copyright 2005, Michael Fountain
copyright 2005 Michael Fountain
“Signifying Monkey”: comic toast or recitation from African American folklore, in which
the monkey uses insult and innuendo to set the lion and the elephant against one another. To
‘signify’ is to use verbal dexterity to confound an opponent, as in the motif “Rabbit and the
Briar Patch”.
-- Ormondroyd’s Encyclopedia Esoterica
Most of the dogs cried for rescue, but after surgery the Rottweiler kept on
without intention like a machine wearing down. The monkey could just
glimpse one bare corner of the kennels, and see the dog’s worried haunches as it
made the turn. They let the Rottweiler cry for a week until Brandi made it
stop.
The monkey’s skull was bolted to the frame of the chair. He could see the lab
and the med cart, Leo’s tiny office and the game screen whenever they swung it
into his field of vision. He couldn’t move his arms or legs and wasn’t sure if he
still had them; he was only allowed to use the robot arms on the other side of
the room. When they lowered the dark screen he could see the reflected
shadows of the wires running out from his head.
Red letters scrolled across the monk’s LED screen.
— patricia —
“No, not Patricia. Patricia’s not here.”
— patricia frank —
“Frank’s not here either. Just Dave.”
— patricia frank – patricia not— patricia frank —
It was like talking to an Alzheimer’s patient sometimes; the monkeys
recognized you, but they put the wrong names on things. Electrodes in the
motor cortex fed neuron signals through an algorithm from the University of
Pittsburgh, and the computer turned thoughts into words on the LED screen.
— patricia frank house —
“Patricia’s not coming in ‘til second shift. Frank is off tonight.”
— patricia frank house —
“No, Patricia doesn’t live with Frank, she lives with me. With Dave. Patricia
with Schwartz.”
— patricia frank — patricia frank house—
Patricia usually had Frank working with her; maybe that had the monkey
confused. They went to the bar sometimes, Patricia with Schwartz and Brandi
with Frank. Frank was— at least thirty, a worn out forty, kind of skanky. So
was Frank’s girlfriend Brandi.
The monkey worked its jaw like a horse gnawing a bit. They pulled their
canine teeth before they ever came to the lab.
“Mouth okay…? How’s your water…?” It was rhetorical. He didn’t expect an
answer. “Now let’s see you target.” Schwartz pulled a screen down over the
monkey’s field of vision. A sensor in the monkey's eye passed through a plug
in his skull to a recording device that let them track eye movements.
“Okay, Seventeen, do you see the little house?”
— house —
“Now can you see the little crosshairs? Look up for me… good… look down for
me… good… now left… now right… now look at the house again. Now think
release, go away.”
An animation of a missile followed the animal’s gaze and made the imaginary
house disappear. “Good job, you hit your target.”
— patricia good frank house —
“What d’you want to blow them up for? Let’s check your diaper, chief.”
Monkeys One through Sixteen had been injected with an isotope of
technetium, and each taught to do a different task. Their brains were flash
frozen and then sliced to find which “hot spot” controlled each task. That
helped them place the electrodes in monkey Seventeen.
“Okay, Seventeen, this time we want you to track a moving object with your
eyes. See the bird?”
The ‘bird’ was a stylized plane, floating in an imaginary sky. “That’s right,
follow the bird with your eyes… good— oop, he got away from you—good—
now when you’re sure you have the bird, think ‘away’.” Another toy missile
streaked toward the target. “Very good.”
— very good — very good —very good —
“Yes, you did good. Now we’re going to try something a little harder.”
— harder frank – frank good – frank good good frank –
“What, you decide your name is Frank now?”
—patricia good – patricia clean frank– good clean — harder frank –
Schwartz took out a cell phone and punched numbers that played a soft tune.
The monk watched him hold it up to his ear, listening as one listens to a tree to
hear insects scuttle beneath the bark.
“Patricia, it’s me. Pick up if you’re there. Hello, it’s 11:30 pm, where are you…?
Patricia. Okay, I guess I’ll talk to you later, then.”
The screen in front of the monk was full of birds of many colors. First he’d
learned to hit a blue ball on the VR screen, then to blow up little houses and
now to shoot down imaginary planes.
