wooden floor of the porch. I hoped they would hesitate at the front
entrance, tempering their rancor with caution long enough for me to put
a little ground between us.
A tattered blind, though askew, covered most of the single window in the
small dining room. Too little light penetrated to bring meaningful
relief from the gloom.
I kept moving, because I knew that the door to the kitchen was directly
in line with the living-room door through which I had just entered.
This time, passing from room to room, I didn’t even knock my shoulder
against the jamb.
No blinds or curtains covered the pair of windows over the sink in the
kitchen. Painted with a thin wash of moonlight, they had that ghostly
phosphorous glow of television screens just after you switch them off.
Under my feet, the aging linoleum popped and cracked. If any members of
the troop had entered the house behind me, I couldn’t hear them above
the noise that I was making.
The air was thick with a foul miasma that made me want to retch.
A rat or some wild animal must have died in a corner of the kitchen or
in one of the cabinets, where it was now decomposing.
Holding my breath, I hurried to the back door, which featured a large
pane of glass in the upper half. It was locked.
When this was a military base, personal security had been assured, and
no one who lived inside the fence had reason to fear crime.
Consequently, the locks were simple, keyed only from the outside.
I felt for the doorknob, which would have a lock-release button in the
center. Found it. I would have turned it and torn open the door except
that the shadow of a leaping monkey flew up across the glass and fell
away just as my hand closed on the cold brass.
I quietly released the knob and retreated two steps, considering my
options. I could open the door and, pistol blazing, stride boldly
through the murderous monkey multitudes as though I were Indiana Jones
minus bullwhip and fedora, relying on sheer panache to survive.
The only alternative was to remain in the kitchen and wait to see what
happened next.
A monkey leaped onto the sill of one of the windows above the sink.
Gripping the casing to keep its balance, it pressed against the glass,
peering into the kitchen.
Because this mangy gremlin was silhouetted against moonlight, I could
see no details of its face. Just its hot-ember eyes. The faint white
crescent of its humorless grin.
Turning its head left and right and left again, it rolled its eyes,
squinted, then went wide-eyed once more. By following its questing gaze,
which roamed the kitchen, I deduced that it couldn’t see me in the
darkness.
Options. Stay here and be trapped. Plunge into the night only to be
dragged down and savaged under the mad moon.
These weren’t options, because either choice guaranteed an identical
Outcome. The worst kook surfer knows that whether you get sucked over
the falls on a fully macking shore break or just get pitched off the
board and do a face plant in some seaweed soup, the result is the same,
wipeout.
Another monkey leaped onto the sill at the second window.
Like most of us in this movie-besotted, Hollywood-corrupted world, if I
succumbed to the narcissist in me and listened to my mind’s ear, I could
probably hear a film score underlying my every waking moment, gluey
sentimental string-section indulgences when I am stricken by sadness or
sorrow, tear-evoking, heart-stirring full-orchestra rhapsodies when I
enjoy a triumph, droll piano riffs during my not infrequent spells of
foolishness. Sasha insists that I look like the late James Dean, and
even though I don’t see the resemblance, I am appalled and ashamed to
say that at times I take pleasure in this supposed resemblance to such a
celebrated figure, indeed, it would require little effort for me to
conduct periods of my life with the edgy score of Rebel Without a Cause
swelling in my mind. At the door a moment earlier, when the monkey
shadow swooped up the window, Hear the violins shriek from the shower