III: Zen and the Art of Monkey Collecting
“Officials are now declaring the entirety of the British Isles a total loss. The islands will be quarantined for a period of several months before exploratory forces will be allowed back into the country to ensure that the virus has become inactive. Speaking from a secure location, both the Prime Minister and the Queen have issued statements calling for…” Chichay reached up with the remote and clicked off the tv. Dixie and Johnny looked up at her from their customary spots on the couch.
“Uh, is there anything you guys want to tell me about your little trip abroad last month?” Chichay asked.
“That the beer is good, but the food is absolute rubbish,” Dixie said.
“Anything else?”
“No,” Johnny said. “Why?”
“Were you seriously not paying attention to that news report?”
“We were,” Dixie said. “What about it?”
“Weren’t you guys in London right when that epidemic broke out?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, did you have anything to do with it?”
“No.”
“So those reports that said it started shortly after someone dumped a bunch of monkeys from a helicopter into the Globe Theater - Shakespeare’s Globe Theater - had nothing to do with the two of you?” Chichay’s eyes were like daggers. Johnny yawned and stretched.
“Nope,” he said, standing up. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Dixie and I have to go check the traps.” They left the house, cursing Shakespeare as they did, and headed out onto the expansive front lawn of the ranch.
All over the lawn, various trap-like devices had been constructed. These ranged from boxes propped up by sticks and holes in the ground covered by blankets, to more elaborate set ups involving springs and cages and something that looked like the board game Mousetrap. Several appeared to have been triggered, but when Dixie and Johnny approached, they found that they had only managed to catch CHUDs. Dixie put each CHUD out of its misery with a well placed stab from her pearl handled machete.
“Damn it,” she said. “We’re never going to catch monkeys if these CHUDs don’t stop getting into the traps.”
“Yeah, if this is gonna work, we’re gonna need to synthesize some kind of CHUD repellant,” Johnny said, using a shovel to lift the CHUD’s body out of one of the hole traps. He heaved it out toward the road.
“If we found one that worked, we could probably market it and sell it. We’d make a fortune in Texas alone.”
“Let’s get Sweaty to figure that out for us,” Johnny said.
“Where is Sweaty, anyway?”
“Either he’s time traveling, or he’s out in that workshop he set up in the old barn. But usually when he’s out there, Chichay makes him come up to the house for dinner, and I haven’t seen him.” They kept checking the traps, finding only CHUDs or nothing. Eventually they made it through all of the traps on the lawn.
“I wonder what he does out there?” Dixie asked.
“Wanna go look?”
“Yeah!”
***
Dixie and Johnny approached the barn as quietly as two people who were drunk before ten in the morning could. It was the furthest building from the ranch house, the last structure standing between the relative civilization of the ranch and the small town nearby, and the acres of pasture land that supported the thriving cattle operation that they paid no attention to, but that provided them with a sizable chunk of income. The barn hadn’t been used in the many years prior to Dixie inheriting the ranch. Once the staff of Shazbot Industries moved in and made it their permanent headquarters, Sweaty claimed the rundown building for himself.
“Should we knock,” Dixie asked, “Or just barge in there?”
“If we barge in there, we might scare him and he’ll pop out of time and disappear,” Johnny said.
“But he might already have done that,” Dixie said. That settled it. They flung the door open, screaming “Ah ha!” as they did. Sweaty wasn’t in there. They looked around.
The barn was surprisingly neat and clean on the inside, with half of the space devoted to a workshop full of computers and other technological and scientific devices. One side of the workshop space was being used as more of a laboratory, with beakers and jars and bottles of various chemicals. Sweaty had placed plywood boards over the barn’s dirt floor to create a somewhat cleaner workspace with a sturdy floor, and he’d installed new lights, hanging from the ceiling and connected with orange extension cords. He’d also cleaned the windows, so that a fair amount of natural light got in.
Surprisingly, the other half of the barn was still being used as a barn. It consisted of two separate stalls, with a dirt aisle running between them and the workshop area. In one of the stalls stood a large, black and white cow. It was munching quietly on some hay when Dixie and Johnny entered, and so they didn’t notice it at first. The cow let out a gentle snort and Dixie and Johnny whirled around. Johnny raised a vodka bottle he’d been carrying, as if in self defense. When they realized it was just a cow, they laughed and offered it some vodka. The cow did not react.
They got to work rifling through Sweaty’s workshop. Johnny smelled some test tubes, Dixie pushed buttons on all of the machines, which Sweaty had wisely turned off before leaving. They poked through the storage bins under the tables and flipped through some notebooks, but they didn’t see anything noteworthy.
“I don’t see anything,” Dixie said.
“What were we looking for again?” Johnny asked, swirling something green in a test tube.
“Drugs?”
“No, I don’t think that was it. Although, I’m surprised that none of this stuff looks like drugs. That used to be Sweaty’s bread and butter. I mean, he’s still way into chemicals, he just doesn’t seem to be making drugs.”
“That’s right!” Dixie exclaimed suddenly, “We were looking for CHUD repellant!”
“Oh yeah!” Johnny said, he turned and started looking through the jars and bottles again. Nothing was labeled, though, and so he resorted to opening everything and smelling it.
