Darlene looks over the top of her sunglasses to make sure she heard him right, her cigarette dangling as Monkey fidgets with a bottle cap bending it back and forth till it splits in half. She rolls her Virginia Slim to the other side of her mouth. "So..." Her eyebrows disappear behind her sunglasses as the wrinkles spread across her forehead. "Wouldn't it have been easier to just take everyone's phones in the first place?"

"Yes, but coming in on a wave looked cooler."

"Oh lord." She reaches in the backseat and cracks a beer without taking her eyes off the road." You're just like my second husband Francis. Hated to be called that though that was his name." She takes a drink then tilts it toward Monkey who shakes his head. "Frank. Always Frank. I only called him Francis when I was mad at him or when I wanted to fuck with him which...was frequently." She stops to ponder this as she takes another drink. "Anyway, don't know how I started talking bout him." She looks over to Monkey. "You thought about what you're going to say to him?"

He shakes his head.

"That man has THE biggest chip on his shoulder. Felt like the world owed him...well, the world." She takes a drag. "You know we were together. Him and me. Stole my god damn dog. Best worst time of my life. Caught him sleeping with half the girls at the restaurant. God knows how many customers. But, he had this way about him. I know how that sounds. Like I'm some abused woman or something. It wasn't like that. It was like...he was above it all. He'd do something so terrible. I saw him..." She shudders. "I don't even want to tell you the things I saw. Then afterward, he'd just look at me with those eyes..."

"And you'd forgive him?"

"Hell no! I'd punch him in his god damn face. We'd wrestle around. Start drinkin' THEN I'd forgive him."

Monkey shifts in his seat so he's facing her. "He was in the dining hall in heaven the day I, you know, destroyed it." He looks down at the bottle cap and pushes the two pieces together. "Because of me, he knocked a punch bowl off the table and smashed it. The Jade Emperor thought he did it on purpose and banished him to earth as a demon. He lived in the desert like that for hundreds of years before we met again."

"Dang. Over a punch bowl? The Jade Emperor sounds like a DICK." Darlene shakes her head. "And the way you talk about Heaven..." She finishes the beer, crushes the can and sticks it in a plastic Walmart sack in her console. "Here in the US of A, we have our own ideas and it's nothing like that. You know, wings and harps and shit and a giant palace where everybody's happy all the time. The gates are right. We have gates. But it's supposed to be more like...paradise."

Monkey looks up at the sky, the long thin clouds creeping along.

"Yeah, it's not like that at all." He looks in the backseat at the case of beer and the golden arms on top of a red sparkly tower that twists down to a wood base with a small brass plaque. "I never asked what happened back there."

Darlene raises an eyebrow, flicks her cigarette and takes a long drag. "Lots of ways to get an arm-wrestling trophy. Some like to arm wrestle. Never cared for it myself."

They pass a sign that reads 'Big Pine 5 Miles' and before long the town emerges, a restaurant here, a gas station there.

"Hey look!" Darlene says pointing. "The liquor store!"

She pulls into the drive-thru and starts tapping the steering wheel with her fingers. The white dodge pickup moves ahead and they're in front of a plastic contraption, a man's face bent over looking through the box.

"What'd you want?"

Darlene stretches as far as she can without actually getting out of the car.

"We're looking for that guy that tried to crawl through this...thing." He shakes his head and points to the intercom button which she pushes and yells into the small black box, "WE. ARE. LOOKING. FOR. FLORIDA. MAN."

The guy leans in. "You mean Crack Head Dave? Works down at the junkyard. Locals call him that on account that he smokes crack." He raises a finger and wags it at both of them. "You see that son of a bitch you tell him to stay the hell away from this place. Just got this new unit installed." He puts his hand on the box. "Whaddya think?"

"Oh, it's nice," Darlene sits back in her seat. "Where's the junkyard?" He points his finger and Monkey and Darlene traces the line to a mountain of cars a few blocks away looming over an industrial parkway. She gives a little wave then speeds off, takes a hard right and barrels down a side street till they arrive at a fenced-in lot.

