The Starving Artist and the Chimp

by Cat Oars

  When he came to the chimp was nowhere to be found. Lenny was still in the dark, small smelly room where he kept it, but the chimp wasn’t. Lenny got up and went to the door. It was locked. He started to panic. He looked out the window. It was a long drop down. He started pounding on the door. When he reached for his cell phone to try and call someone he realized he could hear it ringing downstairs. Probably what reminded him of it in the first place. He started screaming, swearing, kicking at the walls. Then the door burst open, and the chimp came in, fists raised. Lenny got ready to defend himself and circled around the beast.

  “Here’s the thing you dirty rotten devil,” he said. “I’m a human and you’re a chimp. That means: Me equals smart; You equals dumb.” He sidestepped the chimp’s right hook, stepped back out of the room, and shut it closed. God forbid he ever let that motherfucker out the room again. Let the goddamn chimp die in there for all he cared.

  But when he got back to the typewriter another chapter of his book had been written.

  And goddamn, it was pretty fucking good. Like, not bad at all.

  “Maybe,” he thought, “Maybe I wrote that shit when I was blacked out. No other explanation for it really. Plus, shit, look at it. It’s written in my style.”

  He got up and poured himself a glass of wine. Had to be him who wrote it. Couldn’t be the chimp. Could it? He laughed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, give an ape a hundred years on a typewriter, right? His curiosity got the better of him. Plus, the beast wasn’t even making noise anymore. He opened up the door a crack and peered in. The chimp was in there, eyes on fire and fists raised. Well, hell, Lenny thought, a rematch is in order. I was hardly in top form last time, wasn’t even ready, really.

  Again, they circled each other. a hard left, a mean right – two fake-out jabs, and then a heavy left hook - and boom! The chimp was out. Lenny closed the door, happy, and walked downstairs. Time to get to work.

  The space key was fixed. Lenny didn’t remember fixing it.

  A few days passed, and all was well with the world. The chimp was quiet, the beach was beautiful, the wine was delicious. The only problem was that he couldn’t get inspired to write anything. What was worse, he couldn’t come up with anything so inspired as he’d written when he’d been in a blackout from the fight with the chimp. Maybe that goddamn chimp did write it! The more he drank as the days passed, the more his energy gave way. It must’ve been the chimp who wrote it, right? Who else could it have been? He was unconscious, for Christ’s sake. And there wasn’t another soul around for miles! No question it was the chimp. If he was gonna have his cash cow come in (he needed to finish his book by the end of the summer), he’d have to let the chimp do the writing. So, with a heavy heart, he headed back up the stairs one drunken evening, and opened up the door to the chimp’s room. And this time, he only pretended to put up a fight. Just so the chimp wouldn’t catch on.

  When he came to he was back in the little smelly room. It was still dark, it was cold, and it was covered in chimp shit. So be it, he told himself. The beast needs to work in peace. At least he’d thought to bring his bottle of wine. Hours passed. Days. Weeks. It felt like years. Sometimes the chimp would come outside and throw food up to the window for him. But something was happening. At first, he could hear the typewriter going all hours of the day. But as the days passed, less and less. He’d see the chimp slumped outside on the beach chair drinking Jack Daniels and chain smoking. It was his own style. He knew it too well... he started screaming, and beating on the walls and yelling and crying, but the chimp was too depressed to care about his problems. He could rot up there for all the chimp cared. The goddamn chimp had writer’s block.

  * * *

  Sheisty’s post ended there.

  Uh-oh, I said to myself. I picked up the soiled manuscript and read the beginning again:

  Hunger grips me. From the bottom of my soul, all I can think is: I. Must. Have. Some-thing. To. Eat. Now. When was the last time I chewed, swallowed, digested something? I can hardly say. It could’ve been this morning. Could’ve been this afternoon. But it’s getting dark and I know one thing, and I know it well: I’m hungry. Downstairs, typing. He’s typing again. That bastard. What the hell does he have to type about? He can get food Whenever He Fucking Wants It. He can just walk over to the fridge. Me, I’m locked up here in this room, listening to him type.

