Read Trials of the Monkey Online
Authors: Matthew Chapman
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Nonfiction, #Retail
Trials of the Monkey (28 page)
‘Makes sense,’ laughs Dave.
Rocky initiates a conversation about some relatives of Dave’s. It’s amiable, the gossip of a small community, but an ever-growing
database is refined in Rocky’s head, a picture of the town, connections that might prove useful at a later date.
database is refined in Rocky’s head, a picture of the town, connections that might prove useful at a later date.
We arrive back at the jail and take Dave in. He sits down in the narrow, congested booking area, and lights a cigarette.
‘Not you again,’ says the jailer with the wooden leg.
Dave holds to his philosophy. ‘Shit happens.’
‘Shit happens if you’re stupid,’ says the jailer.
Dave laughs. ‘Guess so.’
We return to the car.
Crrkkk!
A radio message: A grandmother has called the station to rat out her grandson who, she believes, just went into the woods to access his dope stash and is currently out delivering in a white Pinto.
A radio message: A grandmother has called the station to rat out her grandson who, she believes, just went into the woods to access his dope stash and is currently out delivering in a white Pinto.
Rocky finds some rock music on his regular radio and the chase is on. The kid used to be okay, Rocky tells me, but his father got shot dead in a bar fight and now his son’s gone bad, drugs, threatened to kill someone.
Hm, I’m thinking, maybe I don’t want to catch this particular shithead after all …
It’s dark by now and we are back in Morgantown, looking left and right down side streets, when suddenly a massive form looms up ahead of us: a pure-bred Cherokee woman weighing in at 300 pounds, not including her front teeth, which she must have left somewhere else because they certainly aren’t in her mouth.
Rocky tells me she’s the street mama, a half-ton vigilante who watches over the neighbourhood and often calls the police.
Rocky asks if she’s seen a white Pinto come through.
‘No, ain’t seen no white cocksucker Pinto. Why?’
Rocky tells her who he’s looking for.
‘Oh, that pussy-assed little bitch motherfucker. He come around here, I’ll call you.’
‘Okay,’ says Rocky. ‘Thank you.’
When I ask if I can take her photograph, she tells me, ‘No, you can’t take no Indian’s picture, you be stealing our spirit.’
We drive on. Sometimes signals from cellular and mobile phones bleed onto the police scanner. It’s the ears of the night
patrol, shards of existence vacuumed out of the dark atmosphere. To me, even the dullest of conversations seem sacred and revealing when they detonate inside our travelling shell. ‘You know how I like ham, well my dawg just stole two slices,’ says a voice. Then in quick succession: ‘We’re just gonna have to pray harder.’ ‘Hell, I’m having mah baby tomorrow, I don’t have time to visit wid you.’ Now we hear two men talking. One of them is so wasted we can barely understand him. We look around but there are many houses nearby and one looks no more degenerate than the next.
patrol, shards of existence vacuumed out of the dark atmosphere. To me, even the dullest of conversations seem sacred and revealing when they detonate inside our travelling shell. ‘You know how I like ham, well my dawg just stole two slices,’ says a voice. Then in quick succession: ‘We’re just gonna have to pray harder.’ ‘Hell, I’m having mah baby tomorrow, I don’t have time to visit wid you.’ Now we hear two men talking. One of them is so wasted we can barely understand him. We look around but there are many houses nearby and one looks no more degenerate than the next.
One evening, Rocky tells me, he was driving along a street when he heard a woman’s voice. ‘There’s a cop going by,’ it said. ‘He’s a good-looking young thing, I wouldn’t mind fucking him at all.’ Rocky looked around and saw an attractive woman of about forty sitting on her stoop, talking into a mobile phone. ‘Oh, he’s looking at me,’ she said. ‘Yeah, I could sure take this boy …’
As we rise up out of Morgantown, we hear a young woman’s voice break in, sexy and inviting. ‘You come on by here, you know where I am.’
‘What time should I get there?’ It’s a young man’s voice, anxious and excited.