A red backed man
wet t-shirt around his neck
scrambles up a mountain of used tires
two Cubans argue over the price of scrap
as another drinks out of a milk jug
A crane lifts the body of a crashed light blue Civic
drops it in the crusher
the sound of metal on metal
and glass shattering
fills the air
as Monkey and Darlene
enter the yard

There's a trailer out front operating as a front office, door shut, blinds pulled down. A small white Chevy splashes through a lake sized puddle, the word "YARD" scrawled in messy black sharpie over the doors and hood and trunk. They watch as a man gets out with a crowbar, bashes the windows then scrounges around picking up the trash. Shoves it in with his bare hands then signals to a guy in the crane, who swings it over, picks it up and sails it over to three men with torches who start cutting out various parts before it's dropped in the crusher and turned into a misshapen cube.

"Can I help you?" a man cracks open the door trying to preserve the little cool air that the window unit bungeed to the trailer can muster.

"We're looking for Crack Head Dave," Darlene says walking towards him and stopping at the small set of stairs made out of milk crates. The door opens a little wider but it's dark inside and all she can see is his eyes.

"Nobody calls him Crack Head Dave 'cept his crack head friends. You crack head friends of his?"

"Just friends," Monkey says stepping forward.

The man looks him up and down.

"Jesus H. Christ, son! They should put your wrinkly face on every drug poster 'cross this country just to show the kids what'll happen if they go messing around with that shit." He squints at Darlene then points. "He's over there. Not in a particularly good mood today so don't go pissing him off. Hard to get a decent day's work outta him. On account of the crack."

Darlene smiles.

"Got a light?"

"NO SMOKING IN THE YARD!" and he slams the door.

She raises an eyebrow.

"Guess it's true what they say 'bout southern gentleman and their silver tongues. Real charmer that one."

They walk towards a pile of cars half smashed and stacked. The ground is patchy with grass and oil stains and bits of rearview mirror, a few purply green puddles shimmer as they walk past the crane and the men with torches. There's a little shack made out of corrugated metal with no door and a golden retriever, half an ear gone, panting in it's shadow. Further out they see a dark blue Ford Escape with the hood up, a man's body halfway inside. He stops working as he hears them come up from behind. Gets real still. Monkey pulls his cudgel out and waves his hand telling Darlene to get back.

"Sand," Monkey calls out gripping it tightly.

He doesn't move.

Monkey looks back nervously at Darlene.

"Sand!" he calls out again.

Sweat drips down his back, runs the ravine of his shoulders then is wiped away. He sets a pair of pliers next to the front left headlight as his hands disappear back in the engine.

Monkey hears a heavy sigh as he turns to face them.

Grizzled red beard
and bald head
eyes sunk behind a pair of sunglasses
shirtless
with a brightly colored plastic skull necklace
dangling
the skulls laughing
in yellow, red and green
ripped jean shorts
and the remnants of shoes
a blue glowing pulse in his chest
hands holding a Valucraft alternator
that he throws in the dirt
looks at Monkey and smiles
then goes back to digging
in the Ford

Sand picks up the pliers and starts in on something then stops, his back turned.

"Thought I'd be happy to see you. Knew you'd track me down eventually." He pulls some plastic piece out and throws it behind him. "You come to fight?" Monkey doesn't answer. "I pawned my staff a long time ago." He throws another piece on the ground then pulls himself out of the hood and turns around. "Besides, I couldn't much beat up..." He looks over to Darlene. "Oh, hi Darlene." Takes the shirt that's hanging in the window and wipes his face and chest. "I doubt I could take Darlene here much less the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. Never stood much of a chance against you anyway." He slams the hood. "So you came all this way. Now what?"

"Where's the monk?" Monkey says eyes still searching for any sign of the staff.

"The monk. And here I thought you came all this way for..." He scratches his beard. "No, 'how ya doing'. No, 'what happened to you?' No, 'what can I do to help?' Just, 'where's the monk?' Suppose I don't blame you. We never were friends. Not really." He looks behind Monkey. "Surprised Pig didn't make it down. He hiding somewhere? Hey Pig," he calls out to no answer. "Thought you were trying to get the gang back together. Knew you'd never be satisfied with...what was that heavenly appointment? Fighting monk? Like that was going to satisfy you." He picks up the pliers. Turns them over in his hand.

