Lord Short Shoe Wants the Monkey

There's a Jazz Club in Barbados that night people end up in after hours. They come in hot from the streets, fight their way to the bar for an ice-cold Banks beer and take it easy taking it all in. Tonight, there's a big deal going down. Lord Short Shoe wants the monkey. He says he's willing to pay.

Because the tropical night is sensuous and kinetic and full of potential, no one wants to go home when the reggae stops at Alexandra's or the Paradise Club, when the last dreadlocked Rastaman digs the last juicy note out of his bass guitar. They hunger for something more, thinking that they'll be stealing from themselves if they don't get it, that in a place like Bridgetown, there's something going on somewhere and it won't be right unless they're in on it, too.

So they come in from the streets any time after midnight, a damp ocean breeze gently coaxing them through the wrought-iron gate that leads up the stairs to the second story of this run-down Victorian relic, its pink gingerbread crumbling with termites.

They push through the crowd at the door, into an atmosphere of latent sex and laughing words and jazz, past the drunks and the heroes, past the worldclass drifters and the lean sailors, the silent dealers, the civil servants and the deadly men with politics in their heads, the sunburned tourists and the beautiful Bajan women, who flare their dark eyes as white men rub past them and say, "Here now, watch youself, boy. You think you cahn handle a brown-skin gy-url?"

At the bar, customers wait several minutes for a bottle of Banks to be snapped down in front of them by the lanky bartender, who's got on sunglasses and an undersized T-shirt with the logo Survival Tour '79. It's not like the rum shops on the side streets and alleys: There's paint on the walls, people generally mind their own business and the clientele seem safely cosmopolitan.

The jazz is sweet enough to keep a dying man alive until the set is over. Sitting in at a table next to the musicians, there's a stunning black woman singing a soft scat that explores the melody just below the acoustical level of the instruments. The lady is Melandra Goodnight, backup vocal for the calypsonian from Antigua, Lord Short Shoe. The group performed earlier tonight at the cricket stadium. Melandra's still dressed in the white sequined gown she wears onstage, a piece of sartorial luminescence in front of the spotlights, string straps supporting melon breasts that spark like the flashbulbs of paparazzi, the skirt slit on both sides to the top of her hipbones. What a picture Melandra presents onstage when she spreads out her glowing black legs and the front and back flaps of her gown swing down between them like a long, elegant loincloth, her hips marking the frantic beat while she grips the microphone with both hands and sings, sings with every inch of her body. Women respond to her with admiration and awe and envy. The sight of Melandra cripples men with lust.

Eyes closed in concentration, her head bobbing, she's floating in the jazz. A Scandinavian tourist, on his fist trip to the New World, stares at her freely, wondering if he should move closer, be bold enough to sit at her table, buy her another Coca-Cola, which she seems to be drinking. At (continued on page 134)Lord Short Shoe(continued from page 116) least, she has one hand wrapped around a half-empty bottle of it, the long, redtipped fingers encircling the glass. The inevitable image rises in his brain and he can't get rid of it, can't stop imagining that hand on him, so he turns away to watch the musicians.

There are seven of them, seven old black men, five parked on wooden chairs arranged in a semicircle in the shadowy corner, the sixth on the side caressing the keys of an ancient upright, the seventh dusting the traps on the opposite side, behind Melandra, all of them unmindful of the audience, unmindful of the years and years on the road spreading the Gospel of jazz to houses that loved the message but not always the messengers. They have come here, like everybody else, to take it easy, to do what they want. And there's no way you can put your finger on what they're doing. One ear hears a tangle of roots, the other a hedge of flowering hibiscus and Melandra's voice dipping from bloom to bloom like a hummingbird.

The Scandinavian tourist stands there taking it all in, drinking two or three more Banks. More and more, his attention returns to Melandra. He begins to throb; it starts in his heart and works its way down. His hand shakes somewhat as he lights a cigarette. She's moaning now, following the saxophone up into the hills, into the bush. The air is suddenly wet and dripping and all the tourist smells is her sex. A monkey screams nearby. Something somewhere is howling. My God! People turn to look at the Scandinavian. He reels down the length of the bar to get outside on the balcony.

