Your Monkey's Shmuck
Flamingo paperback 1990, original paperback

DREKULA - A Tale of The Night.

I ask you, is this justice? Hunted down like an animal, chased from street to street, block to block, shot at on the corner of the 100 Percent Charcoal Grilled Burger Joint, tracked by slavering dogs foaming at the mouth and for what? A little pleasure here and there, some night relief, a little peck at the neck, more harmless than a hypodermic. People die of flu jabs every month. I should be the one they're hunting? Let them go after the big shots - Nixon, Rockefeller, Kissinger - why bother a nebisch like me?

A nebisch, yes, no more, no less. My mother, my teachers, my social workers, all of them told me, flatly: "You are a nebisch. That's the holy truth." Gekrainkte, like a broken down machine. Can't keep your head up. I could see their nostrils quiver too: Smells. For sure, he hasn't used Sure. A razor his face hasn't seen since Hanukkah 1963. And that nervous tic, the way the lips twist, at the side, doesn't open his mouth, what is he hiding in there?

The fact is, its the teeth. The four long pointed ones on either side, two up, two down, to puncture with the neck. In the mirror I brush and admire them, make with the file, brush again. My pride and joy. Teeth, the source of power. My mother noticed my early care in this regard. A dentist, she said, a dentist he'll be yet. Support in my old age. But what do I know from orthodontry? A writer - that's what I wanted to be. Henry Miller, a garret in Paris, upstairs from the whorehouse, screwing by day, masterpieces and bestsellers by night. Or Bashevis Singer, romance and refined humping in the back pews of the shul.

Enough dreaming. They nearly got me now. A fine sight I'd be. spewing out my life on 76th and Broadway. Who would care? A mere drop in the ocean. The truth they'd hush up for sure. The U.J.A., the A.J.C., Bnai Brith, they'd all pull muscle so the papers wouldn't say a word. ("JEWISH BLOODSUCKER SLAIN IN NEW YORK.") That would not do at all. And to be caught and done for on this night of all nights! The blood boils. Nasser should have such luck. Tomorrow at this hour I should be gorged, satiated after my feast of feasts, my Rosh Hashona, Passover and all the rest rolled in one. Last year! The cockles warm! The annual Salute to Israel Parade - down they come, in their thousands, from Flushing, Scarsdale, White Plains, Westchester, Long Island, Jewish virgins! Oi, mama! all those heimische scheindalach with their full bosoms and ripe thighs, unplucked, guarded all year round by zealous parents or by their own zeal to keep that cherry for some hairy chested Zionist thug down on the kibbutz out there... virgina intacta, that's the main point! Imagine it! the Day - June, summer, sky azure, the bands playing, the little schvartse kids, for some reason that escapes me, marching past with blue and white flags singing "Let My People Go", papier mache floats of the Wailing Wall, yingalach with flowers in their hair, the giant collection box from J.N.F., the laughing, relaxed Irish policemen, expecting nothing maybe but some terrorist Arab scurrying to throw a bomb. But me? The world's nebisch? I cut through like butter... How does the Psalmist say? my head, its annointed with oil, my cup it runs over. Joy! Joy! Joy! As at night so many of these nubile innocents will stay to walk the streets of the big bad city and there, there indeed, all mother's direst warnings will come true... On other nights you take what comes. I had a friend, a goy, when I was young, we'd hang around the Brooklyn streets, goggling at the girls. Lean pickings, he'd say, making like a Marlon Brando voice, Lean pickings. That's the way it is for me, mostly. A Jewish virgin in New York City? Do us a favour. Lucky to find an untouched pick up at all, that, even a schvartse, is a mechayeh. Most times I have to make do with second, third, fourth hand goods. The taste? Occchh! Root beer is better. Maybe you feel refreshed a bit for an hour, maybe two, then the pains! On all our enemies. A punishment from the Lord. And I have to stay doubled up in my room through all such torment, silent, not to make a sound, a squeak, as old Miss Dahrendorf stays in all day, all night, her ear against the door and walls, like radar noting every move. A dossier she keeps on every tenant in the block, a regular C.I.A., they'd have her on the Watergate Committee, that schmuck would have long ago been out on his ear. I tell her I'm a nightwatchman in the Bronx, but the old bat doesn't hear so good, she thinks I work with Brinks, no matter, it allows me some odd comings and goings at unusual times. Nosey! they're all nosey, a man can't make a living in this town without they dog his steps and nag him to death.

