MONKEY PUZZLE
Monkey Puzzle Press Boulder, CO
MONKEY PUZZLE #4, SPRING 2008
EDITOR, DESIGNER, PUBLISHER Nate Jordon
MONKEY PUZZLE is currently published four times a year by Monkey Puzzle Press in Boulder, Colorado. Copyright © 2008 Monkey Puzzle Press All rights revert to individual authors upon publication. Monkey Puzzle accepts previously unpublished prose (2,500 words), poetry (1-5 pages), interviews, artwork, photography, and hybrids. Experimental work welcome. We accept electronic and hardcopy submissions. All submissions must include the writer’s contact information on the first page: name, address, phone number, and e-mail address. Include a SASE if you would like a reply. Address all queries and submissions to: MONKEY PUZZLE PRESS 3161 Madison Ave. Ste. P-221 Boulder, CO 80303 MonkeyPuzzlePress@gmail.com www.monkeypuzzleonline.com
ISSN 1937-9927
CONTENTS
Editor’s Note…………………………….…………...vi Art Walker Lauren Andrews……..…………………….......1 Enlightened Travis Cebula….……………………….…..….3 Chase Not Haunting Tired Eyes Yasamin Ghiasi…………………..………...….5 Giving Birth to People Jefferson Navicky.………………..….…….…. 7 The New Pet Ryan Clark…….….………………………...….8 Painting Lindsey Anderson……………………………..9 A Night at the Park Tim Inman.…………………………………..10 Going Retro Nicholas B. Morris………….………...…...….13 The Day after Seven Brooke Lehrer………………………….….....16
Themselves Perry Lavin…………………………………...20 Piano Ape Tomara Kafka………………………..…..…...22
throw your mother’s bones over your shoulder
Brandon Arthur………………………….…...27
Judgment Day or Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Post of Life Peter Rugh…………………………...….…....25 The Monkey’s New Paw Richard Schwass……………………...….…...29 Memoirs of a Disgruntled Pet Kelly Sexton……………………...….……….32
Contributors………………..………………………....35 Acknowledgements……………………….….……….39 Submission Guidelines…………….………………….40
EDITOR’S NOTE Dear Reader, Ah, finally! It’s in your hands! Many of you have been asking, “What’s up with Monkey Puzzle?” To wit, I’ve answered with many grunts, shrugs, mumbles, and screeches from trees. As some of you know, I’ve been in my thesis/ manuscript semester at Naropa University, wrapping up everything necessary to bag an MFA Degree in Writing & Poetics. That, along with the fifty-five other things I’ve been bound to, has taken up more time than I thought. It’s only been in the last few days that I’ve been able to get back into the swing of all things Monkey Puzzle. This special compendium issue represents the last issue of Monkey Puzzle in this format. The next issue will have a new look, as it will be printed from the professionals at Morrell Printing Solutions. It will be perfect-bound and all that good stuff, so it will look great placed next to your copy of Ishmael. Then there’s www.monkeypuzzleonline.com. It’s still in development but I hope to have it done in the relative near (i.e. very near) future. Once complete, all the fine prose, poetry, artwork, and photographs from previous editions will be available online. And to answer another question asked over the last few months, “How can I get a subscription?” That option will be available on the website too. But enough monkey business. What’s really going on here? This issue is dedicated to showcasing the incredible entries to the First Annual Monkey Puzzle Flash-Fiction Contest. James Kerley was the judge and it took him a long time to decide who won. That has more to do with everyone’s incredibly imaginative stories than his own simian intellect. James is a fine ape, he shaves in all the right places and is able to maneuver in the human world without being noticed, except vi
for the occasional body odor that is so foul, even his wild pack of hamsters scream in fear. But more gratitude is owed to all who submitted to the flash-fiction contest. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Amid the entries to the flash-fiction contest, you will find poetry and artwork that have been waiting to appear in an issue of Monkey Puzzle for I don’t know how long. I’m glad they’ve finally found a home in this special edition. Thank you to all the poets and artists who’ve expressed exasperation and patience with me. And to you, reader, I can’t thank enough. I hope you enjoy this issue as much as I have. If it takes you four months to read it, that’s okay. It took me that long to publish it. Holoholo, Nate Jordon Monkey-in-Chief
LAUREN ANDREWS
Art Walker
It is the first Friday of the month, which means downtown Oakland is abuzz with the Art Walk. A number of venues around Lake Merritt within walking distance of one another host local artists every first Friday so all the hipsters can cram in and check each other, and occasionally the artwork, out. I am walking across 23rd Street from the lake, heading to three such venues on the corner of 23rd and Telegraph. I happen to know a couple of the artists with their work on display and I promised to make an appearance. The up-and-coming art scene of the area is one example of the general gentrification currently underway. The wreckage to my left of what used to be a Day Care is another. Old businesses and buildings are being cleared out and torn down left and right to make way for the new sprawl. But the building hasn’t so much started yet, or if it has it isn’t keeping up with the demolition. The Day Care was wrecked to make way for a grand new parking lot, but so far there’s just a fenced -up lot with miniature plastic houses, formerly a playground, turned upside down among the glass, broken asphalt, and debris. Metal monkey bars are eerily left standing in the center of the rubble. A breeze picks up, spraying dust into my mouth and eyes, leaving me with the feeling that an ashtray has been kicked in my face by some omnipotent power. Outside the Art Walk, herds of people are filing in and out. Countless kids stand loitering on the street. I steer my way through the tight pants, brown paper bags, and cigarette smoke, finally entering a gallery where the theme is drinking beer and wine out of tiny Dixie cups. I recognize the song playing in the background from the new record of a local musician, and then I recognize a guy I know who is, ironically enough, sleeping on that same musician’s floor in San Fran1
