10

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.

9

Darlene looks at the hole in her head, body slouched in the seat, dried blood on her face and breasts. "Ugh. Why'd I have to be bent over like that." She puts both hands on the door and leans in. "Makes it look like I have a double chin." Examines her reflection in the driver's side mirror. "Do I always look like this or is it cause I'm dead?" She smiles and her reflection smiles back, lights a cigarette and walks around looking at the burnt rubble, the roofs of cars smashed in, newspaper stands knocked over, the glossy real estate magazines spilling out on the asphalt. She reaches down, picks one up, flips it over. On the back is a genie wearing a purple hat, his six hands raised with magic sparkle swooshes coming out of each palm and in the center a small silvery can that says GENIE GUICE. 

"Hey," she calls over to Monkey who's holding a red GMC Suburban in one hand while digging through the broken asphalt with the other. "HEY!" He looks back. "Do I have magic powers?" He stares blankly so she wiggles her fingers to try and clarify. "You know, magic." He shakes his head. "How bout, what do you call them? Can alive people see me? I'm invisible right?" He shakes his head again. "Guess you're alive and you can see me, though you are a magic monkey." He frowns, says something to himself and continues to dig as Darlene ponders this last point. "Only monkeys can see dead people." He finishes searching and walks over wiping his hands on his pants and scouting the horizon. "Seems pretty arbitrary if you ask me."

"What?"

"That Monkeys can see dead people."

"Who told you that?"

Darlene shrugs, puffs on her cigarette and wanders around crunching the broken glass with her heels. She stops in front of a hedge that was planted to hide the trash bin behind it, extends all ten fingers, squints her eyes and focuses. Monkey walks over, looks at her then to the bush then back to her wiggling fingers. 

"What are you doing?"

"Shhh! I'm gonna set that bush on fire."

"No. You're not." He puts his paw on her hand and lowers it. "You can't do any of those things." 

"Well god damn it. What fun is it being dead if you don't get magic powers?" 

"That's what I've been saying. It's not fun. Being dead is boring and it lasts forever."

She looks back at her body slumped in the car.

"If I go back, is that hole gonna stay in my head?" 

"I don't know," Monkey says impatiently. "But we're in a rush so..." 

"Never gonna live this down," she mutters, her voice lowering, "Hey Darlene, you're so dumb you've literally got a hole in her head." Monkey sighs as the black billowing clouds from a charred cop car wafts over them. They exchange looks. "All right, give me a god damn minute. It's not every day a girl's got to make a decision like this."

"There's no decision! You have to go back to your body."

"How does it work? Do I just touch it or say some words or something? Do I need a running start? Help me out here Monkey. I've never merged with my body before. I mean, I took mushrooms once with Darren when we went on one of his famous," she uses air quotes, "camping trips," lets her fingers hang in the air for emphasis then puts both hands on her hips. "Felt like I merged with something that weekend and it definitely wasn't Darren in the back of his Ranger. Spiritual stuff, or, whatever. You know what I'm talkin' bout." 

Monkey frowns and looks at her cigarette.

"Do you always smoke this much?"

"Damn it Monkey! Do you have to make me come out and say it? I'm nervous." 

"Oh." He scratches his chin. "There is an ancient Buddhist technique that might help. But it requires I do some magic." 

Darlene looks at him suspiciously. 

"Well...I suppose. Long as you don't shrink my head or nothing."

Monkey nods.

"First you have to close your eyes."

She shuts them tightly, takes a drag and exhales.

"Like this?"

"Sure, now count to ten."

"One...two..."

Monkey picks her up, spins her around and tosses her through the window. She instantly merges with her body, falls out of the car and rolls to the ground.

"You son of a..." She lifts herself up and dusts off, checks her face in the mirror. "It didn't go away. Look at this!" she says pointing to the hole, tilts her head so she can see it better. "Maybe I can put some makeup on it." 

Monkey calls his summersault-cloud which swoops down and hovers next to him. 

"C'mon," he says. 

