Monkeytown

by Chris Vola

  THOMPSON STRIPS THE meth head down to his shitstained underwear, ties his hands behind his back, pushes him to the ground. He’s old, maybe 35, probably won’t be useful after this. We’re supposed to be Croatian separatists, maybe Chechnyans this time, I don’t remember.

  We place a chair over him and Thompson sits on it, holding a cattle prod in each hand. Kane and I also have cattle prods, charged and ready to go. We each take a second to pick an area of skin, then dip the prods. The meth head starts to convulse, more violently than I’d expected, probably just because he’s going through withdrawal. We set the prods at the lowest voltage level.

  Pause, dip, repeat. Pause, dip, repeat.

  As we’re finishing, Philippe walks in. He mouths TITUS, points at me.

  I stab the meth head, watch as his spine tries to separate itself from his back, and walk off the set.

  IT’S NOT THE semi-automatic rifle on Titus’ dining-slash-work table. It’s not the pages of The Human Stain, laid out next to the gun, that, when pushed together, form a crude blueprint of what I assume is a map of the compound, in Davis’ crude marker-scrawl. And it’s not Annabelle, crouched like a dog on her knees next to where Titus is seated behind the table, most of her hair balled up in Titus’ fist. What unnerves me is Titus’ face. The worry lines, the raccoon eye-circles, the thin-lipped gasp of a mouth that looks nothing like the perpetual smirk I’m used to. A scared, frail old man. Deflated. He knows what’s up.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Josh,” he says so calmly I want to run, “my friend here says she knows you, that you’ve spent some, ah, intimate time together.”

  Annabelle sold me out. I judge my distance from the table, if I have time to lunge and grab the rifle before Titus can pick it up.

  “Well?”

  “He won’t tell you because he raped me!” Annabelle wails, kneading Titus’ hip with her scaly arms, crying. “I don’t know what happened,” she sobs. “I was in my room, then I wasn’t. I was so confused and…and there was a door in front of me that looked like mine. But when I went in, all I saw was him –” points at me for dramatic effect “– and he, he…he was…”

  Titus lets go of her hair, strokes her cheek. “Shh,” he whispers, “it’s OK, you can say it.”

  Annabelle snuffles, takes a deep breath. “He was…jerking off! I tried to shut the door but he got up so fast, threw me onto his bed. He stuffed a pillow into my face… When I woke up he was on top, crushing, pushing so hard that I…it hurt! When he, when he finished, he told me to come back every few days, that if I didn’t, then he’d…” She yelps. Titus keeps stroking her face.

  She’s covering for Davis and me. And doing well, even if the sob routine is a little over the top. Someone must have caught her outside my room with the plans Davis drew. Titus knows something’s in motion, but to what extent?

  “This true?”

  “I never told her to come back.”

  Titus nods. “I didn’t think so. Our baby likes to tell little white fibs sometimes because she likes attention, doesn’t she?”

  Annabelle mumbles something, shakes her head, scratches at the floor.

  “Shh,” Titus says. “You’ve had too much excitement. Be a good girl and wait in your bed for me, I’ll find you later, with a present.” He lifts her up by the shoulders. She wipes her eyes, tries to get up but crumples back to the floor, immobile. Titus sighs.

  “What did you think about the rings?” he asks.

  “A little weird at first,” I say, “a little, um, cold friction. But after a while, I didn’t even notice.”

  Color returns to his face, build the trust. “I only give the rings to my favorites. Annabelle’s a good girl, totally in the haze, but she manages to serve her purpose.”

  Yes, she has.

  “Still,” he says, “she can barely control her own bodily functions.” He spits on the hardwood, barely missing Annabelle’s leg. She scratches harder. “I’m much more interested in Davis. You were close as kids. He told me about your parents. I’d been hoping that the transition would be smooth. You’re a good worker. Davis, on the other hand, is giving me more than doubts. Annabelle may not be functioning with a complete set of synapses, but she knows when I’m being fucked with.”

  He pushes the scribbled-on pages towards me. They do form a map. Three long rectangles that spread out at different angles from a single point like a pitchfork. The three hallways of the military wing. There’s a red ‘X’ with a circle around it midway down the length of one of the hallways. A couple inches away is an ‘SC’. Storage closet. The ‘X’ is my room. There are dozens of other markings, instructions scrawled around the diagram. Titus folds his hands together over the paper before I can get a better look. Annabelle licks the floor.

  “So, what do you know?”

  Maybe it’s the rifle that’s inches from Titus’ trigger finger. Maybe it’s his snake-charmer voice, his new old-man vulnerability. Maybe it’s because I’m not one-hundred-percent sold on what Davis told me and if he can really contact Billy and the cleaning crew whenever he wants, then he’s not in danger. Maybe I don’t give a shit.

  Wake me up when I’m dead.