‘Well, I’m free now, so why don’t you get your ass up here right now?’
We’re in a low-rent development and Rocky thinks we might be getting a signal from the town’s white hooker, a pretty woman in her late twenties who’s reputedly selling pussy to the fifteen-, sixteen-year-old boys for $30 to $35 a pop.
We drive past a safe house for battered women and then past some young black males who say, but with neither aggression nor fear, ‘There’s Five-O!’ a reference to the old TV police show ‘Hawaii Five-O.’
Now, looking out the front, we see three black teenage girls standing on the corner. Rocky pulls over.
One of them is without doubt the best-looking person I’ve seen in Dayton, dark-skinned with huge eyes and an astonishing smile. I think to myself, no wonder a lot of black men oppose
integration. Who in their right mind would want to deflate these lips or flatten these fine buttocks or lighten this blue-black skin or in any other way dilute this phenomenal beauty?
integration. Who in their right mind would want to deflate these lips or flatten these fine buttocks or lighten this blue-black skin or in any other way dilute this phenomenal beauty?
Rocky talks easily to the girls about a friend of theirs who called him a while back to enforce a restraining order on her boyfriend. She swore she’d never see the man again. Now she’s pregnant by him and they’re living together. If there’s any racial tension here it’s not apparent. If there’s any tension at all, it’s that these women are so refreshingly free of the prudishness of the Lord-be-with-you white girls, it takes your breath away. It’s all laughter and flashing eyes and thrust. It’s amazing in fact, how different they are. The white girls down here who dress provocatively do so with an almost spiteful defensiveness: how dare you look at me!? There’s nothing like that here, no hypocrisy and surely no shame: for these girls the body is a source of simple joy and amusement.
Passing by my window is the biggest of them. She has two horse-size, gravity-defying cheeks packed into (and partially out of) a pair of tiny shorts. And she is
flaunting
them. Furthermore, this rump has the ability to
talk
. As it goes by, it bumps up and down and then suddenly it stops in mid-stride—like a double-take—and I hear it say to me, ‘So, little white boy, think you could handle this fine black wazoo?’ And now, catching my look, the owner of these taunting chubbies laughs raucously, the cheeks shudder back to life, dismiss me with a shrug—‘Uh-
unnn
, I don’t think so, mister!’—and pump off around the front to offer the same monumental challenge to Rocky. He waves them off laughing, and we leave.
flaunting
them. Furthermore, this rump has the ability to
talk
. As it goes by, it bumps up and down and then suddenly it stops in mid-stride—like a double-take—and I hear it say to me, ‘So, little white boy, think you could handle this fine black wazoo?’ And now, catching my look, the owner of these taunting chubbies laughs raucously, the cheeks shudder back to life, dismiss me with a shrug—‘Uh-
unnn
, I don’t think so, mister!’—and pump off around the front to offer the same monumental challenge to Rocky. He waves them off laughing, and we leave.
Rocky needs food. We’re almost at the Wendy’s when we get a call. An accident out on some country road. Now this I had not thought of and it scares me. I don’t want to see a scattering of limbs, gushing blood. I don’t want to hear someone yelling at me, ‘Put your finger in the hole!’ or ‘Hold his guts in!’
Rocky switches on the siren and two sets of lights. One of these, the regular one, is on the top of the car. The other is a recently installed set that seems to be
inside
the car at the base
of the windscreen. They’re like strobe lights and they’re so techno-bright and harsh and silvery they more or less blind you. It’s like driving a disco at seventy miles an hour. Rocky narrows his eyes and soon we’re doing ninety.
inside
the car at the base
of the windscreen. They’re like strobe lights and they’re so techno-bright and harsh and silvery they more or less blind you. It’s like driving a disco at seventy miles an hour. Rocky narrows his eyes and soon we’re doing ninety.
Rocky doesn’t like road accidents either, he tells me, and recalls one where a child got run down in front of his father. The boy was decapitated and the father picked up the head and tried to put it back on the body, talking to it all the while, saying, ‘You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be all right.’
