KEVIN JARED HOSEIN

The Monkey Trap

Trinidad & Tobago

Talon sat by the gully at the back of his house with a collection of crumpled leaves in his palm. He had been trying to fashion a boat out of each one, just as Sana had shown him a couple days before with a piece of newspaper, but the leaves snapped with each bend and fold.

He scratched the sparse white hairs lining his ears. Sweat and muck marred his white cotton vest, and he had recently soiled his underpants. A light evening wind blew the foul scent into the backwoods.

A devotional Hindi hymn played from his house upstairs. Talon figured that Sana was up in her room. Blending in with the hymn was Harry Belafonte’s voice faintly playing from another window:

 

Don’t know what to say de monkey won’t do

Well, I drink gin, monkey drink gin too

Don’t know what to say de monkey won’t do . . .

 

Talon inspected the green leafy pulp on his palm and peered at two bachacs busily chewing the stems. He grunted, crushing the leaves in his fist, and blew the mush into the water. He dusted his palms off. Then he heard a rustling. He raised his bushy eyebrows and scanned the thicket ahead of him, mumbling, “That blasted monkey come again?”

Still sitting, he raised his knees against his chest. He moved his hand and accidentally knocked a broken Carib bottle into the gully. It rolled along the sandstone, clinking.

The monkey probably hear that. Talon gritted his teeth. His toes curled, scooping up some dirt beneath his overgrown nails. He scooted forward into the gully, the filthy water now over his toes, his soles pressing into the green slime along its edge.

He scratched the stubble on his cheek as he listened to the rustling shrubs and looked hard for the hairy figure that must be creeping through the bush.

He squinted.

From the house the song bridge had kicked in, drums and brass carried by the dusk breeze. The bushes rustled again; Talon was sure it was the monkey.

His ears pricked up as the monkey groaned.

“Daddy, you mess yourself again!” a voice called out from behind him. He spun around, now looking at his daughter’s heaving bodice. Then he turned back to peer at the hedge. Nothing. She had scared the monkey off.

“Girl.” Talon mumbled when he spoke, as if he had food in his mouth. “Girl, look, look, the monkey there in the bush.”

Sana sucked her teeth. She stooped down and hooked her arm under his shoulder. With a tug, she got him to his feet. “It have no monkey in the bush, Daddy,” she said with a sigh, and shook her head. “No monkey does live around here. How much times I have to tell you that?”

She led Talon to a small basin she had set up at the side of the house, screened by three tall sheets of rusted metal and a tattered drape. She had left the water to run and the basin was already half full.

She produced a black plastic garbage bag and set it aside.

“But I see it, I see it,” Talon chanted as Sana helped him undress. A long shiny brown scar, the result of a cutlass slash from a bandit fifteen years ago, stood prominent on his chest. Sana put on a pair of gardening gloves and slid his boxers off, turning away as she did.

She wondered if he recognised her anymore. For a few weeks now he had stopped calling her by her name. He used to say, in a comforting singsong manner, Sana, dahlin, Sana, little la-a-dy, whenever he needed her. It upset her, too, that over the last week he had become incontinent.

She slid her thumb along the scar, remembering the night he had tried to defend her and her deceased mother from two criminals. They had made off with the TV set and some golden bangles, family heirlooms, but the two women were unharmed. Talon was left splayed on the bedroom floor, struggling for breath, soaked in blood. They had never been able to get the bloodstain out of the thick cerise carpeting.

She wondered if he remembered that.

She pinched the dirty underwear between her fingers, dropped it into the garbage bag, tied a double knot, and tossed it through the drape.

“What if the monkey come back?” Talon asked.

Sana tied her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and leaned against the edge of the basin, bowing her head. She muttered a prayer quickly. She looked at him with warm eyes, as she formed a lather on the sponge. She said, “I want you to stay inside from now on. I can’t have you wanderin bout the place when I gone to work. I dunno how you gone and pick up that nasty habit.”

“No wanderin?”

His sullen tone made her brow pucker. “You have your radio,” she added. “You remember how to turn the station? You remember how to turn on the TV?”

He was silent.

“I’ll show you again after you bathe.”

“Okay.”

* * *

The next day, Sana left some sandwiches for him on the kitchen counter and covered them with a few napkins. But Talon had no appetite for them. He took one of the sandwiches and set it by the gully, then crept back to the house and went upstairs. He parted the curtains and stared down. Where that monkey? Maybe monkey ain’t like bologna.

He went to the tiny fruit tub Sana kept under the table and rummaged through the oranges, grapes, and three different types of mango. Not what he was looking for. He sucked his teeth and scratched his head. He opened the other cupboards and searched through the wares. Impatient, he began hurling them across the room.

By the time he was finished with the top cupboards, shards of terra-cotta, porcelain, and glass lay strewn across the kitchen floor.

He then fumbled through the refrigerator, throwing aside all the celery and tomatoes and ripping apart a small seasoned chicken Sana had intended to cook for them the following day. He bit his tongue and grimaced. He ran to the kitchen window and looked out again. The sandwich was still there.

Of course, it was not going anywhere. Monkeys would not be interested in meat.

Talon bounded back upstairs, knocking over the radio on the counter. It broke as it fell. He opened Sana’s closets, full of her work clothes and her saris. He tore them off the hangers and flung them on the floor and the bed. He pulled the drawers open until they came off their runners. He fumbled through her lingerie, searching, then pitching them under the bed. He swept his arm through the assortment of Sana’s makeup and fragrances, sliding them off the dresser.