cisco. He’s wearing a King Kong shirt, a beard, and a cowboy hat—making his 6’4” frame appear even more imposing. Before he has the chance to look up, I look down at my feet. I realize this is not the most suave maneuver, but part of me hopes to go unnoticed for a few moments longer. My feet are killing me after walking around Oakland all afternoon wearing slip-on black kung-fu shoes that I found in Chinatown for a dollar ninety-nine. They are by far superior in style to any other shoe, and I should know as I am trained in aesthetics. Unfortunately, they’re about as functional as shoes as wearing toilet paper around your neck for a scarf. They slip off if I don’t shuffle along as I walk. Plus, they’re as thin as socks with a bit of rubber on the bottom. They enhance the look of my grey skinny-cut denim though, so I can hardly complain. I am standing off to the side of the gallery pondering the aesthetics of my pant-to-shoe ratio in this manner when a voice shatters my bubble. I am back again in the crowded, over-heated room, only now I no longer recognize loud music playing. Jack is standing in front of me, wearing a grin under his cowboy hat. He’s saying some clumsy “haven’t seen you in a while” sort of remark. I smile and nod and think about how this man seems circus tall to me. I wonder what the view must be like from up there. He can actually see the art on the walls—that and the loads of hipsters. I consider making an escape, but decide to kill some time since I haven’t spotted anyone I’m looking for yet. I ask Jack how the editing is going on the film he’s working on. He’s been working on the same film for ages, and he’s been sleeping on the same floor until the project wraps. Jack answers in the way I know he will, starting a long, spastic speech about himself and his work. He has this way of continuing a conversation all by himself; all you need to do is get the ball rolling by asking him a question about himself. I move my lips from side to side, playing with my lip ring out of habit. Fading away, I picture Jack as King Kong. He is leaning off the top of an office building, roaring, swatting at helicopters with his huge, hairy ape arms. In order to suppress my laughter, I look through the oversized windows of the gallery. Then I nod at Jack again, and my gaze drifts back slowly to my feet.
TRAVIS CEBULA
MONKEY PUZZLE FLASH FICTION CONTEST 3rd Place
Enlightened
Manny started to feel dizzy from hyperventilation. He slumped back against the rough, cold concrete wall and lurched down one inch at a time until he crouched and trembled. The fluorescent tubes overhead flickered and buzzed intermittently, causing shadows to swell and recede in the confined space. Manny’s stiff fingers let his under-ripe banana slide free and fall to the floor with a slap, where it landed in a spreading puddle that should have been sanguine, but instead loomed ochre under the artificial light. He frowned at the piece of fruit, thinking it looked a bit like an overturned canoe; or maybe just some other bigger, more distant tragedy. Dr. Schwartz lay heaped where he had thrown her. A look of faint surprise was stopped in mid-dawn across her concave face, lending her an air of naïveté that Manny knew was false. He had been around Dr. Ellen Schwartz for a long time, becoming familiar with her personality over the years. She hadn’t been the worst of them, certainly, but she had been there. And on this particular night there was all he needed. Manny’s trembling slowly subsided and, swiveling his hirsute head, he again surveyed the room—long since memorized. A chunk of tree rose from the center of the cell terminating in a hint of a crotch where it met the ceiling. In his mind its smooth alien sterility was every bit as manufactured as a chair or a table, far from the green thing it had once been. Furniture. Hanging from the sole piece of wood that could be earnestly referred to as a “branch” was a tire swing on a fraying nylon rope. Manny questioned, not for the first time, who first decided that fifty years in a ten-by-ten grey-green concrete box with a tire swing was appreciably better than thirty years in a ten-by-ten grey-green concrete box without a tire swing. No matter. The swing hung there, regardless. 3
In the corner was an old volleyball of rotting yellow rubber. Manny dimly hoped the ball wasn’t actively flaking into his tray of limp browning lettuce and floppy carrots. Then he came to the conclusion that he didn’t really care much about that, either. The ball and the vegetables probably all tasted the same, anyway. Deliciously tucked just out of reach in the high fork of the pseudo-tree, however, was a shiny orange – right where Ellen had just “hidden” it. It was the only spot in the small room that remotely resembled a “hiding place.” But even if he had been colorblind and stupid that particular game would have lost its novelty after the second go-round. Middle of night and the rest of the building sank into deeper dark, turning the thick glass wall into a mirror. Years of greasy handprints blurred Manny’s reflection floating slightly in front of them. He wondered what the people would do to him, this pale chimp staring back from the dirty window. Soon they would come through the small plywood door in the back wall. He pondered punishment. Manny remembered when he had first arrived and JoJo, a silver-maned mountain gorilla in the hospital with him, had lectured about Jeremy Bentham and how the only real prison was one where you got watched all the time. Manny was young then and didn’t really understand JoJo’s point. He now had the benefit of age. He crawled over to where Ellen lay and brushed strands of matted hair away from her crushed forehead, running through the catalog of his mind. No matter what came next, her death tallied. Later it was whispered that JoJo the Prized Gorilla had stopped moving. Rumor had it that he didn’t even blink any more, let alone eat. And it was true, except for an occasional flexing of his back muscles that sent small ripples through his silver hair. The decades had made him more patient than he had ever imagined possible. He sat. He sat and watched the never-ending tide of smiling, mocking faces with their insistent slapping hands. He sat and listened to the small fists hitting the clear wall again and again. He sat and waited for the plexiglass to crack wide open.
