The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters

by Chip Kidd

  Kurt was a statue of shock. In my mind I could see the mop handle sticking out of his backside. I made it out to be about four inches in diameter, eight or so feet long, and covered with Sorbeck's fingerprints. The floor was now spotless.

  Then the teacher cast his net of displeasure out, over us all. “Well, we're off to a flying start here, aren't we, kids?” Fiendish and dark: “Listen up, folks. If there's ANYONE else here who mistook this course for the Sigma Chi ice-cream social and does not have his ticket, then rush along with Stiggy right now, while you still have the legs to do it.”

  No one moved. Except Kurt, of course, dragging his pole, his best “I don't have to take this” look on his face. Rubbery legs betrayed him though, as he fumbled with his books and closed the door behind him.

  See ya 'round campus, Kurt.

  “I mean it.”

  I thought: “Sir, there's not a soul in the room that doesn't believe you.”

  “Next.”

  Maybelle went to the front. She held her project in her hand and faced the class.

  “Whenever you're ready, Miss . . . ”

  “Maybelle. Maybelle Lee.”

  “Let's get started, Maybelleen.”

  “That's Mayb—”

  “Are you going to hang your masterpiece on the wall or what?”

  Maybelle was gripped with a mild panic, as if the Junior League had just walked through the door and she still couldn't find the dessert forks. “I, I don't have any tape. Y-you didn't tell us to bring any.”

  “I didn't tell you to wear underwear either, Maybelleen, but I'd put at least fifty down on the chance you've got some keeping your cookies warm right now. Do I win?”

  For this, Maybelle had no words.

  “You were a guest in this plantation parlor last Thursday, Miss Lee, and surely must have noticed that this fine institution of ours has not yet deigned to bestow upon us the luxury of thumb tacks and a corkboard facade to accessorize our cunning cinder-block vista. Until they so choose, we're all just going to have to make the best of it.

  “Would someone be so kind as to supply Miss Maybelleen with some adhesion?”

  Mike volunteered, and soon she was standing with white-gloved hands held crisscrossed in front of her sky blue gingham shirtdress, her project suspended to the right, ready and waiting. Her word was “inky.”

  “Well well. What have we here?”

  It was hand-done in black (ink, one supposed), a club-fisted attempt at thick, gooey, script—the sort you see on the lid of a box of chocolates that appear to be delicious and taste like wads of dried, brown housepaint.

  “I calligraphied it myself. Back at home, this past weekend.”

  The molten clump of amoebic letters tilted slightly downward to the right, as if it were falling asleep, and a trail of smudges emerged mysteriously at the middle of the “n,” paraded on towards the “k,” to the “y,” and continued off the crumpled page. The whole thing was about two and a half inches off-center to the right, as if trying to escape. I was rooting for it.

  Maybelle: “You could take calligraphy at Miss Cress's. You know, for place cards at supper? People just love to see their names all fancy and fine. The teacher always held mine up to show. It's not a skill for everyone, but I'm just crazy for it. Picked it up right away, like riding a bicycle.”

  Yeah, off a cliff. Damn the torpedoes, Maybelleen.

  “So I thought why not do the word ‘ calligraphy’ in calligraphy. I thought that was clever. But then I thought, ‘Calligraphy’ is really a twenty-five-cent word, isn't it? What if people didn't know what it meant?' I might be leaving someone out of the fun, and that's just not fair. So I changed it to ‘ink,’ which I didn't think anyone would have any trouble with, and it still seemed to make sense. So I put the paper on my drawing table, picked up my brush and bottle, dipped it in, and you know what? Got it on the first try. Usually it takes three or four, but this one was it, I knew. I started to put the cap back on the bottle, and then,”

  She paused, to prepare us for some unfathomable catastrophe.

  “Then, my cat jumped up on the table and walked right over it, proud as you please. Well, you can imagine my state. Of course the ink was nothing like dry, and he tracked it all over. I grabbed him as soon as I could and wrapped each of his paws with little paper bags and Scotch tape before he could wreck anything else, but the damage was done. I'd have to start over. Then it came to me like a bolt from the blue—eerie, really, one of those coincidences that just gives you the spooks.” Another pause. “I suddenly realized that my cat's name is Inky. Because he's black. So I just took out my brush, and added a ‘y’ to the end of the word. And I looked at it and I thought, ‘Yes, that's good old Inky alright. Can’t stand to be away from his mommy, even when she's working.' So I kept it.”

