Scruffy - A Diversion

by Paul Gallico

  He reached King Charles V Wall and descended at a speed that could truly be compared to that of lightning; without ever seeming to try and with a kind of gliding motion that made his great body seem to flow along the stones as though he were skimming over the surface without touching it at all.

  He arrived at the foot of the wall just as Treugang Ramirez emerged from the Admiral Nelson.

  There was still the width of the town separating the two and so each, unaware of the other, proceeded inexorably towards their encounter.

  The street where Ramirez lived was in that part of the old town close to the towering cliff of the Rock where the houses looked as though they had been built helter-skelter upon one another. It was a kind of monkey paradise since there were clothes-lines and clothes-poles criss-crossing the thoroughfare and affixed to one of the cornices of a building was a traffic sign, surmounted by a triangle.

  Arrived there, Scruffy found that this triangle suited him admirably. He wedged his thick body into it. There is no doubt that any picture looks better framed and Scruffy was no exception. It gave him a kind of patriarchal elder-statesman look, and he sat there letting himself be admired.

  It was not usual for an ape to appear so far to the north of the town and thus Scruffy was able to assemble more of a crowd of the curious than he usually attracted. Men, women and children came out from their stone and stucco dwellings and stood looking up at Scruffy.

  Ramirez now came striding into this picture still smarting from the snub delivered to him by Gunner Lovejoy. He found a crowd gathered around blocking the entrance to his domicile, children leaping up and down and pointing, women carrying babies in their arms, men stretching their necks and above his head a large and ugly Barbary ape framed in the crossroads sign.

  Ramirez paused for an instant to look up. The small mouth pursed into an expression of distaste, the pasty white brow beneath the fine upstanding haircut knitted in a frown. He uttered an exclamation of disgust which sounded like “Pfeugh’, and commenced to thrust his way through the crowd of children and grown-ups barring the way to his door.

  One would not say that Scruffy understood the word “Pfeugh’, but he did feel that a jarring note had suddenly marred the harmony of the pleasant sensation he had been creating. Also, since he was an animal, he was equipped with that sharp instinct which at once recognized that the newcomer was unquestionably one of those who differed from the rest of the human pack, and he felt the hostility of the others towards him. Vicariously it excited him and started adrenalins discharging into his blood stream. This called for action, and with wonderful accuracy he swooped from his frame on to the shoulders of Ramirez. To steady himself he anchored ten strong fingers, at the end of which were ten equally powerful black claws, in Ramirez’s hair.

  Even so, if the unfortunate little man had kept his head or had been less irritated by prior events, the debacle might have been averted. Something would have distracted Scruffy and he would have abandoned his perch for another shoulder, or returned to his picture frame. But at last, all the pent-up fury which had not been able to escape through the “o” of his mouth now did so in one large yell followed by a torrent of combined Spanish and English expletive. With this he raised his two stubby arms and punched Scruffy in the flanks.

  This was war, and Scruffy liked nothing better. With a glad cough indicative of accepting the challenge he dug in hard with his toes and with all the strength of his powerful body yanked with both hands, and the next moment found himself, for the first time in his life, off balance, as not only Ramirez’s hair, but apparently his entire scalp came away in his paws.

  He dropped to the ground where, phoenix-like, he recovered strength and balance and in one tremendous leap hurled himself skyward, regaining the top of the crossroads sign with his trophy.

  His previous outcry was nothing to the yell of rage and anguish now torn from poor Ramirez as he stood in the glare of the late-setting sun, his head as nude and white as a peeled onion, his secret bared to all his neighbours. Treugang Ramirez was as bald as an ostrich egg and this revelation really put the seal upon his repulsiveness.

  Simultaneously a roar of laughter went up from the crowd in the street, a roar compounded of both amusement and gratification and one that increased to a pitch of hysteria as little girls and boys pointed to the fearfully nude head and others to the hairpiece or toupée, more vulgarly known as a “rug”, in the grasp of the ape.