“Find anything?” Dixie asked.
“I mean, if I was a CHUD, I wouldn’t go near any of this.”
“If you were a CHUD, I’d have shot you by now.”
“True.”
“So should we try some of these?” Dixie asked, reaching for one of the test tubes and spilling it on the desk. It immediately foamed up and ate a hole in the desk’s metal top. The smell was terrible.
“Ok, so not that one,” Johnny said, picking up another bottle and holding it up to the light. “This one looks promising.”
“What makes it look promising?”
“It’s blue.”
“Works for me,” Dixie said. She turned to leave and paused to look at the cow again. It was still eating contentedly. “Hey why isn’t this cow out with the other ones?”
“I don’t know. If he’s in here, Sweaty was probably messing with him.”
“Messing with him?”
“Like, feeding him some of this shit to give him superpowers or something. You know, that kind of thing.”
“I wonder what kind of superpowers he has,” Dixie said, approaching the cow’s stall. She gave the cow a long, curious look. It looked at her, too, then went back to eating hay.
“Does he have wings or anything?” Johnny asked from the workshop.
“No, I don’t see any.”
“Maybe he’s telepathic now,” Johnny suggested. “Try thinking something to him.”
“Wait, you’re the one who can talk to animals. Why don’t you just ask him?”
“Can’t, I’ve never been able to talk to cows,” Johnny said, holding the bottle of blue liquid in one hand and the vodka bottle in the other, and walking over to the stall.
“Or cats, for that matter. You can never tell those fuckers shit.” They kept staring at the cow.
“What if,” Dixie said, slowly, “Sweaty made this cow psychedelic?”
“You mean like those toads?”
“Exactly.”
“Only one way to find out,” said Johnny. They unlatched the door to the stall and approached the cow. They each took a side, looked at one another over the cow’s back, leaned down, and gave its back a good, long lick against the grain. Instantly, they both scrunched up their faces and made gagging sounds.
“AH!” Dixie screamed.
“Blech!” Johnny shouted.
“Ughhhhhhh!”
“What the holy fuck!” Johnny shouted. Spitting and coughing, they bolted from the barn, leaving all of the doors wide open.
They ran halfway across the lawn before stopping, still spitting and coughing. Dixie stuck her tongue out and began wiping at it with the hem of her shirt while Johnny dropped to his knees and chugged from the vodka bottle. When he was done, he rolled over onto his back and handed the bottle up to Dixie, who took a long drink herself. When the bottle was empty, she dropped to the ground beside Johnny. The two stared up at the sky with their tongues hanging out of their mouths and panting.
“That was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted,” Dixie said. She was hard to understand because she was trying her best not to bring her tongue back into her mouth.
“It was like licking a hairy corpse made of decomposing shit.”
“This better be the best fucking trip I’ve ever had,” Dixie said, angrily.
“And we’re going to have to talk to Sweaty about taste. I mean, even the best trip in the world isn’t worth how fucking awful that was.”
“Sweaty never thinks about marketing.”
Later that day…
Chichay Milano stood in the kitchen of the ranch house, carefully stirring a pot of beef rendang. She’d never been a fan of beef, but since moving to Texas, she had to admit that the state knew a thing or two about it. And ever since her strange reconciliation with Clobber Spotchick, not to mention the contentment she felt living and working with Sweaty Mulligan, she’d been thinking a lot about what it meant to be a family. Thinking of family, or course, reminded her of her mother, and the sights, smells, and tastes of her childhood, which seemed to her to have been over far too quickly.
She had just turned off the stove and reached for a dish when there was a knock on the back door. She looked over and saw both Troubadour brothers. She sighed. If they were both there, it could only mean that something was wrong. While the constant stream of disasters that accompanied her association with Dixie and Johnny was nothing new, she had been hoping they’d hold off long enough for her to eat her lunch.
“Come in!” she called. The back door opened and Johnson and Wang Chung Troubadour entered, standing awkwardly and holding their hats in their hands just inside the door. They peered into the kitchen. “What’s up, guys?”
“Ms. Milano,” Johnson began, “We have a problem.”
“I figured as much,” Chichay said, taking her plate of food and heading to the table. “Before you get into it, are you hungry? I just made some beef rendang and there’s more than enough if you want some.”
“Oh, no thanks,” Wang Chung said, “We had our sandwiches while we were out in the upper pastures.” Chichay nodded and took a seat.
“Ms. Milano,” Johnson said again, “The problem is that one of the cows has gotten out.”
“Ok?” Chichay said, taking a bite, then continuing with her mouth full, “They get out all the time. We just had that one drown in the pool. And that other one that ate Mrs. Monaghan’s begonias. Go round him up and bring him back, and then check the fences and figure out where they’re getting out. Why did you guys bring this to me?”
“Well,” Wang Chung said, slowly, “Because this isn’t like when our normal cows get out. This is, you know, Mr. Mulligan’s cow.” Chichay put her chopsticks down and stared at them.
“The one in the barn?”
“Uh huh.”
“With the psychedelic teats?”
“Yep.”
“Shit.”
“Right.”
“How did you find out it was gone?”
“When we came back to the cabin after lunch, there was a message on the machine from Andy Bockenbecker, down at the general store. Said a cow had wandered into the stock room of the shop and knocked over a crate of sodas.”
