Chapter 2: Worth & Worthless

Chapter 2: Worth & Worthless

Zoe Beaupre stood at a crossroads.

She was lost. But standing at an intersection of two forgettable Toronto streets had nothing to do with this pressing issue: In one hand, she held an empty bottle of Percocet, complete with her name on the bottle, like an honest-to-god prescription she actually needed. The other hand held a very old, very gold, pocket watch.

The Percs had been a gift from a gentleman doctor of her acquaintance back in St. Louis. Knowing she couldn’t pass a customs search with her drug of choice, she’d asked for and received—for a favour that still hurt when she tied her shoes—a prescribed solution that should have carried her through the week long stay she’d planned with her sister. Should have, but didn’t—and no refills, either. Her doctor-friend apparently hadn’t realized she’d go through them like breath mints on a first date. She dropped the pill bottle back into her purse, just in case. You never know when you’ll need an empty pill bottle complete with your name on it.

Zoe dangled the watch by its chain and it rotated lazily, trapping arcs of sunlight that shone like butter against the tarnished casing. Upon studying it, she suffered a momentary pang of guilt; the watch wasn’t exactly hers to sell. While searching for a pair of earrings in her sister’s jewellery box, she’d rescued the gold chained captive from an encroaching mass of cheap trinkets.

“That’s right, bitch,” said a voice from within her head, “Do it. You’re already going to Hell. What’s a little theft gonna hurt?”

She should’ve known she wasn’t going to make it through the day without him speaking up. “What do you care? Is it yours? No, it’s not, so shut the fuck up.”

“One monkey, shutting up.” He materialized on the sidewalk at her feet, holding one hand over his mouth and flipping the bird with the other.

This didn’t compute. Monkey never gave up so easily. “That’s it?”

Purple Monkey nodded his head earnestly.

That’s weird, she thought. He’d usually not stop until she’d torn him to pieces or tossed him out a window.

“What’s weird?”

“I thought you were gonna shut up?”

The monkey shrugged and hitched a ride on the back of a passing dog.

Zoe stared after him. About ten feet away, he turned, winked, and disappeared.

The word weird itself had taken on a whole new meaning after he’d invaded her head. She’d seen a psychiatrist and had tests run, but the tests came back negative for a tumour or any physical reason for his presence. The Psychiatrist, on the other hand, asked if ‘there’d been any changes in her life lately—had she been taking any new prescriptions…any other drugs?’

He’d known about the heroin. How could he not? He did have the results of her blood analysis in his meaty little claw. Upon leaving his office that day, she’d decided to forgo another appointment or a second opinion in favour of self medication. A quack couldn’t help her—not even if they knew the whole truth about Monkey.

Truth was, the monkey wasn’t exactly new to her. His previous existence had marked a very pivotal point in her young life—a time of growth and discovery. In appearance, he was all she remembered him to be. But that was the only thing that was the same. This Purple Monkey—this invisible monster—wasn’t cuddly and soft, he was vulgar and rude.

Bought as a pair, purple for Jeanne and pink for Zoe, the monkeys immediately became the main attraction of The Sister’s Beaupre private circus. Though seen as nothing more than a broom under a bed sheet by their mother, the circus was their own secret world. A world in which they could see the sun shining its smile all day and all night; a world where a girl could be a star, take charge—living on cotton candy and pretzels—and thrive without parents who would leave or yell about Jesus all the time: Two girls and their monkeys against the world.

One day, on a return bus trip from one of Jeanne’s chemotherapy sessions, Zoe had been so caught up with the fog-art she was painting on the window that, when her mother dragged her away, she forgot all about Pink Monkey and left it on the seat. Later, her mother had called the bus line, but no one had turned the monkey in to their lost and found. Pink Monkey was gone forever. So was Circus World—at least for Zoe.