The dogs, barking again. They've closed off West End Avenue. I shrink along the walls. Maybe I can get to Columbus Avenue, then back to 79th, or, if necessary, the Park. Oi! That's a killer. Scum swarms there. Schvartse, Puerto Rican muggers, junkies, count me out. I'm best at just moving about the streets, melting among the crowd. Mouth firmly shut, of course, due to these ferschlugener teeth. If only they were removable, dentures, in and out at will. Like those ones you can buy in joke shops. Buy Dracula teeth, scare your relatives and friends on yonteff. Gevaldt! They must be swarming all over the neighbourhood, stopping everybody, asking them to open their mouths, shining flashlights down their throats. They'll have seen the prick marks on the neck, the stupid shiksa will have blabbed: Oh officer, it was so terrible, I thought he was a drunk, asking for a dime, then he leapt on me, opening his mouth, oh oh oh. I should have known not to pick a shrieker. How can a body know? Usually once you've sunk the teeth a golden silence ensues. Suck suck suck. The bliss! A pure concerto. Brahms. Beethoven. Caruso. Nijinsky flies across the stage. Hatikva, swelling to a climax. On her face, the calm of acceptance, of that secret knowledge only the true pariah holds... She lies, peaceful on the pavement, fulfilled. I float to my apartment on a dream. Chopin at the keyboard, Einstein solving E is MC , Gary Cooper wins Garbo. Moses, leading the Chosen People to the Promised Land.

In short, its a mechayeh. But this bitch tonight, something went wrong. Its an immunity, some people have it. How can a body know? Screaming, scratching, kicking, puling, and then the sirens - whee whee, whee, whee, and I'm off, Drekulus interruptus, running like a rabid dog, dripping blood at the mouth noch. What a shitten mess.

This city, I should have left it long ago. Who needs it? It grinds you down, into a fine powder, then shits on your remains. And who knows, maybe somewhere else I would be normal! Here, what's normal? Mugging in the streets? Air like a gas chamber? People who spit in your face for a dime? Policemen who hunt you down with dogs? My mind, its made up - I shall leave. Make it to the apartment somehow, rip out the emergency cash in the mattress, get my carcase out of this dump, Salute to Israel or no. Fat chance I'll have now with all tonight's publicity. ("VAMPIRE MUGGER - MAYOR URGES CALM.") The maidalach will be bundled back to mama before sundown, the streets will be more like Williamsburg on Yom Kippur, I might as well turn vegetarian. Yes, the cash stash and off! GO GREYHOUND! West, young man! Space! A new life! A commune maybe, a little fresh poultry... who knows... what else is left now? Get out or lie down and die. How would they put down a Jewish vampire anyway? Thrust a Sefer Torah through the heart? the congregation, wrapped in tallis and tfillin, close in, my mother's weeping face hidden in her palms - how could he do this to me?

Enough, I seem to have broken through the cordon. The stupid dogs arehowling by the Hudson, while I mumble my way through the night's shitkickers, clear across Amsterdam. Who bothers about a hunched up unshaven bum in a torn raincoat, lips pressed tight, mumbling. Eh? The doorman at my block doesn't even look up from the funnies, the TV blurring in front of his unseeing eyes. Police sirens outside, screaming, shouting, shooting even, better to keep the puss in the funnies, oh yah.