He opened a little box. It played a melody, like a miniature calliope. He stared at the tiny ballerina figurine twirling in the box, a dazed smirk on its plastic face.

The tune stopped.

He closed the box, then opened it again and listened to the melody once more. He put the box back on the dresser, sat on the edge of the bed, and muttered, “Where them figs could be?”

He made his way downstairs and decided not to pass through the kitchen, to avoid having his feet cut by the splintered wares. He slipped on his rubber flip-flops from the porch, passed around the house, and went back to the gully.

The sandwich was still there, now infested with ants.

He stood by the gully and glared into the thicket. It rustled again. The monkey was there, curling its tail at him. If only he had those bananas. The thought crossed his mind to go to the market to buy some. But he had no time for that. No money either. And the monkey would escape by then!

He went to the kitchen door and picked up a broom lying against it. He unscrewed the brush head and jabbed the air with the broomstick like a spear. He headed outside and crossed the gully, tiptoeing across the smooth rocks, pressing the stick against the bottom to keep his balance. He clambered up the muddy bank, breathing heavily in the hot, humid air.

The bushes rustled again and he could hear a low murmur and chatter. He parted the bushes with the broomstick. He saw the monkey’s head, fidgeting silently. He grinned, his eyes opened wide, and lifted the broomstick above his head. With one swift blow, the monkey fell unconscious.

* * *

Sana came home early from work that day. Her heart beat violently as she entered the house and noticed the chips of glass and ceramic on the kitchen floor. Her first thought was that they had been robbed again. She saw the broken radio. She dashed upstairs to find her rummaged closets. Her saris were scattered across the bedroom carpet. Where was her father?

Then she heard a yelping coming from outside. She peeked through the window and saw her father kneeling by the old wooden dog kennel, last used when they had owned a pothound years ago.

She scrambled downstairs.

As she approached, her father looked at her with pride in his eyes. She had not seen his eyes twinkle like that in years. “Dahlin,” he said, sticking his chest out, “I tell you it had a monkey.”

Sana’s jaw dropped. In the dog kennel was not a monkey but Akeel, a little boy from the village. He had been packed into the kennel, too afraid to speak, too afraid to scream. A trickle of dried blood was clotted on his right eyebrow. He peered up at Sana, blinking his watery eyes.

As Sana began to undo the latch, Talon exclaimed, “But the monkey will get out, girl!”

Sana paused. Her eyes had begun to get hot as she stared at Akeel. She wiped her nose with her sleeve and mouthed to the little boy, “Stay here,” and clasped Talon’s arm.

“Do you know Akeel, Daddy?” Sana asked, leading him back into the house.

“The monkey friends might come lookin for him, girl. We need to make market and get a basket of fig.”

Sana took a deep breath, then nodded slowly and wiped her brow with her sleeve. “In the morning, we could do that . . . It have a big crocus bag lyin around near the washroom there. We could fill that up. Right up.”

She escorted him up the stairs as Talon told her, “We have to get the green ones too.”

“Why the green?”

“So they could yellow if the other monkeys takin too long to come.”

Sana nodded again. She led him into the bedroom and made him sit on the bed. “Daddy,” she began, her voice sweet and slow as molasses, “how bout if we just leave the monkeys alone? I don’t think they goin to do we anything.”

“No, no. Them monkeys is pests. They goin to pester the whole village.”

Sana covered her face. He had not sounded as strong and stern for years. She took another deep breath and gave Talon a hug. His arms hung limp as she squeezed him. “No chance at all,” she whispered in his ear, her voice breaking.

“Girl, you just don’t understand,” he said gruffly.

She buried her face against the crook of his shoulder. “It might have some men comin tomorrow to move you away. People might say some nasty things from now bout you.” She swallowed hard. “And me.”

He didn’t speak, he just nodded.

Sana cleared her throat. “Is just that some people here like the monkeys, and they movin everybody who don’t like the monkeys to a different spot.”

“Them mad or what? Why them want them monkeys around?”

With her palms pressed against his shoulders, she kissed his cheek, his beard grazing her lips. “You work hard today. I need you to take a rest now. I going downstairs for a while.” She hugged him again and left the room, locking the door.

When she went back to the kennel, Akeel’s eyes grew wide, but he said nothing. As she undid the latch, she broke down in tears. “Akeel, please don’t tell anybody what happen here today.”

He shook his head.

While mimicking him nervously, she asked, “What does that mean? Does that mean you going to tell?”

She released the latch, opened the kennel door, and pulled him out. He was shaking; his knees wobbled as he blinked at the sky.

“Lemme dress that cut,” she said. “We can’t leave that so.”

He backed away from her.

“Come. I have food inside too. Lemme give you something to eat.”

He took another step back.

“Akeel, please,” she whispered.

The boy darted off.

* * *

The next day, the authorities came in their white coats and packed Talon into a van. When they arrived, he was listening to the music box. All the neighbours had come out to watch. Sana saw their cold stares as she hugged her father goodbye. Akeel’s mother shook her head. As Sana returned to the house, the villagers turned their backs on her.

She packed her clothes back into her closets and ironed her saris. She opened the music box and, as the tune played, as the ballerina twirled, she got on her knees and tried yet again to scrub the old blood off the bedroom carpet. No matter how much she tried, she just could not get it out of the fibres.