Ape Walk

by Nick Ostdick

1

At night we do the ape walk. We have been for some time, since Dylan got back from State a few months after graduation. Before we do it, we always sit in a circle on old milk crates behind our shared apartment. Sometimes there is a bon fire too, and we get drunk and high while crickets chirp and tiny birds swoop like cursive letters in and out of the fire. It’s hard to find the right amount of nerve to do what we do on our own, and the beer helps. And the pot. And more beer and more pot. It makes us feel invincible.

But Dylan is acting strange tonight. Like he is not invincible. He keeps asking us what we think about death. He wonders aloud what it feels like, if it is at all like sleeping, and if dying is really that bad or is something that has been trumped up over time. He then asks us if we have ever done acid. We say no. He asks us if we have ever snorted anything or boiled down cough syrup into liquid crack. Jed asks Dylan what’s with all the questions and Dylan says his once insatiable appetite for pot has soured and that he wants something more. Jed pulls a joint from his pocket and lights it and tells Dylan to relax and take a drag and he does and Jed says that marijuana looks to suit him just fine.

You monkeys ready yet? Jake asks, walking over to us in full costume except for his mask. His slaps each of us in the arm. Time to hit it, he says. We listen and quickly pull on our suits and zip them up. Dylan, however, does not. He just sits there looking sad. Jed hands Dylan the joint again and tells him to loosen up, but this time Dylan cringes and knocks it into the dirt.

What’s the matter with you? Jed says. This ain’t your average-Joe stuff. This is the good shit. Got it from my old man. Jed reaches out and punches Dylan in the arm, and Dylan jumps up and shoves Jed back.

Duuude, Jake says, standing between them, as if to say: would everyone please just calm down. Then Dylan says that all we ever do is smoke dope, that it makes him sick, and that ape walking is stupid. This is serious. We all stand silent, stunned by his words. He staggers to the street where his truck is parked and tells us not to follow him, but we do anyway. We all wonder what’s going on, why tonight things aren’t as raucous as they usually seem: why four drunk apes walking dead-on into traffic feels like it has lost something.

2

This morning Dylan got a letter and I think that’s what the problem is. I found it on the bathroom floor and read it while he was passed out in the tub. It was from a woman named Jean who has beautiful penmanship, her H’s especially. She is sick. She is dying of something horrible. She is only 48, and the wife of the Dean at State. The letter said that she loves Dylan and that he has the most beautiful head of hair she has ever seen and that she misses him terribly and hopes he will come visit her soon. At the end of the letter, she said she was sorry that he was expelled and she wishes there was something she could do. She said she thinks he is very smart. She signed it Genie.

3

Jake manages to calm Dylan and we’re walking along Third Avenue toward downtown; he’s convinced him to come along tonight after all, to give it one more chance. We’re all in costume, drinking 40s and throwing rocks like always at old cars that sit in people’s front lawns. Dylan has never thrown rocks, but tonight he is, and making up for lost time. He broke the windshield of a dead Ford sitting on a curb a little while ago, and put both headlights out on an old Pontiac in an alleyway between two houses. I feel like I should tell the other two about that letter so they understand why Dylan is acting so weird tonight, but for some reason I don’t. I don’t think it will matter much.

4

Remember the first time you got high? Jed asks. Do you guys remember that? He’s sucking deeply on a joint, rolling it between his slimy fingers. It was like heaven, wasn’t it? A grassy heaven.

I remember, Jake says. Seventh grade, I think. My old man had this old potato sack full of weed in our basement. It smelled awful but sure went down smooth.

We’re sitting on the sidewalk downtown under this giant clock on the corner of a building. It’s midnight. The streets are empty. We’re alone and thoroughly drunk and getting higher than I can ever remember.

Remember your first time Dylan? Jed asks.

No I don’t, Dylan says.

I do, Jake says exuberantly. I remember it. It was right after you got back from State.

Yeah, yeah, Jed says, shadowing Jake. I remember it too. It was the same night as our first ape walk. Dylan looks at me and shakes his head, eyes wide, even through his mask, almost like he is hoping I will contest the other two, but I don’t; I’m pretty sure they’re right.

Said you wanted to do something crazy, Jake says. Something fucked.

You mean I came up with this? Dylan asks.

Yeah, Jed says. We were livin’ in my old man’s basement, remember? You were rootin’ around down there and found that old ape mask and said we should be get dressed up like some kind of animal and do somethin’ wild.

I don’t remember that, Dylan says small-voiced. He sighs a little. His shoulders slump like he is ashamed. You sure it was me? he asks.

Yes sir, Jed says. Said this would make us famous, like bandits in the old west or something.

Coughed like a pussy, Jake says, still talking about the first time Dylan smoked.

