Chapter Thirty-One

The sun was not perfectly warm in the morning. But it was the sun. And its arc showed us where south was and that was the direction we headed after a dreamy meal under another fruit stand, squirrels on the lookout, our monkey tails braided.

You-mens of every description passed beneath us in all directions, being not of one mind.

At a pause over a sweet family scene, kibs of many sizes, all kinds of leaping and feinting, their warlike natures, cries of protest, jolly parents, Deeps said, “I just realized what all the bright wrappings are for. On the you-mens.”

“The garmends?”

“I thought ‘cloze.’”

“No, that means near, very near, like Beep and Deeps right now.”

“Yes, yum. We are cloze.”

“Yes, yum, so cloze.”

“But the garmends. They’re to keep them warm.”

“I’d thought modesty,” I said. “They’ve got no fur, manes only.”

“We’ve barely enough, a chill like this.”

“You smell good,” I said.

“You, too, like monkey plus thrum and thrill, but let us stop the sniffing and be on mission!”

As long as we were moving, down a wide aveynoo, tree after tree after tree, we were warm enough. Deeps spotted a you-mee baby dropping its Pinkie. We waited for our moment, and when it came, my sweet monkey swept down and snared the thing, swept back and wrapped me in it, fragrant and warm.

“Littler monkey first,” she said.

A garmend collector of some kind had hung small you-men garmends out front of his tiny church—this was challenging, being highly visible, but from our perch we spied a particular baby jagget decorated as if in leaves—good to hide in. This one required a diversion, so Deeps hung from a tree branch shouting, “You-mens have ruled the world too long! You-mens must go!”

“But dear Deeps,” I moodled, “monkeys rule the world!”

“Naïve boy!” cried Deeps, wind voice.

I dove to the y’awning, Pinkie flying behind me like a cape, while amazed browsers and the nobleman who displayed his strange collection looked up, trying to place the jungle howls. And easy as that, I grabbed the baby jagget and clambered back up to my new companion, who struggled into it, good fit.

“When going, do as the goers do,” Deeps said. She’d seen human juveniles coming to Bronzoo with food stuck in various folds of their garmends, poggetz: you could reach your hand in there, keep it warm. You could put your mango in there, save it for later like a goer. You could shred open the bag of beautiful nuts and stuff these poggetz, discard the obnoxious crinkling window they’d been packaged in.

All along the way, the squirrels heralded us. “Supermonkeys!” they cried, then more chortling.

“It’s your cape,” Deeps said deeply.

And now free-rats came out to see, and free-mice cheering in small voices, and free-insects called roaches that Deeps said not to eat, ugh. Pet doggs barked up at us, their half-human cadences, and mostly unaware of the prophecy, it seemed. All the freeanimals said one thing, though, believed it: the you-mens are done. Some of the pets were with us, too, don’t get me wrong, the four-legged equivalent of the sensitives.

“Take my lady. Please,” said a fat one with legs short as an armadillo’s, ba-da-boom.

Pugs are comedians.

On a tavle below I spotted something delicious looking—one of those sweet bars of rainforest choco we monkeys sometimes found in the piles of you-men supplies unguarded on beaches. And casing the joint I noticed the newspabers there, and each of them had its own version of a photo: Inga standing among lions and tigers and simians, plus Urrrk, who held her hand. “Zoo Whisperer,” a customer said, translating the glyphs. Then, pointing to Inga’s image, read another, seemingly amused: “Criminal Mischief for Cutie.”

“Gotta wub that kib,” the clerk said.

“Tiger on Joralemon Street!” The customer read.

And the merchant: “Hibbos in Hoboken!”

The customer snapped the paber open: “Meerkats take the E trayn to Queens.”

And Inga again, every page it seemed, her image repeated and repeated, just as in my thoughts, come to think.

Was that I, Beep, on the girl’s shoulder? I’d learned that the you-mens could capture time, and so I knew that these images were not immediate, not the exact now I found myself in, stubidly frozen in a dangle off the y’awning of the kiosk, inches from the oblivious proprietor’s head.