We swoop off the highway. The narrow road ahead now becomes a swallowing intestinal tube of darkness down which we plunge at speed, the flying disco, and I’m feeling sick. Soon we see more flashing lights. Rocky pulls in behind an ambulance and several other cop cars. We’re not the first on the scene and the scene is not so terrible. A massive biker sits on the grass verge at the end of a 350-foot skid mark. The bike lies another 30 feet ahead like a full stop at the end of a long winding sentence. Beyond the verge is a ditch and a hedge.
The biker is bloodied, grazed, but not gushing. His right shoulder is completely skinned and clearly hurts as he hefts himself up onto his knees and starts muttering about a ring he’s lost. He looks like a flayed hippo down there on all fours. The medics tell him not to move so he settles back onto his haunches, dazed. People start to emerge from unseen houses along the road. The atmosphere is almost festive. One of the locals is a tall, shirtless old man, thin but for a bulging white stomach. Sheriff Sneed arrives with his wife. He gets out and comes to stand beside me as the biker is lifted onto a gurney.
‘This guy,’ he nods at the old man, who’s moved up next to us, ‘he’s always out here with his shirt off and a basketball in his tummy.’
‘Yeah,’ grins the old man, ‘I’m always hanging around without my shirt, it’s true. Just wish I could find some young people to molest.’
Everyone laughs uneasily, including Sneed, who soon gets back
into his car and drives off. Now, out of the darkness runs a stocky young man in shorts and nothing else, no shoes, no shirt. It turns out he’s the brother of the man who crashed. Having ascertained he’s still alive, the guy picks up the bike, which is mangled and covered in gasoline, and switches it on. To everyone’s amazement, it starts. The man rams it in gear with his big toe, and rides it away. Rocky and I hunt around for the ring for a while, and then give up. We return to town to see if Little Mermaid is home yet.
into his car and drives off. Now, out of the darkness runs a stocky young man in shorts and nothing else, no shoes, no shirt. It turns out he’s the brother of the man who crashed. Having ascertained he’s still alive, the guy picks up the bike, which is mangled and covered in gasoline, and switches it on. To everyone’s amazement, it starts. The man rams it in gear with his big toe, and rides it away. Rocky and I hunt around for the ring for a while, and then give up. We return to town to see if Little Mermaid is home yet.
She is, and she is indeed very pretty, with glittering vivacious eyes full of flirtation and the knowledge of her beauty. Her husband hovers in the doorway behind her, possessive and protective, as Rocky talks to her about a fired coach. Except for drunks everyone is polite and helpful if you’re a cop,
attentive.
There Rocky stands with his nine-millimetre Ruger at his hip, and there they stand on the lip of their home, so glad he’s out there culling shitheads for them. And how happy they are when he leaves, taking the faint aura of threat with him—everyone has secrets, a little pot in the bedside table, a taste of moonshine, a memory—and how good it feels to bolt the door and return to dinner, unbusted, confirmed: good citizens deserving of protection.
attentive.
There Rocky stands with his nine-millimetre Ruger at his hip, and there they stand on the lip of their home, so glad he’s out there culling shitheads for them. And how happy they are when he leaves, taking the faint aura of threat with him—everyone has secrets, a little pot in the bedside table, a taste of moonshine, a memory—and how good it feels to bolt the door and return to dinner, unbusted, confirmed: good citizens deserving of protection.
Back in the car, Rocky shuffles his warrants. ‘Ah, here’s one that might be fun,’ he says, smiling. ‘Better do it before it gets too late.’ It’s a bad cheques warrant to be served on a woman named Sue (not her real name). ‘She’s a treat, last time I arrested her—it was a P.D. thing—she says to me, “Rocky, you wanna know what I think of you?” and then she lifts up her dress and pees all over my car.’
