Monkey Around

by Jadie Jang

  She still didn’t say anything. She had her “thinking furiously” look on. Then, without a word to me, she got up and headed for her office. Oh, no, she wasn’t getting away with that.

  I sped around her, invisibly, and appeared in front of her, a tactic I only used when I didn’t mind irritating her. But she barely noticed, and simply tried to walk around me. I grabbed her by both shoulders and shook her until she focused on my face.

  “Ayo, you have to tell me what’s going on.”

  She shook her head, not in denial, but as if to clear it. “Mai, I have no idea what’s going on. It’s just, those … ‘instructions’ did you call them? Yes, I got something in a flat envelope for Juice in trade for some … stuff.” She meant both stories and merman’s penis; if it had just been the former, she’d have said so. “When was that? Maybe two or three weeks ago? Shit, my memory has gotten bad.”

  “But who did you get the envelope from?”

  She looked at me in surprise. “That’s the thing, Mai, I got it from Wayland.”

  I jumped up and down in place for a moment. “That’s it, Ayo! That’s the connection! So the shadow is going after supernats who are connected to the stick! I can’t prove that Wayland had the stick before the San Antonios, but if he got the instructions for them—through you, of course—then it’s reasonable to think he might have gotten the stick for them—more directly, of course. You’ll have to find out who Wayland’s next of kin, or any kind of assistant is, and maybe you can question them …”

  My mind began spinning again. I’d have to ask Juice where he got the stick from when I called him later. I put that on my to-do list. Tomorrow. I’d get in touch with Tez to rearrange a meeting, then I’d go to talk to Chucha.

  “But what is this Huexotl?” Ayo asked, almost helplessly.

  “Oh, I was just going to tell you …” And I told her about Chucha holding the stick, and her strange reaction to it. She frowned furiously. Clearly, she liked it even less than I had. “Ayo, I got a really bad feeling about it. Do you think the stick is … I dunno …”

  “Evil?” She asked. Her tone told me a lot.

  “Yeah, I know, I know, there’s no good magic and evil magic, no good creatures and evil creatures, just what we do with them.”

  “Exactly,” she said, satisfied teacher all over.

  “But I didn’t like what the stick did to her.”

  “Well,” she admitted, “I’m not liking what you’re telling me, either. But it does explain why a named walking stick might be worth killing over. I mean, if it makes you feel good, as well as giving you power …”

  “Yeah, I know. Like a drug.”

  “Exactly.”

  We both thought for a few moments.

  “Huexotl …” Ayo said. “I thought it might be Indigenous. I’ve been asking local Ohlone to no avail … But … ‘Huexotl’ is Nahuatl and I thought it was just an affectation by a Chicano gang … But maybe the name goes back farther than that. I mean, Chucha is a nagual. Maybe she’s more susceptible to its power because she comes from the same cultural realm. … How long have they had it, did you say?”

  I told her.

  “A lone werewolf, eh? Justin? He came through here. Damn. I was the one who referred him to the San Antonios.”

  “What?”

  She sighed. “The kid had done some bad things, Mai. He was being hunted and came to me looking for a way out of the Bay Area. I didn’t want to put him on a ship or a bus with a bunch of humans.” No, I could see why not. An uncontrolled and already blooded werewolf trapped in a tin can with a bunch of helpless humans? Nope. Double nope. “I thought maybe running around with a gang would drain some of his energy. Maybe they could find a safer way to get him out of the country. It’s not like a werewolf is any deadlier than an AK. And I couldn’t just give him up to be killed.”

  No, she couldn’t. If he’d killed, even without intending to, the local pack would be after him. Sometimes, having human morals and ethics was a huge burden.

  “He was killed.” I told her. “They didn’t see by whom, but I’m thinking it was probably the same shadow creature. They ran in after he was dead, but before the killer could locate the stick.”

  “And the body?”

  “Dumped. Chucha wouldn’t say where. If you wanna know, ask Juice.”

  She sighed, heavily. “Well. I suppose that was a nearly inevitable end for that kid. Poor little lobo. He was turned against his will, you know.” She sighed again.

