Trials of the Monkey

by Matthew Chapman

  Her drinking, which in later life would shape and deform us all, was, in those days, only wild and sporadic. Around the time my younger brother Francis was born, however, our previously peaceful existence was shaken by a long series of violent arguments. Sarah and I would creep halfway down the stairs and listen as our parents shouted at each other. One night we heard my mother yell ‘Why don’t you go and jump in the river and drown?’ and then my father replying reasonably, but as if deeply depressed, ‘Because I can swim, it wouldn’t work.’

  We suspected something catastrophic had happened, and it had, a betrayal which would mark their marriage forever. Sarah and I felt something shift, but were too young to guess why and would not learn what had happened for decades. Thinking we would get a choice, we discussed who we would go with if they divorced. I thought I’d probably go with my mother, Sarah was more inclined toward her father. But after a while, the fighting became less frequent and when they came to the Nativity Play or the Harvest Festival together they were a good-looking couple and we were proud of them. They seemed younger and lighter on their feet than other parents.

  I know people who remember a period in their childhood when they had no interest in the opposite sex. I was always interested in girls. If I wasn’t in love, which was rare, I was always curious about someone’s body. What would she look like naked? How would she smell? What would she feel like? How would it be to stroke her here … or there … or in between? Would she be warm and soft or would she have goose bumps?

  From infancy to beyond puberty, some part of my body was always experiencing the itch of eczema. There was never a time when an outpost of the disease was not established somewhere, and every month or so, as if creeping from a grating, the disease would emerge and blossom forth. Usually, it would take possession of my hands first, around the knuckles and between the fingers, and then spread to my elbows, the backs of my knees, and my ankles. The hands were the worst because they could not be hidden. The itch seemed to be only a millimetre below the surface, taunting me, demanding to be extinguished and then, when I tried to reach it, retreating deeper and deeper. More and larger scabs would then erupt, and vanity and curiosity required them to be picked off. Now when they re-formed, there would be dark, bloody gullies in their midst. The itch became so intense on my right ankle once that, using only my nails, I scratched away the flesh until I could see bone. Frequently, I would put my hands under a tap, turn the water on, and let it get hotter and hotter until, as I rubbed the fingers together vigorously, the water scalded the itch away. There was something erotic in this. As the pain of the itch became the pain of burning, there was a moment of intense relief, of delicious self-punishment. But, appropriately, this moment was followed almost immediately by sensations of shame and despair, because, having done this, I would usually bring on septicaemia. When I was twelve, I read Shakespeare’s sonnet about lust. For me, however, the poem did not evoke images of carnal lust, about which I was always shameless, but of this itch and my scrabbling around in my own flesh, abandoned to this futile and costly moment of relief.

  The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

  Is lust in action; and until action, lust

  Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame

  Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,

  Enjoyed no sooner, but despised straight,

  Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,

  Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait.

  My mother took me to an allergist. When we went back for the results, he shrugged and shook his head and said, ‘I’m sorry, but this boy is allergic to life.’

  Skin pain and skin ugliness made me eager to experience skin pleasure and skin beauty. Until I was four, I often had scabs on my face. People smiled down at me in disgust. I fell in love the first time when I was three, with a girl whose name was Cherry. I remember sitting with her on a windowsill at Dartington, discussing the nearby woods. I remember there was almost no distinction between the woods as I saw them and the woods of fairy tales. I wanted to take Cherry to a woodcutter’s cottage, and live with her there forever in the glades. Whatever glades were. Our cots were next to each other in nursery school and when it was time to take a nap after lunch, I would climb the side of mine and drop down into hers. I wanted to touch her, to hold her, to feel her hot, soft skin. Once, when I found another boy there, I was furious and punched him on the nose. At this age the disease was so ferocious that at night my mother sometimes had to tie my hands to the bed or I would dig holes in myself while sleeping. When I could not sleep I would beg my mother to fetch Cherry so she could sleep with me.

