The boy's shirt reminds the woman of one her son had, its blue and green stripes like water in the tropics. He sits alone on a bench near the howler monkey enclosure, runs a pocketknife along the seam of his jeans. The woman wonders if he's strayed from his pack; a school outing, perhaps—a trip with his family. The boy doesn't look worried so the woman isn't worried either.

The first time the woman heard howler monkeys in the jungle of Costa Rica, their throat-calling woke her from a dead sleep.

The woman wonders if the boy appreciates the monkey's use of its prehensile tail, like a third arm, or the rusty colour of its coat, like a dried soak of blood. She wonders if the boy has ever hurt himself badly enough to bleed like that—a towel-soaking-emergency-transfusion kind of bleed. She has seen this before and it is startling.

A man approaches the boy holding an ice cream cone. The man is distracted by his phone. Probably watching porn, the woman thinks, something vulgar and animalistic. Asshole, she says to herself. The boy takes the cone and tips it on the ground. The man stares as the boy flicks his knife open and closed, open and closed.

The woman shovels monkey shit into a bucket by the door. She stocks a dish with grapes, green beans, and carrots. She thinks how a monkey's diet is similar to that of a boy, thinks how she could care for this boy too, if given the chance. Her polyester pants itch in the heat. She lifts her hand and waves.


#


The boy isn't really a kid anymore, the man observes from the snack bar lineup. If he looks hard enough, he can see a familiarity beneath the slouch and sneer—the Lewis chin, the Menzies eyes. He's afraid if he stares too long the baby inside the boy, the one he once tucked in the crook of his arm, will disappear, and all he'll have left is this hollow frame.

The man flinches every time a monkey yells, his nerves frayed since breakfast with Sharon, since she looked over the steam of her cafe latte and said: don't leave him behind again.

A woman shovels monkey feces in the closest enclosure. A scar runs the length of her face, from forehead to chin. She mumbles to herself and the man watches her lips move. It reminds him of how Sharon's lips move in religious incantations every night at their bedside.

The man orders one soft-serve, vanilla-chocolate twist cone, carries it to where the boy sits on the bench. It is an average temperature outside but the man shivers at the sight of him running his knife up and down his leg. He remembers the last time he saw this knife—how sharp it looked inches from his face—and he knows he doesn't want the boy in his house anymore.

The woman in the enclosure climbs a rope ladder, mimics the monkeys' calls as she rises. The sound is throaty and beautiful. She looks like a downtrodden Jane, the way she hangs there, and the man is taken with her wildness. He watches as she cradles a monkey in her arms and kisses it, tongue and everything. A girl walks by holding a pink balloon shaped like a rhinoceros. The boy reaches out and pops it with his knife.


#


The boy remembers his mum talking about animal totems, how everyone has an animal they identify with, but that was before he started shooting robins and stabbing mice in the backyard—before she dropped him off at the pool and never came back. He doesn't think he could kill something larger, but the way the monkeys are screaming certainly makes him want to try.

The woman in the monkey enclosure itches herself—her neck, her shoulder, her crotch—then waves at the boy. Her face is red and flushed, her armpits stained with sweat. The boy flips her off and she recoils like he's punched her in the face.

The boy's dad stares at the woman in fascination, the way he used to stare at the boy's mum and the steady stream of women who came afterwards. If his dad had an animal totem, it would be the sex-crazed bonobo, although the boy's mum always said it was the wolf. His dad stuffs his phone into his pocket and walks toward the monkey enclosure. The boy presses the tip of the knife through his jeans and into his leg, feels his skin start to split.

Ants funnel in single file toward the boy's ice cream upended on the ground. The insects circle the edge of the splatter, moving as a group. The boy reaches down and picks up an ant, placing it on his tongue. When he bites down, it tastes like lemons.

.

Read JT's postcard.





W i g l e a f               09-08-20                                [home]