“Yeah, but that could have been anyone’s cow.”
“Which is what he said. But then he noticed how the teats looked… human? Instead of bovine? And he figured we were the only ranch that was probably messing with cows like that.”
“Well he’s right about that. And he obviously didn’t try drinking any of the milk that comes out of them, otherwise he’d never have been able to actually call you.” She looked up. “Ok, so is the cow still there? I mean, we can just go get it, right?”
“No, ma’am. Shs gone. Bockenbecker said when he saw the cow, it got spooked and wandered off through the woods out back of the shop.”
“Now,” Johnson continued, “We have an idea that she might be headed toward the zoo, since once you crossed through the woods, you’d come up on the back of the zoo in a coupla miles, but we can’t be sure.” At this, Chichay sighed and got up from the table, her half eaten lunch still on the plate.
“Ok, one of you go to the general store and see if you can follow its tracks or something. I’ll head over to the zoo and see if it’s turned up there. And then I guess someone has to stay here and actually run the ranch. You two flip for it, and meet me back here in two hours.” She grabbed her keys and headed to the back door, leaving the Troubadour brothers standing just off the kitchen, looking surprised. They never could get used to Chichay's no nonsense style. (They were more used to Dixie and Johnny's all nonsense style. Or at least Sweaty Mulligan's partial nonsense style.)
The Troubadours were about to leave when Dixie and Johnny wandered into the house through the front door. They were grass stained and drunk, and they smelled vaguely like chemicals.
“Troubs!” Johnny shouted. “Just the guys we wanted to see.”
“Mr. Go, Ms. Doublestacks,” Johnson said, tipping his hat. “We were just about to go off and look for Mr. Mulligan’s missing cow. You haven’t seen her, have you?”
“Huh? Missing cow?” Johnny asked. “Nah, don’t know anything about it.”
“But while you’re here,” Dixie said, “You guys know anything about a CHUD repellant that Sweaty was working on?”
“No ma’am,” Wang Chung said, “Far as anybody around these parts knows, only way to get rid of CHUDs is to shoot ‘em, or convert all your ground to concrete.”
“And we know how that’s working out for Houston,” Johnson said. The two of them chuckled, but Dixie and Johnny just looked confused.
“Hm. Well, we were pretty sure he was working on it, but the thing we just tried only made these weird vines with hands on ‘em grow up out of the ground.”
“We’re gonna wait and see if that repels the CHUDs, but I just don’t see how it could.” Johnny made his way into the kitchen and proceeded to finish off Chichay’s lunch. Dixie headed to the bar in the dining room and grabbed a bottle of scotch.
“Well anyway,” Johnson said, heading to the door, “We’re gonna go help Ms. Milano get Mr. Mulligan’s cow back. If we think of anything might help to get rid of the CHUDs, we’ll be sure to let you know.”
“Ok,” Johnny said. “And hey, if you see any monkeys while you’re at it, will you grab ‘em for us?”
“We’re pretty sure they’ll eventually all find their way here,” Dixie said, joining Johnny at the table, “But if the CHUDs keep eating the bait we put in the traps, it’s going to take way too long to get enough.”
At the zoo…
Chichay Milano arrived at the zoo to find a chaotic scene unfolding. All zoo officials ran frantically around, while staff members attempted to usher all of the visitors out of the park. Some law enforcement officials had also arrived.
She got out of her car and approached one of the officers who was stationed at the entrance of the zoo, and who was pointing all visitors through the gate and ensuring that they actually left the area.
“Sorry folks,” he said to the group passing him, “This is for your own safety. Please proceed directly to your vehicles and exit the area.” The officer on the other side, what was usually the entrance gate, but was being used as an exit in the interest of emptying the park as quickly as possible, was saying similar things.
“When you get to your vehicles, please drive away from the zoo immediately. Do not stop, do not roll your windows down.” When he said this, some of the visitors looked scared. Chichay approached the officer.
“Officer, what’s going on?” she asked.
“Not now, ma’am,” the officer said, without looking at her. “Please exit the park with everyone else as quickly and safely as possible.
“Officer, if this is about the cow, I’m here to help.” He looked at her suddenly and nodded, then reached for the radio on his collar.
“Yeah, can you send one of the zoo officials out to the gate? We got a lady here, says she can help with the cow.”
Chichay stepped to the side and watched as the visitors filed out of the zoo. The officer kept directing them, and said nothing else, but kept his eye on her until a zoo official eventually arrived.
***
Chichay stood with two officials from the zoo in front of the rear entrance to the zoo’s primate house. The door was battered and hanging from its hinges, and the potted plants on either side of the door had been eaten down to stumps.
“We reviewed the security footage, it looks like the cow was here grazing out of these planters. Something must have alerted the monkeys inside, which alerted the cow, and it started ramming the door until it came off of its hinges.
“From there, the cow entered the rear area of the primate house, which is off limits and unseen to the public. Fortunately, all but two monkeys were out in the public enclosure, so there were only two back here, which must have been what set the cow off.”
They stepped into the rear enclosure, which consisted of a work area for employees that faced a large wall made up entirely of a wire mesh. On the other side of the mesh wall was a living and play area for the monkeys. The mesh wall had a large, cow-shaped hole in it.