At least the elevator's working. A big plus, eighteen floors by foot are no picnic. I fumble with my keys, fingers trembling a little. Shock. Reaction. Memory. I push the door open, it gets tougher each day. That stupid pile of unmoved newspapers. Time Magazines, Fortune, Screw, Morning Freiheits, I should have slung them out long ago...

A movement on the stairs! Am I discovered? A police ambush, after all? An old victim who's tracked me down, stake in hand? My cousin Shmil on some yotsmech call from my mother?

I rush into the corridor. Shit! Its old Miss Dahrendorf, Nosey Schlumper Number One! prying, spying, as usual, how much does the yente know? the bloodstains, gevaldt! the bloodstains on my coat, the shirt, I can see her eyes go pop. God help me! that tongue, like the tower of Babel, she can see me. I open my mouth! She sees it all... Looking at me as if I were a pogromist off the steppes, old ethnic countless yahrzeits - her clawed finger, pointing at my bloody chin, her mouth working with no sound. She shrinks against the wall, away from the leper - Unclean! Unclean! she tingles her bell. Gibbering at me finally, getting out the words: "No! Don't touch me! Keep your hands off me! I won't let you! I never let a man touch me! I never let a man do it to me! Never! Never! Never!"

I'm shrinking away from her gabble, horror struck, when suddenly my brain explodes inside me. My heart goes bang bang bang! my blood races like a racehorse, I feel I've suddenly received a revelation from the Shekhina, no less! Of course! Why hadn't I thought of it before? What a lemech! What a schlemiel! tramping my life away in the snows of Manhattan winters, schvitsing in the oven of the summer, wearing myself down, nose to the grindstone, getting shot at by kill crazy cops, tracked by dogs, and for what? what does age matter? what do looks matter? Its the blood, in the end, Goddamit! Who cares from all those shiksas? those brand X fluids? those long nights of anxiety, pain? While here, in the absolute safety of my own apartment building, under my very schnozzola, can you believe it, all this time, unawares - there's a safe, easy, regular supply, always on tap, absolutely kosher and virginal, the real thing, praise the Lord! With a choking sob of relief I throw myself at it, bearing down on old Miss Dahrendorf's ageing, wrinkled, but oh so beautiful neck!

Well, I'm not surprised it got their gut. If you scratch, people itch. But then all these homilies and mimeographed advice they send you with their rejections! Words must fail:

Prospective writers please note: Stories generally progress by narration. They are about beings the reader can believe in, and they tell the events that make a change in one or some of those beings - growing up, learning, or becoming emotionally involved (HOW MUCH MORE INVOLVED DO YOU WANT, SHITHEADS??!)... We seldom buy the vignette, a snapshot of a static situation. Virtually never do we buy a history lecture where the events are told so objectively that the reader never gets into the story. For all the necessity of putting the reader into a strange and unfamiliar setting, remember: a story moves by action, for all that it needs colorful backgrounds and believable characters acting on believable motives...

"Virtually never do we..." oh dear! do excuse moi! But I have pen and paper and will travel, never mind distracting smells, visions, impositions, diner blah... Another coffee and muffin please Doris - (Whaa whaa! whaa whaa! the police sirens wail on outside)...

...We had barely travelled half a mile through the bush when we found what was obviously clearly his lair... It was an open glade, surrounding a bald hill which rose, about twenty yards off, above the trees and vegetation. He was lying there on his back, a mountain lying on a hill, in a position all too human - one knee raised above the other, hands, paws, or whatever, clasped behind his massive anthropoid head, slightly raising it above the ground.

Then we noticed he was not alone. Both of us, Edwards and I, craned forward, our enmity forgotten for the moment, numbed by disbelief, for our first, shocked impression was confirmed in the moonlight.

It was a girl, a white girl, blonde it seemed, with shoulder length shimmering hair, wearing jeans and a thin white blouse. She sat upon the giant beast's belly, holding in her hands a large white cloth or towel, with which she was wiping down the great ape's dong, his giant penis, cradled in her arms.

