Monkey Around

by Jadie Jang

  But this one, my one, the Bay we lived around, glowed white with combined colors, energy, and potential, jigged crazily with chaos and conflict and darkness, and sent its impact in rays outward, where it struck all over the globe. The energy of the entire world was tied into the Bay. What happened here, had repercussions everywhere.

  I knew that would be cold comfort to Tez, because I could see—standing here with the world’s light in my eyes—I could see the beauty, the difference, the enticement, of other places. There were other nexuses of energy shining brightly: major cities, islands, forests, deserts, rivers. Oh, to be there would be something! To bathe in those vibrations and smell those smells and taste those tastes! I felt a completely novel desire to move out, to travel, to explore, awakening in me. And I felt the irony as well: that I could now travel, and probably would, awakened to the desire by the closing of Tez’s possibilities.

  Because that was what this was. The Bay shone in my mind, and the shine grew brighter and brighter until I understood that this wasn’t a new ability of mine, but a vision, a vision granted to me by what I could only understand as the Spirit of the Bay. It—my home—was showing me what needed to be done, and my home didn’t care what I would be sacrificing, or that what I was sacrificing did not belong to me.

  And, as if it had a voice, the Bay asked me: Are you willing?

  My mind was a jumble of ecstasy and confusion. Willing to what? Willing to sacrifice Tez?

  Are you willing?

  I didn’t understand, and knew I didn’t understand. Am I willing to do what?

  And the “voice” seemed to change, as if I had answered: Are you ready?

  And I understood that I didn’t have to understand. This was not a choice of the mind. Was I ready?

  I was ready.

  The vision faded.

  I spared a moment’s grief for Tez, for all those shining jewels of cities and places that he would never see.

  Then I got to work.

  I knew in a flash that Ayo’s hopes of pretty girls and jaguar boys trying to impress them were vain. He’d done all the impressing of me that he was going to do (and I’d been pretty impressed), but he’d also had no problem with disappointing me with his decision not to bond with the Huexotl. No, I couldn’t be the one to convince him.

  I searched the floor, and then the one above, until I found an empty room with a phone. I shut the door behind me, drew the blind, and changed, painstakingly, into Amoxtli. It took me a few slow seconds; I usually disliked taking on the form of actual people. Unfortunately, my imagination was being literal today: I was wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and boy, was Amoxtli hairy. I pulled out my phone, found Tez’s number—I was still pretending that I hadn’t immediately memorized it—and dialed out from the hospital line.

  “Hello?” Tez answered after several rings. I had never heard him sound so … scared.

  “Tez,” I said in Amoxtli’s voice.

  “Padrino,” Tez answered. “Como estas? Are you all right?” His voice was anxious in a way I’d never heard before from him—but also annoyed in a way I’d never heard before, either. It kinda sounded like me, actually, talking to Ayo.

  “Mijo, I need to talk to you. You need to come here.”

  He knew immediately what it was about. “But you said you supported my decision.”

  “I will support whatever decision you make. But I can’t let this go without a proper discussion. It’s my job to advise you, and I haven’t done very well so far.”

  “You’re not going to change my mind.” He was dangerously stubborn now.

  “I’m not trying to. You know how I feel. But there are some things … things I haven’t told you. Things I left out because I didn’t want to influence you too much in one direction. You need to hear these things.”

  “I don’t see what difference it will ma—”

  “Please.”

  There was a startled silence. Uh oh. I was realizing now Amoxtli, like many middle-aged men, probably never said please or thank you to his … uh, his kids. Well, maybe it would have an effect.

  “All right,” Tez said reluctantly. “I’ll come right over. But I can’t stay long. I have things to do today.”

  I decided to underline the effect. “Thank you. Oh, by the way, they’ve switched me to another room, I’ve been doing so well.” I stuck my head outside and recited the room name to him, then we hung up.

