirroring his actions; trying to experience that musty old basement with new primal eyes and ears. Had Jimmy’s dad been home, he would’ve been yelling for us to shaddup, let him get some sleep. But with Jimmy’s mom, she never heard a thing. She continued snoring away in her bedroom. Through it all, Jimmy and I were finally able to forget about the time. And those moments when we did think to glance out the BB-cracked window, all we saw was a dark world, gradually blending into shades of blue.

  Finally, the three of us collapsed onto the dilapidated sofa. Jimmy passed out almost immediately. Mr. Jeepers crawled into my lap. The smell of mud, circus hay, and clear night air still clung to him. He was all huge ears and bulging mouth. His flat nose wriggled and sniffed. Wriggled and sniffed. His bright, brown eyes were perched beneath a Frankenstein-like massive brow. Beneath those attentive eyes: an intricate webbing of wrinkles. He reached for my arm, began picking away bits of dirt and debris. That led to him cleaning bits of trash from my hair. Once done, he wrapped his strong skinny arms around my neck. Hugged me like a baby might hug its mother. I drew Mr. Jeepers closer.

  Everything about my life prior to that night had always felt like a huge waste of time: day in, day out, my head continually spun by drugs, loss, and math word problems. Then there was that hug from Mr. Jeepers. It sounds strange to say, but if it took all that bullshit from my former life to lead me to that hug, fine. It was all worth it. Because right then, that hug with Mr. Jeepers felt so real, so pure, so simple, just two breathing bodies burrowing into one another, digging down deep, seeking warmth and comfort.

  Then came that Friday morning sunlight spilling in through the basement window. Not only did it signify a day when Jimmy and I would have to phone in sick to work, it also meant it was time to search for Mr. Gigliotti and chimp supplies.

  Jimmy, Mr. Jeepers, and I crept up the basement stairs. Once outside, the early morning May air felt good—the right combination of warmth and chill to launch us into our day. I fired up my blue Toyota Corolla—a used car my old man had helped me purchase after the crash. Didn’t have the sweet pinstriping, chrome-plated wheels, and blow-your-eardrums-out Kenwood speakers like the Vega had. And its wheel wells were slightly rusted from Blackwater’s salt air. But it was tons more dependable in the engine department, and its tape player and dash clock weren’t bad either. The clock read 7:30 a.m.

  The three of us cruised around town. It was one of those rare and beautiful Blackwater mornings where the sky had painted everything—the Dump, the three lakes, Mr. Gigliotti’s taxidermy shop—all shades of oranges, reds, and golds. Even the places I dreaded were stunning.

  Jimmy held Mr. Jeepers in his lap. The whole drive, the chimp never struggled to break free. Instead, he kept his nose glued to a small crack in the window. He smacked his lips as we passed tall stands of pine trees; hooted as we passed the Little Red Dollhouse; let out a sharp cry as we passed Satan’s Tree. And when he wasn’t doing that, he was reaching for the steering wheel, trying to jerk it in the opposite direction from where I
was driving.

  As beautiful as Blackwater was that morning, as funny as Mr. Jeepers was, Jimmy and I couldn’t help but fear that at every turn in the road, we’d spot Bessie crashed into a tree or phone pole. Or maybe Mr. Gigliotti sprawled out dead along the highway shoulder.

  We continued our nerve-racking drive. Each and every place we checked: no Mr. Gigliotti. Finally, we spotted his empty pickup in Duffy’s parking lot.

  I shielded my eyes, glanced through the windshield, which wasn’t as immaculately clean as it used to be back in those days when Jimmy’s dad had the time and energy to baby the pickup. The oxygen tank, I noticed, wasn’t on the bench seat. That was a good sign. I checked inside Duffy’s. Only the bartender, along with a couple power plant employees and a cemetery maintenance worker.

  Suddenly, I got an uneasy feeling—like my throat was stepping on my stomach, my heart reaching down to my toes: internal Twister. Call that feeling a hunch or a wild guess. Whatever you name it, it made me slap some coins into the bar payphone, punch numbers.

  My old man picked up halfway through the second ring.

