The Stench of Honolulu: A Tropical Adventure

by Jack Handey

“Please stand back, sir,” said a guard.

  I saw that the Golden Monkey wasn’t even solid gold. It was only clay, painted gold. And a lot of the gold had peeled off. Plus it had disturbingly prominent genitalia. I don’t like glaring genitalia on statues, especially monkey statues.

  “Sir, please step back. This statue is extremely valuable. It’s worth more money than you have, or that you’ll ever have.” It seemed like an odd thing for a guard to say. But he was right. Yet I did have one thing, something you can’t put a value on. And that was the rock in my hand.

  Sometimes, in rare moments, your thoughts and emotions and desires crystallize into pure thoughtlessness. The Eastern swamis can achieve this, and so can some checkout clerks. And as I gazed down at the rock, that’s what happened to me.

  I backed up several steps, and with a running start hurled the rock at the Golden Monkey. The statue shattered. The crowd was shocked into silence.

  Inside the rubble was something bright gold. I reached in and grabbed it. It was a smaller Golden Monkey. It was heavy. I turned and ran.

  As I ran, I said a little prayer to the Pelican God that I would make it out alive, and that I would be able to kill anyone who tried to stop me.

  Diversions

  WHY IS there always some jerk in every crowd who yells, “Get him!”

  The mob of tourists was hot on my heels, screaming and howling things like “He’s got the Golden Monkey!” and “Stop him!” They didn’t even know there was a real golden monkey until I discovered it. Now, all of a sudden, it belongs to them. Sometimes when you run away you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  I raced from the cave, down the wheelchair ramp and across the parking lot, almost getting hit by a tour bus with a destination sign that said “Golden Monkey.” I pounded on the door of a bus marked “Honolulu” that was pulling out, but the driver ignored me. I had to think of something fast. I pulled out my ChapStick. I tossed it toward the angry mob and hid behind a parked car.

  The crowd gathered round the ChapStick, stared at it, then began fighting over it. It was a brutal fistfight. Finally one man emerged triumphant. He pulled off the cap and smeared the soothing balm thickly on his lips as a taunt to the others. Then he laughed and threw the rest of the ChapStick away.

  I have been in many mobs, and the truth is, the average mob has a hard time remembering what it was doing. To keep them distracted, I threw my wallet out. They tore it to bits. One man got my driver’s license. “Yahoo!” he shouted, holding it up. He ran over to a car that was idling, pulled the driver out, and sped away.

  “I got his library card!” yelled another man. I didn’t even know I had a library card. He ran off, I guess to check out a book.

  I tried to duckwalk away, but the Golden Monkey’s hand got caught on a hubcap and pulled it off. The hubcap went rolling around and around in a big circle. The tourists watched it and took photos as the circles got smaller and smaller. I watched, too. I probably should have slipped away, but you can’t help wondering how long it can keep rolling like that.

  “There he is! Get him!” yelled a man standing next to me, right in my ear.

  I jerked loose and ran past the edge of the parking lot, into the dense rain forest.

  The mob came charging after me. But now they were in my element, the jungle. The odds were shifting in my favor.

  Vines

  I GOT tangled up in some vines. I don’t know how. Where do these stupid vines come from anyway?!

  The mob spread out, looking for me. Many were now carrying pitchforks. What kind of gift shop sells pitchforks?!

  I lay perfectly still. I would appear as just a clump of vines, or maybe a dummy that someone had thrown away and now vines were growing all over it.

  “Here’s his beret,” someone said, holding up my underpants. “He’s around here somewhere.”

  A bug crawled next to my face. It was a Hawaiian black pepper bug. If he sprayed his pepperish spray, I would sneeze and give myself away.

  Slowly, deliberately, I reached in my pocket and pulled out the box with Bizzy’s nose plugs. I dumped the nose plugs out, grabbed the bug, and stuck him in the box. And slipped the box back in my pocket.

  Two men approached, stabbing the bushes with their pitchforks. They were so close I could hear them talking.

  “We shouldn’t have fallen for that ChapStick trick,” said one.