  At the age of five, and with my mother pregnant with Francis, my passion for girls became more intense. I was not only romantic but deeply sexual. My physical desire had no idea how to satisfy itself, but knew the secret lay in the flesh of girls. There were three girls of my age whom I desired. One was called Nicola, a pretty, respectable girl whose father was a successful farmer. I went to visit once, and was shown a plethora of hogs and cows and horses and dogs. The horses and the dogs were kissed repeatedly by Nicola, but when I suggested it was now my turn, all I got was a smack in the chops. The other two girls were village girls, cross-eyed, adenoidal, and willing.

  I’d ask Mrs. Marshall to be excused and then signal one of these girls to follow. The designated girl would then make a similar request. To get to the outdoor toilets you had to pass through a kitchen where a crone named Lucy—who wore black lace-up boots and had a circulatory disorder which swelled her fingers shiny blue—recooked the already overcooked lunches brought in by van. Once past this gorgon, a door admitted you to a small courtyard and the toilets off it. I would wait out there and soon one of the girls would step shyly out. On the first of these occasions, both girls saw my signal and both followed me outside. Undaunted, I stood them next to each other in the chilly courtyard and asked them to drop their underpants and lift their skirts; then, pulling down my own grubby little shorts, I suggested we all touch our bottoms together.

  A gong rang inside my body, and this was my first religious experience. To this day I remember the luminous twinge of concord rising in my lower abdomen.

  In the absence of breasts, my primary focus was buttocks. I would ask the girls to lie down on their stomachs on the large cold step and then stare in wonder at their smooth, plump, different bottoms. A little stroke, a little slap. What beauty. How soft the skin, how sweet the motion.

  The other object of my desire was Mrs. Marshall’s daughter, Pru, who was probably fifteen or so, an erotic colossus whose naked body I imagined daily. When I was six, there was a snowstorm that blew in so fast my mother couldn’t fetch us before the roads were blocked. Mrs. Marshall (there was no Mr. Marshall, nor was he ever mentioned) lived with her old mother and the aforementioned Pru in a small ivy-covered cottage adjoining the school. This is where Sarah and I would now have to sleep.

  Sometimes in life, things just fall into your lap and sometimes in life you just fall into someone else’s lap. This latter was now the case. To my astonishment and joy, I was told I’d be sleeping with Pru.

  When we got into bed, I lay as close to her as I could without actually touching and allowed myself to be swamped by the rich pungency of her smell. She was lying on her back, her arms above her head. She already had breasts. I loved her with all my heart. After a while, she said good night, turned away, and soon fell asleep. The thick snow silenced the already quiet land. Feigning sleep—a light snore tossed in among regular breaths—I moved closer and pressed myself ‘inadvertently’ against her back. If the ratio between me and her remained the same and she was lying beside me today, she’d be eleven feet tall and weigh 400 pounds and her buttocks would be … well, they’d be fantastic.

  They were fantastic. Beneath the slippery material of her nightdress I could feel the vast, hot swell of them, the resilience and the sloping cleft. I moved lower in the bed and sealed myself under the sheets so I could inhale pure, unadulterated
Pru. And, oh, the smell of her! Why did I have to be only six? Why?What a cruel accident of chronology! If only I could grow up now and marry her and have this every night.

  I was in a swoon of longing and despair and halfway down the bed when she turned over. A thigh swept across me and settled on my chest, squeezing the air out of my lungs. It lay across me like a hot tuna, submerging me deep in the mattress. Her stomach was in my face and her breasts rested on the top of my head. I was physically and emotionally overwhelmed. I could not move and could hardly draw breath. This limb of implausible but delicious corpulence and weight was going to kill me. Because the blankets were over my head, what little air I could gasp into my lungs was soon devoid of oxygen. I was suffocating. I decided I’d rather die than wake her up and have her move away. One more breath … Another … As I was about to faint, she threw off the covers. Now at least I had access to some new oxygen.

  I didn’t sleep at all, just lay there under the marvellous thigh, feebly puffing in air until dawn. The next day I walked around in an awed stupor.