  He’d only been able to get out the hell— of hello when I said: “Let him out.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The way my old man told the story, it went something like this:

  That night in question—the Thursday night when Jimmy and I had first discovered Mr. Jeepers at the circus—he’d been at Duffy’s downing a few brews with a couple off-duty cop buddies. He spotted Mr. Gigliotti at the end of the bar. When Jimmy’s dad left, my old man noticed he was a bit unsteady on his feet. He ran the usual field sobriety tests on Mr. Gigliotti in the parking lot: balancing, walking a straight line, and reciting the alphabet backward. The way my old man put it, Jimmy’s dad didn’t do so well. So he hauled Mr. Gigliotti down to the station, gave him a breath test. He was over the legal limit.

  For a change, I felt like the cop in the family, analyzing my old man’s fluency and response time, whether or not he corrected himself when speaking. I didn’t detect any huge red flags. But I did notice a couple glaring omissions. Like how much was Mr. Gigliotti over the legal limit, a lot or only a little? What about Mr. Gigliotti’s unsteady footing: how much had been due to alcohol versus the side effect of one of his many meds? And perhaps the most important question: were my old man’s actions purely based on Mr. Gigliotti’s drinking, or something else? Or maybe it was a combination of the two. I had no idea how to answer any of those inquiries, and I wasn’t sure my old man knew how to either. Even if he did, I’m sure there would’ve been more glaring omissions.

  When stating my case, I simply referred to Jimmy’s dad as Mr. Gigliotti. And I never let my voice get too passionate; I kept it as even-toned as possible. Since formal charges hadn’t yet been filed, I asked my old man to please give Mr. Gigliotti a break on account of his cancer. I also told him that if he breathalyzed every Blackwater resident, more than likely he’d find a number of them to be over the legal limit, to one degree or another, any hour of the day. No bullshit, no stumbling over words, no huge gaps between thoughts in anything I said.

  My old man must’ve detected that, too, because after careful consideration, he said: “You can pick him up at the police station.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Luckily for Jimmy and me, Mr. Gigliotti was waiting for us outside. Had Jimmy and I gone into the police station with a stolen chimp in tow, and still wearing our clothes from the night before—rumpled, reeking of weed and sweated-out alcohol—my old man would’ve been first in line to add black and white stripes to our wardrobe.

  When Mr. Gigliotti spotted Jimmy, Mr. Jeepers, and me pull up to the curb, he did a double take. Then he shook his head. I flipped my seat forward, leaned against the steering wheel as Jimmy’s dad grunted his way into the back seat, portable oxygen tank in tow.

  As he did so, Mr. Jeepers’ hair raised. He bobbed up and down in Jimmy’s lap, imitating Mr. Gigliotti’s grunting noises. Then he glued his face back to that crack in the window as I pulled us out onto Route 9.

  The sun climbed a little higher in the morning sky. It streaked the passing cars, Callie’s old house, and the rest of Blackwater with so many shades of yellow—yellow ochre, chrome yellow, and cadmium yellow, all the yellows Mad Man once told me Van Gogh had used in the second phase of his art career. I glanced in my rearview mirror. Mr. Gigliotti’s Joe Camel cap still screamed fuck you loud and clear. Though his flannel shirt and overalls seemed slightly baggier and more weathered than usual. As for his face: pale, drawn. Drab as the hospital gown my grandmother had worn that last day I’d seen her in the hospital. “Sorry about all that,” I said to Jimmy’s dad.

  His lips drew into a tight thin line, then relaxed, but only a little. “It’s not your fault, son.” He paused, then asked: “You have a hand in springing me?”

  I nodded.

  I could sense he wanted to say more—maybe thank me, tear into my old man, or interrogate Jimmy and me, find out what crazy shit we’d done to end up with a chimp. Instead, he sat there quietly, drumming on the oxygen tank sitting next to him. One dull ding after another, he watched his son fuss over Mr. Jeepers—tickling the chimp’s chest, cooing, playing Piggy, patting him atop his slightly bald head. All things Mr. Gigliotti might’ve done with Jimmy when he was just a baby.

  When our eyes locked in the rearview, I said: “We took him from the circus last night. His name’s Mr. Jeepers.”