  Have you ever been so hungry you thought you might pass out? You know that feeling? Well, I get that feeling all the time. It’s built in to me. When it’s time to eat, your body tell you: Eat something. Well, my body is always telling me it’s time to eat. And so I’m always hungry and I always want food. It’s not my fault. It’s how I’m built. How would you like it? And I’m locked in this room and I’m completely dependent on whoever that bastard is downstairs and whether he decides to come up and give me a turkey sandwich or a banana. But now things will change.

  Because this guy, I can take him. I’ve seen the way he moves. I know how he thinks. So I’m not gonna wait for him to stop typing. I’m going to make a fucking racket up here and he’s gonna stomp up the stairs and tell me to cut it out. And then I’m gonna kick his ass. And I’m gonna lock him in this feces-filled room and I’m gonna go downstairs and raid the fridge.

  And while I’m eating his grapes and his salami and his bread and drinking his Jack Daniels, it’s gonna taste so good I’m not even gonna believe it. Because I’ll be thinking: At last: I’m down here and he’s up there.

  The author went on in a similar tone for another 200 pages or so. But it didn’t appear to have an ending – the last paragraph just sort of trailed off. The manuscript didn’t bear a name or a return address. But now I think I know who wrote it.

  Part IV

  ODDLY ENOUGH – and this is certainly odd, by anyone’s standards, even by the standards of everything that’s been happening these past few days – when I came home, there was a chimp sitting in my apartment. And he had his own computer.

  “Who are you?” I asked him, with some concern.

  “I’m. Henry,” he said. “Baldur. Sent. Me.”

  He sat at his computer and pointed to mine; he wanted to have a writing contest. Henry has a long way to go before he can keep up with me. After all, I’ve been writing and editing for, what is it now, 20 years? We both got ready, dramatically holding our hands poised over our keyboards. I let him give the signal and we began. I wrote:

  Changing Channels on the Multi-Verse

  My brand new Panchronotic Multi-verseral TV came today, complete with joystick remote control. Now I will know what I might have been. I switch to the first channel and there I am, working in a biological lab wearing a white coat. I remember why I didn’t take that path, the one most recommended. How many animals did that me torture to get there? I change the channel. The next me watches himself on a new Multi-verseral TV and so does the one after. They're dressed a little differently but I recognize the clothes. Five channels of me reading a book, in three of them the same one, and I decide to punch in a random number. I’m wearing a lab coat again, looks like another bio-lab, the next two are variations of the same. On my next click I see myself standing on the deck of a small ship. This me’s wearing a blue wetsuit and dive gear. I use the joysticks to pull the view back and away from the ship. Two divers wait in the water while a third climbs the ladder. Back in again I go to watch the climber from above, the other two in the background. I pretend I’m a director and pull in for a tight shot of pulling hands and the upward looking face of a strong man. I let him climb through the shot while slowly widening it so that the divers are revealed when he passes. I pop back to the wide shot of the ship’s side and the ladder. I’m breaking the wall, I tell myself, but what the hell, it’s my show. I watch me and the others remove, clean, and rack their equipment. I don’t really care to watch myself take a shower so I bookmark that channel and move on. The next five are all similar, though in two I’m underwater. I wistfully wonder if I'm really having as much fun as I look like
I’m having.

  * * *

  At that point, Henry started making excited chimp noises and I got up to see what he’d done. He demanded a banana, so he must’ve thought it was good. When I read it, I gave him half of a banana for effort and ate the other half myself. Here’s what he typed:

  upsetting oscillate quine scrAwL ast faun hornbLende aYe wedge clOUdburst hose morphism upheaval dearth NurturE plutonium suny warblE taketh yank citation barnet Document buzzsaw orkney preferring tasking saISa per diem bright mission kranston off grant edition be unbound tourmaline wander scramasax hintered fasten fore agreement raveL wedge restore knee Orthographic VEry.

  The chimp grimaced at me for being stingy with the banana and showed me his middle finger. Give a chimp a keyboard and suddenly he thinks he’s a poet, huh? But wait …

  I looked at his text again. I read the capital letters. I saw what it said. And I understood. Finally, it all made sense.

