The Monkey Laughed

Time Capsule

2009-04-15T16:11:00.004-04:00

Something came in the mail today. A small cardboard box. Glancing down quickly—it was pouring out—she saw her first name on the label. Damp and dirty from sitting in the flower bed all day, she brought it inside and left it to dry on the mat beside her equally damp shoes. She changed her clothes and began preparing dinner.

An hour later, her husband stood dripping in the kitchen doorway, waving the box at her. “Someone's playing a joke on you, Carrie,” he said. He shook the box once, lightly. It didn't make a sound.

“What are you talking about?”

“You tell me.” He grinned and held the box out to her. She handed him the wooden spoon she was using to stir the chili, then, arching an eyebrow, took the box.

“What are you up to?” she asked. Joe was known for practical joking, and she was overdue.

“Nothing, nothing,” he said, waving the chili spoon like a white flag. “I swear.”

She read the entire label this time. “To Carrie Foreman” was written in pencil, in large, shaky capital letters. Foreman was her maiden name; she hadn't used it in over thirty years. The street address was old, too: It was the address of her childhood home, which had burned down the year after her parents sold it. There was no return address.

It unnerved her, the handwriting, the name, the address. “This isn't funny, Joe. Did you do this?”

“No, but I wish I had. Great gag. What's inside?”

She shoved the box at him and reclaimed her chili spoon. “You know, since you're so very interested, I think you should open it.”

She expected him to talk his way out of it, to duck and dodge so that she had to open it herself. Instead, he took out his pocket knife and began cutting through the packing tape that covered the tiny box. When he was finished, he looked up at her. “I didn't send this, Carrie. I swear.”

“Mmm.” She stirred too forcefully, splattering chili sauce onto the clean stove top.

After lifting the lid from the box, Joe dumped a small handful of Styrofoam packing peanuts onto the counter.

“Well?”

“It's something wrapped in wax paper,” he said, removing a small packet. “I can't tell—” He held it up to the light and squinted at it, trying to make out its contents without opening it.

But Carrie knew what it was. She knew right away. It was a single baby-pink blossom off the Japanese cherry tree that grew in the front yard of the house she grew up in. When her father was remodeling the kitchen, preparing the house to be sold, her mother had suggested leaving a time capsule behind in one of the bulkheads he was building for the new cabinets. She was already dying, but Carrie didn't know it.

Together, they selected the largest, most perfect blossom off the tree, wrapped it in wax paper, and pressed it in the old dictionary for two days. Her father had laughed, but he promised to tuck it away somewhere in the kitchen, a token of blessing for future residents.

“What the hell?” Joe was still pretending to make out the contents. The wax paper crinkled as he unfolded the carefully-preserved blossom.

“Don't!” She put her hand over his. “This isn't funny, Joe—I can't believe you would think this is funny.”

“I swear to God, Carrie, I don't know what you're talking about. What is this?”

He wasn't lying. She could see the concern in his eyes. She pulled her hand away and let him finish unwrapping. When he was done, the fragile blossom lay exposed to air and fluorescent light for the first time in decades. Brown around the edges, it had retained much of its pink-and-greenness.

She couldn't help herself. She slid her fingers carefully underneath the paper and lifted the flower to her face. She closed her eyes and breathed in. Behind the odor of chili spices from dinner, there was a sweetly delicate fragrance, one she knew from memory. For an all-too-brief moment she was there again, the house unburnt, her parents alive, watching the beloved tree bloom decadently for a handful of days, its lush blossoms carpeting the grass with their petals. She was there, she was, alongside her mother, laughing and laughing as they plucked flowers for each other's hair.

“I swear, Carrie,” Joe repeated, “I swear I don't know anything about this.”

And he was right. He didn't know anything about it. In that moment, she felt that words would never do justice to what she was feeling, so, as a compromise, she offered up the blossom.

“Take a deep breath,” she said. And he did.

Reverse Migration

2008-10-06T20:31:00.005-04:00

Rocking slowly, barefoot, she studies birds. Each flip of the page reveals a new species, and she scans her backyard in search of—what is it again?—a yellow-shafted Northern Flicker. But there's nothing—not an oriole, not a robin, none of the birds she can identify without her book. Nothing there but the broken dishwasher squatting on the deck, waiting to be junked. Beyond the waving branches, the gray sky flashes white.

Reluctantly, she sets the book aside and draws the laptop near. She should finish today; she should buckle down and do it. She makes a mental note and tacks it to the wall of her imagination, for all her thoughts to see. Do not disturb!

Do not disturb me, bird book! Do not disturb me, silent, invisible birds! Do not disturb me, boredom. . . .

She types and types. She makes tiny, frantic circles on the touchpad with her fingertip. Behind the noise of pounded keys, there's a growling rumble and the imaginary echo of her mother's voice calling her inside. Remove these electronics from this aluminum shell of a room—a room under trees, for Heaven's sake! But this idea of shifting, of detaching and then reattaching, is more than she can bear just now.

The rain falls hard, and everything grows dim. Annoyed, she reaches for the floor lamp and ramps up the dial as far as it will go. It hardly helps.