•

On the narrow balcony that hangs over Front Street, Harter and Short Shoe are squeezed around a tiny café table, several bottles of Guinness between them, the white man passive and serious, the black man passive and serious, trying to come to terms. The monkey is there, too, behaving itself, eating coco plums and a wedge of papaya. Both men look up briefly at the guy who comes staggering out from inside the club, knocking into chairs, his eyes glassy, his crisp chinos stretched by a terrific hard-on. A coke-head, thinks Harter. He looks back at Short Shoe, who nods with insincere pity.

"Dere's anuddah white mahn come too close to Melandra," Short Shoe says. Harter, irritated by the calypso singer's sly, mocking tone, sights and flicks his cigarette down into the empty street.

"What's wrong, bruddah?" Short Shoe says. "You cahnt take a joke?"

Harter insists he doesn't want to sell the monkey, say he loves it but talks like he has a price, even though his one proposition so far was said in jest; at least that's what Short Shoe figured, and Short Shoe wants the monkey, wants it to put in his act to promote his recent hit, Dis Country Need a Monkey:

We need a monkey

To govern dis country

Take any monkey

From any monkey tree

Give him a big car

Ahnd a pretty secretaree

Den dis little monkey

Make a big monkey

Outta we.

There are four more verses, each progressively broadening the insult against the island's prime minister. When the record aired on Radio Antilles last month, the fellows at Government House in Antigua sat down to discuss the pros and cons of grabbing Short Shoe and giving him a lesson in lyric writing. He got the word that the big shots were visibly unhappy with him, knew it was only temporary but decided it was time to take the band out to the islands, work down the chain of Trinidad and then maybe a couple of dates in Georgetown before taking the show north to Brooklyn and Toronto. He was airborne in a yellow Liat Avro even before the bookings were confirmed. The performances they've done already have been sellouts, sneak-ins, crowd crazy. The record shops in each place can't keep the 45 stocked.

But Short Shoe knows that something is missing in the repertoire. He has a fondness for props and gimmicks and drama, anything that will make him stand out and contribute to his growing legend. Wearing shoes with the toes cut out of them was a decision of this nature. They symbolized, he said, his boyhood and his background, his ties with the people. When his momma couldn't afford anything but trouble, her son inherited charity shoes from the Bosom of Love First Baptist Church. No size seemed to fit him, so he chopped off the toes of the pair that appealed to him--dusty black wing tips--with his machete. He wore them for eight years. Now he wears Adidas with his meaty toes sticking out the front. He will not tolerate any humor about big feet. The shoes, he says, are a symbol, not a joke.

Melandra joined the group with the debut of Coffee Grinder. During the chorus, Short Shoe would leap up against her and grind away at her from behind With the song Leggo Tourist Lady, he become more ambitious. On the beach, he found a plump white girl down vacationing from the States. Prepared to pay, in one way or another, for her services, he was still not at all surprised when she immediately agreed to accommodate him in any way she could. He waited for carnival and the calypso-king competition. He waited until the end of the set to do the song. As he began the second verse, she pranced out onstage from the wings and took his arm, put her pink cheek against his chest. "Leggo lady," he sang and shook her off. She persisted, hugging him around the waist. "Leggo tourist lady," he sang breath-lessly and danced away from her. She fell to her knees and crawled after him, wrapping her arms around his shins, trying to pull him down. "Leggo tourist leggo." The crowd on the parade grounds took up the chant. The percussionists banged down into it, unleashing total bacchanal, a frenzied, drunken spree. Short Shoe sank lower and lower onto the white girl until almost on top of her. Then the horns blasted back into the beat and Melandra, undaunted Melandra, pulled Short Shoe up by his ear and kicked him in the ass. He finished the song in triumph.

The King.

He realizes that he has a reputation to uphold, that he must give the people all he can, and in return, they will love him and allow him the wealth they themselves will never have. There's a vision he's had since he first picked out the notes of the monkey tune on the old Buck Owens guitar, red-white-and-blue-paneled, he keeps next to his bed. He sees himself as he knows his fans must see him under the lights: clean and big and randy, his beard the right stroke of revolution, a savior in extra-snug white bell bottoms or, at least, a prophet, the voice of his people, a bull, a rogue angel, a star.

