Running With Monkeys: Hell on Wheels

by Diane Munier

  “Is this normal? Should we…go for the doctor or something?”

  “No…I just…I slept so deeply. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, no. I gotta get to work. If you’re all right. I can get you Dorie or something?”

  “No. No. Just…” She sat up more and pushed the hair back from her face.

  “Should I run you a bath?”

  “No. Jules.” She couldn’t look at him.

  “Isbe…call me later, okay? I’ll write the number at work. If you think you’re okay…I gotta get home so I can…”

  “Of course…go…go.”

  “Hey…Isbe…look at me.”

  “I can’t. You spend the night, and I bleed on you? Who does that?”

  “Isbe…hey.” He knelt at the side of the bed and gently pulled her hands from her face. “You gonna call me later?”

  Her eyes were shiny, but she nodded.

  “All right. I…had some great sleep,” he said. “You’re like…a teddy bear.” He laughed.

  “Thanks, Jules.”

  He laughed at that. “You’re welcome,” he said. He kissed her cheek, and he got out of there so she wouldn’t have to look at the blood on his trunks and start bawling.

  When he got downstairs, he got dressed in her living room. By the phone, he wrote his number at work and his name, more boldly than Jerry Blake had written his. While he was at it he reached up to the board and tore Blake’s name down. He didn’t know who the hell he was, but he’d learned to follow his gut.

  He put Blake’s number in the garbage, then he went out the back door so no one would see him, even though the sun wasn’t up. Just like he’d planned, he went to the woods, tried to find that spot with the cigarette trash. He couldn’t find it in this light. He was out of the woods and on his way pretty quick. He wore his trunks under his pants. Her blood didn’t bother him at all. He wasn’t sick about it; anything of hers…felt like his.

  He was on the highway with his thumb out when it hit him. He was in love with her.

  He loved her.

  It was too quick, but life moved that way. His had. And he couldn’t help what he felt. He didn’t want to help it. It didn’t need help; it was that natural, that real.

  He loved Isbe Blaise.

  Chapter 22

  During the war, metal went into the machines that drove the offensive. Now that metal was returning to the things that drove life in the U.S.A.

  No place showed the common man the possibilities of the future like a new car lot and an appliance store. During the war, Jules was surrounded by the tank, the half-track, the guns, but here at Lou’s, he was in the new offensive geared toward the American housewife—the refrigerator, the range, and the washing machine. And with television ready to shake out the rug, Jules had a front-row seat for the explosion.

  He was interested in all of it—how it was made, how it operated, rattled, and oiled. Boiled. Cleaned what was soiled. Waxed over and foiled. Toiled. And toiled.

  But when Isbe Blaise walked through the front door, he saw it all in a personal way—after the “I dos,” the sex, the “wah-wah it’s a boys,” all this stuff, a glistening electrified nest of modern metal marvels, would own him. He shook his head. And she deserved all of it—everything a monkey like him could give her. And he’d sign up. He knew it with a gleaming clarity. He was already marching…to her.

  She had called him. Ten o’clock this morning, Lou’s phone rang, and he got to it first. That time and the ten times before. When he heard her voice on the other end of that black receiver, it welled up…the feeling again…the pull. “Hey there,” he said.

  “I guess you got home all right. Before the rain.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sun’s out now.”

  “I know.”

  “So, how about you come down here? I get off around one. I need to buy some new clothes. I was hoping you could help me. If you’re better.”

  “Really?” Her voice lit right up.

  “Sure.” He told her where the shop was, but he’d told her that before. She knew what buses to take.

  “Heck with dat,” he said. “Take a cab. On me.”

  “That’s all right, Jules…”

  “Don’t argue about it. I’ll see you at one. Tell the cabbie to wait and I’ll go out when I see you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Isbe…”

  “All right, Jules. I’ll be there with bells on.”

  He laughed at that because there was an electric bell wired to Lou’s door.

  “You know what else? Those shoes you had on the other night…with the straps?”

  She giggled. “I can do that.”

