Chasing Harpo

  Chasing Harpo

  By

  Alan Black

  Table of Contents

  Dedication and Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harpo’s Glossary

  About the Author

  Other Books by Alan Black

  Praise for Other Books

  DEDICATION

  As always, I dedicate this book to Duann, in thanks to her for her patience as I write instead of spending time with her.

  See a glossary for orangutan speak at the end

  For information on orangutans and how to help the

  ‘people of the jungle’ go to www.orangutanrepublik.org

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to all of my editing team. As is normally the case, it is still my fault if you find an error in this book.

  Amy Black is responsible for the cover art and design.

  Special thanks to Ron Peters for the original, story conflict idea.

  Most people offer an idea to a writer by saying, “You should write about…” a person, a place, or a thing. However, good stories are about conflict, not just a character or a fascinating location.

  Ron’s idea was about a monkey that escapes from the zoo and

  is then chased by gangsters. I am sure the story in his head was more of a cross between Disney and Dr. Seuss. I am sure he wanted something he could read to his young daughter. But, that is the chance you take when you give your story away; you might not get back what you expect. If you want the story that you see in your head…write it yourself!

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or a used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The Publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  CHASING HARPO

  Published by arrangement with the author

  Published through CreateSpace at https://www.createspace.com/

  Printing History

  2012 © Copyright by Alan Black

  Cover Art by Amy Black

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed, electronic or digital form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ISBN: 978-1482774122

  ONE

  CARL MARKS slid to the blind corner at the end of the dark corridor. His soft-soled shoes were silent on the bare concrete floors. He braced his back against the wall’s sparse paint. He felt the damp cold seep into his skin through the heavy khaki shirt. He set the box he carried at his feet. He yanked off his tan, bush hat and brushed his dark hair back from his eyes. He peeked around the corner and ducked back fast. The passageway appeared empty. He let out a ragged sigh that was part relief and part disappointment.

  The corridor ahead was barely wide enough for two people to pass each other. It was a simple service alley. It was an industrial concrete corridor designed for high-pressure water hoses to push dirt through metal grates and into the sewers. The walls only went up for five feet. Bolted to the top of the walls was a woven, heavy steel mesh that reached to the high ceiling. The faded, pastel green paint on the walls was calming, although Carl had serious doubts about the calming effect on the residents of this particular building.

  The lights were on high in the compounds. Each side of the corridor blazed like the noonday sun, although it was well past seven in the evening. Light from the compounds trickled into the corridor as if it was as hesitant as Carl was to enter. The steel mesh filtered the light. It threw shadows in odd disarray as if discarding any light not up to its exacting standards.

  The closed compound cell doors stood in stark relief on both sides of the hallway, as were openings to offshoot corridors to other compounds. The doors were short, no more than three and a half feet tall. Anyone entering or leaving had to stoop.

  Carl picked up the box and eased his slender six-foot frame around the corner. He walked quietly and quickly. He did not want to break into a run because the box in his hands made running difficult. The humid air was thick, musty and stank. The oppressive heat of mid-summer made the air stale and heavy. It was hard enough to breathe at a walking pace. Running would be a challenge. He would run only if he had to run. Besides, he had just turned forty and had decided running was for younger men; much, much younger men.

  He should have known better than to try to take this particular shortcut at this time of the day. It could bring more problems than it was worth. Still, he had not seen Teri all day and he longed for a quick glimpse of her, no matter what the discomfort. One glance of her flyaway, reddish-orange hair would be enough to get him through until tomorrow.

  The long way around this building might add more time getting back to Harpo than Carl could spare. He needed to get back to Harpo fast and time was short. Harpo was often a little bit more than grouchy at this time of the day. When Harpo was grouchy, he tended to hit without warning, bite without regard and spit with exacting accuracy. Carl intended to avoid making Harpo grouchy whatever the cost to himself.

  A loud shriek split the air.

  Carl broke into a run as a chorus of shrieks and cries echoed off the corridor walls. Feces pelted his back and shoulders. He ran faster. He dodged a curtain of urine by a narrow margin. He spat a silent curse and hunched over the box to protect it from the worst of the barrage.

  He slammed around a corner and slid to a stop. His chest heaved with exertion. He used his elbow to punch the office suite’s doorbell. He knew the entry pass code. It would be easy to punch the numbers into the keypad, but somehow it seemed more polite to knock than barge in unannounced.

  The glass door hissed open. It spilled the office air-conditioning into the hallway stink. Carl stepped inside. He felt the cool air retreat into the office with him as the door hissed shut behind him.