  Mothers raised their babies to get a better look and men slapped their sides and stomachs in derisive laughter. All the pent-up dislike of the neighbourhood for Ramirez now exploded in wave after wave of laughter and hardened in the unhappy core of the victim, such a knot of hatred as only a total and violent vengeance could ever dissolve. But of all this he was to be aware only later. Now he was just a thoroughly ridiculous little man with an obscenely nude head, thick eyeglasses and stubby arms and legs, leaping up and down in the street shouting, “Give me back my hair, give me back my hair!”

  Through all this hullabaloo Scruffy was in such an ecstasy of delight as can come to a Barbary ape, or any kind of monkey, but once in a lifetime. For in some mysterious manner, he had secured a treasure beyond his wildest dreams—a soft thing of fur all his own, to have and to hold. No Red Indian ever was more thrilled at having lifted a rare and desirable scalp, though, of course, he didn’t consider it as a scalp, or for that matter even as a trophy. In fact he no longer connected it even with the blob of white beneath him, leaping up and down and making noises. He had lost interest in him and the rest of the people in his enrapturement with his very own and private “thing”.

  It is known, though not exactly why, that Macaques and other monkeys as well, will cherish something like a small bit of fur and carry it around with them. Zoologists have attested that they are not particular or too delicate in the origin of this bit of fur. Sometimes it will be a baby monkey which has died and which the mother refuses to relinquish. Or it can be a corpse of a rat or some other field rodent which has had the misfortune to encounter the monkey in an irritable mood and which, dried out by the sun, makes a most attractive combined mascot and toy.

  Ignoring the turmoil beneath him Scruffy now gave his undivided attention to his prize and noticed with increasing satisfaction that it had every qualification calculated to give pleasure. It was large. It appeared to be resilient and strong when tested and it was equipped with long and agreeably bristling hair, hair of the texture almost of Scruffy’s own. He clutched it to his bosom, he held it to his face, he cuddled it tenderly in his arms.

  It has been recorded that Scruffy hated mankind, he hated his own species and when he encountered himself in a mirror he hated himself as well. Yet there is no kind of cerebral creature that walks, crawls or flies that is not at some time imbued with some kind of affection for something, some object or living creature it encounters on its travels from the egg to the midden.

  Scruffy had met his grand passion in Alfonso T. Ramirez’s rug.

  “Give me back my hair! Give me back my hair!” shouted Ramirez, and began to clamber up the cornice of the building to retrieve his toupée.

  Scruffy waited until the white disc of Treugang’s face, which might have looked to him like the full moon rising from the sea, was level with him. He then spat with unerring accuracy into his eye, or rather on to his spectacle lens, and took off from there.

  Using the one hand, and with the other clutching to his breast his new love, Scruffy abandoned his traffic sign, got himself some bounce off the top of a clothes-line, swung up to the second-storey window, thence on to a gutter pipe of the roof and away, a figure diminishing in the distance until he was lost to sight.

  Treugang Ramirez was now left clinging to the cornice stones, half-way up to the crossroad sign, minus every last shred of whatever dignity he had ever possessed, while from below him arose renewed jeers, shouts of laughter and hoots of joy. This was a day which would never be forgotten in the Calle Mendoza.

  It was
also a moment that was never to be forgotten by the lineal descendants of the von Waltzes of Ost Waltz, Koenigsberg, Ost Preussen.

  One immediate thought, however, did penetrate his fury as he climbed down from the building, and this was that he had only a short while before been in contact with the keeper of the beast who had stolen his wig, and he realized that he must act quickly. Therefore, ignoring his neighbours, as well as the state of his head, he pushed through the crowd and as fast as his stumpy legs could carry him waddled back to the Admiral Nelson.

  Gunner Lovejoy was still there, on his fifth Guinness and lime, a pal having come in with still a few bob on him and willing to treat; and now the Gunner’s tongue was sufficiently oiled to operate independently of the Gunner himself, and as Ramirez came bursting through the door, his pasty cheeks now streaked with sweat, the soldier shuddered as though he had seen something unreal and said, “Ugh, shoo, go on get back under yer flat stone.”