He sees himself onstage. The shrill brass salutes Melandra's entrance with the monkey. They dress the little fucker in an executive-blue shirt jac and schoolboy shorts. The word BOSS is screened on the back of the monkey's shirt in red letters. Melandra straps a toy holster and pistol around the primate's waist. The monkey dances around in a circle, does back flips, pretends to shoot at the crowd with the gun. At end of the song, the monkey hops onto Short Shoe, climbs him like a tree and, balancing on top of (continued on page 140)Lord Short Shoe(continued from page 134) Short Shoe's wooly head, pulls down its tiny shorts and moons the audience. Glorious. This is what Short Shoe pictures in his mind, but so far he hasn't been able to re-create it for the world.

The first time they tried to use a monkey was in St. Kitts. The monkey bolted offstage as soon as Melandra let go of it, never to be seen again. In Montserrat, Short Shoe made his next attempt, asking around if anybody had a domesticated monkey for anybody had a domesticated monkey for sale. Nobody had one on hand, but as soon as the news spread that Short Shoe wanted a monkey, every ragged kid on the island went up into the mountains to find him one. Out of the many brought down from the bush, he chose the one that seemed the calmest. He purchased a light chain at the hardware store; some ganja-soothed Rastafarian in a leather shop took a day making the monkey a little collar. The calypsonian introduced the monkey into the act three nights later. Short Shoe clipped his end of the leash around his wrist so his hands would be unencumbered while he danced and sang. When Melandra tried to put clothes on the monkey, the monkey sprang onto Short Shoe's thigh, viciously biting him over and over. The music stopped, the band members rushed to help. The monkey drew blood from all of them before they could unfasten the leash from Short Shoe's wrist. But the dream still lives for Short Shoe. It is a good idea, and good ideas make money. He knows he can make it work if he can only find the right monkey. As always, the knowledge that he must give the people what they want drives him onward.

Indeed, before he even reached Barbados two days ago, the word had been passed through the grapevine that Short Shoe was looking for a grapevine that Short Shoe was looking for a monkey. Anybody who gave any thought to the problem arrived at the same solution: Hahtah got himself a good monkey. And that's what they told Short Shoe when he landed.

"So what about it?" Harter says. "You like this jazz stuff?"

"Yeah, nice," Short Shoe answers quickly, peering around as though his attention should be elsewhere. He's tired of bullshitting, which is a very new feeling for him, but all he can think about is getting the monkey. They've gone through five rounds of Guinness and gotten nowhere. Harter has been tonelessly monologing diesel engines and Hollywood. The monkey looks bored, rolling a papaya seed under its hairy forefinger around the wet tabletop. Short Shoe decides it's good strategy to call for a bottle of gold rum.

Nobody knows much about Harter, but everybody claims to know him, and everybody has a different version of who the slim, aloof, blond American living in quiet luxury out on Bathsheba Beach is and what he's doing on the island. He's going to build a hotel; he's filming feature-length pornography; he runs a safe house for Bolivian smugglers; he's a retired pirate; he's involved in some baroque deal with the government, a casino or a banking scam; he's a Hollywood star who decided to chuck it all; he's CIA investigating that Cuban plane somebody blew out of the air a while ago. Nobody knows, but everybody's sure it's something big, because in his quietness, in his stylish solitude, in his tense but confident movements, Harter appears to be a man of importance.

The waiter brings the bottle of gold rum, two clean glasses, a small bucket of melting ice. Short Shoe pours a full load for both of them. As politely as a boy scout, the monkey reaches into the bucket, fishes around and takes one small piece of ice to suck. He watches Harter expectantly, letting out little chirps every once in a while, birdlike and questioning.

"My monkey here has a lot of talent," Harter says assertively. "You couldn't ask for a better monkey."