YASAMIN GHIASI
Chase Not Haunting Tired Eyes
if I knew better than to chase the haunting I would linger in the pale light out of the desolate deserted labyrinth I would let fall from my fingers this fainted fend so I could caress my forgotten face with the softness of my palms when they are wet with rain I would cease my tend to lie and let feel a tie-on so I could sleep cradled in the curved stained arms of the surrealist who paints my dreams dreams made of silver downed anchors in the sand shining ebony boats hung un-weary in the water no longer sailing the torrential tears of time if I knew better than to chase the haunting 5
I would stay here out of the desolate I would quit these damned wild-runnings
JEFFERSON NAVICKY
MONKEY PUZZLE FLASH FICTION CONTEST Honorable Mention
Giving Birth to People
I walked into the living room on Saturday morning where my lover lay reading on the couch in a green terry-cloth bathrobe. She said, the smell of coffee brought me downstairs. I said, I want to write a poem about apes, but I can’t write a poem about Jane Goodall. What about bonobos, she said, they have long legs and the males penis-fence while the females make love. I remembered making love last night on the kitchen floor, then again in the living room and again in the bedroom with the windows thrown night-wide open to winter. I like to think of bonobos, she said, as giving birth to humans. The idea struck me as vaguely alarming in its vertiginous evolutionary scope, like the moment I saw Canada from the top of the Magnum Rollercoaster just before plummeting. But I tried not to be too alarmed as I am not, in principle, against alarming things. I thought about a past incarnation as a penis-fencer in the old country, as a frugavore. My lover looked up at me from her book with a sleepy cocktail of absence and affection, legs slipping out of her green bathrobe. Does that help?
7
RYAN CLARK
The New Pet
The thing was throwing coasters against the woodpaneled wall of the living room. They were the ceramic Curious George collector's edition ones; the couple could hear them hit and break as we listened from the kitchen. One struck the knob of the door to the living room, and the woman jumped behind the man, grabbing hold of his shoulders. “I'm sorry,” she said. Reaching his arms back he grabbed a bit of her hair and started to gently roll the strands between his fingers and thumb. She cleared her throat, which jerked her head a little and the hair back from his hand. “The man at the store said it would be nice, and you have all those Curious George books. Remember you dressed up like the yellow hat man for Halloween? Everyone loved that, and you called me your little monkey and said we'd have monkey babies. But I don't know, I guess--” He grabbed her hair again, reaching back. “That in there is not a monkey. It's a chimpanzee, an ape. It doesn't have a tail, and monkeys have tails.” Another crash dead on the door--the remote control, or something else with batteries. “And you are my little monkey. Can you do the monkey face for me?” When she didn't say anything, he let loose her hair and turned around to face her, saw her shake her head at the kitchen floor, its banana print linoleum tiles. “My darling little monkey,” he said. “We're okay.” The oven let out three sharp beeps; the woman jerked up her head. Outside the kitchen the noise from the chimp had stopped, as if it was tired and wanted to sit and listen awhile to what others could do, what the hectic whirlwind of another's outraged apedom might sound like. It shuffled closer to the kitchen door, took a seat on the banana print carpet, listened, mouth open amused at the sound of shattering glass. 8
9
Painting by Lindsey Anderson
TIM INMAN
A Night at the Park
Tommie and Matt take the bus from the suburbs. Matt is the expert and says you ought to be out by at least seven o’clock, and even though Tommie thinks that is just a tad on the early side, he isn’t going to argue. It has taken Tommie several weeks to talk Matt into letting him tag along. Cardboard pizza, cold mac-n-cheese, and slipperywith-grease hash browns – lunch in the school cafeteria. Steve had asked Matt, for the umpteenth time, what he had been doing in the city on Fridays. “I could tell you, but then I’d have –” “Shut your goddamn mouth.” “Tell us, or we’ll kill you, fag.” “You really want to know? Two words: Chaseman Park.” All except for Tommie were beside themselves in disbelief. The park was famous, at least among queer kids from the suburbs. Chaseman was where you went to hustle old dudes, except nobody seemed to know anybody who had actually been there, done it – until now. Tommie wasted no time. When the bell rang, he followed Matt to his next class. “You have to take me with you.” “No way.” Tommie’s persistence prevailed. Two weeks before finals, Matt approached Tommie in the hall outside the cafeteria. “Look, I’ve given it a lot of thought. You can’t tell anyone. I’ll meet you at the bus station at 5:15, on the dot. Promise me you won’t tell anyone.” “Of course, yeah, I promise.” Rush hour. Two transfers. Fifteen minutes till seven. 10