  Treugang Ramirez came to a halt in front of Lovejoy, his knees shaking, his little eyes blinking nervously, his small mouth working. He introduced himself formally first, trying to cast aside the civilian skin which appeared offensive to the soldier before, by getting some kind of military curtness and rasp into his voice. “Sergeant Lovejoy,” he said, “Alfonso T. Ramirez here—”

  Gunner Lovejoy said amiably enough, “Well cock, now that I’ve got your name I still don’t know you from a bar of soap, and come to think of it you could do with a bit of scrubbing. What’s eating yer?”

  “I want you to come at once! One of your blooding monkeys stole my—” and here Ramirez found himself at a complete loss for the proper word to use as his hands went half-way to his shining scalp. Finally, realizing that in a moment he would again appear ridiculous, he compromised upon, “My hair.”

  The Gunner and his mate, a fellow Artilleryman, now found themselves genuinely interested and Lovejoy abandoning his position of leaning against the polished mahogany bar made a full tour, circumnavigating the figure of Ramirez and examining him, and in particular his naked head, with great care from all sides.

  “Gord luv a duck,” said the Gunner at the completion of his tour of inspection. “Had your ’air piece did ’e, well I can’t say it’s any improvement. I believe now I seen you here a minute ago. You looked better with it on. Who was it, old Scruff?”

  Ramirez, who had a fluent supply of unprintable Spanish epithets, used them before he replied, “I don’t know the name of your stinking animal—he jumped on me from behind and—”

  “That sounds like old Scruff,” Lovejoy interrupted cheerfully. “What had you been up to with him? Teasing him, I’ll wager. That will be a matter for the police to look into then. Against the law to feed or annoy the Rock apes. There’s signs up all over.”

  “You’ll go to the police!” Ramirez reiterated, fury and frustration rendering him again almost speechless. “It is I who will go! I will go to your Commanding Officer, I will go to the Colonial Secretary, I will go to the Governor if you do not return my hair to me at once.”

  The second Artilleryman, sucking on his pint of bitter, looked seriously over the rim of his glass at the Gunner and said, “Go on, John, why don’t you give him his ’air? If ever I seed a man as what needed it . . .”

  “You joke, you laugh. You think that I am no one, to be made a fool of because I am nobody. You wait what will happen when Captain Russell hears of this. I work in his department.”

  Even in Gunner Lovejoy’s brain, undergoing its late afternoon shock at the hands of his favourite tipple, the name of Captain Russell rang a bell. In charge of naval ordnance he was one of the most capable and efficient officers on the Rock, well liked and one whose reputation extended beyond his own service.

  The bell having rung, Gunner Lovejoy shook his head to it a little and said, “Oh, you work for Captain Russell, do you? You don’t look like one of his boffins to me . . . Still, one never knows, does one? Come along then, cock, I’ve got me van outside. We’ll go up the ’ill and see what’s to be done about getting yer wig back. It’ll be a public service for which I’ll be expecting a suitable reward.”

  He led the way outside, climbed into his van with Ramirez beside him, set it into gear and made off in the direction of the Queen’s Road and the Battery where he hoped to find Scruffy or at least get an idea of how the land lay. If he were able to retrieve the article without a fuss, so much the better. There had been enough trouble that day already with Captain Bailey called on the carpet, and he didn’t think the Captain would be in the way of appreciating another row, particularly one involving such a wet and unappetizing specimen.

  They rode in silence up the steep hill past the skeleton of the Moorish Castle, Ramirez taking some satisfaction from the fact that he had at last moved the British Army into taking notice of him. Gunner Lovejoy was driving carefully until the hot siroccotype breeze, created by the passage of the utility car, should blow some of the fumes from his head.

  The road inclined more sharply, and the Gunner began to cast his expert eye through the branches of thorn and olive for nestling apes and the thick, squat figure of old Scruff.

  He was not there though, nor farther on at Prince Ferdinand’s Battery where the rest of the Queen’s Gate Pack were foregathered for the night.

  However, the Gunner knew yet another favourite place of Scruffy when he wished to be alone, and abandoning the van and gesturing to Ramirez to proceed noiselessly, he climbed up the side of the rock to a small indentation where once there had been a large boulder, probably dislodged by the rains.

