The spinning manhole cover didn’t seem to provide sufficient spectacle to explain the intensity of the troop’s attention. They were rapt. Almost in a trance. I found it difficult to believe that the disc, merely by chance, could have achieved the precise rotational velocity that, combined with exactly these oscillating tones, was hypnotic to monkeys.
Perhaps this wasn’t a game that I was witnessing, not play but ritual, a ceremony with a symbolic significance that was clear to these rhesuses but was an impenetrable mystery to me. Ritual and symbol not only implied abstract thinking but raised the possibility that these monkeys’ lives had a spiritual dimension, that they were not just smart but capable of brooding about the origin of all things and the purpose of their existence.
This idea disconcerted me so much that I almost turned away from the window.
In spite of their hostility toward humanity and their enthusiasm for violence, I already had sympathy for these pathetic creatures, was moved by their status as outcasts with no rightful place in nature. If they indeed possess the capacity to wonder about God and about the design of the cosmos, then they may know the exquisite pain that humanity knows too well: the yearning to understand why our Creator allows us to suffer so much, the terrible unfulfilled longing to find Him, to see His face, to touch Him, and to know that He is real. If they share this quiet but profound agony with us, then I sympathize with their plight, but I also
And while pitying them, how can I kill them without hesitation if another confrontation requires me to do so in order to save my life or that of a friend? In one previous encounter, I’ve had to meet their ferocious assault with gunfire. Lethal force is easy to use when your adversary is as mindless as a shark. And you can pull the trigger without remorse when you are able to match your enemy’s hatred with pure hatred of your own. Pity engenders second thoughts, hesitation. Pity may be the key to the door of Heaven, if Heaven exists, but it is not an advantage when you are fighting for your life against a pitiless opponent.
From the street came a change in the sound of the spinning iron, a greater oscillation between tones. The manhole cover had begun to lose rotational velocity.
None in the troop rushed forward to stabilize the whirligig. They watched with curious fascination as it wobbled, as its song changed to a steadily slowing
The disc clattered to a halt, flat on the pavement, and at the same instant the monkeys froze. A final note rang across the night, followed by silence and stillness so absolute that Dead Town might have been sealed inside a gigantic Lucite paperweight. As far as I could tell, every member of the troop gazed with magnetized eyes at the iron manhole cover.
After a while, as though waking from a deep sleep, they drifted dreamily toward the disc. They slowly circled it, hunched low with the knuckles of their forepaws grazing the pavement, examining the iron with the pensive attitude of Gypsies analyzing wet tea leaves to read the future.
A few hung back, either because something about the disc made them uneasy or because they were waiting their turn. These hesitant individuals conspicuously directed their attention toward anything
One of the beasts glanced at the bungalow in which I had taken refuge.
I didn’t hold my breath or tense up, because I was confident that nothing about this structure lent it a character different from the shabby and desolate appearance of hundreds of others throughout the neighborhood. Even the open front door was not remarkable; most of these buildings were exposed to the elements.
After dwelling on the house for only a few seconds, the monkey raised its face toward the gibbous moon. Either its posture conveyed a deep melancholy — or I was overcome by sentimentality, attributing more human qualities to these rhesuses than made sense.
Then, although I hadn’t moved or made a sound, the wiry beast twitched, sprang erect, lost interest in the sky, and looked again at the bungalow.
“Don’t monkey with me,” I murmured.
In a slow rolling gait, it moved out of the street, over the curb, and onto a sidewalk dappled with the moonshadows of laurel branches, where it halted.
I resisted the urge to back away from the window. The darkness around me was as perfect as that in Dracula’s coffin with the lid closed, and I felt invisible. The overhanging porch roof prevented moonlight from directly touching my face.
The miserable little geek appeared to be studying not just the window at which I stood but every aspect of the small house, as though it intended to locate a Realtor and make an offer for the property.
I am excruciatingly aware of the interplay of light and shadow, which, for me, is more sensuous than any woman’s body. I am not forbidden to know the comfort of a woman, but I am denied all but the most meager light. Therefore, every form of illumination is imbued with a shimmering erotic quality, and I’m acutely aware of the caress of every beam. Here in the bungalow, I was confident that I was untouched, beyond anyone’s ken, as much a part of the blackness as the wing is part of the bat.
The monkey advanced a few steps, onto the walkway that bisected the front yard and led to the porch steps. It was no more than twenty feet from me.
As it turned its head, I caught a glimpse of its gleaming eyes. Usually muddy yellow and as baleful as the eyes of a tax collector, they were now fiery orange and even more menacing in this poor light. They were filled with that luminosity exhibited by the eyes of most nocturnal animals.
I could barely see the creature in the laurel shadows, but the restless movement of its jack-o’-lantern eyes indicated that it was curious about something and that it still hadn’t fixated specifically on my window. Maybe it had heard the peep or rustle of a mouse in the grass — or one of the tarantulas native to this region — and was hoping only to snare a tasty treat.
In the street, the other members of the troop were still engaged by the manhole cover.
Ordinary rhesuses, which live primarily by day, do not exhibit eyeshine in darkness. Members of the Wyvern troop have better night vision than other monkeys, but in my experience they aren’t remotely as gifted as owls or cats. Their visual acuity is only fractionally — not geometrically — better than that of the common primates from which they were engineered. In an utterly lightless place, they are nearly as helpless as I am.
The inquisitive monkey — my own Curious George — scampered three steps closer, out of the tree shadow and into moonlight again. When it halted, it was less than fifteen feet away, within five feet of the porch.
The marginal improvement in their nocturnal sight is probably an unexpected side effect of the intelligence- enhancement experiment that spawned them, but as far as I have been able to discern, it isn’t matched by improvement in their other senses. Ordinary monkeys aren’t spoor-tracking animals with keen olfactory powers, like dogs, and neither are these. They would be able to sniff me out from no greater distance than I would be able to smell them, which meant from no farther than a foot or two, even though they were unquestionably a fragrant bunch. Likewise, these long-tailed terrorists don’t benefit from paranormal hearing, and they are not able to fly like their screeching brethren who do dirty work for the Wicked Witch of the West. Although they are fearsome, especially when encountered in significant numbers, they aren’t so formidable that only silver bullets or kryptonite will kill them.
On the sidewalk, Curious George sat on his haunches, wrapped his long arms around his torso as if comforting himself, and peered up at the moon once more. He gazed heavenward so long that he seemed to have forgotten the bungalow.
After a while, I consulted my wristwatch. I was worried that I would be trapped here, unable to meet Bobby at the movie theater.
He was also in danger of blundering into the troop. Even a man as resourceful as Bobby Halloway would not prevail if he had to face them alone.
If the monkeys didn’t move on soon, I’d have to risk a call to Bobby’s mobile number to warn him. I wasn’t happy about the electronic tone that would sound when I switched on my cell phone. In the hush of Dead Town, that pure note would resonate like a monk breaking wind in a monastery where everyone had taken a vow of silence.
Finally, Curious George finished contemplating the medallion moon, lowered his face, and rose to his feet. He stretched his shaggy arms, shook his head, and scampered back toward the street.
Just as I let out a sigh of relief, the little freak squealed, and his shrill cry could have been interpreted only as a shriek of alarm.
