by Patti Abbott
Ben wonders if he’d find Fabienne pretty if she weren’t such a fat, French bean grower. That’s what her name meant; he looked it up. She has a new boyfriend this summer, a lifeguard at Venice Beach. He’s Honduran, and both Spanish and French fly excitedly through the house when he visits. Ben has decided to begin Russian in school next year. No one speaks Russian in California or Oregon. Communism is ending, but Russian will probably be offered in his school.
In the kitchen, Claudia is making soup. She tosses ingredients into the blender with abandon: tomatoes, garlic, cucumbers, carrots, scallions, black pepper, and white wine. From the rear, she looks like his mother, small waisted, an erect posture, long necked. But when she turns around, Jane disappears. Claudia’s face is small, catlike. His mother has larger features with no sharp edges. He wonders if his father married his stepmother for her front or her back.
“Gazpacho,” Claudia informs him. “Your mother called again.” She looks at him quizzically. Jane’s called every day since his arrival.
Ben watches as the ingredients turn into soup. Claudia pours a glass. Tasting it, she shivers in appreciation, handing him the remaining inch. He swallows. V-8 juice with a kick. She refills the glass, and he sits down to drink it. A plate of bread and cheese, a sliced apple, appear magically, and he realizes this is lunch. Before he can thank her, she is gone.
No one acknowledges that it’s Claudia’s job as a set designer that supports the family, but Jane, waving papers from her attorney last year, filled Ben in. When Claudia leaves for the studio, Frank pretends it’s a whim of hers, that it’s a hobby like Jane’s decoupage in the seventies. Frank fusses, over which car she will take, how long she will be. He gives her a list of special foods he wants picked up, a dry cleaning tag, and then calls her at the studio with other errands to perform.
He can hardly remember what it was like to live with both his parents. Both his siblings remain unmarried, living in identical apartments in a complex in Pasadena. Once of twice during his visit, Ben will journey there and eat on their glass-topped tables. Afterward, he will sit on their hard, unforgiving sofas and listen to them shout. They are usually angry with both Frank and Jane. In all of their stories, Frank is aloof, Jane is smothering. Ben is curiously absent from their tales.
“Don’t you remember the time…” his sister begins.
“He wasn’t born yet,” his brother reminds her. “That’s when we lived in the bi-level near Disneyland.”
“Oh, right. But I could have sworn….” Ben turns on the TV.
A Frenchie appears, carrying the baby. The baby’s face is flushed and he’s crying. Ben wonders when his crying will begin to sound French. Right now, it could be any language.
“Oh Bin,” the man says, his voice squeaky with worry. “The baby is stung! Do you have ice?”
Claudia keeps ice packs in the freezer. Joseph holds the blue bag to the baby’s neck, and the crying grows more frantic. In seconds, Frenchies overrun the kitchen, the women fussing over the hysterical child, Bernard seizing the opportunity to forage in the refrigerator for beer. His long, preternaturally thin thighbones, on display now that his torso has momentarily disappeared, are covered with layer upon layer of long, fine hairs. There is so little flesh and so much hair, the effect is startling. He is a wolf man. Ben’s own legs remain nearly hairless and only a small tuft of fuzz grows in his armpits.
Covering his ears, Ben goes into the living room. Sandrine stands silently in front of the wall-sized collection of videos and CDs, her back to Ben. Her black swimsuit, partially covered by Fabienne’s terrycloth robe, dribbles spotty drops of water on the parquet floor. Her heels make little sucking sounds as she inches along, lost in surveying the collection. Her right hand wrings the dark blonde hair that hangs down her back. Finally, she makes her selection and drops it into the pocket of the robe, adjusting the remaining CDs to close the gap. A second later, a greedy hand darts out again. Ben backs out of the room. Sandrine will be a good companion for Ripley.
His father’s collection of videos and jazz CDs is enormous. Frank likes music, but loves movies even more. Between wives, when there was no one to supervise Ben’s visits, he took Ben to the movies almost every night. Before he was five, Ben had seen Night of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Eraserhead. Once or twice, Frank nearly got into fistfights with movie managers or patrons accusing him of child abuse.
“Does he look scared?” Frank asked the lady in the manager’s office of a theater screening Halloween. She looked at Ben doubtfully, finally allowing him to pass. It’s not that Frank was anxious to share his interest. He just can’t leave Ben home alone in case Jane calls.