“I guess I know what happened next,” Chichay said, gesturing to the wall.
“Exactly as it looks,” the official said. “We have this on the security cameras, too. The really strange thing is what happened once the cow made it in there.”
“I actually think I can guess that, too,” Chichay said. The official looked at her. She sighed. “The cow was genetically modified on our ranch to generate and dispense certain… psychedelic properties…”
“You mean…”
“Those escaped monkeys are trippin’ balls.”
Back at the ranch…
In the car on the way back to the ranch, Chichay silently cursed Sweaty, not only for playing god, but for not even being around when it all blew up. She pulled into the driveway of the ranch and saw Johnson and Wang Chung waiting anxiously on the back porch. Dixie and Johnny were in the pool, attempting to erect some kind of water-based trap, presumably to catch monkeys. Chichay got out of the car and walked up to the porch.
“We didn’t find her, but the tracks definitely look like she went to the zoo,” said Johnson.
“Oh, she did,” she said, sitting down wearily next to them and watching Dixie and Johnny make a mess of the pool. “She went to the zoo, ate a bunch of flowers, and busted two monkeys out of the primate house and now we have to look for them, too.”
“Any idea which way they went?” Johnson asked.
“It actually looks like they headed back this way, but the trail disappeared behind an Arby’s on Route 12. I don’t know if there’s anything that an LSD cow would be drawn to, so I don’t know if we can do anything to lure her back.”
“Did the monkeys…?”
“Oh yeah. Absolute California Sunshine,” she said. “And we don’t know how much they drank or how long it’ll take for them to come down. I really wish-” There was a loud crash inside the house. “Oh thank god.”
Chichay turned and looked at the back door to the ranch house.
“Mulligan, get out here! We’re in a world of shit and it’s your fault!” A moment later a disheveled and dusty Sweaty Mulligan appeared at the back door. He came out onto the porch and sat down next to Chichay, putting his arm around her and giving her a long kiss. The Troubadour brothers looked away, embarrassed.
“What’d I miss?” he asked once they pulled apart.
“Your psychedelic cow escaped and is rampaging through the county with two monkeys she stole from the zoo. We’re going to be charged with negligence if we don’t get them back.”
"Ella Titsgerald escaped? How?" As he said this, a loud explosion came from the pool. A mushroom cloud formed above Dixie and Johnny’s monkey trap, which created a large wave of water. The group on the porch watched as the water washed out over the pool deck, taking Dixie, Johnny, and the monkey trap with it, sweeping them across the lawn.
“Right,” Sweaty said, looking back at Chichay. “Ok then. Let’s go get our girl back.”
***
“Welcome to Arby's, can I take your order?” the voice in the drive-through speaker said.
“Yeah I'm gonna need, like, thirty Beef ‘n Cheddars. And a shake,” Sweaty said. Chichay stared at him, totally confused.
“Are you seriously going to eat thirty Beef ‘n Cheddars? It really isn’t the time for this, Sweaty. We’ve gotta focus on finding these animals.”
“Honey, give me some credit. The sandwiches should hopefully lure the monkeys. Since we’re not really sure where they are, I got a lot so we can put them in different places.” He reached over and patted her knee. “Only the shake is for me.”
“But why would a Beef ‘n Cheddar lure the monkeys?”
“Well, every time I've tried the milk from Ella Titsgerald, I've craved an Arby's Beef ‘n Cheddar. I don’t know why, it’s just what happens. And if it happens to me, then maybe it’ll happen to them, too. Plus, you said you lost their trail near this Arby’s.”
“So you don't think it's a coincidence?”
“I mean, maybe it is. But you gotta start somewhere, you know?” He pulled up to the next window of the drive-through and the young kid in the window started handing box after box of sandwiches out. Sweaty passed them to Chichay, who attempted to put them all in the back seat. Finally, the kid handed Sweaty his shake and they drove off. As they did, a lot of car horns in line behind them at the drive-through began honking angrily.
“Musta bought the last one,” Sweaty said to Chichay as they headed toward the first spot in the woods to lay a trap for the animals.
Back at the ranch…
Dixie and Johnny sat on a fence near the barn and drank beer while watching Johnson and Wang Chung Troubadour work.
“We tried stealing lab monkeys,” Dixie said, “and they were acting so weird that we gave up and let them go.” Johnny nodded.
“And then we tried just letting ‘em come to us.”
“Uh huh,” said Johnson, mostly out of politeness.
“But we haven’t caught any.”
“I still think it’s cause the CHUDs keep eating the bait.”
“So what should we do?”
“Well, Ms. Doublestacks,” Wang Chung said, leaning on his pitchfork, “I think maybe the problem is that there just aren’t a lot of wild monkeys in Texas. Or any.”
“What are you talking about? Of course there are.”
“No ma’am,” added Johnson. “Monkeys aren’t really native to these parts. Sure, there’s zoos and maybe some sanctuaries, but monkeys aren’t from here.”
“I’m not from here, either,” Johnny said, somewhat indignantly, “but I’d like to think I’m thriving here in the Lone Star State.”
