Monkeytown

by Chris Vola

  The cab is facing us, windshield smashed. Gobs of blood, earth-toned pieces of clothing are splattered across the white hood, a messy abstract canvas. A compacted heap – what might have been a yellow Nissan Altima – rests against the median. Pieces of glass litter the road like parade confetti. People are talking on two-ways, drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee.

  Two paramedics rush past, wheeling a man in a stretcher toward a nearby ambulance. A third paramedic, his sleeves and latex gloves soaked, tries to hold in the strings of glistening hamburger meat seeping out of a gash below the man’s ribcage. Billy rolls up his window, lights another joint, keeps saying Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ between hits. I riffle through my backpack, open a few of the orange bottles, swallow what I hope are a Zoloft, a Percocet, and a Prozac. Davis gives me this look in the rear-view mirror and we all know what he’s thinking. In front of us, an old beige Chevy truck with a navy blue bumper sticker that says, I’m Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone…

  …and I’m walking past the baggage claim at JFK two-and-a-half years ago, talking on my flip phone to Lauren who’s at school, trying to avoid the young couple that had been sitting in front of me on the flight, making out the entire time, exchanging handjobs under the complimentary blanket. Lauren’s trying to hold it together, but she’s sobbing, telling me she loves me and I’m not crying and I can tell she’s really drunk. Maybe it’s because, given what’s happened, she feels extra bad about getting fingered by Archer Hamilton on the back seat of a charter bus headed to a Young Democrats formal the night before, something I won’t find out about until I get back to school two weeks later.

  Lauren’s saying that everything is going to be fine in between sobs and swallows of what I’m assuming is a mixed drink involving watermelon vodka or something equally sinister. My mother’s sister, Susan, is on the other line. She’s calm, sticking to facts, mapping out the next couple of days, the lawyers, the medical examiner’s office, the funeral director in East Fairport, which of my cousins are staying with me for the service and I’m not really listening to any of it and the couple in front of me is sweaty, gleaming, making out roughly on the escalator.

  Davis is waiting outside the automated doors in a dark gray suit, leaning against his father’s plum-blue Aston Martin that he never lets him drive. He tucks away his cell phone, smiles sadly, takes my bag.

  “Thanks,” I say, “I really appreciate you coming to –”

  “It’s the least I could do,” he says. “Your parents, you know how much they meant to Dad, to the whole company. It’s…” he trails off, looks at the ground.

  “I know, it’s been –” I stop and realize everything. I’m starting to fall, not faint, but toppling against the weight of my own legs. Davis is pulling me up and saying I’m here, I’m here, don’t worry before I feel the taste of tears running down my cheek and neck, staining my tee shirt and Davis is taking three Lexapros out of a bottle he’d had in his pocket and is feeding them to me and I’m swallowing and the ride back to East Fairport takes no time at all.

  DAVIS’ LEG TWITCHES. iPhone vibrations. He reads the text message, smiles. “It appears that my friends have started the festivities without us.”

  Billy’s drooling on himself in the backseat.

  We swoop under an overpass. The rectangular Manhattan skyline expands in a blood-orange glow. The Empire State Building, a giant syringe injecting the night, its patriotic needle burning red, white, and blue. Davis pushes a button, cracks Billy’s window open. His head slips, jolts against the glass. For a second his face is suspended over the crooked asphalt.

  “What-the-fuck!” he howls over the music. Davis and I cackle.

  “I didn’t want you to miss the party,” Davis says, “I figured I had to take drastic measures.”

  “Next time just nudge me, dick,” Billy mumbles, still loopy from the Hydrocodone.

  We pass the northernmost tip of Central Park. The city air is mothy but cool, refreshing. Dominican hip-hop blasts, Jamaican and Puerto Rican flags hang from balconies. 115th Street. Davis says we’re here. He parallel parks in front of an ill-kept tenement sandwiched between luxury condo buildings still in relatively early stages of construction. A white couple passes, the pregnant wife pushing a Burberry baby stroller, the man babbling into the mouthpiece of his Blue Tooth like a paranoid schizophrenic. Pioneers of the reverse white flight.

  “So Roberto is some kind of musician, right?” Billy asks as he looks through his backpack for something.