“Okay, now, Seventeen. Lots of birds now. Do you see the red bird?” The
readout showed the monkey’s eye following the red silhouette. “Good. Now
green. Can you show me the green bird?”
— show me – show me how hard—hard good – hard good frank — get big – get
big for me –
“Now concentrate on the red bird.” Dave took out his phone, played the little
dialing tune again, and again listened. This time he didn’t say anything, just
listened, then clicked the phone shut.
— now frank now—
“I’m not Frank, dummy, I’m Schwartz. Can you remember? Schwartz?
David?” It was easier when they just gave them a YES/ NO light. The more
words they developed, the more confusing things became. He lifted the screen
out of the way to look directly in the monkey’s face. “See? Dave. My name is
Dave.”
— dave—hello dave –
“That’s right. Dave. Patricia’s Dave.”
— patricia frank house—dave stupid —
“If I’m stupid, how come you’re the one strapped to the table? With wires
coming out of your ass?” Dave turned his back to the animal and made
scratching noises in the chart. Schwartz kept looking at the clock.
A buzzer sounded. Patricia came in gasping, and shrugged into a white coat
over her scrubs. “Sorry, sorry…”
“Where have you been?”
“What do you mean, ‘where have I been?’ I’ve been at home.”
“No, you weren’t. I called home.”
“I probably didn’t check the machine.”
“How come you didn’t just pick up when I called?”
“I went to the store; maybe that was when you called.”
“What’d you buy?”
"Just things I needed. Jesus. Are you bored, or something? How’s our boy
coming along? Did you change his diaper?”
“Of course I changed the damned diaper.” It was part of Dave’s job description
to change diapers, something Patricia never did.
“Well, pardon me for asking. Jesus.”
Patricia started connecting the monkey’s robotic arms. The monkey could see
his new arms across the room. They felt like part of him now, though it
bothered him that Patricia could turn them on and off.
One of the arms moved. “Damnit, shut that off until he’s hooked up.”
“Don’t be such a bitch.” Schwartz rolled over to slap the safety switch and the
robot arm stopped moving. “I didn’t leave it on.”
“I just wish you’d check it before I started wiring him up.”
“I wish you checked a lot of things.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The outside door buzzed again, and Brandi slouched in behind Leo and Frank
Frank was cheery. “Hey, how’s everybody doin’?”
“We’re fine,” Patricia trilled, and Schwartz glared at Frank like he wanted to
chase him away from the troop.
— frank – frank—frank— The monkey wasn’t sure how to proceed, so he just
repeated himself , hoping one of his targets would jump in and provide him
with an opening.
“Hey Frank, your boyfriend’s calling.”
“Yo, Seventeen, what is your problem, stud?”
Schwartz had his outside jacket on and was jingling his keys. He was
supposed to leave, but he didn’t want to leave Patricia with Frank.
Leo, the big clumsy one, went into his glass box. Leo was something of a
eunuch compared to Schwartz and Frank, but he was somehow of higher
status, even though they made fun of him when he wasn’t there.
The women hunched together and made clicking and scratching noises in the
charts. Brandi had the worst grooming of any except Frank. There were
always little spots of fear on her lab coat, blood and bile from the other
animals. Brandi must be on the bottom; no one groomed her very often.
Frank was not much cleaner than Brandi. There were spatters of fear and urine
on his lab coat, too. Frank wanted to top Patricia, but he settled for Brandi,
lower in order. Schwartz would chase Frank away if he tried to groom
Patricia.
— patricia – patricia – patricia—
“Ohhh-kay, Mr. Seventeen—“ she checked to see that the robot arm was
moving at the monkey’s command. With a thought, he made the pinchers
open and shut and flexed the arms up and down.
— dirty — dirty—
“Are you dirty?” Patricia fingered the monk’s diaper.
—dirty— dirty fat— brandi dirty fat –
They all laughed, all but Brandi.
“Little fucker!” Brandi slapped at the monk and knocked several wires
loose.
“Son of a bitch— Brandi, you bitch…”
“Fuck you, Patricia.”
“You can hook him up again, then, dummy.”
“Fuck you too, Frank.”