  Sorbeck waited patiently through all of this. I wondered whether his critique should start at her neck and work its way slowly to her midsection; or just make a horizontal incision across her stomach, remove her large intestine, and place it in her mouth—Capone's preferred method with squealers. Whichever, we were about to find out. I glanced over at Himillsy, who looked like she was watching a really, really good movie.

  Sorbeck finally spoke. “So, what was Helen like?”

  “Pardon? Helen who?”

  “Keller, your calligraphy teacher. Was she any better at embossing?”

  She digested this, then tried to make speech. Finally, she managed, “That's, that's—”

  “THAT'S the only explanation for the aborted fetus of letterforms that you've stuck to the wall.”

  Maybelle's eyes became saucers.

  “Miss Lee, during your studies at Miss Crass,”

  “Miss Cress—”

  “Did Miss Crass's calligraphy curriculum, by any chance, include the study of a book entitled The Universal Penman, compiled by one George Bickham?”

  “N-no. We used . . . the Stratford guide to commercial lettering.”

  “I see. Maybelleen, I have a special assignment for you, due a week from today.”

  “Yes?”

  He waited for her to do something. She didn't.

  “Grab a pencil and paper, my dear, you're not a tape recorder.”

  Mike obliged her again, and she did her shattered best to copy down the instructions.

  “Miss Lee, you are to go to the library. That is the especially large edifice overrun with books, located just northwest of the Natatorium. Ask someone for directions. You are to sign out the title I just mentioned. You don't even have to look it up—its Dewey decimal number is Bic 4.093-21. I want you to study it, and, safe with the knowledge that Inky is either heavily sedated or nowhere in the vicinity, replicate page ninety-two. Twenty times. And Maybelleen?”

  Her eyes, soggy, rose to his. His tone grew softer, easing up.

  “I'm crazy about calligraphy myself. And when you see this book, you'll know why. Your real problem with calligraphy, my dear, is that you've never seen any.”

  Then he threw her a bone.

  “But, your, ahem, thought process, was actually not bad.” Louder now, to everybody, “Important lesson here, folks, seriously: Fate gave little Maybelleen the lemons, and she made lemonade. Good for her. Her grade is a vitamin C-plus.”

  Maybelle didn't walk to her chair, she waded, through a mire of anguish and defeat.

  “Shame she had to go and drink it, and turn it into pee. Next.”

  Himillsy's turn. I thought she might give me a little wish-me-luck glance. Didn't. She sprang up to the wall, mounted her piece, and stepped to its side.

  A stark, black leaf of paper. Not a mark on it.

  No. It couldn't be. She must have attached the wrong side. She'd notice in a second. I tried to get her attention, no luck. Mills, you usually notice these things immediately.

  He took it in, only slightly interested.

  “And your word is?”

  “Kimprobdagian.”

  That got him. For a breath, anyway.

/>   “Excuse me? What the piss does that mean?”

  Himillsy, unfazed: “Grandmother Dodd used to use it now and then. Kimprobdag was the name of a city in the Ukraine near the village where she grew up. Oh, the old country, so many memories. Anyway, most of the buildings there were painted black. When she first went as a child, she thought it was the biggest thing she'd ever seen, and after that, whenever she wanted to say that something was huge, she'd say it was Kimprobdagian. We'd all just reel. Such a panic, the old thing.”

  No. This wasn't happening.

  “She's dead now, gone to her reward,” she said, in a more somber tone, wringing it for the sympathy vote.

  And you're going to join her right after class, Hims.

  “Little girl,” started Sorbeck, politely, “I have a question for you.”

  “Yes?” With the trace of a smile and eyebrows aloft, she tilted her doll's head sideways and became Audrey Hepburn taking questions at a press conference for UNICEF.