Edwards and I just stood there, paralysed, no longer trying to hide, for we both thought our minds had snapped. At least I assumed he thought as I did, for before we could compare notes or make any other move someone spoke up from behind us:
"Drop that gun, gentlemen. I have a rifle pointed at your gizzards. One false move and I fire."

Edwards dropped his gun. We turned. It was another girl, blonde too, with shorter hair, her face round and twinkle eyed, her mouth set in a determined way. The rifle very steady in her hands. And then, to cap the madness, a voice, deep and rumbling, spoke up from our rear now, from the hill which we had faced before, a grumble in the night:
"Vicki - what's up?"

The bass tone rolled across the glade. I looked round, stunned. The beast had risen, sitting up upon the hill. The girl's eyes flicked towards him. Edwards, acting faster than I'd gave him credit for, seized that moment of her hesitation, whipped round, grabbed his rifle off the ground and rushed off into the bush. The girl swivelled, then turned her barrel back on me. "Don't move!" The second girl appeared, like a wraith, holding a rifle too. They motioned me forward, into the glade, toward the massive living boulder blotting out the moon. Ready for any madness now, I looked into his face.

His gaze, as far as I could make out in the light, was keen and piercing, full of intelligence and thought. The lower part of his face was an ape's face pure and simple, larger than life, but his forehead, instead of sloping back, sprang upright, like a human brow, beetling above the flat proboscis. No mere animal brain inside that casing. Proven, as he spoke again:

" I'm truly sorry, sir, that I have put you out." he said, in deep but not unpleasant tones, held down, so as not to thunder out too loudly, giving the general feeling of a volcano softly ticking over. "I do hope you'll accept sincere apologies. My dear companions are most zealous in their guardianship. I assume you and your friend who has skedaddled so, misconstruing our motives, are the staff of this here game reserve."

His accent was a strange melange, which I later came to identify as a mixture of mid-American and Cambridge School English, acquired off self-help records and tapes. Misplaced slang and phrases picked up God knows where peppered his rather solemn discourse, which he proceeded to unfold, like the lecture of an absent minded professor delivered at the wrong place and time. And thus I sat and listened - seated on the girls' rolled sleeping bags, at the great ape's giant feet - five foot they were at least from heel to toe, each toe a foot in length, and a strong reek coming from between. His massive face ten feet above me, and the two girls, lotus seated, rifles cradled in their arms...

The Monkey's Tale:

Tishman enters the Manhattan Restaurant, looking as if he's still carrying around his head the wreathe of Malboro smoke. He sits down opposite me and droops his head and eyelids, which almost seem to sweep the table.
"God, its cold out there."

He orders a coffee and danish. Other sounds break through my field. Clash of plates, cups on tables. Shuffle of feet. Cash register. Human speak. "Magic tricks, I says to this guy, you want magic tricks? the only magic I'm looking for is make a dollar out of thin air. Can you do that? Can you do that? Listen what the man says..."
"Doris...!"
"One Number Three! Two Fours! Hold the fries!"
Whaa whaa! Whaa whaa!
"Who can commit crimes in this weather?"
"Noo Yorkers are resourceful. How's it going?" he asks me. Have I said it? I live on Ben Tishman's generosity. His apartment, his life, his pocket book. Not his girls. That would be too gross. But Tishman does pull them everywhere, in coffee shops, bookshops, public libraries, delis, consciousness raising workshops, art galleries, the subway, Zaybars. Glancing at my notes. "Is this still the King Kong story?"
"It is."
"You're really mad, Danny."
"You are merely conforming to the general view. This I should not expect."
He gestures at my file. "More rejections?"
"The Philistines March On."
"What about the novel? Any straws?"
"Not in the neighborhood of drowning men."

I completed, last year, a real kedgeree. The pulp novel to end all pulps. It is entitled BEYOND THE PLANET OF FUCK. No one will touch it with a bargepole, not even with surgical gloves. Here is a sample response:

Our science fiction reader has now had an opportunity to read your manuscript "BEYOND THE PLANET OF FUCK", and I'm afraid it hasn't received a favourable report. He felt the writing was certainly different and capable of being entertaining but, reading on, the dialogue becomes rather nauseating and he found the descriptive passages vastly over-written and over-described.

