Still Life with Monkey
Page 28
Thirteen Viagra tablets, one by one, down the hatch, sip from the long bent straw Ottoline had brought him when he asked, her last Fetch! Ottoline, Good girl! Swallow, sip, swallow, sip, times thirteen. Chased by four Adderall and three Xanax, sip, sip, sip. Maybe just two of the Vicodin, and two of the Fiorinal, the pretty Fiorinal, so blue and yellow, like the flag of Sweden, like Ingie’s knit cap that her grandmother knitted in Scandinavia, which isn’t a country.
“Do not use Nitro paste if you are taking Viagra. Talk with your doctor.”
Duncan picked up the tube of Nitro paste and raised it to his mouth so he could bite the cap to unscrew it from the tube by rotating the tube around and around. Done. He spat out the cap. Using the left-handed Easi-Grip scissors again, he cut into the neck of his T-shirt with a downward incision, and then he yanked down the wounded shirt to rip it more, to expose skin above his level of injury, where the Nitro paste would be most effective. He squeezed the tube hard against his bare chest and ejaculated a big soft glob of Nitro paste, which he rubbed all around with the back of his left hand, circling his left nipple, and then his right nipple. He loosened the Velcro of his chest strap to get it out of the way, but he didn’t want to fall out of his chair, so he toggled to tip back just enough. This was comfortable. He squeezed the tube again and smeared one more glob of Nitro paste onto what he could reach of his right shoulder with his left hand.
He could hear his own breathing now, and something squeaking as he struggled to breathe enough, in and out, in and out, and it was the old familiar steady squeak of the porch swing, and as the room swayed back and forth Duncan let himself be rocked, he felt happy on the front porch as the tang of mildew wafted up from his cushion and he wondered how long he would have to wait, and he waited, he was always waiting on that swing for the next thing to happen in his life, not like Gordon who sat on that swing desperately not wanting the next thing to happen the way Duncan did, and now Duncan relaxed and let his life happen, and unhappen, happen, and unhappen, as he drifted back and forth on the swaying porch swing, breathing with its motion.
He couldn’t really see now, but it didn’t matter, and with his last strength he rubbed in the Nitro paste a little more, and it was soothing and smooth and nice, and he rubbed it in tenderly and slowly, and the headache that sprouted in his brain was red, the most beautiful red headache of his life, a single enormous chrysanthemum that took his breath away.
EIGHTEEN
Primate Institute of New England
Final Placement Report
Placement Date: 10.22.14
Name: NORMA JEAN, A.K.A. OTTOLINE
Tufted capuchin # PI06131028
Placement trainer: Martha Peterson
Recipient: Duncan Wheeler
127 Lawrence Street, New Haven, CT 06511
End Placement Date: 06.15.15
Reason: Death of Recipient Duncan Wheeler
Duncan Wheeler passed away in his home unexpectedly on Friday, June 12, as a consequence of his injuries.
Laura Wheeler has offered to foster Ottoline in retirement from service as a Primate Institute Monkey Helper and have her remain in the home. Given Ottoline’s age (26–27?) and temperament, it would not have been desirable to attempt to retrain her for a third placement, and this is a very good outcome. As her Lead P.I. Trainer, I support Ottoline’s retirement at this time, fostered in the Wheeler home.
Laura Wheeler has also offered to foster some of our young monkeys. This would be a highly suitable home environment for our young capuchins, and we have a number of possible candidates who are overdue for home foster placement for socialization. Ottoline was willing to interact with other monkeys in the Household Classroom during her retraining between placements in 2013–2014, so the introduction of young, junior status members of her troop should not trigger aggression on her part. In fact, knowing Ottoline for more than twenty years, I am confident that she will thrive on being the wise elder to young, apprentice monkeys. Given that our studies show that exposing young monkeys to the skill sets of our retired Helpers often causes a spontaneous adoption of those skills and responses, and if the alpha monkey is kept active and maintains her wide command vocabulary (Ottoline responds to 50+ commands), then the young monkeys have an opportunity to acquire some correct responses to recognized vocabulary as well. After home-fostered monkeys are exposed in this way to an older trained Helper, when they arrive for training they tend to excel in the A and B classrooms. It would be a win-win all around.
I urge the Director to accept this excellent foster home for immediate placement of two of our young female candidates for Institute training as Helpers. There is a pair of 36-month-old, laboratory-bred white-faced capuchins who have been raised together that would be a good match for this placement. They have not been officially named, and while we sometimes give this privilege to staff or donors, I suggest that Laura Wheeler be allowed to name them. In our experience, this helps in the attachment process that is the foundation of the bonding and nurturing that are key to successful home fostering of our monkeys.
MARTHA PETERSON
SENIOR PLACEMENT TRAINER
06.15.15
NINETEEN
A bony, hairy little hand with long fingers
A BONY, HAIRY LITTLE HAND WITH LONG FINGERS, A hand that was less than and more than a human hand, was thrust out at Laura for her attention. Ottoline gazed at the television screen, where motionless logs that were crocodiles lay in a bayou while viewers were instructed by a swamp guide that something might happen. She reminded Laura at this moment of Great-Aunt Stella, an old lady (who might not have been a true blood relative) whom she remembered from her earliest childhood in Ohio. She was somebody’s great-aunt. Stella was very old and wizened, and on the one occasion Laura remembered being taken to see her, she was dozing in front of her programs with the same contented, toothless look on her face.
Laura moved the emery board gently across Ottoline’s little index fingernail and Ottoline let her do it, settling with a happy sigh onto the soft fleece blanket in Laura’s lap in a comfortable sprawl. She cocked her arm back up over her shoulder so Laura could trim the nails on that hand without disturbing her view of the television. Finished with the hands, Laura reached for a foot, and Ottoline swiveled around in her lap to lift her leg obligingly so Laura could tend to those nails too. Now she was watching the show upside-down. Laura filed away and thought about how Ottoline’s feet and her hands were remarkably similar, with opposable thumbs and opposable big toes.