  She was about to say something else, when the front door opened and she looked up. A man walked in, middle-aged and stocky. He looked familiar. His wide face was a warm medium brown, with a dramatic nose that made him look … got it! He was the guy I’d seen in Ayo’s car the night I found the weretiger. The guy who wanted a Merman’s penis. My inner (and possibly outer) eyebrows went up.

  He looked around, saw her and nodded. She nodded back and got up.

  “I don’t need to tell you to keep an eye on Chucha,” she said.

  “Is there a job for me there?” I asked, tipping a chin at the man.

  She rolled her eyes. “Too close-mouthed. I bet he’s got stories though …” she looked greedy for a moment. “He’s looking for a paper document, but absolutely refuses to tell me what’s on it.”

  “A piece of paper? You mean, like a scroll or a parchment?” My hairs went on end, but I wouldn’t assume. Scrolls and parchments were fairly common commodities in magic-users’ lives.

  “College ruled, single sheet, paper. I’m about to tell him to go away, so don’t worry about it.”

  My whole body went all over needles and pins.

  “Ayo,” I said, pawing at her arm nervelessly. “Ayo, Chucha said the instructions were on a piece of paper ripped out of a spiral notebook. College ruled.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she lasered in on the man. “Play it cool, Maya. Leave it to me.”

  She led him into her office.

  I watched them do it and felt a yearning … to go into her office, and the room behind it— but that thought was snapped off at its root as the door shut. And all that was left was my curiosity and titillation and frustration, and her closed office door.

  They stayed in there longer than I expected, and he didn’t leave looking as frustrated as I felt after Ayo came back out and told me he’d bound her to secrecy.

  “Well, what can you tell me?” I cried. “Ayo, if this were just my idle curiosity—”

  “I’d say I know something, but not anything that can help you with what you fundamentally want to know. I don’t think the part he wants kept secret has any bearing on … any of this. I don’t know any more about the Huexotl. I don’t know if he knows about It. And I don’t know what the instructions say. I don’t even know if he knows what the instructions say, only that he wants the paper. That’s all. I’d also say you know when you’re on the right track and you need to follow your gut.” And she went back into her office, looking as if she needed to shut herself away from her desire to tell me all.

  She reopened the door again a second later. “But keep away from that damned stick, Maya, and warn Chucha again. I don’t know about the Huexotl, but that shadow creature is bad news.” And she shut the door again.

  Damn Ayo’s ethics! Seemed I was always waiting on her for something. But if I saw that mystery dude again, I wasn’t letting him get away until I found out what he knew.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Tuesday, October 18, 2011

  Petglobe; Ogawa/Grant Plaza;

  Sanc-Ahh Café, Oakland

  I got up early Tuesday morning to head down to Oakland Chinatown, where I stuck my head into the Formosa Herbal Co.’s warehouse in case Dalisay had more than one source for blood plasma (they were in competition with Bountiful Trading Co. because more than just traditional Chinese medicine was being “traded.”) But nobody seemed to know anything, and no one recognized Dalisay’s picture, either. Oh well, it was a Hail Mary pass at best.

  I had the
day off but had to work in the evening. I was itching to go back into the city and dig up something at the werecat association … or do … something. But I couldn’t think of what, and the stress was giving me a headache. Maybe a break would help. Maybe I should head for Occupy and live in stinky utopia for a while …

  But I decided to treat myself first. I ran as a large pit bull trailing a leash (the pittie kept people from approaching me, and the leash from calling animal control) up the fifteen blocks into the parking lot of Pet Globe, a ginormous pet food supermarket that had a specialty organic section frequented by humans who loved their puppies and kitties waaaaaay too much.

  Inside the store, and back in human form, I headed back to where my favorite cat treats were kept. (I’m usually a fruit-snack gal, but a qori ismaris who tried to date me—he was cute, but I just can’t with hyenas; that laugh!—introduced me to cat treats and I’d been hooked ever since.) The aisles in this store went all the way up to the ceiling, it seemed, so I didn’t see Chucha until I turned the corner and came face to face with her.

