Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (Vintage International)

by Maxine Hong Kingston

  This guise, though, is not plain. A magnificent creature. The voice that was coming out of it was the plain girl’s. She must be sitting next to him engulfed in a mirage.

  He touched her on a tusk, and it was there, all right. It did not fade into a strip of metal that was the window frame. The narrow eyes looked at him in surprise. “Hey, cut it out,” she said, pushing his hand away from her mouth with a gentle cloven hoof. She giggled, and he backed away as far over by the aisle as he could back. What he had touched was harder than flesh. Bony. Solid. Therefore, real, huh? She giggled again. It is pretty funny to have somebody touching you on the teeth. Warm teeth.

  “What was that for? Why did you do that?” she said. “Why you touch my teeth? That isn’t the way to ask for a date.”

  “I’m not asking you for a date. I do not want to date you.”

  “Well, I understand. You don’t like aggressive girls. Most guys can’t take aggressive girls. I’m very aggressive.” She’ll never admit to homeliness. “Aggressive girls are especially bad for Japanese boys.”

  “Lay off my race,” he said. “Cool it.” Which was what he should have said in the first place. She went quiet. Sat there. But did not change back. The bus went on for a long time in the dark. And whenever he glanced her way, there beside him was the blue-black boar. Gleaming.

  “Hey,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder. Boar skin feels like corduroy. She cocked a flap of silky ear toward him. “See these people on the bus? They all look human, don’t they? They look like humans but they’re not.”

  “They are too,” she said.

  “Let me warn you.” He looked behind him, and behind her. “Some of them only appear to be human.” What he was saying even sent shivers up his own back. “There are non-humans in disguise as men and women amongst us.”

  “Do you see them everywhere, or only on this bus?”

  “On this bus, maybe a few other places. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed. Well, some of them have gotten the disguise down very well. But there’s usually a slip-up that gives them away. Do you want me to tell you some signs to watch out for?”

  The boar’s great blue-black head nodded.

  “You’ve seen ‘The Twilight Zone’ on t.v., haven’t you? Have you noticed that Rod Serling doesn’t have an upper lip?” He demonstrated, pressing his upper lip against his teeth. “That’s a characteristic sign of the werewolf.” The glittery eyes of the boar opened wider, surprised. “Their hands are different from ours. They wear gloves. Walt Disney draws them accurately. And Walter Lantz does too. Goofy wears gloves, but not Pluto. Goofy is a dog, and Pluto is a dog, but Pluto is a real dog. Mickey and Minnie, Donald and the nephews, Unca Scrooge—and Yosemite Sam—never take their gloves off. Minnie and Daisy wash dishes with their gloves on. You see women in church with those same little white gloves, huh? They are often going to church. There are more of these werewomen in San Francisco than in other cities.”

  “What do they want? What are they doing here?”

  “You tell me. I think they’re here because they belong here. That’s just the way the world is. There’s all kinds. There are cataclysms and luck that they probably manipulate. But there’s different kinds of them too, you know; they don’t get along with one another. It’s not like they’re all together in a conspiracy against our kind.”

  “Aiya-a-ah, nay gum sai nay, a-a-ah,” said the creature—the Pig Woman—beside him. “Mo gum sai nay, la ma-a-ah.” Such a kind voice, such a loving-kind voice, so soothing, so sorry for him, telling him to let go of the old superstitious ways.

  At last, the bus shot out of the tunnel-like bridge. Under the bright lights, she turned back into a tan-and-grey drab of a girl again. Wittman got himself to his feet, rode standing up, and the bus reached the intersection of College and Alcatraz. Here’s where I get off.

  “Goodbye,” she said. “Let’s talk again. It will make our commute more interesting.” She was not admitting to having weirdly become Pig Woman.

  He said, “Huh.” Samurai.

  What the fuck had that been about? Nevermind. It’s gone. Forget it. It doesn’t mean a thing. No miracle. No miracles forevermore, because they may be drug flashes. I’ve lost my miracles. It don’t mean shit.

  Oh no, the plain girl had gathered up her smelly stuff, and gotten off behind him, and was following him up the street. “Are you going to the party too?” she asked. “Are we going to the same party?”

