Running With Monkeys: Hell on Wheels

by Diane Munier

  Everyone said how much they liked their baths, but over lunch, the stories came out. Audie brought it up, in mixed company and all. He said how he hadn’t expected to be washed inside and out. They all ended up laughing. And like he thought, Isbe whispered, “Be glad you’re not a girl.” But everyone heard it, and there was big-time laughing then.

  He told her he was glad she was a girl. His girl.

  And Audie heard it and said, “Listen to this sap shit.” And more laughter. But not from Jules. He was glad she was a girl.

  Audie told them about Fluffy. They shared all the names. Bobby had gotten Fluffy. He whispered something to Dorie, and she laughed.

  Isbe fed Jules another bite of her sandwich, and he liked it so much. Her food was always better than his, even though they ate the same things usually.

  On the walk back to the hotel, he told her, “I didn’t like the steam box. I don’t like it close like that. Makes me think of the old man.” He wanted to say something about it, and he didn’t. But Audie had accused him of not telling her stuff. Well, he was telling her.

  “Your dad, Jules…” she began.

  “I don’t want to think of him, but he’s in there sometimes.”

  “I can’t imagine,” she said.

  She couldn’t? “Yours wasn’t—isn’t such a prize either, though.” What was with him, saying all this?

  She was quiet, not agreeing, not disagreeing. Nothing.

  “One difference, Jules.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I…I work on forgiving him. You know?” she looked at him, the sun bringing out this red in her drying hair. “Otherwise…I’ll end up just like him.”

  “You ain’t nothing like him.” Oh, she was not. He couldn’t let her think that.

  “Cause I forgive. All the time, a hundred times.”

  “I ain’t doing that. Anyway—no—I wouldn’t know where to start,” he said. She didn’t know how much there was…to forgive.

  “You forgive…or you carry,” she said. “When it gets too heavy…maybe then. You’ll figure it out.”

  He stopped walking, and the others walked around them.

  She was wise. He hadn’t realized how wise. He didn’t agree. He wasn’t letting his old man off the hook like that. Nothing he’d done was okay. But the way she seemed so sure…she forgave that user Clark because she didn’t know that creep. Not the whole list. See, he couldn’t say that. Break her heart and shit. Give her more work to do. More to carry and try to get rid of. She was too good. For her old man, for him. She was just a good person. The best.

  She made herself taller, and she kissed him. He didn’t bend to it. It got to him, the way she was so kind. She’d told him she’d wait while he figured it out—his life. Now she was his life. She was still waiting and they’d only been married a day. What if he never…

  Oh, change of subject. “Then tell me this, your girl parts get ready for another go in there?” he nodded back toward the bathhouse they’d left a couple of blocks behind them.

  She laughed and picked at his collar. “Jules…” Now he was waiting.

  Pink as she was, in the sunlight she was turning a deep red. She couldn’t finish this, whatever she’d been about to say, but she was looking at him, and everything they’d done together was in her eyes. Then she was giggling.

  “Finish it,” he said, squeezing her a little, right there. “I’m all ears,” he added, finger over her lips trying to coax out those nasty words he’d kill to hear. “Please finish it, doll; I ain’t said please in a hundred years.”

  She batted her lashes and did this goofy, cute smile. “I thought about you, Jules. How could I be naked…in that water…knowing you were near…and not be all squirmy…it’s always about you.”

  “Yeah?” He laughed, his voice so pathetically eager. “Squirmy?”

  “Yeah. I…wondered what you were doing…like me.” She smiled, bewitching. He was bewitched.

  “It ain’t like you, Isbe. There is nothing…like you.”

  He got real close to her, too close for standing on the sidewalk in the sunshine. His arms were around her, hands against the back of her cute little dress. “Let’s go to our room and I’ll tell you all about it. I’ll tell you exactly what I thought about.”

  The others had gone on ahead. He heard Audie’s whistle. “C’mon!” Audie yelled. Jules saw Francis hit Gorilla and heard him say, “What?”