  “Maya!” she cried, looking shocked and guilty. I looked at her hands. She was clutching five bags of Critterganic cat treats, my favorite. Oho!

  “Cat treats, Chucha? What does that say about your big bad doggie self?”

  Her lower lip pushed out. “Cat treats taste better than dog treats! They’re richer and have less filler!” She looked suddenly embarrassed. “I mean, I … read that somewhere. Better for your … cats.”

  She knew I wasn’t buying it. I let her dangle in my pitiless gaze for a couple more seconds, and then laughed and smacked her shoulder.

  “Dude. Why do you think I’m here?”

  “I thought you were following me.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You really don’t have a very high opinion of your brother, do you? No, I’m here for the”—and I plucked two bags out of her hands—“Critterganics.”

  “You eat those too?” I raised my eyebrows. “… Orrr, wait, do you have a cat? ‘Cause I have a cat.”

  I laughed. “You so do not have a cat, and neither do I. These are my favorites.” I tore a bag open and stuck a treat in my mouth. Then I offered it to her. She watched suspiciously as I chewed and swallowed the treat, then tentatively took one. Then I took one. Then she took another one. Pretty soon we had killed half the bag.

  “Maybe we should buy these first,” I suggested, eyes still locked.

  And just like that, we went from a chance meeting in a store, to two people being in the store together. We paid together, and left together.

  “So,” Chucha said outside, “you going to work?”

  “Nah,” I said. “This is my day off. I don’t have to be at work until evening. I was thinking of spending the day hanging out at the encampment. You wanna come?”

  “What’s this ‘encampment’?”

  I stared at her. “The Occupy Oakland encampment?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know that.”

  “Haven’t you heard about Occupy Wall Street?”

  “Sure. Those white hippies pissed about being suddenly broke camping out where that bronze bull is.”

  That gave me pause, although the description was close enough. “Well, it’s in Oakland now, since last week. They’re occupying Ogawa Plaza—they renamed it ‘Oscar Grant Plaza’.”

  “And you’re involved with this? I didn’t know you were a hippie!”

  “I’m an activist—actually, there are a lot of people of color involved here in Oakland, and we’re trying to get it renamed ‘Decolonize Oakland’ rather than ‘Occupy,’ because of the bad history of occupation.”

  She shrugged. “Okay. … So, how are we gonna get there?”

  “I usually run as a dog. Let’s do that.”

  “Oh … uh … I can’t just change like that … can you?”

  I turned into my usual pit-bull-with-leash to show her, then back.

  “Fuckin A! I can’t do that! God, I wish I could.”

  “I thought you could—”

  “No, not during the day, and there’s this whole … No I can’t. So how are we gonna do this if you’re a dog and I’m not?”

  “Oh,” I said slyly. “I don’t have to go as a dog!”

  Fifteen minutes later Chucha slid awkwardly, breathlessly out of my saddle in a little parking lot a block away from the plaza. She’d shrieked and laughed like a small child all the way—and bounced around like a sack of potatoes. I neighed at her for effect and blew a bit of spittle into her ear. She shrieked again and then collapsed into giggles.

  I changed back before anyone wandered by.

  “That. Was. Bomb!” Chucha cried. “You should do that all the time. You should, like, charge money.”

  I held out my hand and waggled my fingers at her.

  “Oh,” she said, and took my bag of cat treats out of her backpack, where I got a glimpse of the stick. Still with her, even on her day off. It made me glad we’d be together today; if attacked, surely the two of us would be too much for that shadow …? Then I shuddered, as I did involuntarily every time I thought of the shadow-thing.

  I led her down across the street and down the sidewalk to the plaza, where we were greeted with the sound of recorded music and the murmur, and musky, sour-meat smell of a couple hundred people hanging out for a full week without showers.

  I introduced Chucha to a few people, and after a while we gravitated towards Children’s Village.

  “I wanna help out here for a while,” she said.

  “I didn’t know you liked kids.”

  “Well, I don’t really. They’re just … they’re just really …”

  “Refreshingly direct?”