"C'mon where?" 

"We've got to find Pig and Mara." 

"On that thing? No way. I'm not leaving my baby," she says putting her hand on the hood of her car.

"We don't have time to argue about this." Darlene gets in the driver's seat, shuts the door, puts her seatbelt on and grips the wheel tightly with both hands. "Fine," Monkey says. "Have it your way." 

She lets out a shriek as her LeBaron lifts off the ground. Monkey carries it over to his summersault-cloud, leaps on top then shoots off a thousand feet in the air as he scans the horizon with his fiery gaze. Darlene's shrieks turn to hysterical laughter followed by a, "Ho...ly...shit," then clapping then more laughter. Monkey continues to scan as he hears the car door open then see's Darlene's head pop out upside down. 

"Do you think this is good for my suspension? I'm worried you're mangling her with your super monkey strength." 

"It'll be fine."

"You're gripping on the sides, right? Where the jack goes and not on any of the vitals?" Monkey ignores her and continues looking. "Just checking," Darlene says, her head disappearing, the sound of the car door closing then, "Is it ok if I turn on the radio?" Darlene turns the dial passing over the day time preachers and AM talk show hosts. "We get really good reception up here. I've never even heard of some of the stations. 99.4? The river? Oh god. It's smooth jazz." She flips around a little longer then, "Oh wait!" digs around the glove box, pulls out a cassette, winds it a bit with her finger, pushes it in the tape deck and cranks up the volume as Judy Garland's voice echoes over the clouds. 

"Somewhere over the rainbow 
way up high"

She sings along for a while then the car door opens again and Darlene's head pops down. "How bout we just go to Big Pine. We can be there and back before you know it and we'll catch up with them after. I'm sure they're fine. Probably just holed up somewhere." 

"I doubt it," Monkey says, "But, it would be easy to get there without Mara." He thinks for a moment then, "Buckle up." Darlene lets out an "Eeeeeeeeeee!" and clicks her seatbelt as Monkey leaps across the state of Florida. He lands on a long stretch of road, ocean on either side lapping at the massive concrete columns propping up a long stretch of highway running straight through the ocean. Darlene's still screaming as Monkey sets the car down and looks around. She stops, puts her hand on her chest to feel her heart then pulls out a Virginia Slim and takes a long drag as Monkey hops in the passenger seat. She exhales, adjusts the rearview, raises an eyebrow as she revs the engine and peels out. Monkey looks behind them.

"The sign says Big Pine is the other way." 

"I know where Big Pine is, but ol' Darlene's lived in Florida half her life and never seen the sunset in Key West, and we're just a few miles away." Monkey frowns. "Uh oh," Darlene says pinching Monkeys face looking for a cheek but failing to find one. "There's that look again. Relax. Your friends can take care of themselves. Besides, I just want one little peek at this sunset then we can hop in the car and come right back. Thirty minutes tops. I did go out of my way to drive you guys down here you know."

"You didn't drive us. I just leapt over the state." 

"Well, you did get me killed today, so there's that." 

"I brought you back to life!" 

"Yeah, but now I have this hole in my head!" she says pointing to the small bullet hole in her right temple. Monkey slouches in his seat as Darlene taps her fingers on the steering wheel smiling, throws a glance at him and squeezes his leg before stepping on the gas and letting out a little yelp. "We're going to Key West!" 

The sun's still high when they arrive. Darlene runs into a bar, Monkey follows close behind. 

"Do a shot with me!" 

He shakes his head but Darlene is already leaning over the bar holding up two fingers, asking the bartender about his mother and telling him about how her mother died last year in a boating accident and all about the house she grew up in which, "wasn't exactly a house, but more like a cobbled-together shack that floated when the water got too high." Monkey takes his eyes off her and is slapped hard on the back, spins around only to see Darlene pushing a shot in his hand. 

"We're in Key West!" she yells before gulping it down then motions for Monkey to do the same. He does so reluctantly and sets his glass on a nearby table then tugs on her arm. 