  Then all of a sudden he had something to say. “Isbe…you be the forgiver. I—admire it. I do. But someone has to do the dirty work—you know? Like in the war. That’s me. I do the dirty work—see?”

  She had tears in her eyes, and she was biting her lip.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I—I just love you so much, Jules. It was hard to be so far away from you in that bathhouse. I could feel you…thinking about me. I knew you were,” she said. Then she whispered, “You make me feel beautiful, Jules. You see that in me. But—I see it in you, you know? It’s exactly that way for me…when I see you.”

  He nodded then. He’d never, at any time, had a woman believe in him—something good, like this. In him.

  “Jules!” Gorilla called, but Jules barely heard. If she believed this, he wasn’t all bad. She brought out another thing in him—goodness. She gave him a reason to be good. She was the sun, not him. He could only reflect some of her light back.

  This was love. This is what it was—bringing out the good in each other. This was the direction he’d wanted—just that morning. He hugged her, but he looked over her head at the blue sky and for the first time in his life, he felt like maybe God was really listening. To him.

  It wasn’t going to change everything about him. He already knew he would do the hard stuff. He already knew that cause he’d stand in the way of it for her… it’s who he was.

  But it was adding something pretty damn profound to the mix to know there was good in him.

  Chapter 36

  “Hey baby, baby,” he whispered on this, their last morning in Hot Springs. “I bought a car.”

  Jules was holding a tray with some eggs, fruit, and bacon. He’d brought this up himself from the Italian restaurant downstairs. It wasn’t yet open, but knowing he was newly wedded, the mama insisted on making this for them, special. There was some kind of paper-thin meat called prosciutto. This was mob food. The good stuff.

  Isbe was waking, smiling, rising on the two pillows she stacked behind her head. He told her about the food, and she took a slice of apple and sunk her little white teeth into it and before she could even chew, he sat the tray recklessly on the bed and leaned into her for a kiss.

  She was laughing, and he told her he wanted her for breakfast.

  “You had me…the sun was barely up,” she laughed, taking the apple back out of her mouth and holding it between her fingers.

  “That was dessert from supper,” he said, suddenly devouring that slice she held.

  “That was in my mouth!” she squealed.

  “Made it sweeter,” he laughed, swallowing.

  He had her robe open now, and he smelled the soap on all that round…ness. “You took a bath?”

  “I’m all clean, and I need to stay that way if we’re going to get on the road.”

  “Oh, I make you dirty?”

  At the same time, the fact that he’d bought a car finally dawned on her. “You really bought a car?”

  “Yeah. I got a deal. It was probably used to rob a bank or some shit like dat.”

  “Jules—you bought a car.” It sounded more like an accusation.

  “Yeah. We need a car.”

  “Why? The buses quit running or something? Or maybe you robbed a bank.”

  “Oh,” he let go of her, and she was already closing her robe.

  “Wrong side of the bed?”

  “Wrong side? We’re married—right? You were there?” Her eyes, they were so proud when they looked at him, so lovey and sappy. She idolized him; he saw that. But right now, they were g
etting that stern look, like a ma.

  “What you mean, was I there? You marry some moog I don’t know about?”

  He was up now, taking the tray to the table by the window and placing it there. He had packing to do. He found his bag and checked for the hundredth time that the rest of his money was in the bottom, and then he grabbed a shirt and threw it in there.

  She was out of the bed now. The flaps on that thin robe blew open as she walked to him with all the steel of a corporal. His eyes froze there, but she grabbed his arm as she grappled with the other hand to hold that sheer thing closed. “Don’t be mad.”

  And just like that, he wasn’t. “I ain’t mad,” he said, the last of it leaving his voice. “I…thought you’d be happy.”

  She stepped close and her arms were around him. She was so warm. “I am happy. You just—surprised me is all. I…I kind of thought we’d decide things together—you know?”