Lightning strikes nearby, and she glances up—a reflex, but it's enough. How can she work through this? The sound: frenetic drumbeats, millions of them. The smell: pine-needle-y, damp, woodpile-ish. The sight: limbs arching across the deck like wings on a mammoth mama bird.

Fat drops cling to the undersides of everything. They swell, they pop, they fall. They rain dance on the bleached wood planks amidst fallen leaves, broken twigs, and nail pops. The grill cover, slick with wet, glistens. She watches and waits and then—

A splash of red, right there, right in front of her. A cardinal sways and nibbles at tiny seed kernels. She can't take her eyes off it, even though the lawn needs mowing and the weeds weave in and out of the rusty wire-mesh fence and the dishwasher's still there—still ugly—with its pulled-plug wires and corrugated tubing flapping in the wind. (She makes another mental note—“Call for special pickup.”—and files it under ALREADY FORGOTTEN.)

She watches the bird hop and peck. She rocks, pushing off the grey carpet with her big toe. The rain tapers off, leaving trees and grass a garish green, the green of gloopy icing on a three-year-old's birthday cake. Sweet. Pretty, even.

The storm passes quickly overhead. Next door, a bird, unidentifiable, laughs to himself: "Heee—a-heee—a-heee!" Her cardinal flies sunward—unfiled, untacked. She makes another mental note, elbows resting on her knees. Go on, she says, waving her words in the air, disturb me! Shake me, blow in with rain, wind, and birds!

This life, she says, is short.

Hide and Seek

2008-07-22T16:26:00.003-04:00

The basement is compartmentalized, like a mother. Our side is wood-paneled, carpeted, with fluorescent lights that buzz when they're beginning to burn out. Old jam jars line one wall, each holding ten or twenty orange-and-black fireflies. They don't live very long, and Harry wonders if it's right to keep them until they pile up, dead.

The other side of the basement—where Harry is hiding now—has a steel-and-wood skeleton and a pipe-and-wire cardiovascular system and dirty, yellow, insular fat. Its peeling brown paper skin is stamped with OWENS CORNING in thick, red letters.

I stand in the triangle of faint yellow light that peeks in from our side of the basement. Small-bodied for his age, Harry shivers in the darkest corner, behind the squat water heater.

It's so quiet, I can hear him breathing.

"Harry?"

Of course he doesn't answer.

I move toward the storage room. I pull open the door and grope for the cord to turn on the light. It's not there. I shuffle a foot or two into the darkness, both hands out in front of me, but I still can't find it.

Panic builds. I look over my shoulder, startled by the idea that someone lurking outside, behind the tool cabinet—not Harry, but someone unknown, unknowable—is tiptoeing up to close the door and lock me in.

I hear a rustling on the other side of the wall and take an unthinking step backward. Something taps me on the back of the head.

"Jesus!"

It's only the cord.

"Shaun?"

Harry's stepped out from behind the water heater. I pretend not to hear him. Two houses down, Mr. Riley starts his lawnmower.

I tug the cord and blink against the sudden brightness. I glance around, pretend I'm looking for Harry. There are plenty of places to hide in here, little cubbies behind or in between boxes or old suitcases. The platform Dad built for the train leans against one wall of the makeshift room, another hiding place for a boy as small as Harry. A long, lone cobweb drapes across one shelving unit like an old party streamer.

There are boxes of Christmas lights and glass icicles and lawn ornaments in the shape of candy canes. There are stacks of old books. There are objects with no meaning to me whatsoever except as things that have always been stored in this basement. Harry's old high chair stands in the corner. I stare at it for a long time, knowing, somehow, that there will never be another baby to sit in it.

I reach for the cord and turn off the light. It's time to "find" Harry.

He's singing behind the water heater.

I pull the door closed behind me, thinking of the jars of dead or dying fireflies and the strange yearning I felt as I cupped them, their yellow light seeping from between my fingers.

I feel like hiding. I never want to be "It" again.

Unsolicited Advice, Postdated

2008-07-14T19:56:00.019-04:00

Your father's death—despite a three-year battle with cancer—will hit you like a fist to the back of the neck. Mental preparation will fail you. This is normal. Really.

The arrangements you'll make are laid out in tight, tiny script. He was like that: forward-thinking, temperate.

"Don't forget to book the bagpiper."

At the viewing, you'll walk smack into Uncle Eddie and keep going, unaware. People whose names you don't know will know yours. They'll smile pityingly as you crumple into chairs, offer to bring you cake and tea. They'll look elsewhere while you stare down at the body in the casket.

Make sure to nod when your second cousin Rona repeats those tired, idiotic words, "He looks real good." She doesn't see that the cake of orange goop across his face is sick—makes him look like a skeletal Oompa-Loompa.

Accept all pats on your shoulder as well-meaning.

When you finally get a moment alone—in the ladies' room, say, or behind the funeral home to sneak a cigarette—reassure yourself: These things happen. People die all the time. Really. Former Presidents die. So, too, do elementary school teachers, strippers, and architects. Everybody dies.

Even fathers. Even yours.