Tommie and Matt step off the bus in the Capitol District. The air is warm. It is summer. The boys are free, and they know it. It’s still a fifteen minute walk to Chaseman Park. Cedars, elms, and crabapple trees skirt the winding park paths, which form the boundaries of two rolling greens, each as long and wide as a soccer pitch. The gays are out in force. Lesbian couples sprawl on the bright green grass. Gay boys in groups of three or four frolic, tease and tickle one another in the waning sunlight. When Tommie was younger, his dad used to take the family on weekend picnics to City Park. He never brought them to Chaseman because, he said, nude sunbathing is allowed there. But Tommie’s dad is a pervert. Tommie knows because he once found fat girl porn on the family computer. One of the actresses was so fat, she tried to give a golden shower but all that happened was the piss would well up between her pelvic rolls. Tommie figured his dad didn’t care about the nude sunbathing, but was homophobic. Out past the pair of broad, expansive greens, a much smaller, peninsular field juts into a mostly full parking lot – imported cars and mopeds bike-latched to lightpoles. Shrubs and small trees with low-hanging branches are spaced evenly across the heavily trodden turf. The grass here is not as green. Young boys, some dressed respectfully, most as dirty sluts, loiter lazily along the edge of the parking lot. A line of cars forms in front of them. “This is it.” Tommie is nervous. He’s never been with an older man. “A few pointers: Don’t go for the big, strong, muscletypes. You want to be able to get away if something goes down. Don’t get me wrong – this shit is totally safe. And keep it to an hour a pop. More johns means more cash. I’ll meet you back here at one ’o clock.” Tommie follows Matt to join the parade of boys. Tommie is embarrassed. He feels like a slab of meat on the butcher’s counter at the supermarket. He knows how his sister must have felt doing the Little Miss Such-and-Such pageants – putting yourself out there for a bunch of sick old pervs like Dad. Tommie didn’t know if he was up to this.
Matt is taken almost immediately by a black man in his late thirties/early forties driving a silver Lexus. Forty-five minutes later, Tommie is afraid he might not get any johns. Most of the boys around him have already found tricks. Finally, an old, beat-up Honda Civic pulls up, and the driver gives Tommie a little wave. The man is pudgy, furry, and well into his forties – like doing it with a great big hairy ape. But Tommie can’t be picky, he realizes, and directly agrees to accompany this man to his apartment, just a few blocks away. The price is $150 for one hour. “I always pay.” In the car, Tommie thinks: Eew. Gross. How did I ever agree to this? Will I be able to crack a hard-on with this guy? The man’s apartment is small and crappy. The man offers Tommie a beer, Tommie accepts, they get straight to business. Tommie notes, to himself, that the man isn’t as hairy as he originally thought, now that he has his shirt off. “Wow, that’s a nice, strong teenage cock you got there, boy.” Tommie is thinking: Okay, let him do all the work, take you back to the park, and you’re $150 richer. Easy goes. The guy’s voice did sound a bit odd, though. Not like a gay guy’s at all. The ape-man moans, quakes from head to toe, asks Tommie his name. “Howard.” “Ohh, Howard. You’re just—wonderful—Howard!” There it was again! Like a falsetto, but without any diaphragm. Then the guys takes off his pants. And there in front of Tommie: a great big gaping vagina, rimmed with the thickest pubic beard Tommie has ever seen. The ape-woman-man blushes, grins. “Hope you don’t mind, Baby Boy.” Tommie makes a mad dash for his clothes, grabs the beer, escapes out the front door, dresses only when he’s sure his trick hasn’t followed him out. Back on the street, he finds an all-night diner and orders a bottomless cup of coffee. He waits until 1 a.m. to return to Chaseman Park.