  “Just how does a girl with such a slight frame, such as yourself—your sylph,” she nodded to this, now a little worried, “find room for the Kimprobdagian ration of shit you just tried to nourish me with?”

  “I—”

  “The word, darlin’. Where is it?”

  “Oh, that,” she said, restored to relief. “Right there,” she pointed to the jet rectangle. “At least, part of it anyway. You're only seeing a small detail, probably the middle of the ‘K’. Nothing Kimprobdagian would ever fit onto an elevenby-fourteen inch piece of paper.”

  Thanks, Hims. I thought I knew what Treachery was, to say nothing of Friendship. Thanks for clearing them both up.

  “That's actually, darlin', a pretty good idea. Congrats,” he said, mildly approving.

  Yeah, mine. What was I going to do now? Mike was next, and then me. I could just put it up there like a moron and explain that we had the same idea, ha ha, funny world that way . . .

  “Except for two things.” Then again . . .

  “Yes?” said Himillsy, who, accustomed to success in these situations, had already begun to ceremoniously take down the ebony page. She stopped in midgesture.

  “Kimprobdag . . . Is that anywhere near Brobdingnag?”

  She dropped her arms. Paused. “It—”

  “I'm no expert on the Ukraine, gosh knows, but it sure sounds a lot like Brobdingnag.”

  I didn't know what this had to do with anything, but if it made Mills squirm, I was all for it. And right now, she was a gecko on a white-hot parking lot.

  “As in where Gulliver goes after Lilliput. As in the land where he is tiny and everyone else huge, which spawned the term ‘Brobdingnagian.’ As in tremendously large. As in the book by Dean Swift, which is peeking out of your handbag—Penguin Classic, with the orange bands at the top and bottom; and the Gill Sans thirty-sixpoint title, all caps, centered and medium weight, in black on the white band in the middle. One of the designer Tschichold's prouder moments, when he finally woke the hell up and joined the twentieth century.”

  Hims kept her composure, I'll give her that.

  “Girleen,” Sorbeck explained, “we both know that the only Kimprobdag is the one you just crapped out of that pretty little cake hole of yours.”

  Which was now agape.

  “You like to fart your little fictions and let everyone get a whiff, I can tell. Your stolen clevernesses. Clever to you, anyway. You just drip with that daily, dull, nagging ache to get away with something. Pulls you out of bed in the morning. No?”

  Hims: fist on hip. Livid.

  “And you know what? I don't care. Kimprobdag, Brobdingnag, Robbed'ngagged, what's the dif? Swift probably based it on something else too. That's not the problem, and neither is your idea. Your idea is still great. Superb, in fact. Idea: A minus, maybe even an A.”

  Thank you.

  “Execution: F. Do you know why?”

  Whether she did or didn't, Mills wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of so much as a peep. No cracks, no sarcasm, no scatological rebound. No jokes. Just mute, broadcast rage.

  “Hey, lighten up, Girlygirl. Life is short. The reason is, this solution would be appropriate to any word that has to do with immense size and is therefore invalid. It could be Monstrous, Colossal, Gargantuan, Whopper, Titanic, and so on. The point was to be specific. I think that was quite clear. Maybelline's stinky Inky was at least, personally (or cattily, or what have you) referenced to him.”

  Maybelle brightened a little, probably trying to turn the electric fan of her pulse to a slower speed.

  “In fact, none of you should have to explain any of these. I should be able to walk right up to them and get it. For instance, if this was turned into a poster for the travel bureau of Kimprobdag and you walked past it on the street, would you be able to tell what it was? And if you were a wing nut like Girleenie and did figure it out, would you be tempted to go there? Would it give you any idea of what the place was like?”

  Himillsy, not budging.

  “On the other hand, at least I have some picture of Inky in my mind. Execrably rendered, but there he is: A selfish, thoughtless little bastard who would claw Maybelleen's eyeballs right out of her skull and gulp them down like mouse heads the minute he thought there was nothing else to eat. Like all cats. I should know, I've got two of the little shits myself—all over everything. Madness. Anyway, enough of this for now.” He turned to the class. “You all, I'm sure, have digested the idea and wouldn't dream of replicating the little girl's folly. And darlin' . . . ,” Sorbeck looked at Hims with an executioner's mirth, “never let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash.” He let her face explode and put itself back together, then, “Onward! Park yourself, Girlygirl, tempus fugit. Next.”