  The room was currently serving as a dumping ground for what looked like broken beds and gurneys. I shoved most of the detritus behind a curtained area, and laid three broken beds out in a row. A few of my plucked hairs turned into vague-looking machines—good enough to be in a hospital drama on tv, which should be good enough for Tez—a couple more into sleeping patients.

  I put a little more work into the machines around my bed. One of them made a pleasant humming sound, and one attached to my finger with a clip. I wished I was more observant, because the details of these things escaped me. My bed was broken so that it wouldn’t sit up, so I had to hold it upright with some invisible duct tape.

  I’d barely climbed into the bed and arranged myself when Tez came striding in. I paused to admire the length of his legs.

  “What?” he asked irritably. Oh. I was staring at his legs. Probably something his Padrinos wouldn’t do unless there was something wrong. I needed an opening. I needed sympathy.

  “Oh, sorry, mijo. I was just zoning out. I’m a little tired. I haven’t napped yet today.”

  And just like that, Tez was all solicitousness. “Are you comfortable? Can I get you some water? Should I call the nurse? You need a pain killer, don’t you?”

  Monkey jeered in triumph. I couldn’t help feeling satisfaction at my success. But I had to concentrate: Tez would never forgive me if he caught me out.

  “No, no, Tez, I’m fine. Really. Just a little sleepy. Don’t call the nurse. I need to talk to you.”

  He sighed, but gave in. He really was a Good Boy.

  “I’m not trying to tell you what to do. But there’s more at stake than just your own path, or that of our clan.”

  Tez frowned, and I couldn’t tell if it was my words, or their content. I had to be careful to speak like Amoxtli, and not like me.

  “Places of power, like here, the Bay Area, usually have a supernatural guardian watching over them, keeping things from getting too out of hand. I’ve talked to Ayo about this … And she’s just human, she can’t do it. I’ve talked to other folks, too … no one has watched out for the Bay Area, not as long as we’ve been here. Your father—”

  Tez looked up intently.

  “… he felt the chaos of this place. He knew. But he wanted to escape, just like you do. I don’t blame you, but he didn’t do what was necessary to save himself, his family, his clan, because he wanted his freedom. And, I have to admit, I wanted mine, too. I’ve paid for my failure. Everyone has paid for our failure. I hate that it all comes down to you to take on this burden that everyone else has refused. But there it is. This is real power. You can do some real good, good that no one else can do. This land needs a guardian, and you’re the only one who can do it.”

  That was it. That was all I could say without going too far afield from what Amoxtli could know.

  Tez’s face was wretched, and he was looking at the ground again. “What about…what about the kids?” he whispered.

  “Do you really think one of them could take over for you? Run this place?” It was a real question from me. I didn’t know the answer.

  But Tez did, and apparently he thought Amo did, too. He shook his head, as if in answer to an unspoken agreement between them. “But if I left,” he said, desperately, “If I went traveling for a long time… for years…” He trailed off, still looking at the ground.

  My certainty was shaken by this. What if?

  “Walk me through how this would work, Tez,” I said, as myself, and was startled to hear it come out in Amo’s voice. Thank god for unconscious reflexes!

  �
�I know!” he cried, as if in answer to a judgement I hadn’t expressed, but probably Amoxtli would. “But they could learn! Manny used to look after the littles! He’s inflexible, a little bit blinkered but… or Pronk could, Pronk could… I know, I know: nobody would listen to Pronk, because they think ze’s flakey… a freak. But things could change. They could work together! They could… like…”

  He trailed off, working it out in his head.

  I’d grown up with a tendency to spin out into fantasies and just… live there. It took years with my foster— my adopted Mom working on me every day, to learn how to use my imagination to understand reality. I could see, in his face, that he’d learned this hard lesson much earlier, and harder, than I had.

  After a very long few minutes, during which I held my breath and bit my tongue, Tez looked up at me. His shoulders were completely relaxed, as if he’d just let go. There was my answer. And I could see what it took for him to look me in the eye, and it felt like he was tearing off a part of his heart.

