The Monkey

     'Worried about ghosts, chickenguts'?' Dennis inquired.

     'Dennis, you stop it,' Terry said absently. She picked up a waferthin cup with a Chinese pattern. 'This is nice. This--'

     Hal saw that Dennis had found the wind-up key in the monkey's back. Terror flew through him on dark wings. 'Don't do that!'

     It came out more sharply than he had intended, and he had snatched the monkey out of Dennis's hands before he was really aware he had done it. Dennis looked around at him, startled. Terry had also glanced back over her shoulder, and Petey looked up. For a moment they were all silent, and the wind whistled again, very low this time, like an unpleasant invitation.

     'I mean, it's probably broken,' Hal said.

     It used to be broken . . . except when it wanted not to be.

     'Well, you didn't have to grab,' Dennis said.

     'Dennis, shut up'

     Dennis blinked and for a moment looked almost uneasy. Hal hadn't spoken to him so sharply in a tong time. Not since he had lost his job with National Aerodyne in California two years before and they had moved to Texas. Dennis decided not to push it ... for now. He turned back to the Ralston-Purina canon and began to root through it again, but the other stuff was nothing but junk. Broken toys bleeding springs and stuffings.

     The wind was louder now, hooting instead of whistling. The attic began to creak softly, making a noise like footsteps.

     'Please· Daddy'?' Petey asked, only loud enough for his father to hear.

     'Yeah,' he said. 'Terry, let's go.'

     'I'm not through with this '

     'I said let's go.'

     It was her turn to look startled.

     They had taken two adjoining rooms in a motel. By ten that night the boys were asleep in their room and Terry was asleep in the adults' room. She had taken two Valiums on the ride back from the home place in Casco. To keep her nerves from giving her a migraine. Just lately she took a lot of Valium. It had started around the time National Aerodyne had laid Hal off. For the last two years he had been working for Texas Instruments it was $4,000 less a year, but it was work. He told Terry they were lucky. She agreed. There were plenty of software architects drawing unemployment, he said. She agreed. The company housing in Arnette was every bit as good as the place in Fresno, he said. She agreed, but he thought her agreement to all of it was a lie.

     And he was losing Dennis. He could feel the kid going, achieving a premature escape velocity, so long, Dennis, bye-bye stranger, it was nice sharing this train with you. Terry said she thought the boy was smoking reefer. She smelled it sometimes. You have to talk to him, Hal. And he agreed, but so far he had not.

     The boys were asleep. Terry was asleep. Hal went into the bathroom and locked the door and sat down on the closed lid of the john and looked at the monkey.

     He hated the way it felt, that soft brown nappy fur, worn bald in spots. He hated its grin. that monkey grins just like a nigger, Uncle Will had said once, but it didn't grin like a nigger or like anything human. Its grin was all teeth, and if you wound up the key. the lips would move. the teeth would seem to get bigger, to become vampire teeth, the lips would writhe and the cymbals would bang, stupid monkey, stupid clockwork monkey, stupid, stupid

     He dropped it. His hands were shaking and he dropped it. The key clicked on the bathroom tile as it struck the floor. The sound seemed very loud in the stillness. It grinned at him with its murky amber eyes, doll's eyes, filled with idiot glee, its brass cymbals poised as if to strike up a march for some band from hell. On the bottom the words MADE IN HONG KONG were stamped.

     'You can't be here,' he whispered. 'I threw you down the well when I was nine.'