  “Even cars?”

  “Well…yeah. I mean…I know it’s your money…that big bag you carry around, but…”

  “Nah, none of dat. What’s mine is yours, Isbe.”

  She tightened her hold on him. “I love you so much.”

  He kissed her. “Let’s do it quick.” He wanted to. He loved the big productions they’d put on in this room, but he’d like a quick one.

  “Do…it?” She’d backed off a little, and that robe was just thinking about coming open.

  He was fully clothed, and she would be the one naked. Now that was new…the sun was shining and all.

  “Let it drop,” he said low, like saying it soft would make it easier.

  He saw the struggle. But she moved her shoulders, her eyes glued to his, and he had to tear away and watch as that soft sheerness drifted off her body, and there she was, just a beauty.

  “Oh, damn,” he said. It wasn’t enough—cursing. Seemed like he’d gotten so sloppy it’s all he had sometimes.

  But she was gorgeous. And of all the things he wanted to touch, he reached forward and took her hand. “Come ’ere,” he said, backing up a little. He pulled her to the dresser, had her place her hands there. She looked at herself in the mirror, and the flush she already had got a shade darker. Her hair was parted on the side, and one eye was nearly covered. He about loved that; well, this whole scene.

  She’d borne most of her weight on the wrecked dresser, wrecked because the packages they’d thrown there after shopping and some of her bottles were knocked over or on the floor, and there she was, all flushed red and marks from where he’d held her and gripped her, but he picked her right up, his whole world in his arms, and he carried her to the bed.

  She had her hands on his face. They’d gotten somewhere new again. He didn’t know how deep this went, coming together and feeling like you were so much a part of the other.

  “There’s no man like you,” she whispered.

  He took one of her hands and kissed her fingers.

  Chapter 37

  She wore this scarf he’d bought her in Hot Springs, a blue and dark pink print, some flowers and a bird or something. She had her hair long, parted on the side beneath it. She wore these dark glasses, eyes like a cat’s, and this red lipstick, even though he’d eaten enough of it off her lips already, but she kept reapplying.

  She was the most gorgeous thing he’d ever seen, and he’d spent some years looking.

  She was right next to him on the seat, and she had her arm threaded through his, and he had his hand between her knees, and he held on to her leg, which had her dress pulled up.

  It was a Tarzan move, but he loved it, and she had her legs parted a little even, and it meant they were married, and he was over the line but not really, because the line had been blown to smithereens.

  He liked marriage.

  So the wind was whipping in, and Gorilla and Baboon were up ahead with the girls, and he was with his wife. His wife. And he thought, hell, this was good a time as any.

  “You thought about where we’re gonna live?” he said.

  He’d asked her to light him a smoke, and she was doing that, so he had to wait for her response.

  When she put that smoke between his lips, he took a drag and she said, “At my house. That ‘what’s yours is mine’ goes both ways, you know. Dorie can move in with Francis. We talked it all out at the bathhouse.”

  “Well, that’s the other thing. Your old man…his exact last words were, ‘Stay away from my daughter. I see you again, I’ll kill you.’” He looked at her quick, and she was working a fish mouth.

  “He said that?” It was a statement and a question. Oh, she did not know her dear old dad.

  Jules shrugged.

  “Oh, Jules. Why didn’t you tell me? He cannot talk to you that way,” she said, and it was kind of cute, but nothing about this was too cute. “Kill you? He said that? Who does he think he is?”

  “I—”

  “He’s supposed to be an upholder of the law! And he threatens to kill you? Are you sure?”

  He didn’t like repeating. He’d said it. He went on smoking while she got ahold of it.

  “Tell me exactly what happened. Exactly.”

  “I did.”

  “No. If he said something that strong…something more was going on. Did he…hurt you?”

  “I was in jail, Isbe. It’s not a tea party.”

  “Not a tea party. So…he roughed you up or threatened you through the bars…I mean, he’d just been on the radio gushing over you. So what—he was just disappointed or worried?”