Molly leaped into Laura’s lap, landing on Ottoline, who squawked and struck out at her. Now Molly was on the table next to the lamp, cheeping and carrying on in her usual victim fashion. She did it, she did it, she did it.
“You brought that on yourself, Molly,” Laura scolded. “You know perfectly well that Ottoline was in the right here. You’ll get your turn. Don’t be a brat!”
Ottoline thrust her foot up into Laura’s face to remind her that they had been interrupted. Laura took the foot in her hands and resumed her filing of Ottoline’s toenails. She was faintly tempted to put pink polish on them, but that would be wrong.
“Where’s your sister, go find Milly!” Laura did not keep the girls on leads at all times, and they had more freedom in the house on Lawrence Street than the trainers at the Institute knew or would have approved. Laura did not follow all of the protocols for socializing young monkeys, but in their own way they were highly socialized. The three monkeys slept in their cage at night, all together in a heap, the tribe that was two white-faced capuchins and one tufted capuchin dreaming a shared dream of treetops in a cloud forest, but during the day, when Laura was at home, she usually let them have a couple of hours at liberty, so long as they kept their diapers on and weren’t exceptionally destructive. She was subversive, but not crazy.
It was a rainy afternoon. Milly and Molly sat together on the kitchen table watching Ottoline as she hopped across to the counter and stood up on her hind legs to turn the knob on t
he childproof kitchen cabinet, using both her hands to push and turn at the same time. The latch released and Ottoline quickly pulled the cabinet open and grabbed the cylinder of Quaker Oats from the shelf. She hurled it to the floor, where the lid flew off and the container rolled out a swale of spilled oat flakes. Watch and learn, youngsters. This is how it’s done. Molly jumped down to the floor from the kitchen table where she had been grooming Milly’s back. Left behind, Milly followed, more cautious about getting in trouble.
Nice nice nice, they hummed appreciatively as the two of them scooped hands full of oat flakes, chomping away as fast as they could, listening for Laura, who was engrossed in rereading her favorite Iris Murdoch novel (A Fairly Honorable Defeat) on the sofa in the living room. The pleasant susurration of rain on the windowpanes drowned out the quiet mayhem two rooms away, and she had no idea what was going on out there. Ottoline remained on the counter, amused at the babies with their oatmeal flakes, quietly helping herself to her true objective in the locked cupboard, the bowl of rough brown sugar cubes that Laura liked to drop in her coffee.
It was evening. Ottoline slid the zipper bag down over the cantaloupe on the counter and held it tight. Milly hopped up beside her and Ottoline took the bag off the melon. Milly reached out to touch the sweet-smelling fruit, but Ottoline yanked the bag down again, trapping her hand. Milly hollered, and Molly jumped from the table to the counter to join her in the loud complaining about Ottoline, she did it, she did it, she did it. As the two of them tattled on Ottoline, she squealed her indignant denial, did not, did not, did not, and the noise in the kitchen was deafening.
Laura came up from the basement with a basket of clean laundry and scolded all the unruly monkeys. “Be a family, you three! Knock it off!” Milly and Molly cowered together and grinned in submission. Ottoline brushed it all off, wiping the back of her hand down her chest, and then again. She cheeped at Laura. Laura felt guilty for shouting at them. They were used to it, and they knew she loved them.
“Stop doing that, Ottoline, please.” She picked up the cantaloupe and took the bag away from Ottoline. “You’re retired,” she said. She went over to the butcher block counter, where she opened the secure, cork-ended knife drawer, one of Duncan’s best kitchen ideas, and she took out a knife to cut the cantaloupe in half. She scooped the pulpy seeds into the sink and then she sliced the melon into thin crescents.
The three monkeys watched her avidly from the counter across the kitchen, hooting softly in anticipation. Milly stuck her finger up Molly’s nose, and Molly stuck her finger up Milly’s nose, and they were calm again. Ottoline began to groom Milly’s back. Milly groomed Molly’s head. Molly stroked Ottoline’s tail. Equilibrium was restored.
Laura piled a neat mound of diced cucumber in the middle of the Royal Copenhagen Blue Fluted dinner plate, one of the only unchipped dinner plates left from Laura and Duncan’s wedding china, and then she laid the crescents of melon in a perfect fanned circle all the way around, reminding herself of the way methodical, precise Duncan used to love to organize his discarded artichoke leaves, a neat echo of the artichoke’s original Fibonacci spiral, in a perfect nested sequence around the leftover hairy center choke. She scattered some blueberries neatly between the melon slices, and then she sliced a few red grapes in half and placed them evenly all the way around the plate, which she set before the hungry monkeys.
A NOTE TO THE READER ABOUT MONKEY HELPERS
WHILE THE PRIMATE INSTITUTE OF NEW ENGLAND IS a fictional organization that exists only in this novel, Helping Hands, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is real. A non-profit organization that has since 1979 helped adults with spinal cord injuries and other mobility impairments to live more independent and engaged lives, Helping Hands provides, free of charge, highly trained capuchin monkeys to help recipients with daily tasks of living. The only organization of its kind, Helping Hands raises and trains these special service animals in “Monkey College” for several years before carefully matching them with appropriate recipients across the country. Helping Hands provides active support and care for the duration of each placement at no cost to recipients. Financial support of Helping Hands is always welcome. Monkey helpers change lives with the gift of greater independence, companionship, and hope.
www.monkeyhelpers.org
541 Cambridge Street, Boston, MA 02134
617-787-4419 | info@monkeyhelpers.org
The author will donate a portion of profits from the sale of this book to Helping Hands.