Choke, choke, feinschmecker! At least he didn't take the coward's way out:

Dear Mr D. H--,
I am afraid to say that we at Poppet Books publish very little original work, being mainly a reprint house. I suggest you send your manuscript to a hardback house or, better still, find an agent to represent you. You will find a comprehensive list of both hardback publishers and literary agents in THE WRITERS AND ARTISTS YEARBOOK, which should be available from your local library or bookshop.

Agents!!!!!! This cannot go unanswered! A breed that seems to be grown in special manure pots. Sodden with booze, they creep up on you at one of those literary terrace parties I have occasionally crashed, clutching your ankles with a pair of tweezers. "We're not doing much business with satire at the moment. The bottom has fallen out of the market..." As their own tush disintegrates into a puddle of glop on the floor.

" Supply me some good vibes." I beg Tishman. "You floated in on a cloud, earlier."

"I have to meet a man on Long Island," he said, "who might just be the Good Samaritan I've been looking for since the summer. He's one of those true Manhattan lovers who lives just out of reach of the City."

"Is he kin to Ellie?" I ask, presciently. She is Tishman's latest flame. A tiny ballet dancer of true blue stock, currently starting her career in the city. I personally find her a mite spare, but at least she fits in the apartment.

"Possibly," he says, "possibly." As if some future relationship might lie down the line, such as, for example, daughter-father.

"The real strategy," Tishman goes on, "is never to accept the word defeat into your vocabulary. That's the problem with you Danny. If you don't mind me saying so. Sometimes it seems to me you feed off it."

"Well, its what they throw through the bars." ("We have now had the opportunity of considering your work carefully, and have regret?fully come to the conclusion that we are not able to make you an offer of publication. Blah blah blah." Tam ta-ra tam-tam, tam tam.)

"Its a whole change of attitude that's needed." Tishman says earnestly. "Its the same in publishing as in love. But you will make it I'm sure. Or else you would have given up a long time ago."

I do not know what I should have done a long time ago, except leap off the Brooklyn Bridge. But Tishman is right. What am I trying to prove? I write junk, therefore I exist? So what do they want, an arm, a leg? Great spitoons of profundity and self discovery? Does no one really want a laugh in this town? The waitress sashays up with the coffeepot.

" More coffee?"

" You're saving my life, Doris." Tishman says. Giving her his entire attention, as is his wont. "And how're things at home? was it your mother who was having her operation?"

"Oh, she's right as rain now. Bosses me about like you wouldn't believe. They shoulda kept her in another month. Pardon my mouth."

"Its only natural. People expect so much. You're looking real good tonight." Tishman is in perpetual motion. He has the knack of forming one to one relationships anytime, anywhere. The sorry fact is, he loves the human race, their foibles, their failures and successes, their every tit and tattle. I have to confess I sometimes regard them as an alien species, to be studied carefully, for sheer survival. Or perhaps it is just the City, oozing poison through the veins. Though I have tried other climes. I have seen the world and it sucks. In my time I have even participated. God help us. Save the World From Itself! Unzip the cosmic bind! Kill the cops! War Is Dangerous For Children and Other Living Beings! Better Red Than Dead! Free Huey Long! (Goddamn!!! do I remember that?!) Seize Control of Your Life! Abolish - - - - (fill in as required) - - - So what did we expect? Results?! There are people who painted SHIT on the Washington Monument who are now girding their loins to re-elect Jimmy Carter. But I am still out here with my paint pot, with its own mess of colours. I wrote a story last year called "The Globble Village", which I thought reflected something of that zeitgeist, but, like everything else, got regurgitated, from every chewed cud in town. Though I remember it with fondness: it still gives me a chuckle in the night, if not to the unshriven out there:

 

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