"When they were handing out our 'rewards' I said to myself, 'that monkey's going to enjoy himself for about five minutes before he gets bored and starts getting everybody riled up again." He points the pliers at him then sets them back on the car. "Have a real knack for that. Making it seem so...important, like the whole universe depends on whether we succeed or fail." He leans against the car folding his arms against his chest. "Hate to break it to you, but...we failed. We failed and we failed and we failed and the universe is still here. You do good and no one cares. You do one bad thing, and...well..." Sand's face has a slight spasm of anger.

"You're a good man." Monkey says. "No one blames you for what happened."

"No one blames me." A smile curls across his lips. "Hmm. That's one of those things people say and the second it comes out of their mouth, they know how stupid it sounds. I know how stupid it sounds. Hell, even Darlene knows, don't you Darlene?"

Darlene bites her lip and looks at Monkey.

"No one blames you. I ate an entire family. Did I ever tell you that Darlene? They were crossing the desert for...god knows why. Guess I never asked. Funny thing is they could've crossed a thousand different ways and not run into me, but, for whatever reason, they did. And I ate them. Ate their kids. Ate the father and mother. I ate them alive. Felt bad about it for a long time, but now, it's just a story I tell. I don't feel anything about it anymore." He looks at his grease-covered hands. "Didn't want to, but, The Jade Emperor in all his wisdom saw fit to send me back here, and..."

He smiles, puts both hands in his pockets. "You didn't know me then," he says to Monkey. "That's too bad. Don't think there's anyone left alive that knew me like I was. I lived my life. I lived it like I was supposed to. It felt right, like the things I did mattered, like they added up to this great unfolding mystery that was playing out. But then you came to heaven, drunk out of your mind and started trashing the place." He stretches his long lanky body, cracks his neck. "I have to admit. I was impressed. A little monkey challenging all of heaven. And for what? Because you were bored." He laughs to himself. "I was watching you and for one second I let my attention get away from me and I knocked that bowl off the table and......" He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, "and after that, everything in my life went slightly off track, like there was this one thing that wasn't supposed to happen, but since it did, every little thing after that was the tiniest bit off, and pretty soon, it was like I was living someone else's life and that great unfolding mystery...didn't seem so great anymore. Now it was like some unsolvable blackness that spread out and touched everything around me.

It was like it was laughing at me. Does that make sense? Not in any grand cosmic way. I'm not talking about a swirling galaxy of stars. I'm talking about this car right here," his hand smacks the headlight, "or that stack of tires. This puddle. Like they're laughing. You can't hear it at first, but that's just because you never took the time to listen, and once you do, you hear it. You hear it in the clouds and in that trailer and in that puzzled look on your face. Laughing. At the ridiculousness. Of me."

He shrugs it off, walks over to Darlene and Monkey's eyes blaze with fire as he readies himself. "Don't worry. Just want to bum a cigarette from Ol' Darlene." He stops in front of her. "Hey Sugar. Sorry bout all this. I really am. You don't deserve this and I didn't deserve you." She doesn't move. Just stares in his face as he digs in her purse and pulls out a pack. "Virginia Slims. That's what I like about you Darlene. Some things are all over the place, but others..." He lights one and puts them back in her purse.

"You know," he says pointing. "I thought I was lost in that desert forever, but then this Monkey comes along and frees me and I follow him on some godforsaken quest, just like you're doing now. Fifteen years. On the road. Fighting demons. Getting in and out of trouble. And then we make it. We survive and we get our reward. What was it they gave me? Made me a Golden-bodied Arhat so I could go back to heaven and spend the rest of eternity serving the man that sent me to hell."

He stops pacing and looks up, feels the sweat drip down his forehead. "Look at that thing up there. Burning like a god damn fireball in the sky. Unrelenting. Doesn't care about us. Just going to go on burning till it can't. Suppose even the sun gets tired. Tired of doing the one thing it was commanded to do." He takes his sunglasses off so he can see it with is own his eyes, two pools of black, no pupils, staring into the sun.