  I pulled out my CD of the Beatles’ “Magical Mystery Tour.” I opened the windows and cranked up the sound. Henry and I started dancing. We sang along:

  “All you need is love! Love! Love is all you need!”

  We sang and danced all night, eating bananas and peanuts, drinking orange juice and Sprite. While I’d change Beatles CDs, Henry would dial a random number on the phone.

  “Go. To. The. Window,” he’d say. Then he’d hang up and we’d laugh and laugh and laugh and start singing and dancing again when the music came back on.

  “Everybody’s got something to hide ….”

  In the end, are we not all the starving artist who fears his own fulfillment in the light of day? And at the same time are we not all the chimp, too, entering each dark night of our spirits with our primitive urges, our physical needs, our anger, our fear – and our love?

  Talker’s Question

  The preceding story, “The Starving Artist and the Chimp,” resulted from this discussion on the Craigslist Literary & Writing forum, Sept. 29 and 30, 2004. The conversation is re-created here by a) comment and response, and-or b) chronological order, and-or c) any way that made the most sense.

  With a special guest appearance (well, almost) by Terry Gross.

  Starving Artist Needs a Chimp < talker > 2004-09-29 12:03:29

  I have a starving artist in a story I'm working with. He's got it in his head a chimpanzee is going to be the solution to his money woes. At this point, he's homeless and unshaven, so I got a way to get him a job at the zoo to get the chimp. But I thought someone out there may know of an even better way a homeless dude can get a chimpanzee to work with. Appreciate your thoughts. Mine might not be creative enough, like bland food: a job at the zoo. I dunno.

  That's plenty of plot < IAAnli > 2004-09-29 12:07:20

  Now it's time for execution. Do it well, and the story ought to be good. You haven't thought about what happens after he gets the chimp. I'd suggest it starves to death. Or maybe they starve to death together. The chimp is a slave to humanity, and the artist is too. The final paragraph could be the man dying, holding the chimp for warmth, with whatever thoughts such an artist might have. Keep it short though.

  Chimpy … Thanks IAAnli...! < talker > 2004-09-29 13:01:31

  Hello IAAnli...No actually, I have the ending. What I guess I didn't clearly write well enough was that I don't think it would be good writing if this starving artist finds a job in a zoo to get a chimp to use to make him rich. I feel it's bland, not interesting enough. But I do have an ending, ‘cause the monkey makes him rich, but only to a point, and then, I'm having a freaking disaster happen.

  Hmm... < IAAnli > 2004-09-29 13:09:19

  I like my suggestion better. Your version sounds like thinly veiled wish fulfilment. Well, if you don't write what I suggested, maybe I will. After all, more than one story has been written regarding a lady and her dog.

 

  IAAnli - Right On...Spin it! < talker > 2004-09-29 13:24:40

  IAAnli... please don't perceive I don't like your suggestion. You did not suggest "how the starving artist can get a chimp"... Rather, you suggested endings to the story; I have an ending to my story and beginning. I was looking to see if something more in the way of literature "flavor," storyline tabasco sauce, a way this freakin’ loser can get a chimp besides a job at the zoo; to me, a zoo job is bland over some other adventurous or happenstance way he gets a chimp. But of course, I see nothing wrong with your suggestions of your starving artist and chimp either.

  Was there that much venom? < IAAnli > 2004-09-29 13:31:17

  Not intended. It's just that the reader expects the chimp to go 'apeshit,' so in an effort to confound that expectation, I thought that something tragic might add to the narrative tension. P.S.: nli means I'm 'Not Logged In' and IAA is short for ImAnAsshole.

  OMG! < Vainly_Jane > 2004-09-29 14:19:30

  Apeshit! That's funny stuff! LMFAO

  IAAnli...Suggesting something tragic < talker >

  2004-09-29 13:43:21

  Well... all right...I think you're right about adding some tragedy there. Like a car hits him… or… a police officer shoots it... but it'll be an injury tragedy. The audience will first perceive it was killed, but will learn shortly later that it survived. Most likely, a car is driving down the road, and the chimp runs across the street after throwing a fit. Of course, is this "bland?" "boring"....I'd say probably because someone always has an even better idea! It's amazing the kind of writing ideas that tell stories man!