  “And straight up, yeah.” She shook her head, and I was reminded that the reasons I liked working with kids were probably similar to hers, although my ability to read bullshit came from a slightly different source.

  “Well,” I said, “not necessarily honest, but definitely transparent liars.”

  We both laughed and I decided to volunteer my services as well. I hadn’t signed up for anything today, wanting to keep the day open, so we spelled the current volunteers. Chucha proved talented at coming up with ideas to keep munchkins busy, and we played a few games before settling down to a series of drawing challenges. Turned out, Chucha could draw as well. She helped out one whiny kid with a drawing of a dragon, and pretty soon all the kids insisted on her drawing a dragon—or a giant snake, or a vampire—on their papers, too.

  As afternoon deepened, I could see her patience starting to flag. This was why I, too, hadn’t made a career out of working with kids. I enjoyed them … until I didn’t. And I wondered if this was a common shapeshifter affliction. Other volunteers had joined us, so we could leave whenever we wanted to.

  Chucha came with me readily when I crinkled my Petglobe bag and suggested we find a place to hang out and eat.

  “Do you mind?” I asked, gesturing at the steps that led up to the greenspace where the encampment was.

  “What? You mean the sun? No. What about you? You’re hella light-skinned. Don’t you burn?”

  “No, actually. It’s a monkey perk,” I said with my mouth full. “Monkeys don’t sunburn.”

  “Really? That’s actually kinda dope.”

  The sun was shining through shredded, patchy clouds; it was the kind of cool, bright day the Bay Area was famous for, year round. I relaxed into the space, and the moment. The encampment—the movement—moved me because I’d been feeling an aspect of the personality of the Bay strongly here. Even though we were in the heart of Oakland, it was the same personality, the same Bay that I felt from the rooftops of Chinatown, or from the peak of Dolores Park, or from the beach on Alameda. Only, in gritty Oakland, what I felt was less the bright invitation of the San Francisco view, and more a visceral anger, as bright and clear as the sunlight streaming through the square. But it was also the promise of a cleansing fire.

  I could see Chucha breathing it in, taking it on, too. It
was a light and energy that relaxed as much as it electrified. We talked about Chucha’s childhood and her neighborhood, her school and her family, my education, and the magazine. I could feel a tension I didn’t know I’d been carrying leave my shoulders and chest.

  “Much respect,” Chucha said, “like, y’all just decided to do something like that, and then did it. I would have no idea how to start a magazine. But I guess that’s the kind of thing you learn in college.” She shook her head with the admiration of someone completely unthreatened by your accomplishments—because they were so far out of reach she’d never imagine wanting them.

  “Not really. We had no idea how to start a magazine, either, but because there were a bunch of us, we felt comfortable just doing it. We basically learned by doing, and by making a shit-ton of mistakes. … But it’s true, in college there are a lot of opportunities to get together with other people and learn shit by being stupid. It gives you the confidence to do stuff you don’t know how to do.”

  Chucha looked thoughtful. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t have to go.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged, but then seemed to really think about it. “Well … I guess it’s not so much the schoolwork. I’m okay with that and there’s stuff I’d like to learn more about, although I can learn just fine from the library. … I guess it’s more the kind of people who go to college. I can’t stand them. You know, the douchebags, who think they know everything and act all better than you. I wouldn’t want to spend four years being around people like that.”

  “People like this?” I asked, gesturing around us. She turned around in her seat to face the encampment.

  “Well, I mean, I wouldn’t want to spend four years around a bunch of hippies, either.”

  “People like me?”

  She looked startled. “Well, no, but, I mean, you did stuff before you went to college. You know how things are.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know how things are. And after a year and a half of learning ‘how things are,’ I couldn’t get to college fast enough. You know, a lot of the people here come from low income backgrounds, and they are deeply into debt going to college. That’s what a lot of them are protesting, not the going to college part, but the deeply in debt part. But they go anyway. Because ‘how things are’ sucks, Chucha. College gives you a little more power to make the life you want. Maybe not much, but enough to get started with.”