In the garage, he finds his father watching a Dodgers game with the sound turned down. Sandwiched between his old MG, which is covered with tarp and up on blocks, and his woodworking shop, Frank hisses “shhh,” waving him over. He’s stretched out on a green and white nylon webbed chaise that Claudia will not allow on the patio. His ass nearly swipes the floor and the chair squeaks its dismay.
Ben hates baseball, and normally Frank does, too. They’re not a family that watches sports on TV, and Ben’s surprised Frank even knows what channel the game’s on. During the Super Bowl last January, Frank held an Anti-Super Bowl party, projecting classic zombie movies on the back wall of the pool house. He sent Ben a picture of the packed patio.
“Californians know who the real zombies are!” he wrote cryptically on the back of the snapshot. After that postcard, Ben nearly discarded zombies as his favorite monsters.
“Is Garvey still on the team?” Franks asks him.
Even Ben knows Steve Garvey retired last year and shakes his head.
“Are they still out there?” Frank asks, eyes glued to the screen.
“The baby got stung.”
“No shit! Is he crying in French?”
Ben is startled that his father has echoed his thought. “Want to go to a movie?”
His father shakes his head. “If I put one toe out the door, I’ll be stuck with them.”
Frank isn’t in the mood to talk and discourages conversation by letting his eyelids flutter closed. Ben can’t think of anything to say. It’s hard to talk to his father, and most of Frank’s conversation goes over Ben’s head. Sometimes Frank asks Claudia questions he could just as easily direct to Ben. Things like, “Do you think the kid likes red snapper?”
Maybe in Frank’s book, Ben’s a Frenchie, too, especially now that he lives in Oregon. Frank has never been in Oregon, even though it’s only one state away. He’s never seen Ben’s house, Ben’s school, the town Ben lives in.
Ben begins to tiptoe toward the door when Frank sits upright.
"Hold it right there!" He waits patiently as his father drums a beat on the metal arm of the chair. “Mice,” Frank finally says, triumphantly. “Can’t ya smell them?”
Ben sniffs. "What do mice smell like?"
“Just like that.” Frank gets out of his chair and begins to prowl around the room. “What do you smell? Come on,” he says impatiently as if Ben’s naming it is part of the problem.
Ben sniffs obligingly. “Wood, gasoline, I guess, something for lawns. Maybe fertilizer?”
“It’s mice. I bet the place is overrun with them, especially with Claudia keeping her goddamned cat food out here.” His voice rises as he holds up the feed bag triumphantly. A stream of food pellets runs out the bottom. Frank puts the bag down disgustedly, hiking up his beltless pants. Searching around for his flopflops, he says, “Well, let’s go then.”
Although it isn’t clear where they’re going, Ben follows his father toward the door.
“Where are you two off to?” Claudia’s standing in the way. She’s wearing clothes suitable for a dinner in Malibu. Her hair is poufy; she smells good. “Everyone’s getting changed, Frank. Are you going out to dinner like that?”
Frank sighs heavily, hiking up his pants again. “Look, they’re your family. I don’t have time to….”
�
�They’re my family!”
Frank begins to tell her about the mice, but even Ben can see it’s a feeble excuse and Claudia breaks right in. “Frank, neither you nor Ben have been out of this house all week. Would it hurt you to…?”
“Ben and I are going out to get some mouse traps at the hardware store,” Frank says. Claudia’s eyes soften for a minute. “Maybe some poison too. We’ll see what the fellow recommends. Joe’ll set us right.”
“Ben, wouldn’t you like to go with us? You can kill mice tomorrow.”
Ripley himself could not resist her. Ben looks at his father, who’s trying to appear busy by moving boxes around. He lifts one and the entire bottom falls out. “Will you look at this!” Frank says, offering his evidence with glee. “Something’s been chewing at it for weeks. Some lousy critter…..”
Claudia's eyes remain riveted on Ben.
“Well if Dad needs me here…” He thinks about going to the hardware store with his father. Of perusing the poisons and traps and other methods of murder that might be available. Killing rodents might be just the thing to get him through this summer. It might turn out to be his apprenticeship.
“We’ll do something fun tomorrow,” Frank promises Claudia’s disappearing back. “Once the mice are under control.” He smiles at Ben as the door clicks shut, then walks over to the workbench where he removes a dozen mousetraps from a drawer. They are bound together with a large pink rubber band, and he throws them at Ben.
