Hose Monkey Read Free Page B

slipped on his thick woolen socks. Then he slid his skinny chicken legs—that’s what Frank called them—into his thermal long johns. Next came his favorite piece of clothing on earth, his kelly green Mayday Fuel Oil, Inc. t-shirt. Though Cain liked the logo of a white tanker truck encircled by a life preserver on the front of the shirt, it was the back of the cotton tee that he loved best. He held it up before him:
    KING KONG
HOSE MONKEY
     
    He was smarter than a lot of people he had met in the homes. He could read. Sometimes he didn’t understand all the words, but he could say them. Once he’d shown the shirt to his parents. It made his father sad and his mom had gotten all angry about the hose monkey. He tried to explain that they weren’t making fun of him, that ‘hose monkey’ was what oilmen called a guy who rode shotgun on the truck and pulled hoses. They called you that whether you were retarded or not. He never showed them the shirt again. Cain pulled on the shirt and admired himself in the mirror.
    There was a knock on the door. The imposing figure of the home aide everyone called Mr. French filled the doorway. Cain didn’t much like Mr. French. The feeling was more than mutual. Their disdain for one another was immediate, but had deepened recently after Cain made a joke at Mr. French’s expense in front of a cute occupational therapist.
    “Do all people from Haiti hate other people like you do?” Cain had asked.
    It hadn’t helped that the therapist had laughed at Cain’s pun on hate and Haiti.
    French had a reputation for getting rough with the residents. He hadn’t hit Cain, not yet, anyway, but he was riding him pretty hard lately, pushing him, trying to get him in trouble. Cain had told Joe Serpe about Mr. French. Joe, one of Frank’s drivers, had once been a cop, though he didn’t like other people to know that. Joe had promised to come down and have a talk with the health aide if he got tough with Cain, and Cain had told Mr. French as much.
    “Man, it stink in ‘ere.” Mr. French held his nose. “You ‘ave two minutes to get to breakfast, ‘ose monkey,” he snickered. “‘ose monkey, indeed. The monkey is much smarter, no?”
    Cain could feel himself getting worked up. He didn’t need the mirror to see his face was burning red.
    French stuck out his chin at Cain. “Come on, boy, you would like to ‘it me? Your cop friend won’t be able to ‘elp you, monkey boy.”
    The back of Cain’s left hand slashed across the rich black skin of Mr. French’s cheek.
    Bob Healy rolled over in bed. Eyes still closed, he reached instinctively across the bed for Mary. He’d dreamed about her. They were at Plumb Beach, alone at the shoreline in the semi-darkness, lazy planes gliding overhead toward JFK. He cradled her freckled face in his sandpapery palms, her green eyes sparkling as they had when Bob saw her that first time at the CYO dance at St. Marks.
    She sighed as she always sighed when he first slid inside her. Just the sound of her, that soft sigh, the very thought of it could drive him to distraction. Even now, after thirty years together, he got hard imagining Mary’s sigh. He had been no saint, straying every few years only to be disappointed at the results, always returning to Mary’s side. Sometimes he lay paralyzed in bed in the dark and silence, wondering if Mary knew of his dalliances. If she did, she never let on. He was lucky to have her.
    His arm fell across vacant air. Mary was gone. The sheet was cold where his wife had once slept. The best part of Bob Healy’s day had come and gone in the span of a few breaths. The time between semi-consciousness and the realization that Mary was dead were the only pain-free seconds of his life. It had been six months now since he and the kids had buried her, but he hadn’t adjusted to the loss. He wondered if he ever would. Some weeks were better than others. Days would go by without a misstep and then he’d dream of her or smell