I dropped, grabbed two KitKatz, as the old uncles called them (familiar from beach-planket raids), leapt away.

“Hey,” the proprietor called. Then, “Hey, hey! There’s a monkey! A monkey in a cape!”

“Correct, sir,” I called back. “And there, and there and there and there and there to near infinity, are examples of you you-mens!”

Back to the branches above—peebles below, shouting, the good ones laughing, some even bowing. You-mee kibs ran almost as fast as we did, accompanying us southward toward the true home, their numbers growing, a pretty not-Inga in festive garmends pointing up, all of them traversing the face of this green- and blue- and white-swirled glope. Constantly checking in, Deeps and me, I touching her back, pulling her tail, quick eye contact, serious business: the squirrels began a new message: “Leopard captured, Leopard captured, Leopard captured!”

The squirrels were always just ahead of us and just behind, taking turns running the canopy with us, handing us off block by block, shouting a plan: “In the dense tree rest a moment, then we squirrels will go straight on like monkeys to fool the you-mees—you monkeys leap to the East, then south again next thoroughfare!”

Dense tree? What did that mean? But shortly there it was, needled and green and fragrant, and inzide it we were invisible. The you-mee crowd below ran onward with the squirrels, didn’t notice that Deeps and I did not emerge—not right away, and that when we did, we’d headed the other way.

Quiet street, and leafy. Noisy thoroughfare next, turn south, and onward toward home. Two squirrels from that block picked us up. “Do you know trayns?” they shouted, over and over.

“In the ground,” I said.

“Only some of them,” the squirrels said. “Only some of the time!”

Deeps said, “I know trayns, have heard them described. Where do we find them?”

“Straight and straight then through dars, enormous human space, so big that stars shine on the ceiling! Or at least that’s the legend.”

“Straight and straight,” another squirrel said, joining us, then another, handing us off all the way to a set of grand golden dars that spun like dust devils, humans spitting from them like chewed husks. No way. But in the middle, just dars, and one of these opened, and Deeps, brave one, raced through, I just behind, human bootz and snickers all around us, no apparent notice, so much going on. Quickly we leapt to a kind of shelf over columns, then onto a high sill under an vast bank of wimdoes, dusty and loftily above the fray.

“I smell electricitty,” Deeps said.

“As after a storm,” I said.

“Exactly, as after lightning. And the trayns run on lightning, so I’ve heard.”

We burst into the enormous rooom the squirrels had spoken of, starways and incomprehensible path patterns, and tunnels this way, tunnels that, the ceiling like sky, and yes, stars pricked it, wan you-men twinkle. It was warm in there, and so I jettisoned my Pinkie, no more supermonkey. Deeps peeled off her jagget, and we dropped both into the coursing you-men crowd below, barely a ripple among them, though Pinkie draped a bald head.

“Always pick south,” Deeps said.

And south, following the smell of lightning, we did find a trayn, ran along its rooof even more south till it moved, but it moved north. So we leapt off and all the way through the canyonish rooom via balgonies and sills and finally to a precarious swinging perch complete with a you-men male washing the wimdoes, it seemed, or anyway squeaking at them with a wet wand.

He wasn’t even startled, said, “Hey, ho, it’s Inga’s monkeys!”

On a grand screeen then we saw her again, my you-men friend among the great cats, then on a sitting contraption under lights, a clip of her speaking to a gaggle of shouters pointing prods her way, poor thing. But in the end she smiled, a big grin for Beep.

“You miss her,” Deeps said.

“Soon to be their queen,” I said. “When sensitives rule, or that’s the prophecy.”

“Ah,” Deeps said. “I did feel her spirit.”

“She’s very strong and feels us,” I said. “She worships a half-monkey goddess named Greta, who speaks monkey and sees the future.”

“Ah, then she’ll survive,” Deeps said. “As will that wimdoe washer.”

I only laughed. “Survive what?”

“When we wish the you-mens off the plamet,” Deeps said.

“If wishes were bananas, we’d have handfuls to throw down at the you-men heads!”

“I do have to pooop,” she said. And did so, into her fine hand, picked a tall hair-do, and flung, perfect shot!