NICHOLAS B. MORRIS
MONKEY PUZZLE FLASH FICTION CONTEST WINNER
Going Retro
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. - Samuel Johnson Miranda and Steve were two bohemians living in a cow town. She: midtwenties, ex-military (chemical specialist), black, but not necessarily proud. He: early twenties, politically active (libertarian newspaper columnist), born white and Protestant but only identified with the “protest” part. Both came from poor neighborhoods and families; both took writing and literature courses at the local cow college. They dug books by William Burroughs and Langston Hughes; jazz by Count Basie and Miles Davis; films by Luis Bunuel and David Lynch. They took all the drugs they could get their hands on and drank foreign beer. They were both straight and slept together, but didn’t fuck, though everyone who knew them believed they did. They wrote poems, stories, screenplays, nonfiction. They made photographs, paintings, movies. They lived in a house that had been a whorehouse in the days of the iron horse. They referred to themselves as Hip Young Trendsetters on The Make. One day, while smoking a blunt laced with opium, they discussed how everything cool had been done before. There was nothing left to do but go backwards, de-evolve, relive the past but in forward-moving time. They went to the tobacconist, bought pipes, flavored tobacco, and a humidor. They affected fedoras, took to walking with canes and umbrellas. Fuck the 80s, the 70s, and especially the 60s. They were really going retro, back to the 50s, maybe even the 40s. They would be cool like a thermometer, dropping back in time until they were doing what no one had thought to do for decades. Soon the theater people were wearing bowlers; frat 13
boys lounged around the student union in smoking jackets; during rush week, the fraternities each had a flapper party. Miranda and Steve were forced to go back even farther. They decided to go beyond the 20th Century and into the mid-1800s. They used their racial differences to make those around them uncomfortable, using slurs openly against each other with raised voices, laughing hysterically over cognac. They even attended a costume party with Steve, carrying a whip, leading Miranda around in chains, demanding she refer to him as “Massa Steve.” Their friends giggled somewhat uncomfortably. The ones who didn’t know them tried not to make eye contact. In spite of the indifferent response they’d gotten, it was only a few days before other students were wearing powdered wigs and pantaloons around campus, putting women in stocks and openly mocking minorities, who took it all in stride, since it was done with a sense of chic irony. Where do we go now? Steve asked. The Romans? The Greeks? The poseurs are already wearing togas. What makes you think they won’t just drop back with us? Because they’re still trying to hold on to their humanity, Miranda said. The human race has advanced as far as it can anyway. Might as well drop down a rung on the evolutionary ladder. They bought hair-growth hormones and began scraping their bare hands and feet along the ground, the sidewalk, the street, to create hard calluses. They walked around screeching and shitting everywhere, evading the police by hiding in trees. They beat their chests, terrifying the local children and pets. One of the football coaches asked them to try out for the team; they tore his office to shreds, tossing his computer through a third story window, howling in victory when it exploded on someone’s car. Similar anarchic behavior began breaking out on campus soon after. Reports of people in ape masks or painted up as tigers, bears, and lizards attacking administration offices were leaked to the media. Other beast incidents began occurring in midwestern towns, in large coastal cities. Miranda and Steve read about it in the newspaper and pounded their fists on the ground. We’ve got to go back even farther, Miranda said, back
where no one will dare to follow. How much farther back can we get? All the way back. Back into the water. It was a short drive from the former whorehouse to the lake beside the interstate. The smokestack of the nuclear power plant was visible from the road. The water was three degrees warmer than the other lakes in the state, but Miranda and Steve thought that this would help them with their transition. We’re about to become the first truly amphibious humans to walk the earth in millennia, Miranda said. I don’t think anyone can go more retro than this, said Steve. The warm murky water slapped sleepily against their shins, their thighs, their chests. It was time to evolve.
BROOKE LEHRER
The Day After Seven
#1 she held unto the black book of numbers scanning the room for light she listened with force remembering running her tongue over the chocolate grooves of kudos bars bent in body of prayers a story she used to write with poloraid cameras and bazooka gum in multi-colored wig-wams and brown roller-skate strip malls #2 we are here until we are not and then we are here again until we are not and then we are here again 16
until we are not and then we are here again until we are not and then we are here again until we are not
#3 Remedies come in many forms. Pick out tiny buds gone lost in her dreads. Even With minds changing we are different every day.
#4 Should not have stolen kabbalah red string
and your car keys tiptoeing naked to the door Taught myself that night on your shift to be all the woman you said I was
#5 your breath resting to the sound of wind
#6 and I am still missing you as I guide the hookers head down
#7 once she swam in a tunic holding a glass above her head repeating
I’m certain of uncertainties I’m certain of uncertainties
PERRY LAVIN
Themselves
Jonathan is eight feet tall and weighs four hundred and fifty pounds. He is married to Adaya, a four foot tall, eighty pound woman from Israel. They are deeply in love. Their sex is in no way awkward. They tell each other every fantasy they have. Adaya will act out any fantasy that Jonathan wants. Jonathan will do the same for Adaya. They have lived thousands of fantasies. Adaya cooks big meals that he indulges in with no guilt because Adaya loves him without restraint. “You could be a hundred feet tall and a million pounds and I would still love you,” she says. Jonathan snorts when he laughs and says, “I would love you even if you couldn’t fit into my pocket.” Adaya laughs because she actually can fit into the pockets of his cargo pants. Sometimes she gets into the cargo pants and he walks down the street looking down on her lovingly. People on the street look at them in strange ways. They don’t notice. Adaya doesn’t ride in Jonathon's pants because they want a reaction from people, she does because they love it. They have never noticed people looking at them strangely. Mary and Joe are another couple in the same building. They fell in love in college and got married right after. They are both very pretty people. They walk down the street holding hands. They have sex because they feel like they are supposed to. Joe sometimes imagines he is Brad Pitt and Mary sometimes imagines she is Nicole Kidman. They have never told each other these fantasies. They struggle with looking in the mirror because they see pretty people married and yet they still have fantasies. ‘We are a fantasy’ each one thinks but never tells the other. One day the two couples got on the elevator at the 20
same time. Jonathan and Adaya were talking and gazing at each other in a loving way. Mary said, “Oh. I didn’t know you guys knew each other. That is so great.” Adaya says in her Israeli accent, “We have been married for fifteen years.” Joe laughs on the inside at how their sex must look. Mary does too but she feels she has to be polite since she is a woman. She makes small talk. Adaya in no way wants to make small talk with her. She hates answering Mary’s questions. She only wants to feel safe and warm in the arms of her big husband. Jonathan is anxious for the elevator to get to their floor so he can feel like the protector of his small wife. The elevator opens to Mary and Joe’s floor. They get off and go to their room. They watch E! and Joe fantasizes about being the male the people are talking about. Mary fantasizes she is the woman. At one point during the show a man is portrayed as being somewhat of a loser and Joe says, “I’m glad I’m not that guy.” Mary has been zoned-out in the tunnel of television and replies with an awkward, “Yeah. Me too.” Jonathan and Adaya watch the same E! channel program and when a story comes on about Brad Pitt, Jonathan says, “I want to be Brad Pitt.” Adaya says, “Do you want Angelina or Jennifer?” After they are done making love Jonathan says, “Being Brad Pitt wasn’t so great. Being King Kong last night was way better.” “Yeah I kind of felt like a bitch when I was Angelina.” The next night they were themselves.