  “More like a producer, makes beats.”

  “And his roommate?”

  “Andrew?” Davis asks. “Uh, he mostly sticks to photography or sculpture or something, I’ve only really met him once.”

  “Great,” Billy moans. “I didn’t realize you were taking us straight to fagtown.”

  “You of all people should be thanking me,” Davis says, grinning. “I’m sure you’ll, ah, fit right in.”

  A loud bell rattles inside a building across the street. Green and white awning above the front door that says MASJDID al-AQSA and several lines of Arabic script. Streams of men, women, and small children spill out onto the street, hooting out a weird, musical language I may have heard in a late-night genocide infomercial. The children run past the buildings, laughing, jumping on each other’s backs, playing tag in between parked cars. The women, onyx-skinned and wearing head-wraps, keep their heads low, focused on the gangs of kids hopping ahead. The men stay huddled in groups outside of the mosque, lighting cigarettes.

  “God,” Billy says. “I didn’t sign up for this safari, regardless of the half-ass attempts at gentrification.”

  “You are so lame,” Davis snarls. “I need to talk to Roberto about a couple of things regarding some other projects I’m trying to put together. He’s plugged into the New York scene, not just outer Brooklyn or Harlem, all of it.” Billy rolls his eyes. “Also, I just thought we cold have a fun night in the city, a nice dinner, go to a few bars, mingle with some loose ladies, get freaky, who knows? That’s what this road trip is about – having fun.”

  Billy shrugs. Davis walks up the front steps of the crumbling tenement, pushes one of the buttons protruding from a scratched metallic box next to the door.

  “HELLLLO?” a garbled voice crackles.

  Davis says his name.

  “Ooooh Jee-sus,” the voice squeals. “Come on up here boyyys!”

  “Andrew,” Davis grins. Billy mumbles something about Europeans and Capri pants. The door buzzes open.

  AN IRON ROW of coat hangers with nothing hanging on them, a small kitchen, a dark, narrow hallway leading to a large main room. Nothing on the whitewashed walls. No windows.

  A cute, possibly Scandinavian blonde in her early twenties kneels next to a white leather beanbag chair. Her mouth is getting skewered by a massive black dildo attached to a metal chain hanging from the ceiling, a penis more suitable for certain breeds of domestic cattle. Gobs of saliva drip onto her strapless black corset and matching crotchless g-string. She’s posing for an ostrich-like man wearing a sleeveless Iron Maiden concert tee and ball-hugging jeans who’s positioning a digital camera on a miniature tripod. Farther back in the room is a black minimalist dining table. An unambiguously Hispanic late 20s dude in a wifebeater types on the keyboard of a white iMac, headphones on. The three of us freeze like high schoolers freshly stumbled into the girls’ locker room, in awe of something only meant to be viewed through Pay-Per-Squirt porn.

  The photographer notices us first, grabs Davis’s shoulders and kisses the air around his face. He runs his fingers through the beginnings of a bad, bad mullet. “Davis baby,” he says, “it’s been far too long!”

  He grins when he catches me gawking. “In all of my work,” he says, winking, or maybe twitching, “I like to set a tone, an attitude. The art that comes is entirely the result of the tone that I set.”

  When he says comes the woman snorts, takes her mouth off the rubber cock, giggles. Her makeup is thick, caking under the hot lights, glisteni
ng with sweat and what looks like glitter.

  The photographer ignores her. “So you’re Josh and Billy,” he says. “I’m Andrew. Davis didn’t tell me he was bringing this much Connecticut Grade Beef with him.” He pounds his hips in faux frustration. “But I can’t figure out which one I’d rather –”

  “Hmph,” the woman groans, “would it be possible to keep your tiny hard-on down for two seconds? Maybe we could get in at least one decent shot before my nipples fall off from frostbite.”

  “Bitch please,” Andrew says. “If the cellulite graveyard you call your ass didn’t look like the rotting scrap-pile at a cheese factory, maybe it wouldn’t take me all day to find an angle that I can actually use without wanting to puke first.”

