The Monkey

afloat, he would clamber in, grab an oar to push with and say 'Push me off, Hal . . . this is where you earn your truss!'

     'Hand that bag in, Petey, and then give me a push.' he said. And, smiling a little, he added: 'This is where you earn your truss.'

     Percy didn't smile back. 'Am I coming, Daddy?'

     'Not this time. Another time I'll take you out fishing, but . . . not this time.'

     Petey hesitated. The wind tumbled his brown hair and a few yellow leaves, crisp and dry, wheeled past his shoulders and landed at the edge of the water, bobbing like boats themselves.

     'You should have stuffed 'em,' he said. low.

     'What?' But he thought he understood what Petey had meant.

     'Put cotton over the cymbals. Taped it on. So it couldn't . . make that noise.'

     Hal suddenly remembered Daisy coming toward him not walking but lurching and how, quite suddenly, blood had burst from both of Daisy's eyes in a flood that soaked her ruff and pattered down on the floor of the barn, how she had collapsed on her forepaws . . . and on the still, rainy spring air of that day he had heard the sound, not muffled but curiously clear, coming from the attic of the house fifty feet away: Jang-jang-jang-jang!

      He had begun to scream hysterically, dropping the arm-load of wood he had been getting for the fire. He ran for the kitchen to get Uncle Will, who was eating scrambled eggs and toast, his suspenders not even up over his shoulders yet.

     She was an old dog, Hal, Uncle Will had said, his face haggard and unhappy he looked old himself. She was twelve, and that's old for a dog. You mustn't take on now old Daisy wouldn't like that.

     Old, the vet had echoed, but he had looked troubled all the same, because dogs don't die of explosive brain hemorrhages, even at twelve ('Like as if someone had stuck a firecracker in her head,' Hal overheard the vet saying to Uncle Will as Uncle Will dug a hole in back of the barn not far from the place where he had buried Daisy's mother in 1950; 'I never seen the beat of it, Will').

     And later, terrified almost out of his mind but unable to help himself, Hal had crept up to the attic.

     Hello, Hal, how you doing? The monkey grinned from its shadowy comer. Its cymbals were poised, a foot or so apart. The sofa cushion Hal had stood on end between them was now all the way across the attic. Something--some force--had thrown it hard enough to split its cover, and stuffing foamed out of it. Don't worry, about Daisy, the monkey whispered inside his head, its glassy hazel eyes fixed on Hal Shelburn's wide blue ones. Don't worry about Daisy, she was old, Hal, even the vet said so, and by the way, did you see the blood coming out of her eyes, Hal. Wind me up, Hal. Wind me up, let's play, and who's dead, Hal? Is it you?

     And when he came back to himself he had been crawling toward the monkey as if hypnotized. One hand had been outstretched to grasp the key. He scrambled backward then, and almost fell down the attic stairs in his haste--probably would have if the stairwell had not been so narrow. A little whining noise had been coming from his throat.

     Now he sat in the boat, looking at Petey. 'Muffling the cymbals doesn't work,' he said. 'I tried it once.'

     Petey cast a nervous glance at the flight bag. 'What happened, Daddy'?'

     'Nothing I want to talk about now,' Hal said, 'and nothing you want to hear about. Come on and give me a push.'

     Petey bent to it, and the stern of the boat grated along the sand. Hal dug in with an oar, and suddenly that feeling of being tied to the earth was gone and the boat was moving lightly, its own thing again after years in the dark boathouse, rocking on the light waves. Hal unshipped the other oar and clicked the oarlocks shut.

     'Be careful. Daddy,' Petey said.