  “No,” he said. I’m not walking in with Miss Refreshment Committee bringing salt fish and rice, and pork with hom haw. “No party,” he said, and walked off in the opposite direction of the way he was meaning to go. No more to do with you, girl. He walked quickly ahead and away down Alcatraz. The group of lights in the Bay must be the old federal pen. The Rock. As usual, Orion the Warrior ruled the city sky, and you had to know the Pleiades to find their nest. He turned left, then left again, and up the hill to the party.

  The street was jampacked with cars and music, no room in the air for one more decibel. The trees held loudspeakers in their arms; their bass hearts were thudding. Wittman made his way among the bodies, some already fallen on the lawn. Above huddles of four or six, there hung oval clouds of smoke, like thought balloons. He walked the porch that wrapped all the way around the house, an Oakland Victorian, looking into doors and windows for an interesting opening, or somebody he might want to party with. From a backdoor, he went into the kitchen, where he poured himself some Mountain Red, and struck a party match. The flag flared up—stars burst, stripes curled—“bombs bursting in air”—a leftover from the Fourth of July party, which had followed the Bloom’s Day party. He had, in his life, gone to four Bloom’s Day parties, every end of spring semester since freshman year, missing this last one because of party dread. Dread of parties for over a year now. (The way you could tell you were at a Bloom’s Day party was by a bunch of red roses in a vase, and by the date.) There was always a plot to one of these parties; the fun was in figuring out what the point was, and who got it and who didn’t. Creative paranoia. Lance, who gave the parties, liked testing perception. He taught his friends, invited or not: The most important thing in the world is parties. In the bowl of walnuts was a nutcracker in the shape of a pair of woman’s legs in garters and spike heels. The nut went in the crotch, and you clamped the legs shut, and cracked the nut. Nobody was using it. You’d be a fool to get a kick out of it, and a fool to be offended.

  The dining room was a sane enough place—a sane zone, quieter with normal lighting—the eye of the noise. There were people he recognized from other parties; they never appeared anyplace else in his life except at parties. Party friends.

  Suddenly, Lance Kamiyama, the host, and his bride, Sunny, Sunny the bride, swooped about him, one set of newlywed arms about each other, hers in luna-moth wings, dashiki cloth, and their outward arms holding their guest. Each of them kissed him on a cheek. Choreography. “You remember Wittman from our wedding,” said Lance. “We’re glad to see you once more,” she said. A queenly We. The married We. “Once more” like “a year and a day,” that is, a ritual amount of time has passed. The wedding had been the party between Bloom’s Day and July 4. She had worn a sea-green wedding gown; her long Guinevere hair fell in tresses. Wittman had not met her before the wedding, but felt jealous nevertheless that during his lifetime she had chosen another, Lance. It was the first post-grad wedding, the one with music from West Side Story. No shame. At the reception, Wittman’s last party, Sunny told him (while they were dancing, the best man and the bride) that Lance had said to her, “There’s nothing in the world as beautiful as a blonde.” He had something on Lance there; Sunny had been unfaithful already telling a thing like that on her husband.

  “Howzit?”

  “Howzit.”

  Checking Lance out for signs of marriage, it seemed he hadn’t been married long enough to have been altered. Yet. There’s something priestlike about married guys. No matter whether they’re faithful or unfaithful or what.
Having lived en famille once would seem to be enough for anybody.

  “Isn’t this one the Chinese Beatnik?” Sunny said. Discussing him. Aha, so they do talk you over. And she’s given away some more of their private talk. Lance unhugged him, gesturing with that arm. “Don’t my two hundred closest friends look prosperous?” he said. “We’ve done very well, haven’t we?” Well, yes, he’d gotten them off the floor, off mattresses and gym mats, and on to furniture; the food was on tables, not on a door plank. Everybody was up on a higher level, sitting and standing. Sofas rather than automobile seats and park benches. End tables. “Lance told me, but I forgot. You’re one of his business friends, right?” If the music were somewhat louder, he would not have to answer her. “Or are you primarily a social friend?” She didn’t forget, she’s putting him on. Do you and Lance really think like that? Does everybody? Are you mocking my natural paranoia? Isn’t “business friend” an oxymoron, and “social friend” redundant? “We’re old friends,” he said. “We’re childhood friends.” A lifelong friend. The one who had turned him on to L.S.D. from the Sandoz Labs (twice), and homemade chiles rellenos, and William Carlos Williams’ prose. “I was best man, remember?”

