A Short Story from Daniel MacIntyre: The Misadventures of Max Busbridge: The Coming of The Monkey

The Misadventures Of Max Busbridge:

 The Coming Of The Monkey

Max Busbridge was fast asleep. (Although, in truth, he was actually pretty slow while sleeping…) 
However, a sudden, violent report from the muzzle of a gun wrestled him from the arms of his slumber. 
As he came too, Max thought: “That sounds like a gunshot.” He pondered for a moment. “Surely Mr and Mrs Pratt have let bygones be bygones by now.”
A second gunshot resounded in the stillness of the summer night. “Heck, that sounded a little too near for the Pratts,” he exclaimed, “That’s on my property, I’d swear to it.” Beginning to feel slightly alarmed, he rushed out of bed and began a desperate search for clothing. 

It is probably appropriate at this point to inform the reader that the house in which Max lived was, well, a mess. The house, in fact, was in such a mess, that visitors (who were seldom) would wonder at the fact that it was Max, and not some sort of atomic catastrophe, that was responsible for the disorder. Having inherited a modest place with sizeable grounds from his now departed parents, Max had allowed things to follow the laws of nature with little interference…

The gardens were in dire need of attention. Despite doing some gardening work from time to time, parts of his garden could be said to embody certain qualities of the Sahara desert, whilst others perfectly captured the spirit of the rainforest. His parents, it would be true to say, had been somewhat laid back and untidy-but Max had given these words a new and altogether more sinister meaning…
Junk, rubbish, and various assorted items cluttered up the place. So it will probably be appreciated by the reader that Max, in his desperate attempt to find clothes, was going to seriously grieve the dictates of modesty…
In his haste and condition of profound drowsiness, he donned a miserable fare. 
His apparel included: One pair of spectacles, which he hadn’t worn since he was ten; one pair of women’s knickers his late mother used to wear and had left in the house (in the gloom he had mistaken them for his y-fronts), and chainsaw boots. 
Thus clothed in a manner which would surely offend even the most right-wing fashion fanatic, he rushed to his front door. Forgetting, though, that chainsaw boots contain such little margin for error when crossing thresholds at 4:00 am, he stumbled and fell headlong into the darkness, instantly entering into a rather intimate relationship with some milk bottles that were just outside. Not used to such antics whilst sober, Max cursed angrily. 

Meanwhile, his nearest neighbour, Arnold, aroused by the sound of milk bottles imitating the day of judgement, had come to the window and was overlooking Max’s yard. 
“Hey Marg,” he called to his wife, “come to the window and look at this. I haven’t seen the likes of it since Father Stephens threw that sherry party.” 
His wife came to the window, yawning and shedding sleep from her eyes.  “Goodness,” she exclaimed, “is the man drunk?” 
“I don’t know… If he isn’t, then he has my pity…”

Max had now found his way to his jeep and was endeavouring to get underway. 
As he set off, however, he sorely misjudged the margins of the accelerator, owing to the thickness of his chainsaw boots, thus subjecting his rude body to some truly brutal acceleration. Recovering from it with some difficulty, he switched on the inner light and realised his appearance. He stared in amazement for a few moments, to the great detriment of a wheelbarrow he had left lying on the track. Max endeavoured to apply the brakes but, again forgetting the sheer wealth of his boots, he applied both brake and accelerator. 
Because of the tremendous noise Max was producing, most of his neighbours were now awake, and using the English language to the ultimate detriment of his person. The French language, too, was proving fairly useful to them. 
Driving in a manner worthy of a man in the most advanced stages of lunacy, Max proceeded along the narrow track which led through a small group of trees, adjacent to a lake. 
Suddenly, Max heard a different noise, a low cry like that of an animal in some distress. 
“What on earth goes on,” he muttered. Stopping the jeep with a bowel-stirring jolt, he got out and fetched his gun from the rear. 

The small lake previously mentioned lay on the left side of the group of trees; just beyond the trees on the right was a wall, about the height of two men, which bordered a large field often rented out to various events by the local council. As Max proceeded in that direction, his feet came into contact with something. Shining a small torch that was attached to his gun, he noticed a poster, advertising a circus, which had blown into his property. 
“Damned circus posters,” he exclaimed, “they’re always trespassing on my property.”

 Despite the summery climate, Max was now beginning to feel a slight chill. Shame too at his appearance was beginning to tarry on his conscience- even that conscience of a man who had only ever laid hands on a bible in court.
Hurrying as fast as his bachelor's diet would allow, he came towards the wall. As he came up to it, he again heard the cry of a distressed animal. 
Shining his small torch hither and thither, he was bemused to discover a small monkey, cowering under his beam. “Well, I’ll be! It’s a monkey!”
Wondering what to do, with a mind that was persistently haunted by the knowledge of his sour financial situation, he began to muse on the idea of some reward for the return of this monkey. Another thought suddenly occurred to him- he went as quietly as possible back to the jeep. He opened the back door and saw, lying on one of the back seats, a banana. 

It was probably one of the few times Max had ever had occasion to think of that kind of food, known to the civilized world as fruit. He usually found one of these queer phenomena left behind whenever his friend Albert came to visit him, whose strict diet consisted of things completely alien to Max’s frying pan. 