  “Hello, Stranger.” Teri grinned at him. Her smile was one of the things Carl loved…liked…no, loved about her. She grinned with her whole mouth, showing teeth and even a flash of pink gums. Her round face and big brown eyes lit up whenever she smiled. The most remarkable orangish-red hair Carl had ever seen framed her head. He used to check for any telltale signs of darker roots with sneak peeks. He quit checking the day he met her redheaded twin brother.

  Teri was younger than Carl. He knew she was almost eleven years younger, having peeked at her personnel file a few years back. She was a little too round to ever be a swimsuit model, but Carl did not mind. He liked women who were a little too round. Not that he would ever say so.

  “Um…hi,” Carl said. “Sorry to barge in, but…well, you know…any port in a storm.”

  Teri said, “Looks like they missed you, mostly. I really don’t know why they dislike you so much.”

  Carl shrugged. “I guess they just don’t know me very well. Most everybody seems to move way beyond dislike once they really get to know me.”

  “Nonsense, Carl. I think you are a perfectly nice man. You are kind of hard to get to know, you know. Maybe if we spent more time…”

&
nbsp; Carl’s mind shouted, “Ask her out now. That is as close to an invitation as you are going to get, you moron.” His mouth refused to cooperate.

  “Um, yeah…I guess,” he said.

  “Dinnertime is a good time to get to know people…” Her voice trailed off.

  Carl’s mind screeched, “Now. Do it now!” Even his eyes lost their nerve and he looked away.

  Carl finally said, “Yeah. Thanks for the refuge, Teri. I gotta get back to Harpo. He is expecting this.” He shook the box for emphasis.

  Teri sighed. “Sure. Okay, Carl. You stop by sometime when you are not in a hurry.”

  Carl nodded. He did not trust himself to speak. He knew she was just being polite. Why would a girl like her be interested in an underachieving, underpaid flunky like him? He had a doctorate in animal sciences, but what good was a PhD when you spent your day picking up animal poo? He backed to the door and hit the open button with his elbow.

  The door hissed shut before he could speak again. He mouthed the words “Later, Teri.” through the glass door.

  Carl would have been even more speechless if he knew that Teri believed he did not ask her out because she was not pretty enough for such a handsome man.

  *

  MBOTU reached across the breakfast table and backhanded his son across the face. The young man crashed backwards to the floor. He slammed his fist against the warped tabletop and scowled at the group of black men gathered around his kitchen. A series of evenly spaced ridges across his forehead and a spider web of unevenly spaced scars across his left cheek highlighted his black face.

  He growled in English. His heavy accent grew thicker with his anger. “Shut your pie holes! You are acting like frightened little boys and scared old women.” He looked at the men scattered about his kitchen, sitting on mismatched chairs and stools, leaning against the cracked counter, and standing with their shoulders propped on the peeling paint on the door jams. Although each man appeared to be relaxed, every muscle in the room tensed.

  Seku scrambled to his feet. He set his chair upright and slid into the seat. He stared at his father, nodding once in grim agreement. He refused to wipe the trickle of blood running down his chin.

  Mbotu reached across and with a gentle touch, wiped his son’s face. But, there was no gentleness in his voice. “We are the Fang. We are Hutu. We are veteran soldiers of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. We did not flinch when we did what had to be done in the Congo. We have come to this country and we will not flinch when we do what has to be done here.”

  His eyes looked into the stern faces of the men staring back at him.

  He said, “We came to this country and we make it our own. We came here legally and became citizens.” None of the men around the table mentioned that every one of them had lied on his visa application about their active involvement in central African genocide, their enthusiastic participation in the gang rapes by F.D.L.R., or their being political refugees mostly from themselves.

  “We learned to speak American. We live in American houses. We drive American made trucks. We have made this country ours. No Spanish speaking, fence-climbing, illegal, Mexican bastard is going to take over our drug operations. Do they want to run our whores as well?

  “Seku has spoken one thing well. They are many and we are few. But, we are strong and we will be stronger still. They want to war against the Fang? We will give them war like they have never seen. They want to fight us? We will give them genocide. This we know how to do.”

  Mbotu smiled. He could see fire in his men’s eyes. Most of these men had been with him for many years. Some were no more than little boys when they became veteran warriors in central Africa. His son killed his first man when he was eleven and raped his first woman at thirteen. Even now, Mbotu could see the excitement in Seku’s face, but he knew excitement would not be enough for some of the men. He had to strengthen them against the coming war.

  “Seku, I want you to take some of these fine, fine soldiers and bring me the gorillas from the zoo. Do it tonight.

  “We will take the strength of the gorillas as our own; the teeth alone will bring us such a strength the Mexicans have never seen before. The gorilla brains will be made into charms to give us strong hearts that we may be brave. And,” he said with a grin, grabbing his genitals in both hands and shaking them vigorously, “bring us much pleasure with our women.