  This was my second religious experience.

  My third religious experience occurred a year later and was more conventional, having in fact to do with God. My sister and I were raised in the Church of England until we were about ten, at which time both parents sheepishly admitted they didn’t really believe. Going to church was just the decent thing to do, putting it on offer until we were old enough to decide for ourselves. Needless to say, we decided against it.

  At the age of seven, however, a year or so after my brother Francis was born, I started to read the Bible avidly and pray every night. This began because our house was tall and dark and if I told my parents I wanted to pray, they’d come up with me when I went to bed. Once they were there, the longer I prayed, the longer they stayed.

  Perhaps there was another reason too, of which I was not then aware. Christianity is perfectly designed to provide a replacement family—God, the father; Mary, the mother; Jesus, the older brother—and at this time I feared my own family was about to self-destruct.

  Although my mother and father had their doubts about this sudden religiosity, I was such a wicked boy they wanted to encourage any urge toward goodness even if it might not be genuine, and so they dutifully climbed the stairs to pray with me. Dredging about in newspapers and magazines, I located an endless and astonishing vein of human misery from which to mine the elements for my nightly pleas. I then became so moved by my descriptions of these sorrows that before long I began to think I’d like to offer my life in service to the poor wretches of whom I spoke. What had started out as fakery became authentic.

  I had always thought of becoming either a naturalist, a gigolo, or a sailor. Now I began to think I’d take a shot at sainthood. I dreamed constantly of being a missionary, not in an evangelical way but in the sense of being where I was needed, as a worker in a leper colony, say, or among the maimed and dying. Usually I was in Africa, sometimes India. I had no wife or children. God’s love (I saw it almost as a friendship) and the adoration of those for whom I’d given up my life were more than enough. It was a glorious dream.

  To qualify for sainthood, I assumed it was necessary to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and so I began. Although some of the stories were inspiring and comforting, a lot of it was incomprehensible and boring. Soon the arcane rules and the obvious contradictions began to irritate me and after a while I was driven off. I had no idea there were other religions to choose from, nor could I conceive of any way to achieve a state of grace without religious faith.

  The phase passed, I sank quickly into delinquency. But if I close my eyes, I can still remember the sensation of purity, the profound reward that a life of such devotion promised: the transcendent relief of waking up each morning knowing that where you are is exactly where you should be, and that what you are doing is unquestionably right.

  A policy of bussing children to larger schools closed Mrs. Marshall down. I think she fought this development hard and won certain concessions. No new students would be allowed to attend but those who were there could stay. Before long there were only ten children left. And then they closed the place. Approaching fifty, Mrs. Marshall applied for a place at New Hall, Cambridge. Thirty years later than she intended, she became an undergraduate.

  My sister stayed almost to the end, but I, thinking I was ready to start my war on education, demanded at the age of seven to leave the kind, inspiring Mrs. Marshall and go to a school I’ll call St. Anne’s, an all-boys prep school in Cambridge, where you were forced to wear uniforms and got thrashed if you misbehaved. Here was a worthy adversary, I thought. And so it was.

  From Mrs. Marshall I took with me the only weapon I had. The brutality of the new place would be escaped through dreams, by the aforementioned fantasies of heroism and sacrifice, and later of marrying an heiress or joining the Merchant Marine. Most frequently I dreamed of furtive erotic encounters with one of the few misshapen females who taught there, this latter orgy of the inner screen being consummated several times a day in the wooden stalls of the putrid bathrooms.

  This dreaming of all kinds became a way of life, compulsion, and finally a source of income.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Trail of Tears

  At 2.30 P.M., we cross into Tennessee at Bristol in the northeastern corner of the state. The first sign I see is on a pawnshop, ‘Guitars, Guns, Knives, and Jewelry.’