  Doing what he did for a living, one might think Mr. Gigliotti would rather see an animal dead sooner rather than later. Not so. He quietly sang that old standard: Jeepers creepers, where’d you get them peepers? Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those eyes? While doing so, he continued drumming and observing his son and the chimp. Whenever Mr. Jeepers bobbed his head and hooted, so did Jimmy. Whenever Jimmy glanced out the window, marveling at the passing scenery, so did Mr. Jeepers. In response to it all, Mr. Gigliotti’s stony face gave way to a craggy smile.

  At one point, the chimp opened his mouth wide, closed his eyes, and sneezed. He did it a couple more times. Each sneeze sounded so human.

  Up until that point, things had been going fairly well, at least in regards to the chimp’s health and well-being. But when Jimmy and I heard those sneezes, we freaked. We’d had other pets in the past whose final days had also started with a simple ah-choo.

  Jimmy flashed me a look. I flashed one back. Code for: What now?

  I glanced in the rearview. “Whudya think, Mr. Gigs?”

  All too familiar with our lousy pet track record, Mr. Gigliotti did his best to ease our concern. “Probably just something in the air.”

  Mr. Gigliotti continued his singing and drumming. But when the chimp sneezed again, he zipped it. So did Jimmy.

  What happened next was a byproduct of my ridiculous Tilt-a-Whirl brain, once again, spinning out of control. Only this time it had nothing to do with math. It was all about Mr. Jeepers and that sneeze. As I continued driving along Route 9 toward Jimmy’s place, I imagined all kinds of nightmarish pet-jinx scenarios: the chimp had caught some strange disease from the Wilbur Brothers. Maybe a strain of that swine flu which had killed a Fort Dix army recruit back in ’76. Or far worse: that freaky disease which had ravaged a Philadelphia Legionnaires convention, also back in ’76. That disease had killed thirty-four. I silently enumerated all the symptoms that Mr. Jeepers, or any one of us, might soon exhibit: chronic cough, fever, chills. Next: muscle aches, tiredness, loss of appetite and coordination. Signal diarrhea and vomiting. Soon afterward: confusion and impaired cognition. Finally: death.

  Mr. Gigliotti noticed my sweaty brow, the way I was gripping the wheel, and stepping deeper into the gas. Maybe he was trying to ease my spinning mind, or perhaps he’d caught a strain of my pet-jinx fever, too. Because just as I was about to turn left down his street, he tapped me on the shoulder, and said: “Keep straight, son. Let’s go see my vet buddy, Doc Morton
.”

  Chapter 29

  Because of that pet jinx Jimmy and I had shared since youth, we’d already encountered Doc Morton. I’d even heard about him through Jimmy’s dad. In addition to being an animal vet, he was also an army vet. Had served alongside Mr. Gigliotti in the Korean War’s Seventh Infantry Division, which had taken part in the Battle of Pork Chop Hill. Doc Morton had been injured in that battle. Walked with a limp, but refused to use a cane. As for his meaty hands, they hadn’t wielded scalpels or treated injuries in the war, they’d operated all kinds of weapons: a 120mm mortar, a Browning Automatic Rifle, also an M20 super bazooka. One might think such strong hands, as Doc Morton’s hands, would’ve been better suited for plumbing, construction, or even law enforcement like my old man. But actually, he handled animals with the utmost care.

  Doc Morton’s office smelled like wet dog crossed with flea collars. The sunshine-yellow walls sported a veterinary medicine degree from Rutgers, a cork bulletin board filled with happy animal photos, and two Korean War certificates: one declaring his service, another for his Purple Heart.

  Right away, the good doctor informed us that Mr. Jeepers hadn’t caught a killer strain of flu, or some still undiscovered, unnamed deadly disease. He merely echoed what Jimmy’s dad had said in the car: probably just something in the air that made the chimp sneeze.

  Mr. Gigliotti observed the relieved look on my face, his son’s face. He brought an index finger and middle finger up to his Joe Camel cap, gave a little salute to his war buddy. “Appreciate that one, Doc.”

  Doc Morton: long weathered face, wild white hair, a lover of dogs. He was Emmett “Doc” Brown from Back to the Future repackaged: far less eccentric, far more animal science, no DeLorean time machine. He mirrored Mr. Gigliotti’s salute with good humor, but once he saw Jimmy and me with Mr. Jeepers, his right eyebrow raised, a field of wrinkles sprouted across his forehead. He scooped Mr. Jeepers from Jimmy’s arms, and sat him down on a bare-bones, wooden examination table.