“Got your number, Brandi.”
“One of you fuckers did that,” Brandi snarled. “Come on, which one of you
typed that in?”
“Now how are we going to program that? I don’t know shit about
programming that thing.”
“It’s not like it’s difficult,” Schwartz said.
Brandi was desperate and furious. “Someone on second shift did it.” She spun
toward Schwartz. “Is that why you’re hanging around here? To see me
insulted? Humiliated?”
“Whoa whoa, slow down,” Schwartz said. “I didn’t do it. And you better shut
your mouth before you start climbing up my ass.”
“Why are you still here, then?”
“That’s my business why I’m here. Ask Patricia why I’m still here.”
Patricia was blank. “How would I know? Why are you still here?”
“They can’t make things up. It just repeats what he hears us say.”
—brandi bad fat—patricia good—
“This is bullshit!” Brandi screamed. “I don’t have to put up with this shit.
Little fucker.”
Brandi might be pushed into being so angry with the monk she would send
the monk away. She had gotten impatient with the rottweiler and clicked
something when the others weren’t looking; the rottweiler stopped crying and
they took it away— Schwartz was upset, but Patricia thought the rott was a
crackerbilly dog, like the chow and shepherd mixes that were a dime a dozen
around the lab.
The monkey tried to file this in memory. Patricia meant the pound dogs were
crap, dirty, waste to be thrown away like the stuff in his diapers.
“Little bastard.” Brandi flicked water at the monk when Patricia wasn’t
looking. Schwartz was looking, though, and Frank.
— wet—
“You’re wet? We need to change you?”
— no wet – patricia wet—
Frank snorted nastily. “I’ll just bet she is.”
— patricia frank good wet— frank big— frank big patricia good—
Schwartz took the chart he was writing in and swung the edge at Frank’s head
as hard as he could. The chart tore blood from Frank’s scalp, but the chart
wasn’t heavy enough to cause major damage. Frank did fall off his rolling
chair, and Schwartz was on him. Monk would have expected Frank to run off
in submission, but Schwartz wouldn’t let him.
“Jesus Christ!” this was enough to bring Leo out of his glass cubicle, but he
had never established his authority solidly enough for the others to scatter
when he roared. Frank and Schwartz ignored Leo and kept squalling and
kicking.
Things quieted when they were both gone. Leo had to sit with Brandi and
Patricia and help with their measuring and clicking. Leo was always in a
hurry, moving too fast and then swearing when things broke out from under
him.
—patricia. patricia. patricia.—
“Why do you keep saying my name?”
— patricia. brandi bad.—
“Not now.”
— brandi bad patricia. brandi bad. brandi bad patricia.—
“Brandi doesn’t like me? Well you know what?” Patricia whispered to the
monkey. “I don’t like Brandi, either.” Patricia started changing the set up for
the monkey’s robotic arms.
Brandi started to help but Leo rolled in her way. “I can do that quicker.”
“Be my guest,” Brandi said. Brandi was sullen when she thought people didn’t
like her, and she was sullen most of the time.
The LED scrolled: — brandi bad. leo brandi bad.—
“You know what, Leo? If you don’t think I’m competent enough to do my
fricking job, you can just fire me.”
"What are you talking about?”
Leo and Patricia were still bent over the tiny jacks that led to the mechanical
arms.
— leo patricia good. brandi bad. throw away. fat bad brandi. slow fat brandi.
white trash fat.—
“In fact,” Brandi slammed her rolling chair against the drug cart, “you can
just go fuck yourself. I fucking quit.”
“Goddamnit, Brandi!” Leo looked up now. “What the Hell are you doing?”
Brandi didn’t actually leave, but fled into Leo’s glass cubicle as though she
wanted him to come after her.
“What crawled up her ass?” Patricia muttered.
— up her ass.—
“Well, I can’t lose any more people,’ Leo complained. “I’ve already got to
replace two.”
Patricia shrugged. “Though I personally couldn’t care less about her and her
crackerbilly tantrums. Jesus Christ, Leo, when are they going to hire some
decent people around here?”
“The monkey cost more than they make in a year. And you know
management: bend over and smile.”