“Look, all we’re saying is that if you want to just set traps and wait, you might have to go to a place where monkeys are native animals. Like the rainforest in the Amazon, or maybe someplace like Thailand. Set up some traps there.”
“Or probably you could just buy them in some of those types of places,” Wang Chung added.
“No way, our guy told us we couldn’t buy that many. That’s why we’re in this mess in the first place.”
“Ok, Miss,” Johnson said. “I just think you’d have better luck if you left the ranch. And maybe left Texas all together. I don’t think you’re going to get that many if you wait here for monkeys to come to you-” As he said this, a small black and white monkey streaked through the paddock where Johnson and Wang Chung were working. It was followed immediately by a second monkey.
“You don’t think, huh?” Dixie asked. The Troubadours started in disbelief, while Dixie and Johnny jumped off the fence and raced in the direction the monkeys had gone.
“Monkey! Come back!!!” Johnny screamed. Oblivious to their cries, the monkeys scampered into one of the barns. By this time, Johnson and Wang Chung had followed Dixie and Johnny, and the four of them skidded to a stop in front of the barn.
“Ok, let’s be really quiet so we don’t scare ‘em away,” Johnson suggested.
“Also, maybe put the pitchfork down,” Wang Chung said to Dixie, who had picked up a pitchfork that was leaning against the barn door and was waving it around above her head. “I thought y’all wanted to keep these monkeys? Stabbing ‘em with a pitchfork isn’t going to help your collection.” Dixie shrugged and tossed the pitchfork over her shoulder. It landed a few feet away, sticking up in the grass.
They walked quietly into the barn and looked around. The monkeys were nowhere to be seen. Johnson quietly began inspecting the dark corners of the barn, while Wang Chung checked under and around some of the old equipment that filled the space. Dixie and Johnny stood there and did nothing but look around. Suddenly, a movement up in the hayloft caught Johnny’s eye. He looked up and gasped.
“Dix!” He whisper-shouted, “Up there!” Everyone turned to where he was pointing, and saw the two monkeys standing near the edge of the loft.
“What are they doing?” Dixie asked.
“I don’t know,” Johnny said.
“Almost looks like a mime routine,” Johnson added.
Sure enough, the two monkeys faced one another and quietly, slowly, mirrored each other's moves.
“Oooh…” Dixie said, quietly. “The mirror gag.”
“That’s right!” Wang Chung said, “Miss, you and your cousin used to do that. Back before y’alls started fighting all the time.”
“We did it for the talent show at the County Rodeo,” Dixie said, “We won first prize, which was a hundred bucks. That cunt insisted on donating it to the fucking Sisters of Mercy.” Everyone was quiet for a moment, watching the monkeys.
“So, uh,” Wang Chung said slowly, “Why are they doing that?”
“I dunno,” Johnny said, “But they definitely haven’t noticed us. Do you think we can board this place up and trap ‘em here?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Johnson. “This barn is actually in pretty good shape, still, and we can lock down the windows. Now we’ll need to move some of the equipment out so they don’t hurt themselves.”
“Sounds great,” Dixie said, turning to leave, “Thanks for your help, you guys. Let us know if they do anything else weird.” She and Johnny started to leave the barn.
“And for god’s sake,” Johnny called over his shoulder, “Don’t let ‘em escape.”
***
Chichay and Sweaty had laid a trail of Beef ‘n Cheddar sandwiches through the forest in an attempt to lure the monkeys back toward the ranch. Their plan was to sit between the last sandwich and the ranch and wait to intercept the monkeys. They didn’t have a plan beyond that, but it didn’t end up mattering because as they placed the last few sandwiches down, they began to notice that the local wildlife was acting strangely.
“Uh, Sweaty?” Chichay asked, keeping her eye on a pair of squirrels that were repeatedly attempting to run up a tree trunk that wasn’t there. “Have you noticed how strange all the wildlife is acting?”
“Huh?” Sweaty asked, standing up from his last sandwich drop.
“Look at these squirrels.” He walked over and stood beside Chichay, and they both observed the squirrels for a while.
“Oh yeah,” he said, “that isn’t right.”
“Yeah, and the birds hanging upside down on the tree branch don’t seem right, either.” Chichay pointed up to a flock of upside down birds dangling above them.
“I didn’t see any cow manure,” Sweaty said, as he started to walk circles around the spot where Chichay stood, keeping his eyes to the ground, “but I guess Ella could have been anywhere. I mean, the birds probably had a good fifteen minutes or so before the hallucinations really kicked in and they could have covered who knows how much ground in that time.”
“Well, let’s think about this,” Chichay said, “Ella probably doesn’t want to hang out in the woods, right? I mean, she’s a cow that produces psychedelic milk, but she isn’t hallucinating herself, right?”
“Well, maybe a little, but I think it mostly just makes her pretty chill.”
“Right, so she’s gonna do the stuff she normally does, like…?”
“Hang out and eat food.”
“Which would be hay or grass. Not leaves and stuff that you’d find in the woods.”
“Right!” exclaimed Sweaty. “She might have walked this way, but she’s probably in a lush, grassy field.”
“And the only one adjacent to this forest is that way.” Chichay pointed, and she and Sweaty set off in that direction. On the way, they noticed a few more hallucinating animals and assumed they were on the right track.