  “And that pin…right?”

  “Yeah. Always that…Jules.”

  “Yeah. The rest I’ll leave to you.”

  He hung up then. He rapped twice on the counter and got back to his shop.

  For the rest of the day, his head snapped up every time a customer showed.

  When she did come in, Lou and his salesman, Stan, about broke their necks to get to her first. Those horny moogs. That dog Lou was a married man, not that it ever slowed him down. Married guys…some were pigs, like the piece of paper they’d signed was meant for the bird cage.

  He heard Isbe say, “I’m here for Jules.”

  He had his hands in his pockets, and he walked quickly to the door. She had her hair rolled back from her forehead and a ponytail that lay on her shoulder, and a little yellow and white hat thing pinned on her head. She wore a pretty yellow dress that showed off her bust and her little waist, some white at the throat and a black bow. And those shoes.

  She was beautiful. Inside, that’s the word that broke free every time he saw her, even in the movies that time…beautiful. And he’d spent the night holding her in his arms.

  These two greasy canines didn’t have a chance.

  “You got customers back there, Lou,” he reminded that one before he went to Isbe and took her little gloved hand in his. He kissed her knuckles like he was Rhett Butler.

  “I’ll be right back,” he told her. He glared a little at Stan. “You left the door open out back.”

  That moog checked his fly.

  “I mean the door,” he said. “Weirdo,” he added under his breath. He smiled weakly at Isbe, then went outside and paid the cabbie.

  “Say, that your girl?” the cabbie asked him.

  “What’s it to you, brother?” he asked, not friendly. “I find out you gave her a hard time…let’s see, cab one-o-four…”

  “Relax, Mister. I can admire the goods, you lucky bastard.”

  He was going to tell him to keep the change, but kept the single and gave him a quarter instead.

  He hurried back inside.

  Stan had Isbe over by a big yellow range.

  “You could come in and do some modeling around here. I know Lou would go for it. That face could launch a thousand electric refrigerators.” Stan said all this garbage while he ogled Isbe up and down like some kind of lollipop.

  She had her little purse in front of her bosom. But her face…she was all right. “Thanks, Mr. Stan. I ever get thrown out on the streets in a blizzard and need work, I might take you up on that.” She laughed, and Stan looked a little confused.

  “Hey,” Jules said, holding onto her arm again.

  He pulled her off without a look back at that hillbilly. He ran his arm through hers. “Someone must’ve left his cage open.”

  She was flushed. “Wow. Does he live with his mother?”

  “He never had a mother.” They walked through the model display kitchen, a metallic wonder in white. “You look nice. Feel okay?”

  “I’ll live. I can’t believe you still want me around.”

  He smirked some. “I ain’t disappointed so far.”

  Her perfect brows raised. “Maybe you’re too easy to please.”

  He took her fingers in his hand. “Only with you.”

  That left her a little speechless, and he turned fast so she
wouldn’t see him smile.

  “So, what do you think of the place? This is Lou’s,” he said, with a sweep of his hand. “Oh, and Sal’s. Ain’t seen him yet.”

  She looked around, turned a complete circle on those shoes he loved. “I’m impressed. Really. It’s amazing. Stan said they are going to put televisions in the window. You’ll have a crowd, just like the shop across the street.”

  “Yeah. Lou’s an up-and-comer. And he has a payment plan. Imagine owing your soul to that fu…fruitcake,” Jules said, while Isbe looked at the line of carpet sweepers.

  She was admiring everything, running her little gloved hand over the top of a washing machine.

  He took her arm. “Wearing my pin?”

  Her fingers touched the center of her bra. “Yes.”

  Between her breasts? Yeah, that would do. “I wish I was a clover pin,” he said.

  She smiled and whispered, “Jules,” and he laughed too loudly.

  “Come on back where the real stuff happens. I’m just finishing up.” He swept her toward his counter.

  After he closed up shop for the day, they took the bus to his neighborhood and ate dinner on his tab. Cookie had sold another couple of sets, so Jules left eight dollars richer—ten for Lou, and he and his girl were well-fed.