TOMARA KAFAKA
Piano Ape
It was late Sunday night, early Monday morning, I’d been drinking all weekend, the place was dark, and I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like a big ape was playing the piano. The guy who walked into the bar behind me noticed the same thing and muttered, "Man, I hate that fucking ape.” I stumbled to the bar just inside the door. A purpleneon-framed clock told me it was three in the morning. In six hours, I would be writing inane lyrics in the jingle department where I worked in an ad agency. When the bartender asked, I ordered a Blue Monkey on tap. The guy who came in behind me and was now beside me added, “Make that two.” Baldwin introduced himself and pointed toward the music. “Look at them up there.” I turned toward the only light in the place — the spotlight over the piano. A blonde in a glittering blue-sapphire evening gown leaned on the baby grand and listened dreamily. Light applause accompanied the ending of “Camel’s Caravan.” He stood up to take a break and left stage right with the blonde. In a way, he looked like any other punk jazz piano player. Converse All Stars and white mid-calf athletic socks covered his feet and lower legs. He had a bright pink streak of hair that began at his forehead, continued over the top to end somewhere below the collar of his oversized button-down shirt layered on top of an oversized T-shirt. He wore his short pants long on his lower butt. “She left me . . .” Baldwin took a long pull from his beer mug, “for him.” He fisted his mug down onto the bar. “And he wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me. I discovered him. In San Diego, he was sitting naked in a corner of his cage 22
and singing to himself — complex and original melodies. It cost me a fortune to spring him from there, but I thought . . . never mind what I thought. I was both right and wrong about that trickster. He’s talented and ambitious . . . but he’s going to do some damage.” I needed to hear about someone else’s pain, so I asked, “What’s so great about that ape?” “Would you laugh if I told you it was pure animal magnetism?” “No,” I said truthfully. “He’s a good looking ape, and he obviously loves singing for the ladies.” “He eats up the ladies,” he agreed. “She’ll disappear when someone better comes along.” “Well, I can relate.” I turned to the bartender. “Another one here?” Baldwin signaled the bartender. “Put these on my tab.” He turned to me. “Mind if I buy you a drink?” “Whatever. I’ve been drinking myself numb all weekend, but I can’t seem to get there.” “What’s your story?” “Me? The old same story. Girl meets bear. Girl gets bear. Girl loses bear. Bears. They’re all alike. First hint of cold, and they’re gone. My life has been emptied except for a few handfuls of fur tumbling around the baseboards and a pantry of empty honey jars.” A smattering of applause announced that the ape was headed back to the piano. A woman with raven black hair and fingernails, wearing a blood red dress and lipstick held his arm. He went right into a soulful rendition of “All of Me.” “He works faster than I thought,” said Baldwin. He signaled for two more drinks. I felt like throwing up, so I left for the ladies room in the club’s far corner. A shadowy movement down a dark corridor in front of me made me forget my sickness for a moment and curiosity took over. I followed the hallway to a back exit and found myself in a parking lot. As the club door closed automatically behind me, I saw the blonde getting into the back seat of a shiny black limo. She was with a bear. The bear looked up as he slid into the back seat and winked at me. I returned to the club. The ape was singing a slow,
sexy torch song. Adoring female fans crowded around the piano. I stood in the shadows, mesmerized by the song until it was finished. Overcome with emotion, I lurched toward the ape, put my arms around him, and French kissed him. I could feel him responding when I could no longer hold back the sickness. First, I vomited on the ape then somehow managed to heave all over the piano. The women screamed and scattered, some herding themselves toward the ladies room. From the bar, I heard Baldwin say to the bartender, “I think this calls for a bottle of champagne. Two glasses.�
BRANDON ARTHUR
throw your mother’s bones over your shoulder
bulbs loosened along the body the center hobbled pigment splits along epidermis cuticle & vein burning leaves lift into crows feet become hands laboring to pinch the sun lost in the wallet of trees the vibratory lull between cup & reach already twitched in the meat’s fibers wires split between inner ears skin squeezes into skin fluid & bone
circumference contracted
the bruised eye of a mantled fire waking into the flesh of this an arrested conch will rise to lobes & chronicle 25
light in pores but ants will leave only marrow for the possum’s long winter puzzled the egg cracks
PETER RUGH
MONKEY PUZZLE FLASH FICTION CONTEST 2nd Place
Judgment Day or Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Post of Life
I’m drawing dirty pictures when a geezer hands me a pamphlet. “Do you know this man?” it reads in Old English font above a picture of Jesus touching the thorned orb of his glowing heart. “It is He who rides the clouds surrounded by angels.” He who cometh photocopied and littered. We better not be caught drawing pussy. We better get on our knees. But instead I walk a block, past the Seven Eleven lit with neon promise, past a homeless Saint Jude who wants me to buy him beer, to a church without a steeple, sandwiched between two vacant buildings. The Virgin stands on its dead lawn, a statue pasted together with seashells in the middle of this mountain town. Our Lady of rotten womb. Pouches of fatigue under her vacuous stare, where the rain has dug its claws. Here she prays amid her flock of stray brick and shattered glass, awaiting the fine negligees and adornments of kingdom on earth her son, her lover will deliver as she hikes her hem above the cinders. Our Lady of the bus terminal, of the stripper’s pole, of cleaning fluid and Sisyphus’s kitchen, with johns for suitors and apes like me for attendants. Her silence almost makes me want to pray but instead I tell her things I wouldn’t tell my mother. How the sun ducked behind the horizon, gave us cover, and we made it among the ruins of Saint Margaret’s convent, paranoid and determined. Ribald feats of mortal sin I confess to Our Lady 27