  “Maybe not,” said the other. “But we shouldn’t beat ourselves up over it.”

  With that, they began beating each other up. The mob gathered round. I couldn’t tell which one they were rooting for, the one who said they shouldn’t have fallen for the trick or the one who said they shouldn’t blame themselves. I guess it doesn’t really matter.

  While they were sidetracked, I loosened the vines and slunk away. I thought I’d made it when I heard “There he is! Get him!”

  The Coconut

  EVEN THOUGH I was still dragging some vines, and even though the Golden Monkey was getting heavier and heavier, and even though my lips were in desperate need of moisturizing balm, I ran on. It’s amazing how you can push yourself when you’re in the right.

  As I ran, I heard one tourist shout that he’d seen me earlier but thought I was a dummy. That made me feel good.

  The mob reached what I call the second stage of mobdom. That’s where you don’t yell so much but you chase harder. And soon they were right behind me.

  As I was looking back I ran headfirst into a tree trunk. A coconut fell and hit the lead pursuer on the head, knocking him unconscious.

  The coconut shot over and hit another man on the forehead, then ricocheted into a big spiderweb. The web flung the coconut into the face of an old woman. She shrieked in pain.

  The coconut rolled into a gopher hole. A heavyset man went over and looked in. The coconut shot up, ka-pinged off his skull and hit another man right on the tailbone. “AGGGHHH! MY COCCYX!” he wailed, arching his back.

  The coconut bounced into a geyser. The geyser erupted, firing the coconut high in the air. The tourists all watched it. It came down and smashed the finger of a man who was pointing up at it.

  As I sneaked away, I looked back to see the mob stabbing the coconut with their pitchforks.

  The Skeleton

  I STUMBLED on. I crashed through some undergrowth, down into a dark hollow in the ground. I got the feeling I was not alone. I flicked my lighter. Right beside me was a SKELETON! (I hope you weren’t drinking anything when you read that last sentence.)

  I quickly scooted backwards. It was the skeleton of a Japanese soldier from the war. He was still wearing his uniform, still manning his machine gun after all these years. My shock gave way to sympathy. Brave, loyal soldier, I thought. I patted him on his shoulder. His machine gun started firing. I heard screams of panic. The mob was right in front of us, and the bullets were tearing into them. So many tourists, in the prime of their tourism, were cut down.

  Some people say I should have stopped the machine gun. But here’s my thinking: by the time you’re a skeleton, you pretty much have a right to do what you want.

  The machine gun fell silent. And soon I fell asleep. There’s something about the cool darkness of a machine gun nest, with the wind whistling through the nose hole of a skeleton, that really makes you drowsy.

  I was awakened by the roar of an engine, followed by a strange squeaking and clanking. I peeked out. My jaw dropped. I turned to the skeleton. His jaw had fallen off. An old battle tank from the war was coming straight at us!

  I started to climb out and run, but the tank’s machine guns opened up on us. I scrambled back into the shelter. I patted the skeleton, and he began firing back. The tank kept rumbling toward us. Our bullets bounced off the thick metal. The tank meant to turn us into two crushed skeletons, one with meat, one without.

  I saw that my bony friend had a couple of hand grenades attached to his belt. I pulled one off. The tank was so old it had big rust holes in it. I chucked the grenade toward one. It bounced
off and exploded.

  The tank kept coming. I pulled the pin on the second grenade. The skeleton seemed to give me a look that said, You can do it. I leaned out and pitched the grenade underhand, straight into a rust hole. The hatch opened up and two tourists jumped out and ran. With a tremendous blast, the tank blew apart.

  I turned to the skeleton to celebrate. But something was wrong. He was bleeding.

  The rest of the mob came out from hiding. Without a word they assembled, surrounding us. Their gaze was squinty and intense. They had reached the third level of mobdom. No more distractions. No more rushing this way to stab something or that way to burn something down. They were now a mature mob. In a way, I was proud of them.

  I looked over at the skeleton. He had only a few bullets left. And he was growing weaker.