  The Gunner stopped and placed a finger to his lips. They heard an extraordinary series of sounds coming from above them, a kind of combination of chittering, chattering, cooing and gurgling. They raised themselves somewhat farther and there saw Scruffy in the little hollow wooing Ramirez’s hair-piece. He held it cuddled in his arms close to his chest, stroking it, caressing it and occasionally bestowing a lingering kiss upon it. The expression upon his ugly countenance, which prior to this had never been anything but malignant, could only be described as tender and loving.

  “Ha!” exploded Ramirez, forgetting that he had been admonished to silence. “There it is, get it!”

  In a flash the love-light faded from the hazel eyes of the beast, his lips retracted from his fangs in a savage snarl and coughs of rage burst from his throat. With a single motion whipping the hair-piece behind him with one hand he let fly with a rock from the other.

  Possibly it was the movement of concealing the toupée which disturbed his aim. As it was the stone whistled past Treugang’s skull. A few inches to the left and it would have brained him. Since Ramirez could not turn whiter than he already was he went a delicate shade of green and slid back down the hill on his stomach. The Gunner, who had ducked the moment he saw the flash of Scruffy’s arm, clambered down with more leisure and dignity.

  “Told you to keep quiet,” he said.

  “You go up and get it,” Ramirez demanded.

  “Not on your life,” the Gunner replied. “Not with ’im in that mood. There’s no use going after ’im now, ’e’d just skin up to the top. You’ve ’ad it for today. I’ll have another go tomorrow.” He started back to the car with Ramirez following, so that he was unable to see the expression of pure cunning which had arrived on the Gunner’s face.

  For during the brief moment of revelation before Scruffy shied the rock at their heads, Lovejoy had seen something which had caused him wholly to change his plans.

  It must be remembered that Gunner Lovejoy had twenty years of experience with the Rock apes behind him, nine of them in close contact with Scruffy himself. He had raised him from an apelet, and there was not a single thing about this monkey that he didn’t know and understand. No father was ever closer to his child.

  Lovejoy had recognized that Scruffy was so enamoured of his acquisition that if allowed to retain it, the Rock, or at least that portion of it which had suffered in the past from the ape’s depredations, w
as in for a long period of peace. The wig was probably strongly constructed and, consisting of inorganic matter, would not be subject to decomposition. It could be counted on to last for a long time, keeping Scruffy in a felicitous state for perhaps as much as half a year.

  This was the dilemma with which the Gunner found himself face to face. On the one hand he could have a go at retrieving this object and get this ugly-looking bespectacled specimen, and his eventual connections with the Navy, off his neck. On the other hand he was in a position to assure himself and all connected with him a long period of armistice as far as Scruffy was concerned. If he could guarantee that for a long period there would be no further trouble from that source, would it not be worth risking whatever difficulties might arise to impale them on the other horn of the dilemma?

  The Gunner was intelligent enough to recognize that this problem was too great a one for him to cope with. That was why they had officers in the Army. And so having stalled off Ramirez for the night he took it at once to Captain Bailey.

  “You’re sure,” Tim said, captivated by the prospect the Gunner held out to him. Even gaining a few months would be worth it, for by that time Scruffy’s day would have been long forgotten and the authorities might again be in a mood to consider some of his projects.

  “I’d bet me ’ead on it, sir,” the Gunner replied. “You should have seen ’im, sir, lovin’ away at it like it was his fancy on a Saturday night. I know the signs, ’e’ll be as good as gold as long as it lasts!” He reflected for a moment and then continued. “On the other ’and, sir, there’s no gainsaying that this Ramirez chap’s a narsty bit o” work, I know the type. He’ll go on and on keeping the place in an uproar, and besides he works in Captain Russell’s department. I’ve checked on that, sir. He really seems to be one of their best men.”

  Tim nodded and thought hard. He said, “You’ve done well, Lovejoy.” A solution struck him. “Look here,” he said, “how much do you think one of those things would cost?”