of the Deaf Ear. “See you tomorrow,” I say to her as I turn and go. And I’ll be back. Because she gets lonely, and so do I. I walk home, light a cigarette and pop the cap off a bottle. The sky roars and the grass trembles, but it is only fighter jets practicing for war low on the horizon.
RICHARD SCHWASS
The Monkey’s New Paw
He was turning again, he could tell, might as well be a werewolf in training, but less sexually attractive. Whether from fatigue, or age, it wasn’t clear, but the lines had become crevices and his pallor was shaded somewhere between pancake white and industrial yellow. The black hairs sprouting on his chin and both sides of his jawline were snickering, “Hirsute!” Too far gone for a wax, pluck and strip. He was beyond cosmetics. More like hair suit. He looked like one of the caveman guys in those stupid car-insurance commercials. They even had their own sit-com now. Great. Maybe there was hope for him after all, in showbiz, or natural history dioramas. He could be an extra, in the background, his knuckles grazing the floor. The Big Dumb Gorilla Next Door, the butt of monkey jokes while the cro-mags got all the girls, the good lines, and the paycheck. He wore gloves all the time now, green suede gardener’s, his hands and fingers matted with unsightly growth, nails stretching claw-like and neglected. Couldn’t be bothered with the details of hygiene any more, didn’t see the point. He was already late again for his appointment. He wanted to be punctual, even though it was only a follow-up, the third in as many years for this particular study. Body Dysmorphic Disorder, diagnosed in him as mild to moderate when he started doing the interviews, is an inability on the part of the subject to see himself, his body and face, as others see him. Rather, a diminishment, a deep flaw, an unacceptability is assured with every glance in the mirror. Butler Hospital in Providence was one of the leading psychiatric facilities in the country and Dr. Kim Wilshire had initiated the study there of this mysterious condition, a disease that made young girls starve and 29
slice themselves bloody and forced grown men, like him, into the throes of Adonis Complex, urging workouts that pumped veins and cartilage so hard in the service of a perfected physique that they actually ripped muscle tissue. Dr. Wilshire has assured him that counseling and anti-depressants could help, but he still faced a ragged, hollow-eyed creature each morning after sleeping poorly. The pills made him tired and irritable and the clinic formfiller was a grad student fifteen years younger than he was. He couldn’t relate to her callow, earnest good looks, so how could she relate to his ugliness? She always smiled, even when asking him about the frequency of his urination, just for the record. Dr. Wilshire’s office was decorated to perfectly complement the smooth and carefully molded landscape encasing the hospital. Everything was soft and rounded or even and planed, from the seat he took in front of her desk to the blond grain of the cabinets in the pastel walls. The decor also reflected her smooth complexion and fine, soft bone structure poised below the hint of an arch in her eyebrows, a feature used to indicate interest or surprise where none exists. She had a short pixie cut and an elegant neck so long it seemed to plummet into her white silk blouse, heading somewhere south and warm within the tweed pencil skirt stretched over her crossed legs. She was so irritating. It was really galling for him to be told again that time would help, that the drugs needed time, that the side-effects would diminish, yes, on the libido otherwise known as his poor, lonely cock. She was saying something about yet another new concoction that had worked well in depressives but he was too distracted by his unsightly nails and the black beneath their rims to pay attention. Only the sound of her voice was getting through, and he gradually felt, as she droned on in calming tones, that he was in his own greasy bubble, a place nobody was ever going to penetrate or pop for him. He was stuck inside with his own imagined reflection, forever, while he aged, sank deeper and deeper into the repulsive, abhorrent disgustingness that was his body, his face, him. Dr. Wilshire uncrossed her legs slowly and, with her lovely coral, simply manicured nails gently splayed on her lap,
rotated in her chair towards the tall, mirrored cabinets to the right of her desk. She spoke encouragingly of this new drug, Neanderox or something. Her slender and graceful figure paused at the doors before tugging a chrome handle and pulling wide the cupboard she had chosen. As this was accomplished the mirrored door opened into an alignment with her trial participant, squarely reflecting him in his chair. Something about the juxtaposition of this repellant reflection with the soft, smooth woman next to it was enough to burst the bubble and trigger the rage of an over-stressed mind. As he removed his gloves she sat down again, a blandly colored cardboard pharmaceutical sample box presented between long, delicate fingers, “You have to do what’s right for you.� The last thing Kim Wilshire saw before her eyes popped out of her face, after he had leapt on her desk in a tensile simian leap, knees flexed and whole body pitched forward in an unstoppable momentum to land with his curled hands full force on her neck, was an enraged grimace, handsome high pale cheekbones, burning hot blue eyes, a long length of buttery blonde locks tickling her forehead, and the fine blonde hairs of beautifully pared and moisturized fingers just before they choked off her windpipe.