  Tennessee, my guidebook tells me, is famous for Elvis Presley, the Scopes Trial, the Ku Klux Klan, and Oak Ridge, the once-secret city which helped develop the first nuclear bomb. It’s also known for moonshine, which in turn gave birth to stock-car racing. Moonshiners built special cars to outpace the cops on back roads and tracks and in their spare time raced against each other. Along with moonshiners, there are now ’sang diggers who dig for ginseng in the mountains and sell it to Asia for as much as $500 a pound.

  As we leave Bristol, I look down out the window of the bus. A car drifts up from behind. A bumper sticker on the front reads, ‘Got Jesus?’ As the car goes by, another on the back says, ‘Yes, Lord, I will ride with you.’ In between sits an overweight woman with a sullen face and a set mouth. The more I see of it, the more convinced I become that there’s something sexual about this adoration of Jesus. Every slogan confirms it. ‘Oh, Lord, Hold Me in Your Arms, for I Am Thine.’ ‘I Give Myself to Thee, Sweet Jesus.’

  I see a woman married to some blundering, be-gutted, half-bankrupt Bubba who’s been trying to beat her down for years and hasn’t quite pulled it off. They rarely have sex because it’s become a weapon of denial for both. It’s war. One day the wife finds Jesus. Now she has a secret and profound relationship with another man and what’s more the guy is often depicted half naked (he’s got nails through his hands, but his stomach is flat) and he’s like a young, great looking hippie (which pisses the husband off right there), but he’s also extremely well connected (unlike the husband), universally loved, and highly dominant—‘Thou shalt do this, Thou shalt not do that’—and Mrs. Bubba rolls over and gives herself to him as flagrantly as any ‘sub’—right there in front of the husband!—floundering around and ‘hollerin” like … well, you’ve seen it on TV. You tell me when you last heard a woman make that kind of noise.

  And all the husband can do is stand there and watch.

  Victory for the wife? I’d say so.

  Except you don’t feel it’s working. The philosophical question this woman asks herself is universal and interesting, but the answer, aptly reduced to a bumper sticker, is narrow and trite. She states that she is convinced, but everything about her says otherwise. Even when you see the wild demonstrations of belief, the hollering and falling down, you feel you are watching not someone who has been saved, but someone who has merely found another outlet for her hysteria.

  The racial composition of the bus has changed. When I got on in New York there were almost four times as many African-Americans as whites. Now the ratio has been inverted. There are e
ighteen white people, five African-Americans, two Hispanics, and unless I’m much mistaken, a Redskin just got on board. Oh, no, I’m sorry, Native American. Oh, no, sorry again, I just heard it ought to be First Nation Person.

  How I despise this Index Expurgatorius of ‘inappropriate’ words. I understand what it is attempting to do, but as a writer it feels like someone’s putting a hand in my toolbox. The whole concept seems Orwellian to me, a way of changing appearance without changing substance, a hypocritical ploy designed to varnish brutal reality, a means by which self-satisfied closet racists and bigots can safely hide behind a set of linguistic rules and so feel immunised from either criticism or the need for action.

  My paternal grandmother was a kike, my sister is married to a nigger, my favourite uncle is a fag, and my wife is a spic. Is the world changed by that sentence? Of course not. Crime against language is committed every day in America, but it has nothing to do with the use of ‘bad’ words. No, the real crime is the theft of good words by corporations: brutal oil and timber companies crooning reassuringly about how much they ‘love’ and ‘cherish’ the great outdoors, Insurance companies, who’d rip your liver out and stomp on it for a buck, sentimentalising about how they want to ‘nurture’ you, ‘care’ for you, and be your ‘lifelong friend.’ Younger, smarter black people see this linguistic fraud for what it is and mock it with their own inversions: ‘bad’ means good, ‘down’ means up. And when did you last hear one black man say to another, ‘Whassup, African-American?’ Consciously or not, they give the finger to it all.

  Moronic racial epithets flourish on the Internet, empowered by denunciation, while the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is made to blush. This double attack upon the vocabulary is akin to Necrotising Fasciitis, that flesheating bacteria which greedily consumes a leg in an afternoon.