The Monkey

     Petey glanced around. 'She and Dennis went shopping, I said I'd hang out here with you. Do you always talk in your sleep, Dad?'

     Hal looked at his son cautiously. 'No. What did I say?'

     'I couldn't make it out. It scared me, a little.'

     'Well, here I am in my right mind again,' Hal said, and managed a small grin. Petey grinned back, and Hal felt simple love for the boy again, an emotion that was bright and strong and uncomplicated. He wondered why he had always been able to feel so good about Petey, to feel he understood Petey and could help him, and why Dennis seemed a window too dark to look through, a mystery in his ways and habits, the sort of boy he could not understand because he had never been that sort of boy. It was too easy to say that the move from California had changed Dennis, or that--

     His thoughts froze. The monkey. The monkey was sitting on the windowsill, cymbals poised. Hal felt his heart stop dead in his chest and then suddenly begin to gallop. His vision wavered, and his throbbing head began to ache ferociously.

     It had escaped from the suitcase and now stood on the windowsill, grinning at him. Thought you got rid of me didn't you? But you've thought that before, haven't you?

     Yes, he thought sickly. Yes, I have.

     'Pete, did you take that monkey out of my suitcase'?' he asked, knowing the answer already. He had locked the suitcase and had put the key in his overcoat pocket.

     Petey glanced at the monkey, and something--Hal thought it was unease--passed over his face. 'No,' he said. 'Mom put it there.'

     'Mom did?^''

     'Yeah. She took it from you. She laughed.'

     'Took it from me? What are you talking about?'

     'You had it in bed with you. I was brushing my teeth, but Dennis saw. He laughed, too. He said you looked like a baby with a teddy bear.'

     Hal looked at the monkey. His mouth was too dry to swallow. He'd had it in bed with him? In bed? That loathsome fur against his cheek, maybe against his mouth, those glaring eyes staring into his sleeping face, those grinning teeth near his neck? On his neck? Dear God.

     He turned abruptly and went to the closet. The Samsonite was there, still locked. The key was still in his overcoat pocket.

     Behind him. the TV snapped off. He came out of the closet slowly. Peter was looking at him soberly. 'Daddy, I don't like that monkey,' he said, his voice almost too low to hear.

     'Nor do I,' Hal said.

     Petey looked at him closely, to see if he was joking, and saw that he was not. He came to his father and hugged him tight. Hal could feet him trembling.

     Petey spoke into his ear then, very rapidly, as if afraid he might not have courage enough to say it again. . . or that the monkey might overhear.

     'It's like it looks at you. Like it looks at you no matter where you are in the room. And if you go into the other room, it's like it's looking through the wall at you. I kept feeling like it... like it wanted me for something.'

     Petey shuddered. Hal held him tight.