"I'm tired. I'm tired of THIS" he says motioning to the junkyard. "And this," he says looking down at his cigarette. "I'm tired of craving. I'm tired of wanting. I'm tired of being tired." He takes a drag and blows it out in a cloud that hangs in the Florida air. "I don't want to be here anymore. Can't say it any simpler than that. I don't. I've tried to do something about that. Believe me. I tried. But I have this damn heart," he says touching the blue light in his chest. "Lao Tzu did this," he says tracing with his fingers. "Thought he was helping me." He walks over to the car, places one hand on the hood and holds it there.

"I'm sorry Darlene. I'm sorry you met me when you did. I wasn't very good to you. I wasn't very good, but," he feels his palm burn. "I just don't want to be here anymore. I don't. I shouldn't be here. I lived my life. I lived it. I did it right, once. And then I'm expected to just do it again? Live it all again? Pretend like I haven't done this?" He lifts his hand and looks at the fiery red skin. "You get tired after that. Of trying to make it work. And then what do you do? Dedicate yourself to serving the people around you, knowing there's no reward? That nothing you do can save them from the hell that awaits when they die?"

He throws the cigarette and it sizzles in the brown water. "There's no helping some people. You give them what you think they need and they just fail and fail and fail and...I'm tired of failing. I'm tired. I don't want to be here anymore Monkey. Do you hear me?" He walks over towering over him, looking down. "Can you help me with that?"

Monkey shakes his head.

"No. I didn't think so. I didn't think you could do it."

He walks back and pops the trunk of the blue Ford and starts rummaging around.

"If Pig were here I could've talked him into it. He would've done it for nothing. But you. You were always so stubborn. You still think this world makes sense and that you're going to fix it. But look around. Look at these people. Confused, weak, ignorant of everything around them. But, you know what? I don't blame them. I don't blame them for not understanding. I mean, who can make sense of this? Once you've seen it for yourself. The stupidity of how the whole thing's put together, well, there's nowhere left to hide after that."

He steps out from behind the car holding his Demon-Quelling-Staff, the crescent-shaped blade shinning in the sun. Where the colored jewels had been, now only scratches and pry marks, the leather banded handle dried and cracked.

"So I guess I'm a liar too," he says gripping it with both hands and pointing it at Monkey. "Guess I'm a lot of things I never thought I'd be. I like you Monkey. I do. I respect your power, and deep down, I know I can't kill you. Hell, I probably can't even land a blow when it comes to it, but..." he readies the staff in his hands. "I can kill her. Nothing personal Sugar. You know how I feel about you," he says as a smile breaks over his face and his eyes well up a bit.

Monkey opens his mouth to respond but it's too late. Sand is sprinting aiming for her head. Monkey leaps, hand outstretched and smashes into him as they summersault across the yard sending the cars flying. Sand swings his staff and the crescent blade comes down around Monkey's neck, the two tips cutting into the dirt. Monkey slips under his legs and kicks him in the back. He sails across the yard into the mountain of tires. Monkey charges forward, stops and grips his cudgel tightly, scans the pile of tires. Nothing.

"Sand," he calls out.

The mosquitoes swarm as the water inside The Goodyears, Bridgestone's and Michelin's slosh and settle. Monkey waits, crouched in his stance feeling the dry patches of grass beneath his feet. A tire falls from the top of the pyramid, bounces in front of him then rolls in a circle and stops. His eyes look down as Sand leaps from the pile, Demon-Quelling-Staff in hand. Monkey raises his fist. Sand, smiling, shifts his body as Monkey's outstretched paw plunges into his chest.

Darlene frantically gets up, takes a few steps forward then stops. Monkey has fallen on top of him and she watches as Sand whispers something in his ear. She turns away, hears the scream, silence, then the small padding of Monkey's footsteps as he walks over holding the beating translucent heart, a soft blue light pulsing inside. She looks past him to the body, small against the backdrop of cars, then to Monkey, then down to the heart, which she takes in her hands. Monkey puts his paw on her shoulder and she recoils.

"Don't you fucking touch me!"

He backs away as she slouches in the yard, her body silently heaving. The last few drops roll down her cheeks, hang on the tip of her chin then fall to the beating heart in her lap.