  Once they were finished, they walked to Marshall Fields. “You sure it’s not too far?” he asked her. She had lost a lot of blood during the night. He had no idea if that was normal, and he wanted to ask her, but he knew she was embarrassed as hell about it. She needn’t be. It was natural blood, not the kind he’d seen plenty of in the war, at the track and Mel’s—in the Buick.

  He put his cigarette in his mouth and stopped there on the sidewalk peeping into his wallet, counting his money. He had thirty-six bucks. A couple of girls walked by and gave him the eye. Shit. He didn’t mean to look; he was just tucking his billfold into his back pocket. He gave Isbe a big smile because it wasn’t his fault. She put her arm through his, gawked at him some, then the two who’d passed, giggling as they looked back.

  She was biting the lipstick off her plump bottom lip.

  “Hey,” he said, pulling that slice of heaven free.

  “I told you,” she said.

  “I ain’t confused,” he said. Then he kissed her, right on the street in front of God.

  At the department store, his plan was to pick out two shirts and a pair of pants so he could take Isbe out without looking like a bum. But he forsook that idea when they went through the ladies’ department. There was a blue dress on the form, and it wasn’t any more alluring than the one she had on, but it was more form-fitting, all the way to the knees, where it flared out a little. She’d stop traffic in a dress like that…or at least stop his heart.

  He could tell she liked it.

  “Try it on,” he said. “You feel all right?”

  She nodded, holding on to his arm. “I feel swell, Jules.”

  “Go on and try that dress on. For me.”

  She was working that lip again. “I don’t need another dress,” she argued.

  “I want to see it on you,” he insisted. He went to a chair near the platform and the three big mirrors and sat. “I’ll be right here.”

  A saleswoman came over. “Can I help you?” she asked him.

  He pointed to Isbe. “She wants to try on dat.” He pointed to the blue dress.

  “Oh—for the young lady?” she said.

  Well, who the hell else?

  She was Madame Zora, she said. She went on about the dress and how lovely it would look on Isbe.

  But when Isbe wasn’t looking, Madame Zora winked at Jules. He was with a dame, for shit’s sake, and fancy or no, she was old enough to be his real big sister, as in his mother.

  Isbe gave in and went into the dressing room, and he sat there and lit a smoke. Zora came out to work the dress off the mannequin. She stuck her ass this way and that, and hiked her leg up to show some skin, and he kept himself looking bored while he puffed away.

  She went in with the dress. Isbe probably had to stand there in her clover while this old broad did her circus act.

  After five minutes, he barely noticed the saleslady crouching behind, her hands on Isbe’s arms, as Isbe strode self-consciously forward.

  Oh, baby. She looked so…so damn perfect. Her figure was played out in that dress like a love song. They got married, she was wearing this thing…and then nothing…the rest of her life.

  Married?

  Or dinner. If they went to dinner, she was wearing this dress.

  Isbe got free of her creepy shadow and stepped up onto the platform. He was in the chair, looking up a little, like a worshipper. Now there were at least four of her, the real one and the three in the mirrors. He stood and hopped up next to her. He hadn’t thought about it nor meant to. But there he stood, multiplied, like her, beside her, just looking. One of him for each one of her—even stevens.

  Madame Zora was saying something, and who the boink cared. He had the right clothes, he could hold his own beside Isbe, but he’d never be as good, as pure. But if she was his…the paper and shit is what he meant; if ever this thing kept going to the ball and chain, he’d make good on the deal. He’d take care of her.

  “Wow,” he said aloud, both of them staring into the mirror. “Wow, and I don’t mean me,” he added.

  She giggled. “I look at you all the time and say ‘wow,’” she told him.

  Zora was talking again.

  “We’ll take it,” he said, all rude.

  Zora simpered over that.

  It cost him a pretty penny. But if he needed more, he had Lou’s money too. That skinflint could take it out of his pay. That’s more than he deserved for eying Isbe.