For lack of much else to do, Harter has been training the monkey for the past six months. Somebody out at Bathsheba shot its mother for a stew, found the terrified baby clinging to a dead teat underneath her protective arms. Harter heard about it and, on impulse, went to see the hunter. The mother's skin, pink and fly-covered, was stretched and nailed to dry on the door of the man's shanty. Not knowing exactly what to do with the baby, the hunter placed it inside one of the many empty oil drums in his dirt yard for safekeeping until the proper time came for him to study the situation. Harter stared down into the darkness and saw the honey-sheened, cat-sized ball of baby monkey hiding its face, trembling in the absurd immensity of the drum. He paid 50 cents for the three-month-old vervet. He named it Frank. They had had some good times together.

"Dese monkey too much like politician," Short Shoe says, now readily suspicious of both breeds. "How I know dis monkey trustable?"

"Because I said he is, pal." Harter is trying to work himself up to the deal.

"Take it easy, mahn." Short Shoe explains what it is he wants the monkey to do in the act. Harter, another State Express stuck in his mouth, stands up and slaps the surface of the table.

"Come here, Frank," he says. The monkey scurries out of its chair onto the table, stops erect in the center of it at the point Harter has indicated. Like a gymnastics coach, Harter works through a dry run of a back flip with the monkey, picking it up and turning it in the air and setting it back down. He does the routine three times, finally rewarding Frank with a coco plum from a canvas bag next to his chair.

"OK, Frank," Harter says, taking a step back from the table. He snaps his fingers and the monkey executes a precise back flip, landing in a half crouch right in place, the bottle and glasses undisturbed. "Again," Harter commands, snapping his fingers. Frank does it again. Harter takes another step away from the table. "To me, Frank, to me," Harter says. The monkey back flips off the table, onto Harter's shoulder, and is given a coco plum. Frank squeezes the fruit as if it were a lump of clay.

"Hey!" yells Short Shoe, jumping up from the table. "Hey!" he yells to nobody in particular. "You see daht? My God, mahn, dis a smaht monkey. I must have dis fella."

"Sit down and let's talk about it," Harter says. The three of them, black, white and monkey, take their former seats. Harter doesn't want to sell the monkey, but he does have something else in mind, something that lodged there like a wild bullet the first night Short Shoe brought the band to the island and Harter went to catch the show. There's an urge gnawing away at him, growing out of control. He makes his proposition, the same one he joked about before.

"Holy Christ," Short Shoe says, with-drawing, but he's already puzzling over the diplomacy he will have to use to make it happen.

The success of their negotiation can be measured by the bottle. Two thirds full and they're both still insisting the other wants too much. At the halfway mark, Harter is assuring himself that Short Shoe will come across and the calypsonian realizes he will, after all, leave the place with the monkey. The details just have to be fleshed out. With only a shot left for each of them in the bottle, the deal is struck, and they toast each other. Short Shoe will take the monkey on tour for six weeks and then return it to Barbados. Harter will take (continued on page 214)Lord Short Shoe(continued from page 140) Melandra for a night. The monkey has fallen asleep, curled up on the seat of its chair.

•

Short Shoe wanders back into the bar, the monkey clinging to his side, and sits down next to Melandra. Her hair has become less sculptured in the humid air, the silver eye shadow blotchy and creased, her lip gloss flat. She is dying to get back to her room at the Holiday Inn, slip off her dress and high heels, take a shower and collapse into bed.

"Let's go, Shorty," she says. "I am tired."

"Rushin', rushin', ahlways rushin'," Short Shoe says. "Gy-url, I believe you mus' be Communist." She won't even smile; instead, she cuts her eyes at him. "Look here," he continues. "I get de monkey."

"I see it."

His mood changes abruptly. Melandra's enthusiasm, he thinks, should match his own. Leaning over the table, he strokes the monkey and looks straight at the woman with what he hopes is the right amount of regret.

"Darlin', I get meself in a terrible jam wit' dis white fella," he says with great seriousness. "Be nice to him ahnd he say he forget de whole thing."

Melandra's eyes narrow as if she's taking aim on Short Shoe. She feels on the edge of a temper but pushes it back. Her voice is her pride and her living; to let anger race through it would be like dropping a cooking pepper into hibiscus honey.