Three days later, while Zoe sat cross-legged on her bed—staring miserably out the window at the rain as it pelted the road with tears the size of golf balls—Jeanne brought Purple Monkey to her room and tossed him on the bed. She smiled, and then told Zoe the monkey wanted to be with her now—that it was tired of Jeanne and liked her better. Zoe gladly accepted her sister’s offer and immediately pitched the Big Top. She felt sad for Jeanne, not having her own monkey anymore, but now she could be the audience neither one of them ever had, someone to laugh and enjoy they show.

At first, Jeanne watched all the time, but then she started getting sick—sicker all the time. Soon, she stopped watching; not even Purple Monkey could make her smile anymore. Circus World was never the same after that. Zoe tried to understand her sister’s lack of interest, but couldn’t stop herself from hating Jeanne and her cancer for giving up on Circus World. After a while, the illusion died and Zoe gave up on Circus World, too. By the time she turned seven, it was just like her mother had said: a bed sheet and a broom, nothing more. That didn’t mean she gave up on Purple Monkey. He was still her best friend, after all.

Zoe remembered dragging the stuffed carcass of that violet simian to school, the dentist’s office, and the beach—literally everywhere, including the bathtub. And eventually there wasn’t much more than patches and a lingering aroma of unwashed socks left of him. She didn’t care. He was more than material, stitches, and button eyes. To Zoe, he was a connection, a conduit, to that sunny place where fathers didn’t leave, mothers didn’t scream, and sisters didn’t get cancer.

One day, while Zoe was down the street at a friend’s pool, her mother tossed Purple Monkey, and all that he represented, out with the trash. Upon finding the monkey missing, Zoe had a fit, nearly tearing the house apart in her search for him. Her mother couldn’t understand the tantrums—especially when they continued past the first week—and, subsequently, neither did the therapist Zoe was sent to see over the affair.

It wasn’t until Zoe came across a wonder-drug named heroin at a house party, some thirteen years later, that the same monkey—odd coloured button eyes, clumsy patchwork and all—returned. Returned and spoke—sometimes, not-stop. Walked right up to her in the middle of someone’s trashed living room and said, “Hey, Bitch.” Just like that.

She knew it wasn’t real. She was older and knew better then. Grown-ups—at least sane ones—didn’t have imaginary friends. But that little fact didn’t stop it from talking, or, for that matter, from acting like a complete dick.

And why should Monkey care about a stupid watch? Why should I? Besides, if Jeanne had even cared a little bit about the damn thing, she should’ve taken better care of it.

And so, with the crossroad easily traversed, Zoe dropped the time-piece into a pocket and waited for the light to change. She was left-handed, so she went right.

As she searched for a pawnshop, Zoe pondered her chances of getting the whole hundred and twenty bucks she needed. Tapped out after only two days, she’d sorely underestimated the price of a good time in Toronto. Hence the watch. Hence the pawning of said watch. If needed, one or more swinging egos could be milked for the rest of the cash, but only as a last resort. She was on vacation, after all. For lack of a pill, she popped a breath-mint.

Two blocks up, she found a pawn broker.

“Fifty dollars, no more,” was the pawn broker’s final word.

“What do you mean, fifty dollars?” Her words lashed like a cool-mint scented whip across the mixed odours of the cubicle sized entry. “The fucking thing is gold, you asshole.”

For his part, Zoe could see that he’d played this game before. He merely grunted and found his bellybutton with an index finger.

Zoe could tell she was going about this all wrong, and wished her last words were spaghetti so she could suck them back in one long strand. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ve been under a great deal of strain lately, and lost my plane ticket home to St Louis. My finals start tomorrow and I need to get back. What do you say about eighty bucks?”

The pawn broker, a dark little East-Indian man wearing a shirt too short for his paunch, eyed the dark track marks below her rolled-up sleeves and flexed the wrinkle between his brows. “I say fifty dollars.” He picked up the magazine he’d been reading when she entered and proceeded to flip through the pages, ignoring both watch and woman.