Dylan then takes off his mask and stares at us. He looks old, much older than we do. He looks as serious as I have ever seen him, his lips dry and flat like a long desert. He asks us to take off our masks too so we can all see each other. Jake says no, and of course so does Jed, and I don’t say anything, but Dylan knows that my silence is me siding with the others. He stares at us like he is going to say something, something important, then doesn’t. He asks us if this is what we want to do with the rest of our lives. He tells us life is short and that we should be doing something instead of drinking and smoking and acting like idiots. Jake begins to lift his mask off and so do I when Jed spots a pair of headlights off in the distance. They are quite a few stoplights down. He whoops and hollers.

It’s a pick up! Jed says. I can tell! It’s a pick up!

Let’s do it, Jake replies, leaving his mask on. He asks me what I think and say ‘hell yeah’ and quickly drop my hands to my sides. He walks over to Dylan, takes his mask from him, and slides it back down over this head and holds it there.

Once an ape, always an ape, he says. No way to shake that. The three of us run down the street toward the nearing lights. Dylan begs us to call this one off. He runs after us. We don’t listen. We wait for the truck.

5

There is an old man walking his dog across the street in front of us. He walks slowly like it hurts him to move. Dylan stares at the dog, which is some kind of poodle. He says that maybe he would like to have a dog someday, and that maybe for the rest of his life all he’ll do is take care of it. He’ll feed it and take it for walks and find it a bitch and watch them do it. He says he’ll name it Chester. He asks us what we think and I tell him it’s a fine idea. He then says that dogs smell or run away or eventually die, and says maybe he’ll get a lizard instead.

A green pick-up rolls slowly to a stop at the light. We stand on the corner behind some bushes in a single-file line. We lock arms with the ape in front of us, Jake in front, Dylan next, Jed, and me at the end. I can see the driver inside the truck, fat with a scraggly, red beard, smoking a cigar. I feel tense. I think, for some reason, we all do, our hands cold and nonexistent like ghost hands. Jake looks up at the stoplight, calculating how long we have until it turns green. He shouts: Apes! Walk!

And we do, all of us in a row until we are in front of truck blocking its path. We walk spastically, like drunken apes, the apes we are, our steps sloppy. We hum loudly. The light turns green and the driver leans on his horn and blows smoke from his mouth like mad. We spit and swear, and most of all, we do not move; we stand in the headlights of the truck like protesters. Then we separate, two apes in front of the truck and two apes in back, making like we are jacking-off and flinging shit as realistically as possible.

Get the fuck out of the road! the driver yells. He is very angry. He rolls down his window and swears at us some more. We give him the finger. He then pulls a glass bottle from inside the truck and throws at us and it hits Dylan in the head, and I watch as the top of his mask turns a dark shade of red. He holds the top of his head and moans, and Jake goes over to check on him, making ape sounds and mock-grooming him. He pushes him some, playfully. He pulls on his arm to try and get him back in the game. Dylan resists. Jed and I continue to irritate the driver by banging on the hood of his truck.

Then we hear a smack. We look over and see Jake on the ground. He is holding his jaw and Dylan is lying on top of him, holding him down. They swipe at each other, kicking and flailing. We rush over and break it up, pulling them to their feet and keeping them apart. Jake then breaks free from Jed and Dylan shoves me to the ground and the two lunge at each other. The driver, with no ape standing in his way, floors it. Tires squeal. Jake grabs Dylan by the shoulders and pushes him backwards while the truck speeds forward. Then we hear a thud. A small thud, an accidental thud.

6

Dylan lies in front of the pick-up face down on the concrete. His arms and legs are bent and crooked. The driver’s windshield is cracked, and as he cranes his neck out and sees Dylan he quickly backs up and guns it down a side street and his taillights rapidly fade. The stars are out now and so is the moon, and there is blood around Dylan’s head and he looks like he is just sleeping.

7

After a while, no one has said a word. Jake is white and shaking. He keeps trying to light a cigarette but his trembling hand blows out the flame. Jed has throws up every time he looks at Dylan. He runs for the bushes holding his stomach but he never makes it and ends up puking in the middle of the street. I don’t do anything, like always, like all of us. We don’t do anything. Jake finally breaks the silence, saying he thinks he can hear Dylan breathing.

Can’t you guys hear him breathing? he asks. His voice is jam-packed with desperation. Nobody answers that question, and I think about that letter from Jean and how perfectly drawn her H’s are and if death is really any different than this. Maybe this is death, the three of us, and Dylan is now actually alive somewhere and happy. I hope somehow that’s true.

Soon one us of says we should just leave him here. Soon somebody else says that’s probably not too bad of an idea. After a while, one of us says we should leave our ape suits here too, as some kind of memorial or something. We pull off our costumes and leave them in a circle around Dylan. We stand over him in our underwear and hum our little hum. After that, it’s quiet for a long time before one of us says we shouldn’t ape walk anymore, and somebody else says that’s probably a good idea, and I say I agree.

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Nick Ostdick is a fiction writer from Chicago. He edits RAGAD, a broadside and online magazine of new writing. His writings have appeared widely in such places as Word Riot, Slow Trains, Pindeldyboz, VerbSap, and elsewhere. Visit him online at www.inthenickoftime.wordpress.com