"How you mean, Shorty?" she asks, her silky voice just the slightest bit strained. "'Be nice'?"

The monkey fidgets in his big hands as he pets it harder. Short Shoe knows he was lucky to find such an exceptional monkey, luckier still not to pay cash. The woman is not going to ice such a sweet deal, even if Short Shoe has to hold her down himself.

"Doan play de fool wit' me, womahn," he says, shaking a finger in her face. She looks at it, a mongoose watching a snake. Then she sighs wearily and turns away.

"Do ahs I say."

"No."

"He want more dahn just a night, ya know. I tell him no. I thinkin' in your best in-trest."

"No."

Short Shoe's voice rises an octave. "How you mean, 'no'?" He shouts and smacks the table loudly with his palm. "I tellin' you yes. You forgettin' a lot ah things, darlin'. How many womahn in de world want to sing wit' Short Shoe? Ahnswer me daht." Short Shoe is proud of the fact that he always takes an international view of his affairs.

"Shorty, doan do dis to me."

There is such a look of disappointment on her face that Short Shoe is momentarily confused--actually on the brink of catastrophe, because he is never unsure of himself. But the people in the bar begin to applaud the jazz musicians, who have just finished their set. Short Shoe multiplies the applause thousands and thousands of the applause thousands and thousands of times and throws it all down on himself, letting it swell his chest with glorification. His is the voice of the people; he must give them what they want.

"Go now, I tellin' you," he orders her. "Go!"

She smooths her hair back over her ears and then fans herself with a paper napkin. Melandra realizes that whatever magic Short Shoe performs onstage, however great he truly is in front of an audience, he can still be a clod at the dinner table, a half-literate fisherman, She likes him enough so that working with him isn't a hardship; she is grateful that it was her he chose to sing with him, because that changed her life in a way she never believed could really happen. But Short Shoe is like most men she has ever met--selfish and single-minded. Men were all just schoolboys in uniforms, diddling with their little peckers.

She pictures herself out in the country-side at her momma's house back in Antigua. She and Momma are in the kitchen, talking about all the troubles and woe "men does give dem." Melandra opens the cupboard and takes out the tin can Momma keeps full with hibiscus honey. She takes it out to the garden, to the pepper bush, covered with the small green cooking peppers that must be taken out of a stew before they burst and make the food too hot to eat. "One cookin' peppah, two cook-in' peppah, tree cookin' peppah"--into the honey. She takes the can back inside and puts it on the kerosene stove. "Momma, I goin' to boil dis up ahnd give it to de next mahn try to make a fool of me."

Momma looks at her and shakes her head sadly. "Gy-url, you does be boilin' ahll you life den."

"Ahll right, Shorty," she says in a deadly voice. "But dis monkey goin' come bahck to haunt you, ya know." She sneers, sucks her teeth in disgust and walks away. On the way out to the balcony, she brushes up against Shake Keane, the trumpet player, and whispers in his ear, "Bruddah mahn, check me out in a while, hmm? I goin' outside fah some action."

"Yeah, baby," Shake says. "What's up?"

"Show time," Melandra answers wickedly.

There's been too much rum. Harter really doesn't know what he's doing, but he knows there's more than just a rum spell on him: that he has a powerful yearning for a black woman; that he heard their skin is always, permanently, as hot as the Tunisian desert, and it sends a fever running right through you; that some white men can't stand the heat, their blood pressure or something can't take it, but for those who can, heaven is a step closer. And he knows that Melandra is one of the most majestic women he has ever seen and that these moments with her might knock him out of the drift he's been in for the past year.

Harter watches Melandra approach his table. She stays in focus and everything else gets blurred. His head hangs loosely, but his eyes are geared up and he watches her, watches her perfect hips dance through the mostly empty chairs and tables, the long, graceful, dark arms shining, her huge chestnut eyes, her thin nose that suggests some East Indian blood, lips as full as pillows, straight, shoulder-length hair that he recalls puffed up in a big Afro on Short Shoe's last album cover. She has taken a pink hibiscus flower from one of the tables and placed it behind her left ear. Harter can feel his pulse struggling up through the alcohol.