"C'mon, let's see the sunset." 

"We just got here. Let's go to the end of the strip and do the walk," she says sticking her elbow out for Monkey to grab. 

They walk down the street as people stop to laugh, take pictures and say things like, "That woman has a pet monkey!" or "Look at that Monkey!" or "Nice Monkey!" Not the most brilliant commentary, but to be fair, it is hard to think of witty things to say when you're drunk at three in the afternoon and you've just seen a woman with a hole in her head walking down the street talking to a four-foot tall monkey in tiger-striped pants. They make it two blocks before Darlene ducks into another bar. This is one is packed and they have to squeeze through a sea of old men in beige. 

Monkey looks behind him and sees, 

24 men on stage 
big white beards 
safari outfits 
beer and guts and smiles 
cheers as one stands
to recite a poem
he wrote 
about fishing 
The crowd is holding paper masks 
with a man's face 
on a stick 
two almond-shaped 
cut-outs 
for eyes 
as they cheer 
and the overhead fan blows 
the vinyl banner
that reads 
Ernest Hemingway Look-a-Like Competition 

Monkey tugs on Darlene's shirt. "Who's Ernest Hemingway?"

"Oh, some fisherman," she says raising her hand to get the bartender's attention. Monkey surveys the crowd as the staff moves some tables around getting ready for the arm wrestling competition. 

"Americans sure love their fishermen." 

He reaches back to tug on her shirt but she's gone, another woman standing in her spot wearing a bright pink tank top, her well-oiled hand waving a twenty-dollar bill. Monkey looks around, but is lost in a sea of beige. He pushes his way out to the street but she's not there either. "Of course," he mutters to himself then walks the rest of the way to the beach by himself. 

"This stupid sun's backlighting me. Is there a filter for suns?" 

A woman in a one-piece with giant red splashy flowers is looking at her phone as her husband hands their kid an ice cream, pays the vendor then screams, "I don't know!" There's a young woman lying on the beach in slumber party pose letting the waves crash over her. She gets up as her boyfriend shows her the picture, shakes her head then runs back to the water. "I want the waves crashing behind me. Also my face looks weird in that one. Can you crouch lower?" she says shielding the sun from her eyes with her hand. He flattens himself against the beach as she gets back into position and smiles. 

Monkey scans further and there are at least a dozen women having their picture taken doing yoga or pretending to hold the sun, or, in one case, both. There's a mother propping their baby next to a pre-made sandcastle, carefully curating a blue bucket here, a red sand scoop there, before running holding her phone yelling, "Don't move! Momma's gonna be right back!" Further out, there are rows and rows of women in beach chairs taking pictures of their legs, holding beers, daiquiris, posting emojis of hotdogs and smiley faces tearfully laughing. One woman, by herself, is carefully making footprints in the sand then trying to walk back and photograph them but the ocean keeps washing over and making them look like smooth divets. It happens a third time and she yells, "Jesus Christ!" before changing plans and flashing a peace sign next to a sailboat. 

"Did you see the pic that Jennifer posted last night?" a woman in a red bikini says walking by. 

"Oh my god. No. Where?" 

She shows her phone to the other woman who immediately starts laughing then, "and you liked it? You're such a bitch." 

"I know," she says tossing her hair. "Where's Chad?" 

Chad is sitting by his cooler playing pool on his phone, looks up long enough to give his girlfriend a wave then switches over to Instagram to make sure he's liked all her photos. The two women walk to the edge of the water, giggle and run away as their toes get wet, wrap their arms around each other as the red bikini lady extends her right arm to get a good shot. She takes five or six just to be sure and is about to walk back to Chad and yell at him for being on his phone when a giant wave crashes over and they're sucked out to sea. Their heads pop back up as another wave crashes and they wash up on the beach, two skeletons, bones picked clean, eyes covered in tiny grains of sand staring up at the sun. 