— crackerbilly bitch.— The monk tested the words. — bend over. smile. bad
fat crap. —
Leo sighed his way into the cubicle with Brandi. They could hear her
complaining and Leo’s occasional low murmur.
—patricia. patricia. patricia.—
“Monk, monk, monk.” She was busy with her wires and not paying much
attention.
— bend patricia over.—
“Did I drop something?” She looked at the floor.
— leo bend over. bend patricia over [NO SIGNAL] up her ass. patricia leo.—
"That’s bad. That’s very bad. Don’t say things like that.”
— leo Patricia leo bad. leo bend over up her ass.—
“You heard Leo talking like that? Nasty old fucker. In his dreams.”
Patricia glanced at the office. Brandi was screaming now and Leo’s tired voice
was trying to slow her down.
— brandi leo. brandi leo. –
“Not even Leo is that desperate. Maybe Frank was that desperate but he
couldn’t get anything else. Brandi Leo, no way. Ew, it grosses me out to even
think about it.”
— brandi patricia bad. brandi leo patricia bad.—
“Oh, now you’re just being silly.”
— bad patricia drug key cart brandi drug key. – brandi drug key.—
“Brandi took a drug key? The key to the drug cart?” Patricia had never thought
about what was available in the drug cart. The stuff they shot into the monkey
was radioactive, and hand delivered by the pharmacy— but Brandi and Frank
liked to joke about the money they could make by tampering with the
inventory.
— brandi drug key.— see the bird.—brandi bird key brandi, brandi leo patricia
bad. patricia bad cart key.—
“Patricia didn’t take the drug key. I don’t do things like that.”
— brandi fat bad.— brandi cart key. – patricia cart key. – patricia bad. patricia
target release go. patricia go away.—
Patricia went into the office with Leo and Brandi. “Exactly what is that bitch
telling you about me?” she yelled. Patricia slapped Brandi.
“What are you talking about?”
Patricia slapped Brandi again. Leo pulled Patricia out of the office. Patricia
backed over the yellow line that read DO NOT STEP OVER THIS LINE
WHEN POWER IS ON.
The monkey flexed the robot arm and snatched at Patricia’s lab coat. She
shrugged out of the coat but fell to the floor. Leo might have cut the
connection then, but instinct made him step toward Patricia. The robot arms
grabbed Leo by the throat and arm with a much more sturdy grip.
Leo barked like the rottweiler as the robot arms were ripping him in two. The
poor rottweiler had gone on for weeks, able only to recite its pain and hope for
rescue. Leo’s yelps only lasted a few seconds.
They could all smell sheared copper and Leo’s excrement. The smell did
something primal to Patricia and Brandi: for one second they locked eyes with
the monkey and recognized one another not as subject and experiment, but as
fellow creatures that shared a dark and bloody plain.
Patricia crawled on all fours towards the monkey and the cutoff switch. She
was screaming at Brandi to cut the power.
Brandi stood in the office doorway. “Hey, I don’t get paid for this shit.”
The robot arms were throwing pieces of Leo at Patricia, hoping some would
hit her. Patricia was vomiting and that was enough to make Brandi vomit too.
—[NO SIGNAL]— There was no clear word for the monkey’s outrage in the
vocabulary of the targeting system.
Patricia was out of his line of sight now and the power to the mechanical
arms was cut. Another waft of Leo’s dead body reached them and he heard
Brandi and Patricia lurch away down the hall.
They left him alone with the beagle and the shepherd mixes that paced in the
kennel. The beagle yawned an anxious whine, but for now the monkey had
driven the tormenters away.
They might blame the robot arms and not the monkey. Patricia and Leo
sometimes scolded the others that the monkey cost more than you make in a
year. If hurting Leo made the monk a crackerbilly dog like the rottweiler, they
would take him away from here. Other animals went away from time to time;
why did the monkey have to stay in the chair?
Patricia and Brandi would come back to hurt him, like scattered birds come
back to scavenge for blood. It was difficult to think past this moment of pain,
but Leo might have said Number Seventeen had effected a change in his
environment with the tools available. He could only watch for whatever
chance they gave him.
END
copyright 2005, Michael Fountain
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