  The woman smiles, brushes something off her glowing shoulder. “Don’t pay attention to Andrew. It’s that time of the month. I’m Sophia.” She gets up, walks over and moves in like she wants a smooch, but I pull back awkwardly at the last second, shake her hand. She giggles, purses her full lips together in a fake pout.

  The man who’d been at the computer stands up, scurries across the room in silent Chinese slippers. He grabs Sofia’s neck, pushes her face into his. Billy grins stupidly. Sofia pulls away after a few moments, adjusts her g-string, struts out of the room without looking at anyone. The man extends a hand to Billy, then me. “Roberto Ruiz,” he says. “Rob’s cool though.” I glance at Billy. He gives me a slight what-the-fuck nod. I wonder if he’s as bugged out by these people as I am. I haven’t been in Manhattan in a long time. You’re not in East Fairport anymore, Josh!

  Rob and Davis bump fists. “Thought you guys would never get here,” Rob says.

  “The night is young,” Davis grins.

  Rob nods. “Andrew!” he yells.

  “On it!” Andrew shouts from behind a small doorway that must lead to the kitchen. A nutty aroma filters in the room, settles below the dildo chain, above our heads. My mouth waters.

  “Where’s the shitter?” Billy asks, breaking the food-inspired silence, eloquent as usual.

  “Down the hall, first door on your right,” Rob says. “Make sure you jiggle the handle after you flush.”

  Andrew darts in carrying an unopened bottle of Patrón and cube-filled glasses, almost crashes into limping Billy. “Everyone sit down!” he says when he recovers himself, ignoring Billy’s scowl before he disappears. “We all have to get to know each other!”

  The four of us sit, Andrew across from me, Davis across from Rob. “Soo…Josh?” he says, looking at me.

  “Josh.”

  “So Josh,” he squints, “What do you do?”

  I take a swig of the tequila, grimace. “Well I –”

  “Josh is an investor,” Davis cuts me off.

  “Davis, wait your turn,” Andrew says. “We aren’t finished with the quiz yet. Where did you go to school?” he asks.

  “Down the street,” I say. Blank stare. “Columbia.”

  “Finance and econ major,” Davis says, offhandedly. “Kid used to be a business whiz.”

  “Ohhh,” Andrew pretends to be interested while he tugs at an unraveling strand of his tee shirt. “So how do you two know each other?”

  “We’ve known each other forever,” I say. “Our fathers used to work together and our families –”

  A buzzer goes off in the kitchen. Andrew hops up, scurries off, almost knocks into Billy again as he limps back from the bathroom. Billy, still trying to shake off the sleepy ride from Connecticut, plops next to me, finishes half of the tequila in front of him in one Billy-size gulp. He glares at Davis. “Are you fucking serious about this?” he hisses. “You never told me that –”

  “Hey,” Davis cuts him off, “it’s not my fault Andrew has a crush on you. You should take it as a compliment.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking –”

  “I know.”

  Before I can ask them what that’s all about, Andrew and a now fully clothed Sophia storm in from the kitchen, carrying steamy, sharp-smelling platters. She’s pulled a complete one-eighty from a few minutes ago – low-cut black and white cotton top, hip-hugging black denim, hair back, two melting icicles for eyes. The makeup’s been scrubbed away except for lip gloss and that eerie sparkling sheen. Andrew’s explaining the menu: “…cage-free poached eggs over flourless-sprouted tortillas stuffed with black beans and spinach, tofu with pineapple and peanuts over basmati rice…”

  Billy and I stare at each other with fear in our eyes. He stabs at something that looks like a dead octopus with herpes, decides it’s not worth it, passes the dish to me. Davis shakes his head. Sophia snickers. “Not a big fan of organic food, are you?” she laughs again. Everyone’s digging in, heaping piles of the unidentifiable chunks and sauces, ripping through the booze. Things are happening fast, the real time closing in. Sophia’s melting eyes.

  “I’ll eat anything,” I say. “Billy’s the wuss when it comes to food.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t try it,” he hisses. He turns to Sophia. “It’s different, that’s all. Anyway, I don’t want to hurt your buddy over there’s feelings.” He points at Andrew with his fork. Andrew’s already two glasses deep and demolishing a squishy pile of what must be the eggs. He nods.