  “I can’t, Amo, I can’t do it. Don’t make me.”

  It felt like he was at a breaking point. I didn’t want to push him. And I was afraid that if I did, he would really break, and then he’d be … useless. Yes, I actually thought that, and hated myself.

  “I can’t make you do anything,” I forced myself to say dispassionately. “You have to make this decision yourself.”

  “I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I don’t want to. I don’t have anything left in me. I can’t do it. I’m useless. I can’t guard anything …” and all at once he was hyperventilating, sobbing without tears. The word “useless” struck me like a blow. God, I was doing this to him! After all he’d been through, how could I be so heartless?

  “It’s okay, Tez, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” I said, putting a hand on his head and stroking his hair. Monkey screeched at me in disgust, but I couldn’t help it. I heard in my own voice every bit of yearning and … love? Was it love? Whatever it was I felt for him, I heard it in my voice, and I was shocked and afraid that he would hear it too.

  But apparently, he only heard avuncular love, because he bowed his head to rest on the blanket … and then heaved himself away without looking at me, and left the room.

  Okay, I had failed, and at the critical moment, too. It was my own weakness, though, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Almost at the same moment, I hatched a second plan: one I wasn’t going to botch.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Monday, October 24, 2011

  Tez’s House, San Francisco

  I had some time to kill so I flew back over the Bay to the encampment for the general assembly. I found my friend Timmy Lu at the meeting. He was helping to organize the POC contingent in arguing for “Decolonize,” and a less white-centered set of demands. But that didn’t seem to be under discussion tonight.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered.

  “The fire marshall took all the propane from the cooking tent,” Timmy said. “They’re talking fire hazards and health hazards, and word is that the encampment is likely to be raided in the next few days.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  Contingencies were being planned, but my mind was a whirl of other problems—Tez’s intentions, Todd’s expectations, Shady’s threat, and general guilt—so I had trouble forcing myself to pay attention. After asking me things three times and getting “Mmm hmm” as an answer, Timmy finally asked, “Are you alright?”

  “Sorry,” I whispered. “My friend was killed last week and now there’s all these logistical nightmares to deal with.”

  “I heard about that,” he said. “Why don’t you go deal with them? I’ll text you about whatever actions are decided on.”

  I hated leaving early, but Timmy was right, and I wasn’t being of much use, so I took off.

  No question I was worried about facing Slim Shady by myself, but I had things to do that night that couldn’t wait for safety, so I hid out at the sanctuary until after midnight—catching a quick nap, eating two dinners, and ignoring several texts from Todd—and then took a cloud back over the Bay to San Francisco, traveling as fast as I could.

  I came in to Tez’s apartment through an open window, changed back to human, and went invisible, just in case. I found their family photo albums and pulled out one from the middle, flipping through it in the light of the outside street lamps.

  Tez’s father had only been in his early thirties when he died, and boy, had he been a handsome man. Shorter than Tez, Ome had a kind of shaggy, rangy appearance and a clever, confident face that reminded me of a coyote. Tez and Chucha favored him in a way that made tears spring to my eyes.

  I became visible again, and stood before the built-in mirror over the mantlepiece. I tried to turn myself into Ome, but it wouldn’t come. My skin and features stretched and snapped back into Tez’s face, over and over again. I’d never tried to become a person I’d only seen in pictures before. Not having a 3-D model to work from made it immensely difficult. But let’s be honest: desperately not wanting to do it was what was really stymieing me.

  I sat down on the couch. Last chance to change your mind, Maya. And I wanted to. Doing this was a point of no return, although it was hard to say return to what. Something more fundamental to who I was and what I did in the world. I didn’t really have the time to think it through, here on Tez’s couch. All I knew was that I was planning to force Tez to tie himself to all our futures, at the expense of his own. And that I didn’t entirely have the right.