"I loved that man. I loved him. I knew who he was. What he was. The things he did. I loved him knowing that." She looks up at Monkey. "And you know what? He's right. I've seen where I'm going. It's no better or worse than where I am now. Just last's forever. And that's the real hell." She looks down at the heart which has turned a soft translucent pink. "I should've died. You should've let me die. Now I know. I know where I'm going. I've seen it. How can I go back to..." She stops herself. Stands. Hands the heart to Monkey. "I've had enough of this. I'm not like you. Either of you. I'm a human being god damn it." She touches the hole in her right temple. "I don't know what I am." She starts walking to the car. "Just leave me alone."

Monkey follows but Darlene pushes him back.

"You know people come to Florida to hide from the rest of the world, but where do you go to hide from Florida?" She walks back to the car. "The Keys. That's where. Already here so might as well get to it."

She digs around the backseat and pulls out a beer, cracks it open and takes a long drink. The door of the trailer opens and the manager sticks his head out.

"You can't drink here!"

"FUCK YOU!" Darlene shouts.

She reaches back and throws the can at the door which quickly closes as it smacks off the vinyl siding and lands on the milk crates below. She hops in the car, starts it up and peels out disappearing down the industrial parkway.

Monkey watches her go then walks back to the body. His red beard has turned grey, the gaping hole in his chest the blackest black he's ever seen. No gooey insides. No guts. Just absence. He sticks his hand inside and watches it disappear. He pulls it back out and watches as a soft shimmery purply green swirls around his wrinkled fingers then disappears. He crouches over the body and reaches his whole arm in feeling for the bottom, puts his head inside to look around, then his shoulders, his waist and legs and feet and pretty soon he is surrounded by a thick dark that pushes against him, the light disappearing into the tiniest star twinkling above as he sinks deeper into the blackness.

Monkey looks around but there is nothing to see. He sits in it, feels his mind churn and race. Thoughts come flooding. He sees Darlene slumped in her car. The blood pouring out of her head. He sees Pig looking back in terror. The lifeless body of the girl. The sunflower dress. Her arms hanging limp. Mara's face. Her small hands holding her sword. Then Pig and Mara trapped somewhere calling for help. Crushed under a great weight. Then the abandoned house. Fire blazing in the living room. Their faces wet with blood. He sees himself. His own bloody face. Chewing on a leg. See's her face smashed in with his cudgel. Her eyes pleading. Looking. As his cudgel comes down. Over and over.

He closes his eyes but there's no difference. There's nothing to escape to. He runs but there's nowhere to go. Feels his joints and muscles move and work and the movement keeps him occupied, makes the images disappear, but pretty soon, he tires, has to stop and the images return. The eyes. Staring at him. Unblinking. He sees himself drunkenly smashing the heavenly dining room. And Sand, dressed in splendid jade armor. The punch bowl shattered on the floor. And the eyes. In the shattered glass. Watching.

He takes a deep breath and exhales. Lets it out. Feels his chest shrink. Feels the heat on the edges of his upper lip and in his nostrils. Takes another breath and watches the images flash. People call for help, but he can't help. Mara screams. He sees her face and thinks, "That's not Mara." See's Pig loafing around leaning on his rake and says, "That's not Pig." See's himself trapped under a mountain. Tearing apart a tiger. Burning a demon's cave. High up on his summersault-cloud overlooking the world. Back at the waterfall. The Handsome Monkey King. Drinking and laughing. His reflection in the water pouring down. "That's not me," he says.

He feels himself lifting, looks up, but there's only darkness. He thrashes around to find the speck of light above him, but can't figure out which way is up, whether he's turned around a dozen times or not at all. The once enveloping softness turns hard and heavy. He stops moving, grows still, reaches in his pouch and pulls out his phone, turns the flashlight on and looks around. The beam extends to nowhere in a perfect cone of light. He turns it off and looks at the blue screen, pushes a few buttons and a video plays. He floats in the darkness watching a dog ride a skateboard. The video ends and another plays then another. The eyes disappear. Pig and Mara disappear. His mind locks on the screen and he lets out a deep sigh as he sinks further into the abyss.