  Regardless, I tell Titus everything about Annabelle’s first visit to my room, her second, about Davis and me in the storage room yesterday, about the cleaning crew. The only part I leave out is what Davis told me about the martyr videos. As I’m talking, Titus’ smile never changes but his eyes darken. He stops stroking Annabelle, nibbles at a fingernail. He seems to shrink in front of me. Pure fear registers in his sagging face.

  Davis was really trying to help me and I just sold him out.

  Titus stares at his hands. “This time…I…” He looks back up, snaps to attention, like he forgot I was in the room. “Thank you,” he says. “Do you know why you’re X?”

  I shake my head.

  He swallows, the bulge in his neck quivers. “It’s because you were a wildcard, an unknown. I honestly didn’t think you’d work out. Most people don’t, even soldiers. A lot of dismissals. Life in the military wing, too much for Davis’ psyche to handle. Maybe too many years. Shit, man, I’ll make this clear: there is no cleaning crew. This is a delusion. And delusions are only good when they’re homemade. Time to terminate his time here. I just wish…” he trails off, stares at his hands again. Annabelle stops scratching, looks through me with her dull, junky-swollen eyes. She’s given up.

  “That’s all,” Titus says, finally.

  I’m already gone.

  THE HALLWAY – blurred. Running, real time, real time. Find Davis.

  I PUSH THROUGH the stainless steel cafeteria doors. The garlicky aroma of sautéed something, the high-def TV glare. A couple agents notice me, motion for me to sit down with them. I can’t see their faces. No Davis. Kane is eating alone at a table near the food counter. I try to slow my breathing as I scuffle toward him.

  “X!” he says. “What’s wrong?” He puts down his fork, wipes some crumbs off his scruff-grizzled chin. He’s been reading a weather-beaten novel, the jagged neon title written in a language I can’t make out. French? German? This idiot reading French?

  “Where’s Davis?” I ask, too forcefully.

  “Whoa,” he holds up his hands, “chill, man. What’s all this now?”

  I stare at the fork he’s started playing with.

  “Oh,” he says, remembering something. “Did you want to say goodbye before? Sorry.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “His martyr video got moved up to today. Probably filming now. Davis'll be home tonight, I guess, back to making half-ass crap music for hipster retards. You’ll see him in a couple years.” He grins, stabs at a pork chop. Knows exactly what’s going down – because of me. The cleaning crew will notice after a day or two of not hearing from Davis…and they’ll clean. No protection.

  “Thanks,” I say. Kane grins as he stuffs his face, potato crumbs collecting on the rim of his lips.

  Fox News flashes an interv
iew with a software developer from IBM who is explaining the benefits of a bar-code reader for a person’s individual DNA that can be implanted under the skin using a silicon microchip. I’m struck by an intense sadness for the other agents in the room, many of whom, I realize, I don’t know and haven’t seen before. May be their last dinner. But as I look at their faces, the ones I do recognize – Rogers and Fortune arguing about something, Thompson studying a June 1996 Penthouse, his eyes slightly dazed – I realize that I’m just projecting my own ego on the scene, that what I really feel for the agents is resentment. They’re content to have nothing, content to see nothing, to believe in nothing. The only structure they need comes from the next assignment, the vague promise of a sandy white beach and a wet pussy.

  Blessed are these happy, ignorant few, and may the airstrike be quick.

  I fill up my tray at the stainless steel buffet. Five thick pork chops drowning in a steamy, near-gelatin gravy; three scoops of mashed potatoes; a bowl of banana-cream yogurt; six Pillsbury dinner rolls; chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream. More than I’ve forced down in the past two weeks. I nod to the cook behind the counter who, I realize, I’ve never really talked to, or maybe he was at one of Thompson’s parties. The ghosts are all the same.

  He ignores me.

  I carry the steamy heap to the usual table. A couple agents raise their eyebrows at the unholy feast, then go back to the conversations du jour: “…so like I was saying, this bitch was thick! And it’s the thick ones that have the most attitude. Now this redhead…” “…that no one cares about your herniated disc, when’s the next batch of moonshine…”

  I inhale the tray’s aroma, stab into the pile of sludge and gristle. I eat, pausing to breathe, the cook who keeps staring at me, the metal utensils that I could have easily found some way to hide and use instead of Harry, what other obvious tools and signals I might have missed. I stuff my face long past the point of fullness, long after I’m the only person in the cafeteria, after the cook grimaces at me one last time, checks his watch and exits through a door into a back room. Too late. I eat until my plate is barren, then go back for seconds, thirds of the food that no one’s removed from the buffet. Lump after sweet meaty glob under the flickering TV lights. Gut is stretched, past the breaking point. The pain reminds me that I’m alive, that as long as I’m moving throat muscles, I’m here.

  I can’t stop.

  I SHOVE THE bed against the door. I unwrap the shank. Leave the bathroom door open, the pale fluorescent glow reflected on the fresh carpet scars. I crouch down Indian-style, re-tie my shoelaces.

  The overhead lights go off.

  In the half-alive dimness, I examine the weapon, pass it from hand to hand, test the blade with my finger. I watch the drops of blood patter onto the carpet, the fresh stains. Sharp enough.