"Please sit down," he says in what he thinks of as his Hollywood voice. Charming and jaded. "You are beautiful. Absolutely."

"You such a polite mahn," Melandra answers coyly. Harter hears the staged quality in her voice, but he's too far gone to infer anything from it. "Shorty say you lookin' fah me. True?" She pulls a chair next to his and sits down, crossing her legs so that the skirt of her dress falls away, exposing one leg fully up to her hip, the other almost so, and the elastic fringe of a black G string. Harter tries to keep his attention from this area, knowing that he must produce some facsimile of romance and sensitivity if this is all going to work right.

Melandra's surprised that he's as handsome as he is, and as drunk. She expected some pasty bastard, dressed like an off-duty cop, a good decade older than Harter, sober enough to still enjoy the nasty little routines that men buy women for. She thinks maybe she might be interested in Harter under different circumstances. His eyes aren't totally cold, as she imagined, but green and cautious and lonely. Maybe she can talk him out of this foolishness, let him buy her dinner tomorrow night. Short Shoe can keep his monkey and she can go home to bed.

Harter unfreezes, reaches over and grabs her arm, not painfully but hard enough to annoy her. Her first instinct is to slap him. She stops herself--it's too easy; it might well do more damage to her than put anybody in his place. Harter and Short Shoe would shrug it off, absolved, and she did not want that; she did not want to defer to stalemate or forgiveness. Not this time. Not against a monkey. It's clear that the only way out of it is her way.

"I--love--you." Harter says, as though he has searched long and hard for each word.

"Is daht right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, love mus' have its way," she says, throwing her arms around his neck, tugging him forward, smothering his mouth with hers, her tongue driving, she hopes, far enough down his throat to choke him. Harter's bewildered resistance lasts about two seconds. He never knew he had it in him, that any man had it in him, but he feels as if he's about to swoon. Melandra is running her fingers through his hair, raking his scalp mercilessly with her sharp fingernails. His lips are being pulped by her forceful kisses. His eyes are closed and feel like they are never going to open again, as though there's some electrical glue being pumped into him. It all feels so natural, so deep, so meant to be. He's lost in what he believes is the sudden inevitability of their passion, lost to the world, sailing on some mythological ghost ship with the queen of Africa. He slips a hand under the top of her dress and clutches one of her breasts. It is hot. Her nipple feels like a pencil eraser.

Melandra's hand glides from Harter's shoulder to the top of his shirt. She pops all of the buttons in one aggressive rip, peeling his shirt back so she can rub and knead his bare chest. A groan hums in the back of Harter's throat. There's some thought, some urgent data, trying to form in his head, but he can't make them clear. "Baby," he gasps, but then his mouth is locked up again by Melandra's. Her hand crabs its way down his tan stomach. Before it registers with him, his belt is unbuckled, his fly unzipped. Her hand snakes into his linen pants and grabs him. The vague feeling he's been trying to define spears through the darkness like a spotlight. "Not here!" he shrieks to himself. The light dims, the power fails. This is Harter's last coherent thought of the evening.

Melandra cocks her head slightly, steals a look out of the corner of her eye at the faces gathering around her. They affect her the same as any audience does: A part of her performs for them, a part of her sits back and observes it all ambivalently. She's as good an actress as she is a singer, lets her imagination accept whatever role is required of her--Shorty's stupid onstage games have at least given her that. Her hand works deftly, conscientiously; she hopes the rings on her fingers aren't bruising the man too terribly. She imagines she's rubbing ointment on a baby's arm or milking Momma's cow, which is easier, because of the noise Harter is making. She suppresses the desire to fall out of her chair laughing; Short Shoe's foul covenant has the right of way here. Harter begins to spasm and arch his hips up off the chair. She wonders if she should feel sorry for him for what she is about to do. It's a curious thought, and maybe some other time she'll allow herself to explore it. But right now, she imagines the cooking peppers bursting one by one. Harter's twitching body provides the special effects.