Monkey peers into the waves and sees, 

A demon with a thousand bloodshot eyes 
covering its body 
shovel-shaped mouth 
and taloned hands 
It moves invisibly in the water 
comes out with the surf 
sinks its claws in unsuspecting shoulders 
and cleans the body  
of muscle and flesh 
it's jaws click in ecstasy
as it writhes 
and removes the bones 
of all 
it's content 

Monkey reaches behind his ear, pulls out his cudgel and leaps into the waves. 

"Look," someone shouts, "that Monkey thinks he's people!" All the cellphones turn toward a wet exasperated monkey splashing in the water as people laugh and click and share. Monkey summersaults through the air and comes down hard on top of the demon, but his cudgel passes right through. As more people turn to stare, another thousand eyes open on its body, all searching, looking for flesh. It leaps out on the beach, it's taloned hands raised, mouth open, as it lets out a gurgled high pitched scream.

Monkey turns to the crowd, jumps up and down cursing them, waves his hands for them to leave, but they only laugh and text their friends who come running with hot dogs, bud light lime's, pool noodles and five-foot margaritas. More phones, more people, more eyes pop open on the demons till there's not a speck of flesh, just eyeballs squeezing together. 

"They can't see it," Monkey thinks as he dodges the talons which sink deep into the sand leaving five gaping holes that fill with water. He pole-vaults over the monster, lands, grabs the end of his cudgel with both hands, swings it over his head, catches an unsuspecting purple tube top on the end and rips it off sending it flying across the beach. The topless woman lets out a yelp and drops her phone in the water, the screen glows blue then the ocean turns it black. Monkey watches as a single eye from the monster disappears. He scans the beach at all the phones then smiles to himself, leaps in the water and is gone.

Deep down on the ocean floor
a mighty jade dragon 
pearlescent scales 
fine wispy beard 
and claws 
shinning in the light 
plays cards with  
an extremely upset looking tortoise 
and an aloof black snake 
small wood table between them 
sunk into a bed of seaweed 
drinks and chips and coasters 
a crab waiter that scurries away 
as the tortoise throws down 
his cards 
and the red and blue and white chips 
float off 
into the dark waves 
of the deep 

The dragon looks over as Monkey bows and hurriedly gets up. 

"I don't mean to disturb you but..." 

"But there's a terrible thousand-eyed demon. Yeah. We know. He's been there for years. Keeps to himself mostly." 

"He's eating people!" 

"Yes, well he can't exactly live off tortoises can he?" The dragon shuffles the cards. The snake yawns. The tortoise looks at Monkey and scowls, folds his arms against his chest. "I wish I could help you," the dragon continues, "but this is all the way up from the Jade Emperor. Nothing I can do about it." The tortoise continues to glare at Monkey. 

"What?" Monkey says returning his stare. 

"Oh you don't remember me?" Monkey shakes his head. "One day you barged into The Dragon Palace of the Eastern Ocean demanding we give you a weapon, and when we gave you that cudgel of yours, you smacked me over the head with it right before you left." Monkey stares blankly. "Not ringing any bells?" 

"Sorry."

"Don't mind him. He's mad I've been beating him in cards all day." 

Monkey turns to the Dragon. 

"I need a giant wave to crash over the beach. Do you think you could do that?" 

"Well, sure I could do it," he says dealing out the cards and picking his up, "but, you know, the Dragon of Wind and Waves is in charge of, well, wind and waves. I think there's a medium-sized one coming in a few hours if that would work." 

"No, I need something big." 

The dragon fans his cards out, rearranges a few. "If you want something out of the ordinary you'll have to go to Heaven and get the proper paperwork. If I make a giant wave The Dragon of Wind and Waves is going to get all pissy and the last thing I need is for him to start sticking his nose down here." 

"He's on vacation," the snake says trying to pick his cards with his tail. 

"That's right. He is on vacation." The dragon thinks for a moment. "You'll have to go to the Dragon of Clouds and Thunder. Not really his department, but he might be able to help you. Why don't you sit down for some cards and..." but before he can finish Monkey has leapt out of the ocean and straight up to the Western Gates of Heaven. 