  IN THE LIVING room of my cottage, seated in front of the camcorder’s gaping black eye. Philippe is standing behind squinting Jean-Paul, holding cue cards, the writing on them big and Sharpie-black. Titus is standing behind me, holding the same sword I’ve used in hundreds of scenes. Alaska is in the far corner of the room, oblivious, playing with some old Ninja Turtles action figures I saved from my parents’ house. She’s got the Shredder toy in her tiny fist, stomping him down on a defeated pile of turtles and their wise mentor rat, Splinter, crushing them all. Shredder – the most badass ninja mutant killer of them all, the yin to the Turtles’ yang.

  For a second I want to tell her that this isn’t the way it’s supposed to work, that the Turtles and Splinter are supposed to combine forces and kick Shredder’s ass, to make things right. But the grunts of sheer joy coming out of Alaska’s mouth as she crushes the Turtles’ green plastic skulls one by one with Shredder’s iron-studded heel, because at this moment the carnage makes perfect sense. Jean-Paul presses the RECORD button. Lauren is sobbing in another room. ‘Action,’ Titus whispers. I repeat what’s on the cue cards: my real name and age, my real address and place of birth. ‘I am a wretched, squirming sinner,’ I say, ‘a true scum. I have found that my sin is truly an abomination and I seek forgiveness from the almighty –’ I hear the sword slide out of its sheath, the metallic hum. ‘Keep going,’ Titus whispers. ‘No,’ I say. I turn to look at Alaska. I hear Lauren’s sobs stifled by what might be a towel or a fist in the other room. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen, but is there ever a way it’s supposed to? ‘So that’s it?’ Titus asks. ‘That’s it,’ I say. ‘I had really hoped for more from you, Josh, but…OK.’ Yes, this will be it. No more games. Because a sudden warmth has enveloped me, a contentment I haven’t felt since childhood. My mother wrapping me in a thick wool sweater like she used to when I’d come home from sledding, worried that I might have a cold. I smell woodsmoke, my father’s strong forearms lifting logs into the biggest fire I’ve ever seen, then lifting me onto his shoulders to laugh and laugh as the blaze burns down to nothing. All this warmth is coming out of Alaska, an unbreakable cable stretching into the yellow cloud that surrounds me, blinding. I close my eyes, and wait for it. I hear the rush of the blade coming down and Lauren’s primal and beautiful scream and there’s no pain, only a brighter rush of yellow and the sudden string of words, as big and blinding as a five-million-watt high-high-definition billboard illuminated by five million moons reflected off the calm, mirror-like water of Long Island Sound: THIS WILL BE OVER BEFORE YOU KNOW IT.

  WHEN THE FIRST explosion goes off, I’m still in the dream. The second wakes me up for real. The lights in the room are still off – how long was I asleep? I grip the shank as the continuous shock of semi-automatic gunfire gets closer, closer, a loud explosion, closer, until…the door shatters off its hinges, blown apart in a cloud of ash. The bed absorbs most of the impact, sending pieces of metal and mattress feathers everywhere. A few shards from the box spring lodge in my thigh before I can move. It takes a few seconds for the pain to shoot up my back, for the gunfire and screams to shatter the wall of aftershock silence. The hallway is smoke except for the infrared-scope lasers that flit and slice through the air like neon ghosts. The shouts become distinct – “Fall back to C!” “Fuck, two more incoming!” – a couple feet from the door.

  I force myself up, limp to the bathroom to hide, when a helmeted man in full riot gear – black Kevlar vest, utility belt, black boots – bolts into the room, brandishing an AK-47, red scope light painting spiderwebs on the off-white. This is it, quicker than expected. My mind is strangely blank except for lines from the gas station scene in Dumb and Dumber: “Woah, Big Gulps, huh? All right! Well, see ya later!” I close my eyes, wait for the true blackness.

  No bullets, a familiar voice.

  “Josh! JOSH! Snap the fuck out of it!”

  Davis. He flips his visor up, hustles over, looks at my leg, the oozing, metallic flecks torn through the cargo pants. “OK?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I’m…I’m fine.” The metal’s skin-deep. Am I still dreaming? “I didn’t think you’d...” I stutter, “I told Titus –”

  “I’m fine,” he cuts me off. There’s a low tremor in the hallway. Human fright-shouts, the steady clip of gunfire. “Titus and the Canadians came into my room a few hours ago. Said they needed to show me some plan for a new video set or something. Said they needed me to go to the Home Depot in Christianville tomorrow and could I come check the set right now to make a supply checklist. Yeah, right. We’ve used the same crappy sets for at least three years. They weren’t replacing them. I told them I had to piss, went into the bathroom and got this guy.” He touches the barrel of his rifle. “Everyone gets the access code to the gun cabinet at the firing range. It’s on the assignment packets. You didn’t see that? Every agent’s got at least one under his bed.”

  They trust you enough not to care about you. And all I had was the shank.