After a few flipped pages, he smoothed a few wisps of hair across a forehead so high he’d need a telescopic handle to comb past the crown, and said, “Let me show you something, please.”

The man laid the magazine face down and left the counter. He returned with a dusty shoe-box, pulled off the lid, and set it atop the magazine for her to see.

In the box, a Timex rubbed faces with a Rolex, whose strap was slid through the buckle of a very feminine pearl-backed number, which sat on the face of another, and so on. The gang-bang of jewellery in the box was very impressive and all looked very expensive to Zoe, but she could see his point. This was a buyer’s market.

Damn.

As this new failure seeped through her like a spreading stain on a takeout bag, Zoe wondered if she should ask her sister for some cash. Bad idea, bimbo. Jeanne had already given her some money the day before.

“You see, my friend,” said the smelly man, “I have many, many watches—more, probably, than I could ever sell. Yours is a very fine watch, a pretty watch. But, young lady, if I cannot sell it, how much do you think it is worth?”

Again, she saw his point, but the way he talked was really beginning to bug her. “Okay, whatever. Take it and give me the fifty bucks.”

Zoe sighed and leaned back in the small entrance, tapping the wall with her head.

The watch had belonged to her father. When he left the last time, he’d pulled Jeanne aside and given it to her. He must not have seen his younger daughter in the hall as he bent and kissed Jeanne before leaving. Zoe hadn’t received that same farewell. Actually, she’d received no farewell whatsoever, so she felt almost nothing by the loss of the watch.

A hand slipped through the bars holding a slip of paper and set it on the counter. “Please sign your claim ticket, please. There is a pen to the right.”

From where she stood, the hand reminded her of Thing from The Addams Family and she smiled. Pushing away from the wall, she plucked the pen from its cradle, scribbled Morticia Addams in the signature box, and slid the slip back through.

She was going to be short, way short—especially if she was planning on having any fun while she was there. “Desperate times call for desperate measures” came to mind, as she put on her game face. Zoe tilted her head and tapped her fingers on the counter to get the man’s attention. “Hey,” she said, low and gentle, inwardly cringing at what she was contemplating.

He looked up from writing her information into a ledger, and his massive forehead wrinkled into rounded steps as his eyebrows came up. “Miss?”

She glanced out the door, then back at him as she forced a smile to her mutinous lips. “Is there anything we could work out for, say, another eighty bucks?” A stab of revulsion flowered in the pit of her stomach at the thought of him sweating over her; it reached for the back of her throat with caustic protest. No stranger to doing what needed doing for the cause, Zoe succeeded in diffusing the rebellion with a silent burp.

“Maybe back there?” she said, pointing with one long frosted fingernail over his shoulder to the rear of the shop.

The little man didn’t miss a stroke with his ball-point. He finished with her claim ticket, ripped it off, and approached the window. Sliding it through, along with enough body odour to fumigate a square block of roach infested houses, his face loomed within inches of the bars.

“Whatever it is that has you, young lady, you must fight it. It is not my place, for certain, to speak to you so boldly, but you started it.” He hit every consonant with a sledge hammer.

He leaned across the counter until his bowling ball belly seemed about to break the countertop under it, and ran his fingers along Zoe’s arm. “My dear son, Senji, was taken by the drugs two years ago.” His fingers trembled as his arm receded back through the gap in the bars.

Zoe’s skin tingled in the wake of his touch. Her eyes found the floor and stayed there as she took the fifty from the counter and stuffed it into the front pocket of her jeans. Before leaving, she mumbled, “Thank you,” then walked out.

Once on the sidewalk, she took a deep breath as she unrolled the sleeves of her shirt—sleeves that she didn’t recall rolling up—and buttoned them at her wrists. Feeling more than a little dirty, she drifted into the flow of pedestrian traffic and let it carry her where it would. After a while she began to feel an old familiar itch.

Damn monkey.