  Hims ripped the paper like a giant Band-Aid from the wall and stomped her tiny black patent leather feet to the table. She still wouldn't look at me.

  Mike went to the front and carefully attached his work. It was my turn after his. What, what, what was I going to do? My mind raced to outspeed the impending doom and took stock of my resources: my tote of pens and brushes, my Geo Sci textbook, my notebook, and my pad of D'Rathope watercolor paper. Not much to work with . . .

  “Alright, let's see what we got.” I looked up.

  Mike stood next to his solution: the word “HOT.” He had made the letters out of matchsticks. But the term “made” wasn't adequate— he'd sculpted clusters of matches into a real typeface. His hours in the Belly were well spent. I was right—he was going to ace all of us. The craftsmanship was impeccable, as if ‘HOT’ wasn't an adjective, but a cozy country inn that had this sign hanging out front. The raised, rounded letterforms almost filled the allotted space and gleamed under the lights—he must have varnished it. My heart sank, it was so beautiful. Now, no matter what I did, it would look pathetic by comparison. Jesus, I had to think, think . . .

  “Son, what is your word?”

  The question caught Mike (and everyone else) off guard. It was quite obvious what his word was—what the hell did Sorbeck think? If he wanted to embarrass the guy, he was overdoing it. Anyone could get a blush out of Mike just by looking at him.

  And why bother, anyway? His piece was great, and he'd obviously spent a lot of time on it. Sorbeck should have been quite pleased.

  But then, this was before any of us knew him at all.

  “H-hot?”

  “I see. Would you extend your right index finger for me please?”

  He did, as if he was about to be sworn under oath.

  “Well done. Now, would you take your finger and place it on one of the letters? I'll let you choose which one.” I was starting to get it, but Mike still stared out from the prison of his fear. Sorbeck repeated the question with growing irritation. Mike's hand slowly moved and hovered over the “H.” Then,

  “TOUCH IT!” The tremulous finger alit softly onto the slivers of sculpted wood as if they were forbidden flesh, and the Commander was pleased. Calm, he said, “Okay now. Keep it there for a mo
ment while I ask you a question.” Mike nodded his head and waited. “Now, I want you to think quite hard about this, don't rush the answer, work it through.” Mike was paralyzed. Sorbeck made the wind-up:

  “Son, your finger. The one on the letter?” A pause, then the pitch:

  “You got a blister on it yet?” Steeerike on.

  “No, sir.” Steeerike two. Mike, dumb as a truck.

  “Well then, it's not very hot, is it?”

  “Uh. No.” And three.

  “So, given the assignment, we'd have to say you get an F then, wouldn't we?”

  “I . . . ” His face was falling, slowly, like a punctured zeppelin “ . . . guess so.” He lowered his finger.

  “Would you like to get an A?”

  Mike looked up at him, awakened from a miserable dream. Sorbeck pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it his way. “Heads up.”

  It landed into his cupped hands with a heavy click. I didn't have to see it to guess what it was. Mike's eyes confirmed it with blanched mortifi-cation.

  “A or F, m'boy, up to you.”

  Mike fumbled and managed to form a word:

  “Bestine . . .”

  “Pardon?”

  “Bestine. I used Bestine . . .”

  Oh. Oh no.

  “Bestine,” Sorbeck crooned, to the tune of “Tangerine.” “Bestine, I burn for you . . .”

  “But—”

  “We don't have forever. Choose. A or F. Five . . .”

  Confused? Allow me: Bestine is a brand of rubber cement thinner. Mike had used it—quite a bit, to put the matches together.

  “Four . . .”

  It comes in heavy, metal utility cans. Like gasoline. Only the difference between it and gasoline is . . .

  “Three . . .”

  Gasoline isn't nearly as flammable.

  “Two . . .” Not by a long shot. Mike somehow made himself flip open the top of the Zippo lighter and flick the flint at the bottom of the page, to his work—his hours and days of painstaking work. The device merely sparked.

  “O—”