  “I didn’t ask him what he was feeling,” Jules said, a deep drag and two hands on the wheel now and squeezing.

  “What was it like when he said this?”

  “Why? I don’t remember that. He said it.”

  “Like he meant it?”

  He finished the smoke and pitched it out the window. He put his hand back between her nearly sealed legs.

  “He meant it maybe. I don’t know him,” he said, but he knew Blaise better than she did.

  “Well…he would never kill you.” She’d folded her arms. “I can’t believe he would—he’s got nerve. So much nerve.”

  “That’s why I don’t want to live in his house.”

  “You aren’t. You’re living in mine.”

  “Not me.”

  “Oh really? We going to live in your room with all those perverts hanging in the halls?”

  “No. I’d never bring you there,” he rebuked. “What you think?”

  “I don’t…want to leave my house, Jules. That’s my house.”

  “Whose name is it in?”

  “I don’t know. His, I guess.”

  “Then it’s his. I ain’t living there.”

  So they rode in stony silence for a bit. Then out of the clear blue sky, “Stop the car, stop it,” and her over by her door and opening it with him barely able to get to the side of the road in time.

  “Isbe, what the hell?”

  She was out and walking, and he got out too, going after, and up ahead, Audie had pulled over. Great, another scene from the Jules and Isbe show.

  “Isbe,” he about screamed.

  A truck went by, that nosy pea-brain craning his neck.

  She stopped, ripped the scarf off her head, and bent over a little to let out a scream. “I hate him. I hate him!”

  She didn’t resist Jules when he put his arm around her. She was too little to hold all this kind of stuff, the way she got going. “Come on,” he said. How was he going to tell her stuff if she couldn’t sit still?

  He wanted to lecture her, but damn, she just needed to get back in the car.

  But she got sick then, and he had to help her out. She was bent over by the door of the car, and he was trying to hold her, but she’d pushed away, and she heaved a little.

  “You didn’t eat enough,” he said. He’d eaten all that breakfast practically by himself. She’d been flitting around singing and packing. Every time she’d come close to the tray, she’d pick up something and feed it to him instead
.

  “You okay?” he asked her as she stood before him, tragic face and retying her scarf. She was so pale.

  She could only shake her head. But she looked up at him before she got in. “I would kill him if I thought he meant to hurt you.” She had nearly whispered this, but it shocked Jules how fierce it was.

  “Whoa, whoa,” he said, taking her hand. “Isbe, it will be okay. He’s not going to get the chance to do anything.”

  “Here’s what no one knows, Jules—he’s so afraid of losing me.” She choked then, and the tears came, and she swiped at them in fury. “He never had me. He never had me,” she said. “And he has no idea…no possible understanding of how much I love you.” She said this through her teeth.

  It scared him a little. He knew she loved him, but… damn, maybe he had no idea how much. She needed to calm down. “It’s okay, Isbe.”

  “It’s not okay. It will never be okay. He threatened you, and even if you won’t tell me how it was, I know—know he had a gun, and you didn’t. I’ll kill him before he hurts you again. Know this. I’ll kill him.”

  “All right, Isbe. All right. It’s all right,” he said, touched and scared at the same time.

  He could almost picture her letting her old man have it. Right now he really could see it.

  Chapter 38

  The road that Jules’s two-door Ford sedan devoured in the wake of Audie’s much further ahead Buick rolled out like a never-ending tongue, words like trees here and gone, some broken and isolated to the point where the impression was so singular, so unforgettable in its stark outline against the bright blue silence…the kind of thing you’d remember for years…like, “I’ll kill him.” She, the forgiver, had said she would kill her own father.

  Others were entwined with vines and limbs reaching into one another, their shapes an endless wall of darkness and tatters—no beginning, no end, one big woven unity of pain and pieces of pieces and things you learned…you knew…you’d die over before you’d deny…she loved Jules enough…if it came to it…to do it.