We drive up a hill and approach a trailer park, a desolate gently sloping field. It’s filled with tilting, dented oblongs up on breeze blocks, some in rows, a few scattered around as an afterthought among the litter of slumped cars and pickups. Sue’s a crafty one, Rocky tells me. If he drives directly up to her trailer, which is one of the first, she’ll hide inside, not answer the door, and he won’t be able to serve her; but she’s into everyone else’s
business, so if he drives
past
her trailer, as if going somewhere else, she’ll come out to see who’s in trouble, and then he’ll turn around and nab her.
business, so if he drives
past
her trailer, as if going somewhere else, she’ll come out to see who’s in trouble, and then he’ll turn around and nab her.
We drive slowly by her trailer. There’s only a dim light inside.
‘I don’t think she’s in,’ I say.
‘She’s in,’ says Rocky, grinning. ‘Watch.’
We reach the end of the trailer park, turn down the far side and out of sight, and do a U-turn. By the time we come back around the corner, Sue’s on the steps of her trailer, watching.
I was imagining a crone—that’s the type I see pissing on cars, an old misanthropic eccentric—but no, this woman is young, not even thirty, long-limbed and country pretty. And furthermore, she’s smart and capable (or maybe I should say she seems capable of being smart and capable), reactions brisk, actions efficient, an air of outspoken confidence, almost arrogance.
When Rocky braces her with the warrant and she realises her mistake, she impatiently exclaims ‘Gee-hah!’ as if not just this, but her entire life is something she has accidentally fallen into, something beneath her from which, much to her irritation, she cannot extract herself. Had she been given different opportunities, one senses she could easily have become an efficient executive in some commercial enterprise.
‘Wait there,’ she tells Rocky imperiously and goes back inside. A moment later she returns with a child (a clean, neat child) on one hip and a bunch of papers in her free hand which, according to her, prove someone stole her chequebook and forged her signature.
‘Well, I still gotta take you in, Sue,’ Rocky tells her, ‘but you’ll get a bail bond, it’s no big deal.’
Her boyfriend arrives on foot, a reasonable, likeable guy who pushes his lips down over his bad teeth when he smiles, but for some reason he can’t drive and the truck is running hot and what about the kid?
Patiently, taking each problem one at a time, Rocky suggests ways to get the business dealt with. The boyfriend can put some water in the truck, Sue can drive it down to the station, the
boyfriend comes along with the kid, it won’t take long to process, if the truck needs more water, there’s a hose outside the jail, and they can all be back in an hour or two.
boyfriend comes along with the kid, it won’t take long to process, if the truck needs more water, there’s a hose outside the jail, and they can all be back in an hour or two.
Sue organises a few things for the child to play with while Mommy does her jail thing and puts them in a bag. The child is strapped safely in the back and Sue jumps into the truck and makes a capable turn toward the exit, her boyfriend at her side.
No brake lights.
Rocky shakes his head. Sue, he tells me, used to be a good girl, excellent student, cheerleader (I think), and then got into drugs and one thing led to another: this, the trailer park, the child, the departed husband, debts, the overheating truck without brake lights, warrants, court dates, fines, each alone tolerable, but combined a great pressing weight which only the most energetic or larcenous could throw off.
Drugs are always blamed. To me, however, they seem merely a symptom of an aspiration, a desire for profound connection and transcendent meaning in a world which fails to provide either. ‘The War on Drugs’ is a misnomer, as if drugs had character, a will of their own; as if drugs could fight back. If it’s a war at all, it’s not a war on drugs, but on people, or on reality, a war of denial, a show put up to distract us from some awful truth. (God is dead?)
Other books
The Boy in the Olive Grove by Fleur Beale
City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams
Mail Order Matron (Brides of Beckham Book 9) by Kirsten Osbourne
Miss Simpkins' School: Lydia by Raven McAllan
Phoenix Inheritance by Corrina Lawson
Whispers of Home by April Kelley
The Camaro Murders by Ian Lewis
Noah's Law by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Club Fantasy by Joan Elizabeth Lloyd
Hyenas by Sellars, Michael