KELLY SEXTON
Memoirs of a Disgruntled Pet
memoirs of a disgruntled pet - part one 10:04 there was a man here...again he tried to pet me she went to bed without feeding me
memoirs of a disgruntled pet - part two 01:05 she didn’t feed me...again I pissed on her blue bath mat it’ll take five showers for her to notice
memoirs of a disgruntled pet - part three 13:15 I vomited foam today...again that man wants me fixed I pissed in his shoes an hour before he left work because I’ve still got some balls
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memoirs of a disgruntled pet - part four 03:07 She came home drunk...again Remembered to feed me, but spilled my water Not noticing I’d managed to remove my collar
memoirs of a disgruntled pet - part five 15:21 the house reeks of weed...again she laughed at me when I fell off the counter her birth control is now buried in my litter box
Photo by Nate Jordon
CONTRIBUTORS Lauren Andrews is a writer and editor living in New York City. Upon receiving her undergraduate degree in Biology from UC Berkeley, Lauren spent extensive time out in the wild studying ducks and observing bears. Though she currently works at a literary agency, the occasional duck, bear, or monkey has been known to make an appearance in her works of short fiction and poetry.
Travis Cebula is a classically-trained chef specializing in Irish cuisine and an aspiring poet. If anyone can think of any careers with less earning potential he’s open to suggestions.
Yasamin is a poet. And that is all she is willing to admit at present.
Jefferson Navicky graduated from Naropa's MFA program in 2005. After graduation, he worked as the archivist for the Estate of Djuna Barnes. Currently he teaches writing at Southern Maine Community College & The University of Southern Maine. His chapbook, Map of the Second Person, was published in 2006 by Black Lodge Press. Some of his work has appeared in Octopus Magazine, Tarpaulin Sky, Quickfiction, Sliding Uteri & The Beet. 35
Ryan Clark is an MFA candidate in poetry at Naropa University, although please let's not restrict him to verse. He's locked himself in a closet and says he's not coming out until someone asks to read his short stories. He is quite the stubborn Stu.
Lindsey is a poet. Jim Morrison and Albert Camus are her poetic idols. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, Lindsey wants a puppy who will stay puppy size FOREVER. She likes Tori Amos.
Tim Inman has been called a sexy bitch.
Nicholas B. Morris has published poetry, prose, and otherwise in (print) Species, Guilty As Charged, Nebo, and (online) Cliterature, Fear Knocks, and the Arkansas Literary Forum. He is the author of the chapbook Jezebels and one half of the filmmaking crew Lobotomized Monkey.
Brooke desires to make an anthology of everything.
Perry Lavin’s favorite quote is, “Overcome your fear of goo. Come and taste goo goo stew.” He currently lives on Shakedown Street.
Tomara Kafka is a Florida writer currently attending Naropa University's MFA writing program in Boulder. Delighted to have added Ape Noir into her writing repertoire, she is completing her novel, The Bridal Luncheon, as well as working on a collection of short stories and, as always, composing songs.
Brandon Arthur holds a BA in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is currently an MFA candidate in the Writing and Poetics program at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.
Peter Rugh lives in Boulder, Colorado. He’s a recent graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. He’s twenty-three years old.
Richard Schwass is a candidate for the Masters Degree in Poetry at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and once interviewed Grace Slick.
Kelly Sexton, better known as Mouse, also happens to be Charles Bukowski’s love child.
Rocky Balboa. Southpaw from Philly. He didn’t contribute anything. He just belongs here.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS THE EDITOR WISHES TO THANK: Contributors, Friends, and Family.
Nate Jordon specially thanks—Jesus, Buddha, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, Daniel Quinn, Robert Pirsig, Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, Rocky Balboa, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Mahatma Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, Michael Moore, George Carlin, Chris Rock, Marjoe Gortner, Dr. James Walton, Ruth Jenkins, Tim Skeen, Anne Waldman, Junior Burke, shanghaiSMradiator, Fact-Simile Editions, The Bush Administration, everyone who votes, and INS for constantly threatening to deport me even though I’m a vet.
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