  Oh, the hijinks!!! < sheisty > 2004-09-29 12:53:01

  Well, actually, I really like IAA's suggestions. I was thinking at first something more comic... I dunno... A starving artist and a monkey... oh, lord oh lord, the hijinks! Like La Boheme meets the Marx Brothers.

  Hijinks & La Boheme… hmm… Thanks. < talker >

  2004-09-29 13:09:02

  Hi Sheisty... comedy all the way with feelings too... IAAnli was right... the artist a "slave to humanity" and the chimp, "slave to humanity"... Dang… how right. But I'd say this chimp will be more of a slave… to a point... hee! hee! hee! Can't wait for this monkey to go nuts.

  It’s hard to 'get' a chimp < TapasTonight > 2004-09-29 13:27:14

  But in grade school, my friend Andrea got her finger bit by one when she stuck her finger in the cage of someone who owned a monkey/chimp as a pet. Because of her injury, the pet monkey had to be 'removed' due to the ensuing lawsuit. I was just thinking that the transition point of the legal removal of the chimp from someone's home to a zoo could be where your character comes in. Somehow. BTW, Andrea was a nerd, and even at the tender age of 7, I recall thinking "what an idiot" to myself after hearing the story.

  To TapasTonight < talker > 2004-09-29 14:09:50

  Tapas... thank you for your suggestion for the transition event. I am trying to keep the transition as simple as possible, yet, your suggestion is also workable. Your suggestion may make it take too long for the starving artist who ends up homeless, next, > solution to get job> interview> gets job> animal control> removes chimp> Seems less steps to take with starving artist homeless dude> good samaritan offers job on Hollywood set taking care of animal acting department> he's at work cleaning and meets chimp...

  Well < ghostofmajestic > 2004-09-29 13:18:48

  You could also go underground in an animal rights ecoterroist group and free lab chimps a la that movie “12 Monkeys.” I suppose you could also break one out from the circus or a movie set. Will the monkey help the starving artist create? It is said that if you give a monkey enough time they can bang out Shakespeare on a typewriter.

  ghostofmajestic-Yes! Yes! Yes! < talker > 2004-09-29 13:27:41

  Of course... there it is. Someone knows another way to get a freaking chimp, besides a job at the zoo. Can't believe what you came up with ghostofmajestic! Cool suggestion!

  Life, The Universe, And Everything? < Vainly_Jane > 2004-09-29 13:33:58

  Or was that simply the beginning of Hitchhiker's Guide?

  Could Be < ghostofmajestic > 2004-
09-29 14:16:29

  I'm actually more familiar for financial uses of simians rather than literary ones. I've actually traded stocks on the exchange by arming a monkey with darts and having her (in this case female) hurl them at the ticker page of the Wall Street Journal. I beat just about every wizard of the universe on the street. I loved that monkey - though not in a carnal way!

  Look at the smaller picture? < Vainly_Jane > 2004-09-29 13:37:53

  Could the homeless person get a job as a courier for a lab that does cloning? He gets a hold of one of the infants when he becomes trusted, and pass it off as dead - who knows. I think it would be good if the person got a dead squirrel and tried to play it off like it was a live chimp in a street act. That would rock.

  Vainly_Jane..Squirrel & Chimp Thing < talker >

  2004-09-29 13:47:39

  I'm not understanding how someone can get a dead squirrel to look like a chimp...

  Getting dead squirrels to pass as other animals

  < ghostofmajestic > 2004-09-29 14:19:35

  Has entered that foreboding territory of the cliche. How many times has that been overused?! We are trying to break out with new material here, not force the reader to endure obvious plot devices . . . Jeez.

  Sorry Sorry Sorry Sorry < Vainly_Jane > 2004-09-29 14:26:28

  I really should have known. I am such a stupid idiot! Good God!

  Vainly < ghostofmajestic > 09/29 14:30:38

  No need for self-flagellation. Pick yourself back up, brush yourself off, and write something new . . .