The snake manages to play his first card flopping down a 2 of clubs with his tail. 

"Well that was rude." 

The dragon throws a queen of spades.

"Oh, you know him. The world's always ending with that one."

Monkey stands in front of the giant brass bars of the heavenly gates. A small guard station is unguarded, a clipboard hangs off the side. Monkey picks it up, flips through the pages of names then turns it over. Someone's scratched the words "Steve was here," into the wood and then underneath that, "No he wasn't". Jupiter is sitting on the edge of the clouds, feet hanging over, smoking. He looks up, sees Monkey hanging the clipboard back up, throws his joint over the side and quickly rolls to his feet. The gate is already ajar as Monkey walks up and Jupiter stands in his way. 

"You're not supposed to be here," he says holding his hand up.

Monkey sniffs him a couple times then looks in his bloodshot eyes. 

"Does the Jade Emperor know you're smoking again?" Jupiter turns red and his eyes widen. "Because from what I remember, he's already told you to stop smoking twice and I think a third time comes with a punishment." 

"You damn Monkey," he scowls. "What do you want?" 

"I need paperwork for a giant wave on a Florida beach later this afternoon." 

"The Dragon of Wind and Waves is on vacation." 

"You'll have to ask the Dragon of Clouds of Thunder." 

"Ah crap." 

"What?" 

"It's just that...he doesn't like me." He bites his lower lip. "You'll have to come with me." 

"I'm not allowed in heaven." 

"I know but, just turn into one of the things you can turn into and I'll sneak you in." 

Monkey pulls a pair of sunglasses from his pouch and puts them on.

"There's no need. These work just fine."

They walk together down a white clouded path, up a hill, past the stables and the peach garden, and the great palace of the Jade Emperor, past Lao Tzu's laboratory, to a squatty office building, a giant jade dragon fountain shoots water from its mouth onto a fish as Jupiter opens the door and Monkey follows him down a maze of hallways till they come to the door that says, "Dragon of Clouds and Thunder" etched on a wooden slate that's hung by a nail. Jupiter raises his eyebrows then pushes it open as they enter a cavernous chamber, seven alabaster pillars split up the room, an enormous dragon is curled around them, and in the middle of the room, a blinking crystal ball. 

"WHAT!" he booms as they enter. "Oh. It's you." He narrows his eyes at Jupiter. "What do you want?" 

"I...uh...have a request from...Monkey...a monkey about...a wave...in Florida." 

"You're bothering me because a monkey wants a wave on a beach in Florida?" There's a long silence as Jupiter struggles to come up with an answer. The dragon finally lets out a sigh and says, "I couldn't even help you if I wanted to, which I don't by the way. Look at my crystal ball!" Monkey and Jupiter look at the ball then back to the dragon. "IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE BLINKING!" the dragon says furiously. "It's been doing this all morning. I put a call down to The Office of Magic and Crystals but they haven't even bothered to get back to me." All three stare at the blinking ball then the dragon's eyes narrow toward Jupiter. "I'll make you a deal, if you go down there and get them to fix my ball, I'll make whatever sized wave wherever you want it." 

Down in The Office of Magic and Crystals, Monkey and Jupiter sit waiting in hard orange plastic chairs pushed against the wall. There's a giant glowing crystal on the far wall with a slot at the bottom that's pushing out a seemingly endless paper strip that's covered the floor and has started to reach the tops of the desks that are currently occupied by two busy dwarves who are hurriedly cutting it up with scissors and putting them into file folders that are then given to other dwarves who are rushing around the office in a near panic. The reams of paper stop and the crystal turns a dark purple. 

"It's out of paper," one dwarf screams as another digs through a stack of cardboard boxes in the corner, finds a new reel, opens up the crystal, which is hinged on the side and fits it inside before slamming it shut. The crystal turns pink then starts spitting out more paper as everyone continues rushing around. 

Exasperated, one dwarf turns to the other and says, "We've got 35,342 requests from the state of California in the last hour!" The other dwarf rolls his eyes. "Julie alone has put in 300 requests since this morning." 