The wish was my mission, the grand banana.

I held the wish as we made our way among the million legs, the salted shoes, the swaying skirts. Every so-many-score of you-mens, you’d feel one of the good ones. This was the subway, suddenly, where I’d been. The trayn was pointed west, but not impossible that it would turn. We followed and hid a bit among the trailing folds of the long orange gowns of two you-men males, one of whom was so powerfully emanative that we understood he would take this trayn west, all right, then get out and into a more powerful trayn south, and south again. He settled next to his friend on the hard benches of the trayn carr, as they were called. He sighed voluptuously: rest.

“Monks,” Deeps intimated. “We knew them at the zzoo! They’re Beaut-ists, and have good hearts, mostly.”

Under the overflowing edge of our monk’s robes, Deeps and I hid unnoticed till I accidentally brushed the bizarre you-men leg, sparse fur. Our monk jumped, peeped a little shriek that all the others in the packed car studiously ignored.

“Brother what is it,” his companion said.

And our monk pulled his robe aside. “Just as I thought.”

He put his fingers to his lips. “Bless Inga,” he said.

“Inga’s monkeys?” the other said.

“The very ones,” Monk One said.

“I fear,” Deeps moodled.

“Fear not,” our new friend said, both in speech and in effortless moodle. He’d understood! “We are humble monks, and felt you near, and calling.”

“Beaut-ists!” Deeps said.

“Hardly a calling,” said the dour one.

Monk One ignored him. Then in a moodle he communicated with us monkeys, sidestepping his companion, so powerfully emotive that I experienced his thoughts as life, like a dream almost, straight into my head, a series of memories now my own: Inga had told a story on his tee-bee of bringing her monkey to Bronzoo, which was the prizzon we’d liberated, and there this monkey had found the wub of his monkey life and freed her.

“That wub was I,” Deeps intimated.

Beautiful that the monk understood her. “Care for the world,” the monk mooded back. He reached a hand down, and both Deeps and I held a thick you-men finger.

“You will live, Monk,” Deeps said to him kindly. “When the day comes, you will lead in that care.”

“And what day is that?”

“You’ll know when it comes, and it will come soon.”

The second monk was less porous, less kindly, you felt it, more skeptical of beauty. And nervous in some way. The first monk whispered to him: “Inga’s monkeys!”

And the other whispered back, a conversation in wind words, the air so rapid that I could not follow. Except that the first monk was called Brother Bangg. He closed his eyes, breathed in, breathed out, intimated that they would guard us on our journey.

“But where are you going?” I straight-moodled, as if.

But Bangg seemed to concentrate, pushed at his eyes with his hand. And distinctly then, his mood, which I translate: “We are going to a place called Florrriba where it is warm, even hot, and we monks will guide you that far.” And more, arriving in images, really, travel advice: For us to get to the home forest, to be back among my siblings, my abandoning mom, my aunts and uncles, Deeps and I would need to take either a water-rusher or an air-machine, or possibly both, perhaps other you-men conveyances as well.

The westward trayn came to a stop, and monks and monkeys made their way in swishing broadcloth out of the cabin and into a vast indoors, up a ramp, across a britch, down some stairs, even more westerly. Our monks were not you-mens who hurried, and under their robes deep Deeps and I rode holding on to fragrant pleats and folds, the light bursting orange and dark, orange and dark, the monk warmth wholly holy, at least that of Brother Bangg.

And then in a great chamber we rested. Brother Bangg parted his robes so I could see where we were. “It won’t be long,” he moodled clearly enough. Then, “Look, look!”

And on a great tee-bee came an image of the shubble buzz from above, a difficult concept for any monkey, but clear enough to this one, lately educated in you-men ways. The shubble buzz, unmistakeable, that Greenie coloration, an escort of seemingly thousands of carrs and truggs, all of them moving very slowly, crowds cheering from the margins, blue-swirling guard cars in large numbers taking up the rear, leading, too, a magnificent procession, some kind of cooperation in progress.