When they reached the field, there was no cow in sight. They stood for a while, thinking about what to do next. Chichay started looking around in all directions, and finally paused when her eyes landed on something in the distance.
“Hey, what are those buildings over there?”
“Oh, it’s the old Hossenberger’s Dairy,” Sweaty said. “Been there for ages. They still supply the dairy products for the tri-county area.” They turned to one another as the same look of horror washed over them both.
“Shit.”
Back at the ranch…
The Troubadour Brothers rather enjoyed their time fixing up what they now called “The Monkey Habitat”. They had cleared out the old farm equipment from the barn, swept the floors and gotten rid of the cobwebs. They secured all of the windows, and boarded up one of the doors at the rear of the barn, so that the monkeys only had one point to enter or exit. They also added new straw to the floors, and even hung some ropes from various points throughout the space for the monkeys to play with. The two monkeys in the loft continued their mirror game the entire time, not noticing anything that Johnson and Wang Chung did.
Since they had no idea what monkeys actually ate, they figured they’d do some research once they got back to their cabin and turned in for the evening. In the meantime, they left a dish of the same grain that they fed the cows in the winter, along with a bunch of vegetables that they picked from the garden patch. After this, they closed the large barn door, placing a large wooden beam across it, ensuring that it couldn’t be opened from the inside.
“I’ll head up to the house, see if Ms. Milano or Mr. Mulligan are back yet,” Johnson told his brother. “You wanna go check the cattle once more before we turn in?”
“Sure thing,” Wang Chung replied. “But don’t go getting drawn into helping Dixie and Johnny with anything while you’re up there. Who knows what they’re up to, and we spent enough time on them today.”
“I didn’t really mind, though, did you? I don’t want anything to happen to those monkeys. We’ll keep ‘em safe until we can get ‘em back to the zoo.”
“You really think they’re gonna give those monkeys up?”
“I mean, I figured they would…”
“They’ve been trying to trap monkeys for whatever this project is for months now. Matter fact, I think they’re the ones that caused that virus to break out over in England. They need these monkeys!”
“Then what’s gonna happen? Ms. Milano said there might be criminal charges if the monkeys don’t get found.”
“Look, that’s not our concern,” Wang Chung said. “We’ll just keep ‘em safe and let these lunatics work it out.”
“Man,” Johnson sighed, “I could really use a little hot chicken right about now.”
“No, Johnson,” Wang Chung said, “Stay strong. We’ve got this!” They hugged then, and went their separate ways to finish up their evening chores.
***
Inside the ranch house, Dixie and Johnny were on the living room floor, playing a game of Hermit Crab Tic-Tac-Toe, which was actually a drinking game.
“So we need… how many more monkeys?” Johnny asked, watching his hermit crab crawl across the board.
“Seventy hundred, I think,” slurred Dixie. She was losing.
“Is that… yeah, that seems right,” Johnny said. His hermit crab crossed an arbitrary line on the board. “BOK CHOY!”
“Damn it,” Dixie muttered, taking another drink. She sat up and moved her face within inches of her hermit crab’s. “Get your shit together, Janet! I don’t fuck around with amateurs!” They set the hermit crabs up again and watched intently for a few minutes as they crawled around.
“Where the hell is everyone, anyway?” Johnny asked.
“I don’t know,” “I’ven’t seen Rex in, like, a year.”
“Aw he’s out with his perv pal.”
“Huh?”
“You know. Whassiz name. The Diddler.”
“Ew, is Rex diddling the Diddler?” Dixie started to laugh. Then Johnny did. Pretty soon they were both in hysterics on the floor, howling with laughter so loudly that they didn’t hear Johnson come in the back door.
Johnson stood there for a moment, deciding whether or not to interrupt the cackling monkey hunters. Eventually, he backed slowly out the door.
***
Chichay and Sweaty stood at the gatehouse of Hossenberger’s Dairy, attempting to convince the guard to let them inside.
“You can’t come in,” the man explained. “This is a secure and sterile facility. No one comes in without prior clearance. And I don’t have your name on the list.”
“Ok, then we’re going to need to speak to someone in charge,” Chichay said.
“Yeah, isn’t there a foreman or supervisor or someone here?” Sweaty asked.
“Certainly,” the guard said, “But I still don’t see why you’d need to speak to him. Now as I said before, you’re welcome to leave your names and contact details and I’ll pass along your message.”
“Or,” Chichay said, stepping closer, “You could pick up that phone right there and give him a call.”
“Now ma’am, I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish by trying to intimidate me. It won’t work.” He looked intimidated nonetheless. Chichay brushed open her jacket, revealing a gun attached to her hip in a sleek holster.
“Just let George Foreman know that we’re here in regards to our cow, which seems to have wandered onto your facility and somehow, unlike us, been granted admittance.”
“That’s interesting, isn’t it?” Sweaty mused, also stepping closer. “A secure and sterile facility that doesn’t notice, or care, that a strange cow wandered onto the property. I wonder what the TDA would think of that?”
“We could give them a call,” Chichay said, keeping her eyes locked on the guard.
“We sure could,” said Sweaty. He turned, as if to leave. The guard quickly reached for the phone.