  “Their hands will bring power to our hands. And,” his grin widening further, “they will bring fertility to our women that we may have many sons and grandsons. We will not waste the gorilla’s lives as do others, putting them in cages for looking at only. Momma Bettal will make us belts of skin with the right mix of herbs, teeth and hair to ward off witches and keep us healthy from diseases. We will soak the leg bones in baths with our children that they may grow up strong.”

  Mbotu touched the scars across his forehead. “When I was but a child, my father gave me these. He burned gorilla bones and rubbed them into these cuts. They have made me smart.” He held up his arms to show them the scars on his wrists. “These have made my fists powerful. We will drive these interlopers out of our town.”

  **

  HARPO woke from his nap. He stretched one leg out to relax a kink. He liked to take an early evening nap before dinner. Somehow, it seemed to make his after dinner nap so much more pleasant.

  He grabbed a branch and swung off the limb with powerful orangutan arms. He did not drop to the ground, but hung for a while. His hook-like hands clamped onto the branch. The opposable thumbs were short, but his fingers were long enough to wrap around the branch. He hung as effortlessly as when he swung from branch to branch.

  He scratched an armpit and fluffed the bright, orangish-red hair. He sniffed his fingers. He scratched his belly and sniffed his fingers. He scratched his butt twice, and sniffed his fingers. He dropped to the ground, not having dug up anything interesting.

  Harpo stretched to his full height. He extended his arms. He never thought of himself as particularly short. He was tall enough for any of the people. He did not quite reach four feet tall, but his arms stretched seven feet from fingertip to fingertip. He dropped his arms to his sides. He stood upright and let his fingertips brush the ground.

  He scratched his round belly again and snuffled the air for the scent of food. He did not smell any fresh fruit, so he settled himself onto the ground with a contented sigh. He was hungry, but there was not much sense to go hunting for food at this time of the day. He had eaten just before his nap, but he was still hungry. He looked around slowly.

  He never thought of himself as particularly fat. He weighed a little over 250 pounds. Not much of the weight was fat. The bulky muscles were not what slowed him down. He was slow and deliberate by nature. He did not need to be fast. Millennia of evolution had taught Harpo and his ancestors that they did not have to run after fruit in the trees. Leaves, grasses and bark from trees did not run away. He was an omnivore. He would eat anything even bugs and animals if he could get them, but he was not in the mood to go chasing after bugs. He knew he would eat soon.

  He never thought of himself as particularly old, although he was the oldest of the people in his tribe. Being the oldest, strongest and, of course, the smartest of all of the people gave him his own part of the jungle where other people did not trespass.

  What he did think of himself was that he was handsome! He was the dominate male in this jungle. His broad face with the flanged cheek pads and enlarged throat sac marked him, not as just another force to be reckoned with, but as the primary force to be obeyed. He stroked his orangish-red beard.

  He looked behind him at the rock-not-rock. It sometimes blocked the way to his tribe and sometimes it did not. He squatted on the ground and scratched his genitals. Instead of sniffing his fingers, he sniffed the air.

  Harpo thought, “Mating? Food?” He could smell the people. The three females were easiest to smell. The next easiest was the young male. The male was too young to challenge Harpo as lea
der of the people. He could make out the faint smell of his two babies.

  None of the females was in heat. Not that it mattered to Harpo or to the females. They would mate with him because he wanted to, but it was easier when they were ready. They did not brood and fuss about so much afterward, if they thought mating was their idea. He knew they would not be in heat, but he sniffed again anyway. Females never go into heat if they have babies or young ones with them. The old female would not go into heat until the young male was old enough to challenge Harpo.

  He thought about calling out to the females. He knew they would be close enough to hear him. It would not matter whether the females were in heat or not, they would respond. He knew there were no other males in this jungle to warn off with territorial calls.

  Harpo grumbled loudly. The bubbly call pulsed louder and louder until it was a series of rapid barks. He ended with a series of sighs. He huffed a quiet call and he looked around. He grunted with satisfaction. He did not hear any responding calls from other males to challenge him. Any male not able to challenge him would have scurried away and hidden from him.

  He could hear the females chase their young high into the trees in their part of the jungle, as if he could not reach them if he wanted to. He did not have any interest in the young ones. They did not threaten his access to the females, nor to his food supply, so he tended to leave them alone.

  “Food,” Harpo thought. He could smell the food of the people, but he would leave that to them. “Hungry now.” He scooted down the slight hill and jumped over the narrow stream. He pressed his face to the seeing-rock and looked through. The hairless-not-people place was empty. The hairless-not-people place filled during the day with many hairless-not-people that Carl herded past for Harpo’s entertainment.