Collecting the banana, he proceeded toward the monkey again. As he approached, it made a noise as though it were in some distress, and made no attempt to get away. Max had intended on somehow luring the creature into the jeep, but as he drew nearer and nearer, he began to form the idea that he could actually carry it. 
Now within just two feet of it, he noticed it had been injured in some way. 
“My word, its right shoulder is bleeding, and badly too.” Not having seen so much blood since he’d been at a tin of tomatoes with a cheap can opener, Max began to feel slightly ill. Empathy for the poor thing, however, began to overrule his nausea, as the goodness of his heart overruled the qualms of his stomach. 
“Poor beggar. He looks really miserable.” I wonder if those gunshots had anything to do with his wound. Who on earth would be shooting at a monkey at this hour?” 
Max was now beginning to have longing thoughts of his bed again, and, besides, a little red glow on the horizon told him that dawn was approaching (unless Mr Thomas had let his pipe slip in the night again.) He moved into action- picking up the monkey carefully, he made his way back to the jeep. The monkey seemed fairly at ease in his arms-it was clinging on to him, its arms upon his back, gazing mournfully over his shoulder. Putting the monkey on his back seat, Max jumped in and tried (failing woefully) to pull away with an easy start. He turned the vehicle around and slowly drove back to his dwelling. 

As they moved along, with the dawn declaring its glory, the birds singing their sweetest songs, and the world, in general, looking very pleased with itself, Max suddenly expressed a feeling of intense piety…
“God damn it!” he said, as his chainsaw boots sent the car into a sort of drunken fit. 
They were now approaching the house. Max chuckled to himself as he looked in the rear. He hadn’t since such a sight in his rearview mirror since his aunt Cynthia had paid him a visit a little while ago. Stopping the jeep, he fetched the monkey and began to walk to the front door. 
He began to think of how his neighbours must be taking all of this noise he had been making. He knew Mr Rogers would have something sinister to say about it later in the day. It was a fact that they didn’t exactly get on well together. It likely had something to do with the occasion when Max had accidentally driven his jeep through the fence bordering his and Mr Rogers's property at around 30 miles an hour (old Barnes, the local barmen, could probably tell you why.) When Max finally came to a stop, Mr Rogers’s prize-winning geraniums were looking rather sad underneath his jeep. The fact that Rogers himself was underneath the jeep as well didn’t exactly help matters. 
The situation worsened yet more when old Mrs Rogers came wandering over. Being slightly short-sighted, and seeing her husband’s legs sticking out from underneath the jeep, she said: “Has Mr Busbridge got a problem with his jeep dear?” 
The peace pipe remained unsmoked between them. (Mr Rogers probably couldn’t smoke one anyway owing to the condition of his left lung.)
He carried the monkey inside, taking care as he went over the threshold.
Max was something of a champion when it came to the condition of absent-mindedness, and it was with a start he recalled the monkey's nasty wound. Blood was turning his chest into a fly-trap. 
“Blast it! I’ll need to find my first aid kit. I think there’s a bandage somewhere. And antiseptic.” 
After a moment, Max decided to bathe the monkey's wound in the bathroom, during which time he found the first aid kit lying in an inglorious fashion on the floor.
Much use of it had resulted from its inopportune position.

After having washed the monkey's grievances, Max applied a roughly cut bandage to the wounds. The monkey gave Max a grateful look, marred somewhat, however, by the pain of its wound. Softly chattering to itself, it decided to make its own way into Max’s bedroom. It probably was lured to it by the smell, the odours of which no doubt mimicked certain aspects common to the animal kingdom. Max, too, made his way into the bedroom. 
Taking off his boots, he threw them into a suitably dim corner. Removing the last of his modesty apparatus, he jumped into bed. “All this excitement surely merits a mouthful of brandy”, he said, taking a mouthful that a blue whale would struggle to match. “I wonder if that fellow would like some.” 
Offering the monkey a brandy-dipped finger, it seemed to partake of it with some relish. He gave it some more. “I expect my mother would turn in her grave if she could see me now. Wasting good brandy on a monkey at this hour. Ah, mother. I wonder where she is now. Are her ears lulled by the sound of heavenly harps, or are they singed by the fires of hell?
Wherever you are mother, I still love you.” 
Max remembered with some nostalgia a poetry competition he had entered in his younger days. He hadn’t won... 
“I’m going to have to see about returning you to your owners when I’ve had some sleep,” he said to the monkey, “and if they aren’t interested perhaps the RSPCA, or some other do-gooders, will take you in.” 
The monkey was now gazing dolefully at the floor. “That’s right old chap, don’t look at me. You’ve had enough shock for one night...” 
Taking up a suitable posture in his bed, Max started the short journey towards sleep. Just as he was beginning to doze, he remembered his odd appearance as he dashed about in the night. “I’m glad no one from the circus was around when I came up to that monkey,” he thought with a wry grin, “else they might think one of their clowns had run off as well...”

Original Copyright Daniel Macintyre 19/05/2018
Copyright Daniel Macintyre protectmywork.com 10/04/2024