“Now let’s not do anything rash. I’ll just give Mr. Tyler a call. I’m sure we can figure out what happened to your cow.”
***
“I do appreciate your concern,” the foreman said with a thick Texas drawl. “But if there was a cow in the facility that didn’t b’long to us, we’d know it. In case you haven’t noticed, this is a very secure facility.”
“Well then how do you explain why we tracked our cow through the woods and the trail ended here?”
“Also, your dog is acting weird,” Sweaty added.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Our cow has that effect on other animals,” Chichay said simply, not wanting to get into it. The foreman looked at her intently.
“Is that right? And this is, what, some kind of magic cow?” he asked.
“You might say that,” said Sweaty. The foreman crossed his arms.
“Might I?” he asked. Suddenly, Sweaty was angry.
“Ok, enough fucking around. That cow produces a milk that is a more powerful hallucinogen than the best LSD trip you’ve ever been on. It’s a novel trick, but not something you want mixing with your product, and certainly not something you want being consumed by the men, women and children who make up your customer base. Now hand over our fucking cow, whose name is Ella Titsgerald by the way, before you create a public health catastrophe unlike any seen since small pox!”
Moments later…
Chichay and Sweaty stood outside the main gates of the dairy, staring angrily back at the booth where the guard smirked at them from inside.
“Now what?” Chichay asked.
“Let’s go home,” Sweaty said, walking away. “We’re gonna need some gear.” Chichay followed, a smile on her face.
***
That night, Chichay and Sweaty arrived at the dairy having come via the woods. They were dressed all in black and each carried a pack with assorted gear that they planned to use to infiltrate the facility.
“Ok,” Sweaty whispered, “one of us is going to have to stand watch while the other one figures out where Ella is.”
“Can’t we both go look for her?”
“No way. Then we’d both be wandering around without a good way to signal when we find her.” He took a gigantic set of bolt cutters out of his pack and began to cut a hole in the fence.
“Makes sense, I guess,” said Chichay. “But then how do we get her out of here once we find her?”
“There’s going to be a shift change of both the guards and the night shift workers. Someone’s going to have to watch for that and send a signal, which’ll also serve as a diversion. Then we’ll meet here at the hole in the fence and whisk her back to the ranch. Now, whoever is going to look for Ella should-” Suddenly, Sweaty disappeared, his bolt cutters landing on the ground with a thud.
“Oh goddamn it,” Chichay said, looking around and sighing. “Well I’m not doing this shit on my own.” She picked up the pack and the bolt cutters, then turned and headed back into the woods, away from the dairy farm.
“If Sweaty’s not back by tomorrow I’m gonna have to bring one of the Troubadours. I’m sure that’ll be a nightmare.”
Back at the ranch…
Chichay entered the ranch house and quietly made her way through the living room, stepping over a slumbering Dixie and Johnny, who were still on the living room floor, surrounded by empty beer bottles and candy wrappers, and with hermit crabs crawling all over them.
She went into the kitchen and looked around. Other than the fact that it looked like a pot of spaghetti had exploded (it had, the obvious remnants of Dixie and Johnny cooking dinner), nothing was amiss. She grabbed a glass from the cabinet, opened the refrigerator door, and poured herself a glass of iced tea. She closed the door and was about to turn and leave when a note caught her eye.
C-
Don’t forget your uniform.
-S
“You time traveling genius,” she whispered, taking the note with her as she made her way upstairs to the room she shared with Sweaty. Inside, she flicked on the light and headed straight to the closet. There she found what appeared to be the uniform worn by workers of the Hossenberger’s Dairy production facility. It looked a bit like a hazmat suit in that it consisted of a one piece, white jumpsuit, complete with a hood and neck guard. She also noticed, on the closet floor, a pair of industrial looking rubber boots and gloves, plus a set of goggles and respirator.
The next day…
Chichay arrived at the dairy early in the morning, in time to join the workers heading inside for the first shift. The secure facility again proved not to be when she simply walked in behind another worker, who had already swiped his identification badge on the card reader. Once she was in, she stayed with the group until she could break off, unnoticed.
Many of the buildings contained processing equipment for collecting, sterilizing, and bottling milk drawn from the cows. Eventually, she followed her nose and located the feeding and milking sheds. It was a massive building, with row after row of cows, each munching on hay and a thick gruel filled with who knows what but obviously designed to increase milk production. Each cow stood in a stall, with her head more or less locked into position through the bars.
Chichay looked down the long aisle of munching cow heads and winced at the realization that, in order to locate Ella Titsgerald, she would have to walk behind the cows. Figuring this was what the industrial rubber boots were for, she chose a side and started to make her way through the manure, cautiously looking under each cow, hoping to spot the one with the unusual udders. After squishing her way through the whole feeding shed (she now understood what the respirator was for), she had not found Ella Titsgerald. She headed out the door and into the next building.
The building next door to the feeding shed was a milking shed. The cows were loaded into a large, round pen, facing inward. About ten cows at a time were hooked up to a milking machine. When they were finished, the pen was rotated and the next ten cows were milked.