  But I felt, from far off, like the clanging of a … temple bell? … the feeling of certainty, of clarity, that had come to me in my vision of the magical world. I could choose otherwise, but to do so would be to diminish my world, and with it—somehow—myself. And—I could feel it—to diminish Tez, too.

  So I let Monkey out of her cage, Monkey, who was always up for fooling; Monkey, who was anxious to try this trick. I stood up, went to the mirror, and a complete vision of Ome’s form came to my mind. I embodied it, then, upon reflection, changed the density of my form to that of a pale mist. It didn’t matter how accurate it was. Tez only had to recognize it; he’d be half asleep anyway. My real problem was going to be that I’d speak to him in English, when, presumably, Ome had spoken to his children in Spanish. But I was relying on Tez’s sleepy disorientation and lack of a conception of the afterlife.

  Tez was sprawled across his bed with the abandon of a housecat in the sun. His face, despite its persistent halo of stubble, looked like a teenager’s, for once. I wanted to touch him, to kiss him, to lie down in the crook of his arm and fold myself up in his warmth. And in that moment, I realized that I probably could do just that. If I dropped all this and curled up with him, he would probably wake up and … let me, and we could be together and travel the world together and … let the Bay Area and Ayo and the sanctuary and Baby and my friends and community and Occupy just go fuck themselves.

  Right. Get to work.

  I touched his face with my misty-cool hand and said his name, low, in a voice I had cast somewhere between Tez’s own timbre and Amoxtli’s accent and intonation.

  Tez tried to swat my hand away from his face.

  “Tezcatlipoca,” I said again. “Wake up.” This was a calculated risk. Amo had said he was named after the Aztec god of nagualism, but perhaps Ome had never called him that.

  That one worked. Tez’s eyes flew open and he sat up all at once. I backed away a few paces so he could see more of me.

  “Papa?” He looked sleepily confused, exactly as I’d pictured. Ha! I’d done it!

  “Listen,” I murmured urgently. I didn’t have much time before he awoke fully and started to question this apparition. Wait— did he even believe in ghosts? Argh! Too late to wonder that now!

  “Pá … cómo … how are you here?”

  “Listen to me now. You have to do it. You have to bond with the Huexotl.”

  “Pá, I can’t. I can’t …”

  “That se
lfish thinking nearly doomed our family, our whole clan. I’m sorry that you have to take on this burden with no help. That’s my fault. But you can’t make the same mistake I did. You are a Varela. You have to bond with the Huexotl.”

  “What if I destroy—”

  “You can’t destroy It!” I cried softly. “The release of magic will cause a disaster! It’s too powerful! And you can’t let It fall into the wrong hands! That would be another kind of disaster! Bond with the Huexotl tomorrow!” And with that, I tried to fade away through the door.

  “Papa! Chucha is dead!” The anguished cry stopped me in my tracks. Was there anyone who could comfort him like his father?

  “I know, mijo.”

  “Papa, I can’t …”

  “You can. You must. You’ve done well enough for how little you were trained. You will manage.”

  He was starting to look stubborn. I had to close this.

  “Mijo, you have to do this, for Chucha. Chucha has paid for my failure.”

  Tez’s face drained of color. “But the kids …” Tez choked out, then immediately looked ashamed.

  “Do you really think either of the kids can do it?” It sounded like an accusation, but it was a real question. Maybe …

  Tez looked even more ashamed. “Maybe Manny …” He trailed off, and his silence was enough. He didn’t think either of his siblings could handle it, and he would know. Time to push down on it.

  I hated myself.

  “No. You are the ocelotl. You were made for this. If you run away, why should they believe in themselves?” I stepped forward and let my misty hand pass through his cheek. “You can.”

  Then I slowly went invisible before his eyes. Once he couldn’t see me anymore, I turned into air and swept out through his window. But I hovered there, for a brief moment, watching his confusion and grief. My joy at a trick pulled off mingled with my ache, for Tez, for Chucha. And I whispered in my own voice, without knowing I was going to do it, “I won’t leave you alone with this.”