Characters in The Monkey

Amos Culligan’s old Studebaker is down there somewhere. Damn fool took it out on the lake one early December, before the ice was made. Lucky to get out of it alive, he was. They’ll never get that Stud out, nor see it until Judgment Trump blows.

Uncle Will had died six years before, and Aunt Ida had lived on here alone, until a stroke had taken her just the previous week. Very sudden, Bill had said when he called long distance to give Hal the news. As if he could know; as if anyone could know.

Beulah McCaffery, 19, and Sally Tremont, 20, had been shot by Miss McCaffery’s boyfriend, Leonard White, 25, following an argument over who was to go out and pick up an order of Chinese food. Miss Tremont had expired at Hartford Receiving. Beulah McCaffery had been pronounced dead at the scene.

The drunk was given sixty days (suspended) and lost his privilege to operate a motor vehicle in the state of Connecticut for five years . . . which was about as long as Bill Shelburn’s nightmares lasted. The monkey was hidden away again in the back closet.

He and his friend Charlie Silverman were walking home together after the meeting and the car came around Brook Street Corner too fast and Charlie had frozen, Bill had tugged Charlie’s hand once but had lost his grip and the car— Bill began to bray out loud, hysterical sobs, and …

“I threw you down the well when I was nine.” The monkey grinned up at him. Outside in the night, a black capful of wind shook the motel. • • • Hal’s brother Bill and Bill’s wife Collette met them at Uncle Will’s and Aunt Ida’s the next day.

You’re not like this—what’s wrong?” “Nothing,” he said, thinking of the monkey locked away in his Samsonite. Would he hear it if it began to clap its cymbals? Yes, he surely would. Muffled, but audible. Clapping doom for someone, as it had for Beulah, Johnny McCabe, Uncle Will’s dog Daisy.

… When Hal Shelburn saw it, when his son Dennis pulled it out of a mouldering Ralston-Purina carton that had been pushed far back under one attic eave, such a feeling of horror and dismay rose in him that for one moment he thought he would scream. He put one fist …

… When Hal Shelburn saw it, when his son Dennis pulled it out of a mouldering Ralston-Purina carton that had been pushed far back under one attic eave, such a feeling of horror and dismay rose in him that for one moment he thought he would scream. He put one fist …

He had pinwheeled his arms for balance, and more thorns had branded his forearms. It was that memory that had caused him to call Petey back sharply. That was the day Johnny McCabe died—his best friend. Johnny had been climbing the rungs up to his treehouse in his backyard.

Beulah McCaffery, 19, and Sally Tremont, 20, had been shot by Miss McCaffery’s boyfriend, Leonard White, 25, following an argument over who was to go out and pick up an order of Chinese food. Miss Tremont had expired at Hartford Receiving. Beulah McCaffery had been pronounced dead at the scene.

None of the babysitters stayed for long. They got pregnant and married their boyfriends or got work at Holmes, or Mrs. Shelburn would discover they had been at the cooking sherry or her bottle of brandy which was kept in the sideboard for special occasions.

He scrambled toward the door, backed through it, slammed it, and leaned against it. Suddenly he bolted for the bathroom and vomited. It was Mrs. Stukey from the helicopter plant who brought the news and stayed with them those first two endless nights, until Aunt Ida got down from Maine.

It was a tone Hal rarely got from the boy anymore himself. Dennis was twelve. “What is it?” Peter asked. He glanced at his father again before his eyes were dragged back to the thing his big brother had found. “What is it, Daddy?” “It’s a monkey, fartbrains,” Dennis said.

Beulah McCaffery, 19, and Sally Tremont, 20, had been shot by Miss McCaffery’s boyfriend, Leonard White, 25, following an argument over who was to go out and pick up an order of Chinese food. Miss Tremont had expired at Hartford Receiving. Beulah McCaffery had been pronounced dead at the scene.

He put one fist to his mouth, as if to cram it back . . . and then merely coughed into his fist. Neither Terry nor Dennis noticed, but Petey looked around, momentarily curious. “Hey, neat,” Dennis said respectfully.

He had been named for Uncle Will. Will and Bill, champions of the rodayo, Uncle Will used to say, and ruffle Bill’s hair. It was one of his sayings . . . like the wind can whistle but it can’t carry a tune.