  “Andrew’s getting off a starvation diet,” Rob says.

  “When, like ten minutes ago?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” Dead serious.

  “You get used to it after while,” Sophia says. “At first I thought it tasted like Army food.” Billy puts his fork down.

  “The fuck is wrong with Army food?” he asks. Davis and I look at each other.

  “For one thing I think it’s sad we even need to have an army to feed,” she says, cutely, oblivious to what Davis and I know might be coming.

  “Have you ever been in a firefight?” Billy asks.

  “Uh…no?” she mumbles.

  “Have you ever ducked behind a stall in an outdoor market,” he says, strangling his drink, “bullets whizzing, the stink of burning hair and skin, the bodies piling in the dust, and there’s a mother and her son walking towards where you and your buddies are trying to defend a checkpoint, and the boy pauses next to a discarded rifle lying in the dirt, and your sergeant is whispering ‘Don’t pick it up, kid, don’t pick it up’ but it doesn’t matter because the mother pulls out a joystick from her robe, shoves the boy at you and they’re both wearing homemade explosives strapped on with pieces of duct tape and they’re connected by wires, and they start screaming in this crazy fucking language, and the only word you can understand is Allah? Have you seen that?”

  “N-n-no?” she mumbles like she’s got a few chromosomes loose, or wondering what this drunk cripple from the boonies is really capable of.

  “What would you do?” Billy snarls. “Would you shoot them in the legs? Just the mother? The kid? Would you kill them? Head-shots or knee caps? What-would-you-do?”

  “I don’t –”

  “All right,” Rob cuts in, “maybe it’s time to ah, change the subject. I think we all need to keep drinking, lighten up a bit.”

  Silence for at least a minute. The scrape of forks. This is starting to go better than I expected.

  “I was on the subway today and this bum threw himself in front of the train,” Andrew says.

  “Way to lighten things up, puta,” Rob rolls his eyes.

  “Whatever,” Andrew replies, mouth half-full, “I was just trying to bring up something that actually affects some of us.”

  Billy clamps his mouth.

  The conversation moves from which aging television actress was the best-dressed at a recent PETA protest on the steps of a laboratory that conducts orangutan lobotomies, to whether or not the person smoking PCP with the third-place finisher in last year’s American Idol in a recently posted online photo is a member of the Spanish royal family or just the bassist for Passion Pit. I look around the table, nod and laugh, the humor negligent, surface-dwelling, fuzzy-warm. I decide that I like these people, even Andrew. Gl
ad that Davis brought us here. Forget Billy’s weird outburst. Float on the moment.

  “We’re all here now,” Davis says, reverting to his deal-maker voice, “and I want to start out by apologizing to Josh. Because,” he looks at me, “I haven’t been exactly honest with you about why we’re taking this trip.” I groan. Here it comes. Cut the theatrics. How much of my dead parents’ money do you want to keep your dreams afloat? Where do I sign? “Don’t worry, I’m not asking for anything,” he says, seeing my reaction. “The reason we’re going to Virginia is still to try to get money from potential investors, but not solely because of my parental-slash-whatever issues. The reason is also because Rob and I, after several months of research, planning, and development, have decided to jumpstart our own indie record label, and we want all of you to be a major part of it.”

  Andrew claps obnoxiously loud. Everyone knew about this? I groan louder.

  “I know,” Davis says, “I know what you might be thinking. With the massive corporate consolidation of labels, with album sales falling drastically, mainly due to, um, file sharing, torrents, iTunes, the recession, et cetera, it seems like a pretty idiotic idea to build something like this from scratch…”

  Yes it does. I pour myself another full glass, tune in and out of Davis’s latest idiocy. From what does filter through, Rob and Davis have apparently signed half a dozen “artists,” including Keyon. They’ve got big names, studio owners in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Westchester, in addition the Virginia connection, ready to splooge out of their respective pockets. Everyone’s got roles in this debacle – art and photography direction for Andrew, human resources and marketing for Sophia.

  Huh?

  Rob walks over to the computer, hilariously throwing out geeky jargon like pro-user and cloud-friendly in a Puerto Rican accent. He clicks the mouse a few times, types something. The address of the spanking-new company web site. Yippie.