  Another thing he disliked about couples—here he was ladling on the heavy charm, and looked up to see they were looking at each other, right across him. The first time a couple had done that to him, he’d been a kid in the dentist’s chair. The dentist and his assistant had looked up from his open mouth, caught each other’s eye, and smiled like that, the spit sucker slurping loudly and juicily away. His spit. Why was he always the one with his mouth open and his teeth hanging out in the presence of romance? He had missed the step down from the dental chair and rammed his groin into the spit fountain.

  “You’re looking appropriate,” said Lance. “You do look the Young Millionaire.” A Young Millionaire making fun of his job suit by cutting up his tie, it’s allowed. After graduation, Lance started calling the parties Young Millionaires’ meetings. He said “Mi-yun-neh” with Japanese-Chinese tonations. He could say it with an Oxford accent too; he’d done some study abroad at the London School of Economics.

  “I’ve been canned,” said Wittman. “Am I disqualified from the Young Millionaires? I’m going to try for Unemployment; it won’t pay anywhere near a million.”

  “A deadbeat. But you’re in luck. Here tonight you have two—maybe three—hundred business heads. Contacts. Contacts, Wittman. Recognize a brain trust when you see one. Take advantage. Hustle.” He said “hunnert.” He said “bidness.” He didn’t really talk that way; he was making fun of people who talk that way.

  “Lance, why did you decide to go into the Civil Service?” I thought we were going to be brother artists.

  “I like problem-solving. Actually, quite a few of our Young Millionaires are geniuses of problem-solving. Circulate. Mix.” He burst out laughing at how there are hosts who’ll say, “Go mix.” He’s probably a sociopath.

  “I hate playing business games.”

  Sunny spoke up: “What’s the matter? You aren’t good at them?”

  Lance laughed, delighted with her. Wittman had to laugh too. Oh, god, she’s hard. No mercy. And these are his friends, toughening him up for the real world, doing him a service. She isn’t so stupid; he had thought she was dumb. Why, she’s sharp like her husband. Have you noticed lately that it’s getting more difficult to tell smart people from dumb people? “I am too good at business games. Let me tell you what I did to get fired. You know that broken wind-up monkey in the gutter that James Dean covers with his red jacket in Rebel Without a Cause? We sell them. I wound one up, and put it on top of a Barbie doll. They fucked away in front of the customers and their kiddos. I should have made a bigger show—a flock of monkeys and a train of Barbies, in her housewife outfit, in her night-out formal, in her après ski, in her Malibu swimsuit, and the monkeys swooping down and up and away like the evil flock in The Wizard of Oz. I split before they called the cops on me. Seriously, folks, I’m like fired. I didn’t even like the job, but I feel bad.”

  Lance said in an understanding voice, “You were just trying to make your job interesting. You can’t sleep nights after all day faking a liking for your shitty job. And nothing but shit jobs ahead for the rest of your life.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. You stay awake over that too?”

  “Who, me? Of course not.” Shit. Red-assed again. The butt of the party—“Did you hear Wittman can’t sleep nights over money? He’s been fired, poor guy.”

  Then Lance showed a sincere, probably “sincere,” concern. “Hey, you’ll get another job soon. Everybody feels bad after getting sacked. Don’t take it so hard, man. You worry too much.”

  “No, I don’t. I didn’t like that store anyway. I’ve got better things to do with my life.” His own words always came out corny when he talked to Lance. The ironic versus the square. He wished to be the former, but couldn’t turn it around. The hell with it. “I’m going to start living the life of an artist now. That was a cheap store where cheap people buy cheap presents for their cheap friends and cheap relatives.” Toughen up.

  “Yeah, everybody gets fired from there. Didn’t you know that? By our age, the Young Millionaire has been fired at least twice. You don’t want to settle down too soon. You haven’t screwed up your job record at all. Most personnel managers will wonder why you were so tame you haven’t been fired more often. In a lifetime, Wittman, you can make a total life change three times. All it takes to switch careers and socio-economic class—from sales clerk, as in your case, to lawyer or shrink or engineer and mechanic—is three years of re-training. I’m giving you an average. Fewer years for a nurse’s aide, more for brain surgeon.” It was Lance who had explained that smart people don’t drive cars as well as dumb people because smart people’s minds have too many alternatives.