“Ever set traps?” he asks, settling back down in his chair. “No. Well, be careful of your fingers.” He switches on the TV set where a horse race is about to begin. Above the patter of the television announcers, he shouts out. “Better wait till the Frenchies leave before you bait them, Ben. I always use peanut butter.”
Ben nods. There will be no trip to the hardware—no perusing poisons today. When this admonition appears to be the end of the conversation, he returns to the kitchen and stands in front of the center island, holding the mouse traps in his hands. His father has told him to wait until the Frenchies leave. He hears fading laughter, a barrage of French.
"They only speak English when they have to," Claudia told him once. "It’s very tiring, you know. Even the listening hurts after a while." He knows what she means; he’s tired of hearing French.
Soon, he hears Claudia start up the van. He could still join them. Take his place in his new French family. Sandrine might be willing to sit next to him.
There is a picture on the back of each trap, illustrating how to set it. He follows the instructions, loading each trap with peanut butter. On one or two, he adds some of the smelly French cheese. One trap springs as he loads it, but his fingers dart away in time. When he's finished, he starts back to the garage, but then thinks better of it. Probably the mice are everywhere. Why put a dozen traps in one place?
He places a trap in the refrigerator, back behind the beer. Another goes in the middle of the row of CDs in the living room, where there's a gap. Several go near the pool. He puts one in Fabienne's room. The rest he scatters, omitting only Claudia’s workroom.
Apparently, at some point, mice have learned to stay out of harm’s way, to spend their lives on the periphery because the directions advise placement along walls. Mice make no diagonal moves. He’s only practicing today. With these cheap traps, what harm can come to anyone—even mice. Perhaps later the problem of mice will require more lethal solutions.
Finished, Ben sits down on the vacated chaise lounge and turns on the television. The local news tonight is about fires and drought. Someone has deserted a minivan in the passing lane of Interstate 405. Passing drivers rush the abandoned car, pummeling it with whatever’s handy. All the windows are broken, the driver’s seat sits on the embankment. It looks like a scene from a movie.
Soon a trap springs somewhere. Then another one.
The stories in MONKEY JUSTICE AND OTHER STORIES were originally published in the following publications:
“Like a Hawk Rising” PLOTS WITH GUNS, Spring, 2008
“The Snake Charmer” PULP PUSHER, Fall, 2007
“Sleep, Creep, Leap,” DAMNED NEAR DEAD 2, Tyrus Books, 2010
“Bit Players” SPINETINGLER MAGAZINE, October, 2010
“The Instrument of Their Desire” BEAT TO A PULP, December, 2008; BETWEEN THEDARK AND THE DAYLIGHT, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin Greenburg, 2009
“Hole in the Wall” HARDLUCK STORIES, Fall, 2006
“Escapes” MYSTERICALE, Winter, 2010
“Georgie” BACK ALLEY, Summer, 2008
“My Hero” MUZZLEFLASH, Summer 2007; winner of the 2008 Derringer Award for flash fiction
“Monkey Justice” DARK VALENTINE, Summer, 2011
“On Paladin Road” A TWIST OF NOIR, April, 2009
“What Happened Next” (Fury) THE POTOMAC REVIEW, Winter, 2005
“Tongues” APOLLO’S LYRE, May, 2008
“The Tortoise and the Tortoise” PULP PUSHER, June 2009
“The Squatter” DEMOLITION, April, 2006; WEATHERVANE, April 2007
“The Trouble with Trolls” THUGLIT, May, 2007; SEX, THUGS,& ROCK AND ROLL, 2009
“A Saving Grace” THE THRILLING DETECTIVE, Summer 2007; A PRISONER OF MEMORY, edited by Ed Gorman and Marin Greenburg 2008
“Girl of My Dreams” CRIMESPREE MAGAZINE, Fall, 2008
“Raising the Dead” BACK ALLEY MAGAZINE, June, 2009
“I Am Madame X’s Bodyguard” NEEDLE MAGAZINE, Fall, 2010
“Catnaps” SHOTS MAGAZINE, 2006
“RE: University Protocol on Student Plagarizing” WORD RIOT, May 2008
“Souris,” DARKNESS BEFORE THE DAWN, Spring 2009
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patricia Abbott has published more than fifty short stories in various literary and crime fiction publications including Murdaland, Spinetingler Plots with Guns, Pulp Pusher, The Thrilling Detective, Hardluck Stories, Crime Factory and Thuglit. Visit her at her blog.
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