"Broke up with her boyfriend again?" 

He nods. 

"I've got," he picks up one of the strips and flips through the stack, "'Show me my place in the universe.' 'What does it all mean?' 'Why doesn't Brian like me like I like him?' and then one here that just says, 'Pizza'." 

"I've got a 'Pizza' over here too," the dwarf says combing through his desk. 

"You can just take those, 'place in the universe' requests and put them in the shredder." 

"Really?" 

"Yeah, new rule." 

The dwarf on the right looks up at Monkey and Jupiter then back to his papers. "I suppose you two want something of great importance?" Jupiter is staring at his hands so Monkey hops out of his seat and gives a small polite bow. 

"We're here on behalf of the Dragon of Clouds and Thunder. His ball isn't working. He said he called this morning and no one's gotten back to him." 

"Oh. That." The dwarf closes a folder and hands it off then leans back in his chair. "I would love to get right on that, but as you can see, we have our hands full. We told him to turn it off and on again. Did he try that?" 

"I don't know." 

"You don't know," he leans forward, sighs, opens a big leather book and runs his finger down a long list of dates. "Friday would work. How's Friday?"

"What can we do to...speed things up. I'm kind of in a hurry." 

The dwarf looks around and laughs. 

"Well, if these requests stopped coming I guess we could get all caught up, but..."

In an instant Monkey is plunging towards the earth. He drops into downtown Los Angeles, see's five different crystal shops, leaps into one and finds a man with dreadlocks sitting on the floor in front of an elaborate amethyst display, aligned in intersecting circles and triangles. 

"Welcome to High Spirit Rock Company," he says smiling, putting his hands together. "We're having a special today on..." 

Monkey whips his cudgel out, smashes all the crystals on the floor, in the display case, around the man's neck, on his wrists and in his pockets then leaps a thousand feet in the air and looks down with his fiery gaze. He plummets to the street, pushes down a chubby man in an "I am the Universe" shirt as he hops on the head of a woman in a white flowy linen dress ripping the crystals off their necks as he crashes through the window of an apartment complex disrupting an Ayahuasca ceremony led by a Shapibo Joe and His Mystical Guitar of a Thousand Voices, crushing their crystal altar and Shapibo Joe's Mystical Guitar, as he leaps through the wall and is gone.

A woman and her friend sit cross-legged in her bedroom a large chunk of golden onyx between them, Alex Gray poster on the wall as they burn sage and chant and pray, hands clasped together, eyes closed. They hear a strange sound and open their eyes, shocked to see the crushed onyx before them. 

"Look!" the friend says, "It's saying, 'your old life is crumbling. Leave it behind to embrace something new.' You should take that job in Arizona!" 

The woman looks unsure. 

"But what if the crystal IS the job?" 

Monkey leaps back to heaven, back to The Office of Crystals, a bit out of breath. The dwarves are wide-eyed looking at their giant crystal. 

"Well, I don't know what you did, but you managed to stop about 85% of incoming requests." 

The other dwarf turns to Monkey. "If you went to Taos I think we could knock out that other 15% pretty quick."

"No," the head dwarf says. "We don't want to put ourselves out of business." 

"What business? Are you getting paid for this?" 

"Don't start with that again. This is Heaven. What do you need that you don't already have?" 

"How about two weeks of vacation and a crystal that doesn't run out of paper?" 

"Excuse me," Monkey interjects, "but can you go look at that ball now?" 

"We'll talk about this later," the head dwarf says reaching down and picking up a tool bag "Now, let's go see this crystal ball everyone cares so much about." 

Back in the office of The Dragon of Clouds and Thunder the dwarf looks at the ball blinking on and off. He puts his tiny palm on top of it, hits it a couple times, reaches down toward the base and feels around before finding a white cord which he follows down to an electrical outlet. He pulls the plug, waits 10 seconds then plugs it back in. The ball turns red and starts blinking then is a solid red then eventually softens and turns blue. 

