shoulders only slightly. Although I am nearly six feet tall, I didn’t
have to hunch down, however, the underside of the storage shelf pressed
hard enough against my Mystery Train cap to impress the shape of the
crown button through my hair and into my scalp.
To avoid second thoughts and an attack of claustrophobia, I decided not
to pass the time by listing the ways in which my hiding place was like a
coffin.
As it turned out, I didn’t have any time to pass. No sooner had I
stashed myself in the broom closet than monkeys entered the kitchen from
the dining room.
I heard them just beyond the threshold, revealed only by a barely
audible conspiratorial hissing and muttering. They hesitated, apparently
scoping the situation, then entered at a rush, lantern eyes aglow as
they fanned out to both sides of the door, like SWAT-team cops in a TV
drama.
The crackling linoleum startled them. One squeaked in surprise, and they
all froze.
As far as I could determine, this first squad consisted of three
members. I couldn’t see anything but their shining eyes, which were
revealed only during the moments when they were facing in my direction.
Because they were standing still, swiveling just their heads as they
surveyed the black room, I could be sure that I wasn’t seeing the same
pair of eyes as a single individual progressed from place to place.
I was breathing shallowly through my mouth, not solely because this
method was comparatively quiet. Using my nose would result in a more
sickening exposure to the vile stink. Already, a sludge of nausea oozed
back and forth in my belly. Now I was beginning to be able to taste the
foul air, which left a musty-bitter flavor on my tongue and induced a
flux of sour saliva that threatened to make me gag.
After a pause to analyze the situation, the bravest of the three monkeys
moved and then went rigid when the linoleum protested noisily again.
One of its pals took a step with the same result, and it, too, halted
warily.
A nerve began to twitch in my left calf. I hoped to God it wouldn’t
develop into a painful cramp.
Following a lengthy silence, the most timid member of the squad issued a
thin whine. It sounded fearful.
Call me insensitive, call me cruel, call me a mutant-monkey hater, but
under the circumstances, I was pleased by the anxiety in its voice.
Their apprehension was so palpable that if I said “Boo, ” they would
leap, screaming, straight to the ceiling and hang there by their
fingernails. Monkey stalactites.
Of course, totally pissed by that little trick, they would eventually
come down again and, with the rest of the troop, tear my guts out.
Which would spoil the joke.
If they were as spooked as I believed they were, they might conduct only
a token search and retreat from the house, whereafter Curious George
would be the troop’s equivalent of the boy who cried wolf.
The increased intelligence conferred on these rhesuses is as much a
curse as a blessing to them. With higher intelligence comes an awareness
of the complexity of the world, and from this awareness arises a sense
of mystery, wonder. Superstition is the dark side of wonder.
Creatures with simple animal intelligence fear only real things, such as
their natural predators. But those of us who have higher cognitive
abilities are able to torture ourselves with an infinite menagerie of
imaginary threats, ghosts and goblins and vampires and brain-eating
extraterrestrials. Worse, we find it difficult not to dwell on the most
terrifying two words in any language, even in monkey talk, what if ..
.
I was counting on these creatures’ being, right now, nearly paralyzed by
a daunting list of what-ifs.
One of the squad snorted as though trying to clear the stench out of its
nostrils, then spat with distaste.
The wimpy one whined again.
It was answered by one of its brethren, not with another whine, but with
a fierce growl that dispelled my cozy notion that all the monkeys were
too spooked to linger here. The growler, at least, was not intimidated,