  Chapter 23

  Jules was with Isbe every chance he got. They worked, and they got together.

  And this Monday night, the one where they’d all played poker for matchsticks until two in the morning like work didn’t exist, Isbe complained she’d need those matchsticks all day long to keep her eyes open. Jules asked if she needed him to give her a break, and she said no. He said he’d leave earlier, and she said no. She held on to his arm and said it: “No, no, no.”

  He was tired too. But he figured it was worth it. He knew he should go home, but he wanted to be with her, and the other monkeys seemed to be having the same problem.

  But she had neighbors, and she was a good girl, and he strangely wanted to protect that. He could stay, if she asked, and sneak out like he had before, but she hadn’t asked, and Audie and Bobby would get on him about it, if he stayed, not that he cared, and not that they weren’t up to plenty themselves.

  He suspected Audie and Francis were doing it. He thought they were. They disappeared in her house for long sessions. She would never show after, but Audie would, and he’d be quiet and reflective on the ride home, and that was the telltale thing. He’d had it taken out of him—the piss—and the other.

  By the time Audie and Francis disappeared, Bobby would be with Dorie, in her room or outside. That would leave him and Isbe the living room.

  He wasn’t complaining. He could neck with Isbe indefinitely. He loved to kiss this girl, loved it. Long, slow sessions of kissing, petting—what he had laughed at, as a rule—were a whole new game with her. Cause it was all new…for Isbe…and truthfully, for him.

  He had a slow hand if he needed it. He was cultivating one. He couldn’t get enough. He worked her up, then pretended to be keeping “her beliefs.” He was most often the one to suggest they calm it down.

  He might have felt a twinge of guilt now and then, knowing she was breathless and wanting more. He might have smiled a few times over her head as he cradled her body against his, but he knew he’d do right by her. Knew he was in love, knew he could imagine spending his life with her, even if he didn’t have his shit gathered enough to suggest it.

  The work kept picking up. He found another outlet for the radios—Lou’s. During the week, he sat the fixed sets on the counter. L
ou didn’t care if they bought new or used. It was all money in his pocket. But when Sal showed, he needed to put the used sets into the rest of his inventory.

  Sal was in Florida with their mother. But he’d be home soon, Lou said. He wasn’t Hitler. He was a moog named Sal. Jules couldn’t have cared less what kind of bee was up his ass. He’d protect his interests, but he wasn’t taking shit from Sal.

  One Friday night, Audie walked into the shop as Jules was closing down for the night. He knew by looking at Audie that something was up. It had been a while since they’d thrown the potatoes. Other than that, there had been a couple of low-key tasks—picking up a sack, dropping off a stack of papers. Moog jobs that paid shit.

  Jules cleaned up his tools and wrote out a couple of tickets. Audie leaned on the counter, but he didn’t have much to say. When Jules was finished, he pissed and washed his hands, his face, combed his hair back in the cracked mirror over Lou’s disgusting sink.

  He followed Audie out, and they got in the Buick. Bobby was already in the backseat.

  Normally they picked something up—food or drink—then went to Isbe’s. Sometimes they took the girls to Shiney’s. Once they saw a movie and walked on the pier.

  But tonight they were going to Mel’s. Uncle Cabhan wanted to see them.

  “You carrying?” Jules asked. He didn’t feel the need to bring a gun. He needed one, he’d take it from one of those cabbage lickers. He’d use it.

  “So they can take it off me?” Audie said.

  “Jules,” Bobby said, and he saw Bobby’s weapon on the seat then—the tire iron and Bobby’s hammer. Any trouble on the sidewalk this time, and Fourth of July would break out, because Baboon had that red-ass temper.

  “You go in. I’m waiting outside,” Bobby said. “I ain’t walkin’ out that door blind like last time.”

  Jules put his hand over his smile. The thought of a fight wasn’t bad. He hadn’t lost his taste for it, that was damn sure, and he wouldn’t fight like a gentleman, like last time. But he needed his hands almost as much as he needed the action. “I agree,” Jules said. “You’re his punk.”