Bad Monkey

On the same day Christopher’s new earth-chewing machine appeared, Neville went back to see the Dragon Queen. He presented to her a man’s black nylon sock that he’d snatched from the same garbage can as the shirt fragment, outside the house rented by Christopher and his woman. The Dragon Queen frowned when Neville handed her the sock, which had a hole in the heel.

“Dis all you got fuh me?”

“Please, madam. I dont have much time.”

“Look how big dis mon’s feet be! No wonder my udda coyse dint woyk.”

Something about the Dragon Queen seemed different, and at first Neville couldn’t figure it out. Then, when she reached over and deftly snatched a doctor fly from his arm, it struck him: The woman was dead sober. The hairs on Neville’s neck prickled when she plucked one wing off the fly and then watched it spin helplessly across the warped plank floor.

He said, “I kin go bok and look fuh sum ting more. Wot is it you want?”

The Dragon Queen grinned. She had perhaps seven teeth in her whole mouth. “Wot do I want? I want you, suh.”

It was a moment Neville had been fearing; the Dragon Queen’s rapacious appetite for men was legendary. Not wishing to become her next doomed lover, he’d prepared a defense.

“No, madam, I got de clap.”

“Lemme have a peek.” She rocked in her wicker chair and lit a cigar.

Neville shook his head. “Dot’s not proper.”

The Dragon Queen was firm: No sex, no more voodoo curses on Christopher. Neville was angry but he held back. Instead he said, “De mon already rip down de house where my own fahdder was born. He toyn it into a heap a goddamn rocks.”

She spat and said, “White devil.”

“Den help me take ’im down.”

“You don’t got de clap. Drop off your pants, bey, so I kin see your ting.”

“Wot else you take fuh pay? All I got is foity dollahs.”

The Dragon Queen chuckled and shut her eyes and blew a wreath of smoke that smelled like rancid mulch. “Mistuh Neville, where’s dot little pink boy a yours?”

“He’s outside. Why you ask?” Neville had leashed Driggs to the handlebars of the bike.

“So, den, here’s wot we do.” The Dragon Queen cracked one eyelid. “You give dot boy to me, as my own, and I’ll pudda coyse on dis white devil Chrissofer make ’im dread sorry he ever set foot on dis island. Maybe even kill de mon, fuh true. Dot’s all I want from you. No money, no fucky, juss Driggs.”

“Madam, I tole you. Dot’s not a real boy.”

“So you say.”

“Why you want ’im fuh?”

“It’s lonely here on dis dusty hill. I gotta pull de wings off flies juss so dey stay ’round to keep me comp’ny. Dot ol’ Driggs, he could dance hoppy circles ’n’ make me lof all night long. Nodder ting, I kin teach ’im how to pour my rum drinks and rub my feets.”

“But—”

“Dot’s my final offer, suh. If you want sum bigass woo-doo, either gimme de boy or every fine inch a your manhood.” The Dragon Queen stubbed the cigar and dropped it inside the black sock that Neville had taken from Christopher’s trash.

“Madam, he’s not a very good monkey.”

“Oh, I know.”

Neville wasn’t sure why he cared about Driggs, who had a corrupt streak and no appreciation for Neville’s many acts of kindness. The animal was dexterous and conniving, but discipline was almost impossible because Driggs retaliated with filthy bites to soft-tissue targets such as calves and thighs. Even when unprovoked, the creature traveled with a septic disposition. On the streets he shrewdly singled out white tourists and approached them for handouts. Those who balked might be punished by a rabbit punch to the genitals, or the nasty twist of a nipple. On one occasion, a German teen who tried to snap a picture of the animal was flogged with her own bikini top.

Driggs’s noxious attitude baffled Neville, although he suspected a dietary deficiency. He’d become worried when his little sidekick started molting, yet all efforts to wean the monkey from conch fritters and johnnycakes were vehemently rebuffed. Neville’s girlfriends were scared of Driggs and demanded that the scabby demon remain tethered outdoors during Neville’s nocturnal visits. The monkey’s response was to dig both hands into his diaper and hurl handfuls of feces at the windows, a raucous spectacle that had pitched Neville’s love life into a stall.

“He smot. Dot I kin tell,” said the Dragon Queen. “I teach ’im some prime woo-doo moves.”

“Butchu ain’t gon hoyt de fella, right?”

“Wot!” Indignantly she flapped her hem up and down, Neville turning away.

“Hoyt dot little fella?” she cried. “Come back in a few days, see if you don’t find de hoppiest pink boy in all de world. Under my roof he gern live like de Prince a Wales!”

Neville said Driggs was worth eight hundred dollars, which was what he’d been told by the sponger who’d given him the monkey years earlier at the domino game.

“Eight hundred! Dot’s crazy talk,” said the Dragon Queen.

“He was in de movies wit Johnny Depp. It’s no lie.”

“Cap’n Jack Sparrow? You fulla crap. Your boy played de bod monkey?”

“Yes, madam, in all dose pirate movies. And he is a monkey,” Neville reiterated.