"Great. You're all set." 

"So what was wrong with it?" the Dragon asks. 

"I don't know what was wrong with it, but it's working now. All you had to do was plug it back in." 

"I did that," the dragon says, "but it didn't work for me." 

"Did you wait ten seconds after you unplugged it?" 

The dragon pauses.

"Yes." 

The dwarf shakes his head as the Dragon waves his tiny hands over the ball and mutters some magic words. 

"Is that it?" Monkey asks.

"That's it," the Dragon says. "But next time..." 

But before he can finish Monkey is falling back to earth, back to the beach where The Thousand Eyed Demon is waiting. He readies his cudgel but the demon doesn't respond. His arms are folded across his chest and all of his eyes look irritated.

"Oh, so now you're back and I suppose you think we can just start fighting again?" Monkey cocks his head and looks confused. "I've been sitting here ten minutes. TEN MINUTES. I mean, we were doing our thing, battling in the water, with your fancy stick, and then you just leave?" He puts his claws on what should be his hips. "Frankly, it's embarrassing. For you." He points to Monkey. "I've fought plenty of people and no one's left in the middle, so it's not my problem." Scans the crowd of beachgoers not wanting to make eye contact. "I'm a god damn professional. Even when I'm not feeling it, I'll at least be courteous enough to finish. But you? Not even a word. Not even a, 'Hey, I'll be right back. I gotta see Princess Iron Fan.' Not even a thought about how it'd make me feel." All of his thousand eyes blink as he folds his arms tightly across what would be his chest, "It never occurred to you, did it? I'm just another demon. Another notch in your belt. Yeah, I eat people, but I also get my feelings hurt like anyone else."

Monkey looks puzzled. "You don't want to fight me?"

"I mean, I WANTED to fight you. I was in the mood about ten minutes ago, but now, it feels so...forced." 

"Maybe if I start attacking you, you might get into it again." 

"Maybe, but now we're talking about it and it just feels weird." 

Off in the distance, a giant wave grows. Monkey see's it and leaps into the ocean. The Thousand Eyed Demon takes a deep breath, turns and readies himself only to see Monkey's gone again.

"Oh my god, are you fucking kidding me?" He throws his taloned hands in the air. "I am going to the..." but before he can finish a shadow eclipses the beach. It's almost sunset. All of the tourists are taking off their sunglasses, readying their cameras, pointing their phones at the sun. The Thousand Eyed Demon turns to see a massive wave, Monkey on top, gold banded cudgel in hand, riding his Summersault-cloud like a surfboard, the sun blotted out as it looms over the entire beach then crashes, a thousand watery hands strip the cell phones and swimsuits of every beachgoer pulling them back out to sea.

The demon peels himself up as Monkey stands triumphantly in front of him smiling.

"What was that supposed to do?" He brushes himself off. "What, so you got sand in my eyes. Big deal." 

The beachgoers start to get up, naked, slightly chilly, A few dive behind beach umbrellas or flip over lounge chairs. Others jump into the water. Some just laugh and start running around. Without their phones, the monster's eye start to pop, 500 down to 200 then 100 till he is just one giant beachball sized eyeball. Monkey walks over and picks him up, looks behind him and sees Darlene running toward him, a trophy in one arm and a six-pack of beer in the other. He waves but she doesn't respond.

"You're not too late for the sunset," he says admiring the trophy with two golden arms on top, "Did you win?" 

"Screw the sunset," Darlene says knocking the beach ball out of his hands. "What're you out here playing with toys? We got some real problems here!" 

Monkey looks behind her and sees The Ernests falling out of the bar, angry, red-faced, a mass of beige with arms waving, carrying fishing poles and beer mugs and copies of A Farewell to Arms. Darlene yanks Monkey along as they high tail it to the car, hop in and speed off, Darlene laughing as she takes out a fortune-teller stand, tarot cards scatter in the wind, as the psychic dives out of the way and the two speed off down the road to Big Pine.