And then views from the roadside as the shubble buzz passed, its rows of wimdoes full of reptilian faces, what passed for grins. And then another shot—fractured you-men time—Charlene standing on the shubble buzz steps in the shubble buzz darway, waving her arms and speaking to an enormous impromptu gathering, something about Trans-Portation, something about giving the animals of the world a fair shake, that the meeek truly would inherit the Aarth, which was the World, which was the Plamet.

The first monk translated for us, pure moodle, but you felt you’d understood the Buzz Lady, as the newsies were calling her. No, she was not afraid of being eaten! No, she was not afraid of running out of gazz, and pointed: Members of the crowd carried red vessels containing liquid they poured into an opening at the rear of the Buzz, sweet nectar by the smiles. Nor would they want for food! And pointed to more crowdies, legions of sensitives carrying baskets of victuals fit for anyanimal, delivering it to the shubble buzz dars. Charlene had helpers now, and the helpers were you-mees!

Even the pleece seemed to find it fun, at least caused no trobble. “We can wait,” a senior one said. So, there were sensitives everywhere!

“What has come over them?” the second monk said.

“Wub,” said Brother Bangg. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Okefenokee or Buzzt!” Charlene cried up there on the tee-bee, and disappeared inzide the conveyance, which then continued, stately pace seen first from the ground, then from above, her retinue stretching both far ahead and far behind.

“Godspeed,” the first monk said.

“Our trayn!” said the second, quite nervous. The idea of wub hadn’t moved him.

After some pushing among coursing goers, we boarded another trayn, smell of you-men foods and farts. The monks settled into seats, arranging robes and monkeys around their feet.

Soon we felt it, heard it: a lurch, a clunk, a hiss, then movement, southward.

Brother Bangg unwrapped his robes and lifted me to his side—the trayn car, a moving rooom, was empty. Monk Two lifted Deeps more squeamishly. And so my wub and I sat in comfort, and took prasadam, which, Brother Bangg explained, was blessed chow.

“All must die in any case,” he said aloud, words of pushed air.

“In any case?” said Monk Two.

“All who live now will one day not. Elemental truth and quandary.”

“But all will live on,” Monk Two said.

“So we like to think,” said Brother Bangg.

Teacher and student, I surmised.

The trayn was like the you-men roarbirds but never left the ground. Day turned to night, and morning came, and still we rolled along, the willz clacking below us, traversing the great curving glope.

“You-mens aren’t all bad,” Brother Bangg said, sharing popping wet balls of sweet afterlife called grabes.

“They fight the trees. They fight the animals. They fight the stone. They fight their own food.”

“They cannot remain,” Deeps moodled crossly.

Brother Bangg nodded, nodded more, another quandary. At length, he said, “But what about the good?”

“And what good is that?” Deeps said.

“Mewzzik for example.”

“Oh, awful,” I said.

“Ah,” Deeps intimated. “But monkey, there’s a sort that would fill the wind at the Bronzoo in the evenings sometimes. I think you heard same during the melee last night.”

Image arose: Urrrk getting it in the chest, the foot.

I grunted, not assent.

From a pogget somewhere deep in his robes, Brother Bangg pulled two white creatures called earbugs, no strings attached, put one each in our monkey ears—memories of sweet Inga on the roarbird—then fiddled with his phome. Shortly, very quietly at first, a keening to rival the monkey storm-song emerged, sweet and sad, notes of hope, notes of study.

Brother Bangg let us listen a moment, said, “This is the Méditation from Massenet’s grand obbera Thaïs.”

“Beauty,” Deeps said.

“Beauty,” I agreed.

The earbugs were uncomfortable and both of us plucked them out when the keening was done.

“Sensitives,” Brother Bangg said.

Out the wimdoes of the trayn then, we watched a lot of plamet go by, a long, long meditation indeed, and mood, the Méditation continuing to sing in my head, a living thing.

“Monks and monkeys,” Monk Two kept saying.

“Your ko-an,” said Bangg, amused. He then moodled what a ko-an was, and that it was very like the experience of mewzzik, whoever was listening. Monkey logic, so far as I could tell: “Some things, dear companions, aren’t to be understood, but only understood, understand?”

I did.

Or did I not?