  “What G.S. are you now, Lance?” Wittman asked.

  “Gee Ess Nine.” Lance drew it out like suspensefully announcing the first prize. Wittman didn’t know much about what exactly he did in which Alameda federal building, but, reputedly, it was amazing for a person of their age to be a Nine. “Lucky for you, Wittman. The economic outlook is not bad,” pulling a bobbin of ticker tape out of his vest pocket. Aha. Plot: Lance was wearing a three-piece suit because the theme of the party had to do with business. You were to judge ad hominem: Which suits at this party are deliberate costumes, and which came straight from work, their wearers wishing they had had time to have changed into party clothes? Those in costume and those not in costume are dressed similarly in Business District outfits, mere bowtie differences. Awareness is all, on the part of the clothes-wearer, and on the part of the beholder. A costume either disguises or reveals. One or the other. No way out of the bag.

  Lance scrolled the tape between his hands. “Utilities up a quarter-point,” he said. “Burroughs down 1⅜. Friday’s Dow up 2.53 points in light trading on the Big Board. The Dow for the week up six good points. Run with los toros, amigo.” Now, Wittman was susceptible to trance under the influence of numbers, and the evil name of Burroughs, Old Bull Lee, had been said in incantation. He heard: “The Tao is up,” “Friday’s Tao up 2.53 points,” which is good; we were good today, not a hell of a lot better than yesterday, but holding steady and not backsliding, yes, some spiritual improvement. We are a people who measure our goodness each day. And we trade light; this is our way of shooting beams at one another. A scientific people with a measurable Tao. Wittman felt pleased with himself, that he hadn’t lost his Chinese ears. He had kept a religious Chinese way of hearing while living within the military-industrial-educational complex. Wow. Lance was as good as dope—oh, god, the cosmic nature of puns. To show that he had gotten the joke, and could run with it and maybe cap it, Wittman said, “Osaka Stock Exchange, yeah. Sell G.M. Buy Kawasaki. Sell my sole for sashimi futures.”

  “Besides getting yourself fired, what’s been happening to you?” Personally. Now his friend was making him feel ashamed for discussing work at a p
arty. Where’s his party spirit? One has to help create the atmosphere of celebration. Be more entertaining. And also candid like a camera.

  “Well, I saw this guy chewing out his dog. I was taking a walk in the park yesterday. There was this queenie-looking guy dressed to kill walking his dog, this Doberman pinscher. He yanked on the chain, and said, ‘You cuntless bitch.’ I’ve never heard ‘cuntless bitch’ before. The dog was moving fast, like trying to get away; its ears were back. It was being publicly humiliated.”

  Lance was enchanted. Sunny smiled. Does she mind “bitch” and “cunt”? Not everybody would get behind this story. He and Lance liked to collect stories that most people can’t appreciate.

  “What movies have you seen?” Wittman asked. “Have you seen A Nous la Liberté?”

  “Yeah. Twice. What a song. Did you see Last Year at Marienbad?”

  “But if you sit for ten minutes at Last Year at Marienbad you’re already repeating yourself. The point is: no point. I can’t stand the imitative fallacy. I saw West Side Story today.”

  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “I like Lolita better, though only black and white. I like 8½ better.”

  “I love that part where Marcello Mastroianni whips his women around the room and the feathers are flying.”

  “Me too. Me too. That may be the greatest scene in cinema. But he isn’t chasing them, is he? He’s keeping them at bay.”

  “I hate that part. I hate that movie. The wife scrubbing the floor, and the aged showgirl weeping goodbye up the stairs to the attic. I hate that.”

  “But it’s a fantasy.”

  “So men have a wife fantasy where she scrubs the floor on her knees and cooks for the harem.”

  “It’s supposed to be funny. That’s the funniest movie I ever saw.”

  “I hope you’re not a man with a wife fantasy—the wife and the mistress holding hands and dancing around him.”