•

The final set is over. Customers are having one last Banks before they call it a night and head back to where they came from. Most of the jazz musicians have sidled up to the bar. Short Shoe's there with them, showing off the monkey. The trumpet player strolls in from outside, a generous grin on his face, and announces loudly, "Look here, check this scene out on the balcony."

People start moving out from the bar. Before everybody can get outside, Short Shoe is already pushing his way back in, a grim, uninvolved expression on his face, muttering, "Dread, dread." He hurries for the exit, wearing the skinny string-bean monkey like a necktie.

In a minute, there's room for no one else on the small balcony. Beyond the weak illumination provided by a single bug-swarmed light bulb above the doorway, the night is at its darkest point. Some people stand on chairs or jump up to get a look. Pushing through the crowd, the Scandinavian tourist breaks into the front line. The sight of Melandra foundling Harter before his astonished eyes turns his heart upside down.

"Mmm hmm, lookit that gal bone the chicken," one of the gray-haired musicians drawls. "Gawddamn, that looks good."

Harter might as well be knocked out. His head lolls over the back of his chair; his arms and legs sprawl out to the sides. Melandra has moved away from him just enough so the audience can witness this most flagrant of hand jobs, delivered under the auspices of Melandra's professionally devastating smile. As Harter begins to ejaculate, the spectators clap and hoot. Harter reacts to the noise as if it were cold water. His head snaps straight; his eyes click open wide with horror. A stain on his pants spreads shamefully. Harter stares dumbly down at his lap, at the dark, relentless hand that still grips him. He tries to wriggle backward, to get the hell out of there, but Melandra has him tight in her first.

"Fellas," she calls out triumphantly. "Look aht dis little vahnilla bean." She waves Harter's prick at them, which can't seem to lose its erection. "Looks like it might be ready fah busy-ness if de boy evah grow up."

She wags him stiffly at one or two faces. "Somebody got a nice disease dey cahn give dis mahn? Something to help him remembah dis ro-mahnce?" Harter struggles up. Melandra plants her free hand on his chest and shoves him back down.

"Monkey," she hisses, pointing at Harter. "Womahn," she says, jerking a thumb at herself. She repeats the distinction: Monkey. Womahn. "Lissen to me, fella. Monkey ahnd womahn doan mix. It seem you make a big mistake. Now get you ahss away." She releases him and steps back, her arms folded over her breasts, glaring at Harter, giving him every last ounce of trouble she can.

The men in the crowd shudder, regaining their senses, tasting the bitter sweetness of such severe and utter humiliation. But they have to hand it to Harter. He doesn't panic. He composes himself quickly and with a certain amount of dignity. Slowly, he puts himself back together, beginning with sunglasses, which he removes from his shirt pocket. He lights a cigarette. Only then does he straighten out his torn shirt, and only after his shirt is right does he return himself to the sanctuary of his linens and zip up. When he is finished, he stands solemnly in front of the gathering--a criminal who has survived his execution--exhaling the smoke from his State Express. It appears he is going to speak, but he only shrugs, offering a short smile that concedes the evening to Melandra. Then, with athletic sureness, he vaults over the railing of the balcony to the street below and is gone.

•

Harter decides it's time to island-hop back to the States. He is grateful that the night with Melandra took the lead out of his pants, released him from the spell of the tropics. Months later, in a bar in Mustique or St. Lucia or maybe Negril, he hears the end to his own story. A Scandinavian he meets will tell him that in Port of Spain, at Short Shoe's first performance at the Boomba Club, the calypsonian was attacked by a man in a gorilla suit, who proceeded to beat him with a stick. And Melandra, the fellow at the bar will say, has signed a solo contract with Mango Records. They even gave her her own backup band to tour with. She has a new single that's just been released.

"Maybe you've heard it already on the Voice of the Antilles," the guy says to Harter. "It's called Throw Off De Monkey."

"Sure," Harter answers, waiting for the foam to settle in his beer. He's heard it.

"His attention turns to Melandra. He begins to throb; it starts in his heart and works down."

"There's an urge gnawing away at him, growing out of control. He makes his proposition."