Trying to look as confident as possible, Chichay quickly made her way around the outside of the pen, inspecting the udders of each cow. She had almost made a complete circuit, her panic rising as she approached the cows currently in the milking machine, when she spotted Ella. Other than the unusual human breasts, the cow didn’t look different from any of the others. But Chichay knew that if Ella’s powerful milk was mixed with the others, and sold to the general public, there would be chaos.
Ella’s position in the milking pen indicated that she was up next. Chichay guessed that she had about fifteen minutes before the cow was to be hooked up to the machine. She had to think fast. Fortunately, this was a specialty of hers.
***
Outside of the milking shed, Chichay sprinted toward the guard’s booth. As she ran, her shit-caked boots splatting on the ground, she unzipped her suit and, from an inside jacket pocket, removed a small pack of explosives. It wasn’t enough to do any real damage, but it should be enough to create the diversion that she needed. And if it gave that simpering guard a heart attack in the meantime, well, so much the better.
Chichay quickly set the explosive, placing it on the ground at the base of the booth, then turned and sprinted back toward the milking shed. As she ran, she marveled at how much more exhausting life as a private citizen could be, and briefly thought about how much simpler things had been when she was just an assassin. She definitely didn’t have to run as much.
She made it back to the milking shed just as the explosion went off. The power to the entire facility temporarily dipped, the lights dimming and the milking machine coming to a stop. She stepped inside the door just as the workers were looking at one another, wondering aloud what had happened. Soon, curiosity got the better of them, and as emergency sirens began to sound, they all rushed toward the door. When the workers had completely emptied out of the milking shed, Chichay quickly made her way back to the pen.
Ella Titsgerald’s group had just been moved into position, and the first cow had been hooked up to the machine. Another couple of minutes and Ella would have been attached, as well. Chichay climbed over the rails of the pen, climbing over Ella, and down into the interior space. She unhooked the front gate, unwound a length of rope from her waist, and wrapped it around Ella’s neck. It took a little persuading, including luring her with a handful of hay, but she got the cow moving.
A short while later, Chichay was shoving the cow through the hole in the fence that Sweaty had cut the night before. Once outside, they headed toward the woods, and home.
Back at the ranch…
Chichay closed and bolted the door to Ella Titsgerald’s stall in the barn, then closed the outside barn door and secured it with a large latch. She made her way across the lawn toward the ranch house. She could see Dixie and Johnny by the pool, playing a game they called “Hermit Crab Badminton” but which seemed to mostly be a drinking game. She had almost reached the house when there was a bright flash, and suddenly Sweaty Mulligan was standing a few yards ahead of her.
Chichay broke into a run and threw her arms around Sweaty. They shared a long kiss before they broke away and spoke.
“Ella back?”
“Yep. It wasn’t pretty, but I got her out of there like, minutes before they started milking her.”
“I knew you had this,” Sweaty said. They turned and continued toward the house.
“I asked the Troubadours to fire up the grill,” Chichay said. “Are you hungry?”
“Famished, actually,” Sweaty said.
“Great, I’m gonna head in and change, then we can have a feast.”
“You sure you don’t wanna leave that jumpsuit on?” Sweaty asked.
“Dude, I know how you feel about jumpsuits, but this one’s literally covered in shit. Refrain from time traveling for a few hours and maybe I’ll put that Flight Suit on tonight,” she said, slyly, leaving Sweaty on the porch as she went inside the house.
***
Later that day, Chichay, Sweaty, Dixie, Johnny, Rex, and the Troubadour brothers all sat at the table on the porch partaking in a massive spread of food.
“So I guess tomorrow we’ll have to take those monkeys back to the zoo,” Chichay said.
“Excuse me,” Dixie demanded, about to fly into a rage. “We worked damn hard for those monkeys and no one’s gonna-”
“Ok settle down,” said Sweaty. “I knew this was going to happen, so I solved it for you before I came back.”
“Huh?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah, huh?” said Dixie.
“I’m with them,” said Chichay, “Huh?” Everyone then looked at Rex and the Troubadour brothers, who just shrugged.
“Well, I knew Dixie and Johnny weren’t going to want to give up the monkeys. I also know those monkeys ingested a shit load of LSD and I wasn’t too keen on bringing them back to the zoo, anyway. So while I was in another time dimension, I just grabbed some other monkeys and took ‘em to the zoo.”
“Brilliant,” said Dixie, taking a drink directly from a pitcher of something that looked like Sangria but probably had way more alcohol than a normal person would consider adding.
“Mulligan,” Chichay said, fondly, “you’re all right.” They ate silence for a while, before Johnson spoke.
“I’m glad we’re keeping those monkeys. They’re fun to have around.”
“Well, I’m glad you like ‘em,” Johnny said, “Cause we’re gonna need your help when the rest of ‘em get here.”
“Speaking of which,” Dixie said, glumly, “This monkey collecting thing is taking way longer than I thought it would. At this rate, it’s gonna take us the whole thousand years to get ‘em all.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Sweaty. “I was just in the near future, and believe me when I say that the ranch’ll be overrun with monkeys soon enough.”
“Really?” said Johnny, obviously excited.
“Uh huh.”
“Dix,” said Johnny, “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” She nodded and stood up, gesturing to the others. With that everyone got up from the table, and the night got rowdy.
Monkeys Collected: 2