  The mob started clacking their pitchforks together in unison. They began marching toward us, still clacking. I was faced with mankind’s two great choices: begging for mercy or digging into the ground.

  Clack, clack, clack!

  I thought of another choice. I could toss them the Golden Monkey. But not the whole monkey. They didn’t deserve that. I began hitting the Golden Monkey against a rock, trying to knock his head off.

  Clack, clack, clack!

  I banged harder and harder. They were right on top of us.

  CLACK, CLACK, CLACK!

  I heard a mournful noise in the distance. The tourists heard it, too. They stopped and listened, tilting their heads. It was honking, the honking of tour bus drivers. They were signaling to their passengers. It was time to head back.

  The tourists could not resist. Like zombies, they turned and trudged off toward the honking.

  The Tracking Device

  AS I was debating whether I should wave good-bye to the tourists, I sensed something behind me. I turned. You know how when you don’t instantly recognize someone you sort of hem and haw? “Well, hello there, uh, uh…”

  “Doctor Ponzari.”

  It was Doctor Ponzari! A bolt of lightning exploded overhead, so close both of us ducked.

  Doctor Ponzari looked different. His face was hideously burned and disfigured. He had only a few sprigs of hair left, and pieces of helicopter were sticking out of his scalp. He wore wraparound sunglasses. His suit, what was left of it, was charred black. It seemed like smoke was still rising from him. To be honest, it was a pretty cool look.

  He pointed a revolver at me. Everything I hated about Doctor Ponzari came rushing back. How, when we were at his house, I had asked him if he had any guns or hand grenades, and he said, “No, this a place of peace.” Oh, but he can get a gun when he wants one. Also how he kept asking me to please stop tapping on his aquarium.

  “You’re probably wondering how I found you, Mister Slurps.”

  I wasn’t, but I said yes anyway.

  “Someone implanted a tracking device in one of your teeth.” He waited for me to say something, but I couldn’t think of anything. After an awkward moment, he cleared his throat and continued: “You have refused to help me file an insurance claim, and that is your prerogative. But I will not allow you to steal one of the great treasures of Hawaii.”

  I raised my eyebrows and nodded toward the Golden Monkey. “Yes, the Golden Monkey,” he sighed impatiently. He said the Golden Monkey must be saved for future generations. As soon as I heard “future generations,” I stopped listening. But I started listening again when I heard “tits.”

  “The Golden Monkey should be available to everyone, from senior citizens on down to little tots.” Oh, tots.

  I flashed my medallion at him, but he showed no fear. In fact, he seemed annoyed. He grabbed it roughly from me. “My Nobel Prize! I wondered where that went.” He put it around his neck, and told me to hand him the Golden Monkey. I hesitated.

  “Don’t make me use this, Mister Slurps.” After seeing the expression on my face, he added, “Yes, the gun.” He said he was an excellent marksman.

  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the machine gun was slowly turning toward Ponzari. Was it the wind? Was it ants? Or was Bony trying to help me? Science says you shouldn’t give human qualities to skeletons, but sometimes I wonder.

  I tried to keep Doctor Ponzari distracted. “I like your hairdo,” I said.

  Doctor Ponzari wheeled and fired a single shot at the skeleton. Bony slumped over his machine gun. I saw my opening. I ran.

  Ponzari fired at me. The bullet knocked off my glasses. Another shot cut my belt in half so that my pants fell around my ankles. I shuffled on.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he shouted after me.

  He fired again. A big bunch of bananas fell and knocked me to the ground. After I gathered my wits, I yelled, “Ha, ha, you missed again! You hit these bananas instead!”

  I came to the edge of a cliff and almost fell over. I knocked off a few rocks. It took them so long to hit the bottom I thought they were playing a joke on me. I felt woozy. I staggered backward and dropped the Golden Monkey in the mud.

  As Doctor Ponzari came slowly walking up, I noticed something else. Emerging from the trees were several fierce-looking turtle men, each holding several long, pointed sticks. With them were the two baby turtle men.

  “Don’t look now, but there are turtle men behind you with sticks,” I said.

  “Please, Mister Slurps, that’s the oldest line in the book.”

  The turtle men let out a horrible hissing noise. Doctor Ponzari turned. The two baby turtle men were pointing at him. Ponzari looked at me, then at the gold medallion on his chest. “It wasn’t me!” he implored them. “It was him!” He pulled off the medallion and threw it to the ground. I dove for cover. A hail of sharp sticks stuck in his chest. “AAAAAGHHHHHEE!” he screamed, dropping his gun. He twisted, just in time to get another volley of sticks in the back, then twisted again to get some more in the front. He lurched back and forth. A couple of late sticks bounced off his head. He looked like a porcupine, only not a regular porcupine—a porcupine of sticks.

  He picked up the Golden Monkey. Just as he did, a bolt of lightning shot from the clouds and hit the monkey. Ponzari was flung backward. When he got up, his sticks were on fire.

  He stood there for a second, then staggered to the cliff and keeled over, into the abyss. On the way down, he was hit again by lightning. He disappeared through the mist. I heard a heavy thud, a pause, another thud, then a splat.

  I know this sounds crazy, but in a way I felt sorry for him. Maybe he was evil, but without evil people in the world, how could there be people like me?

  The Airplane

  A SMALL airplane buzzed by at cliff level. I stayed down. I heard a voice in my tooth. It was as if there was a little speaker in there. “This is Uncle Lou,” said the voice. I looked around. “I’m in the airplane,” said the voice. “The one that’s flying by you right now. Yes, that one.” It was Uncle Lou! For once I was happy to see him. Especially since it was starting to sprinkle.

  I picked up my medallion and put it around my neck. Poor little medallion, he’d been through a lot.

  I picked up the Golden Monkey. He’d been through a lot, too.

  I pulled up my pants. They’d also been through a lot.

  I picked up Doctor Ponzari’s gun and vowed that it would never again be used for evil.

  I pulled up my pants once more and vowed that they would never again be used for evil, either.

  I picked up my glasses and vowed to get some new ones. Maybe with frames made from turtle-man shell.

  Uncle Lou landed on the fairway of a golf course right nearby. He pulled onto the green and spun around, ready to take off again. His tires made deep ruts in the short, smooth grass.

  I ran out to greet him. I was so happy I hugged him and fired my new gun into the air.

  “Don’t fire the gun,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I showed him the Golden Monkey. His eyes opened wide. “You did it! I knew you could.” He blew cigar smoke in my face. “At last,
you’re a man.”

  I started blubbering.

  Highway 14

  I HELD on tight to the Golden Monkey as I climbed into the plane. Too many had sacrificed their lives so that I might have it, and later sell it.

  As we took off, three golfers ran toward the plane, shaking their fists. Uncle Lou didn’t slow down. One golfer couldn’t get out of the way in time, and the propeller cut off his arm. I have to admit, I laughed at the time. But now when I think about it I just chuckle.

  The plane banked toward Honolulu. I saw Highway 14 below. It looked like it was only a few miles to town. Off to the right, the mighty Paloonga River twisted and turned a hundred times to reach the same spot.

  “You took the long way,” said Uncle Lou.

  He told me to put on my parachute. “I’ll hold on to the Golden Monkey while you do.” I started to hand it to him, but something made me hesitate. Screwball was sitting on the parachute, growling. Uncle Lou shooed him off and took the Golden Monkey from me.

  As soon as I had the parachute on, Uncle Lou reached across and opened my door. And pushed me out.

  If you’ve never used a parachute before, trust me, you will grab at anything that feels like it might be a latch or a handle or a zipper that will get the thing open. And just as you start biting at it, whatever you did before finally opens it and the parachute almost pulls your teeth out.

  I floated down near Honolulu. I tried to land with one of those running landings that skydivers do, but I tripped and got tangled up in the parachute strings. What do they need so many strings for, anyway?!

  I got arrested. They questioned me about the Golden Monkey, but all I told them was that Uncle Lou had it, and what he looked like, and what his plane looked like, and that his dog was vicious and would probably have to be shot.