Signifying Monkey
By Michael Fountain
At the lab, they taught the monkeys to wage war. But Monkey Seventeen had learned to fight dirty.
“Signifying Monkey”: comic toast or recitation from African American folklore, in which the monkey uses insult and innuendo to set the lion and the elephant against one another. To ’signify’ is to use verbal dexterity to confound an opponent, as happens in the motif “Rabbit and the Briar Patch.”
– Ormondroyd’s Encyclopedia Esoterica
Most of the dogs cried for rescue, but after surgery the Rottweiler kept on without intention like a machine wearing down. The monkey could just glimpse one bare corner of the kennels, and see the dog’s worried haunches as it made the turn. They let the Rottweiler cry for a week until Brandi made it stop.
The monkey’s skull was bolted to the frame of the chair. He could see the lab and the med cart, Leo’s tiny office and the game screen whenever they swung it into his field of vision. He couldn’t move his arms or legs and wasn’t sure if he still had them; he was only allowed to use the robot arms on the other side of the room. When they lowered the dark screen, he could see the reflected shadows of the wires running out from his head.
Red letters scrolled across the monkey’s LED screen.
- patricia -
“No, not Patricia. Patricia’s not here.”
- patricia frank -
“Frank’s not here either. Just Dave.”
- patricia frank - patricia not- patricia frank -
It was like talking to an Alzheimer’s patient sometimes; the monkeys recognized you, but they put the wrong names on things. Electrodes in the motor cortex fed neuron signals through an algorithm from the University of Pittsburgh , and the computer turned thoughts into words on the LED screen.
- patricia frank house -
“Patricia’s not coming in ’til third shift. Frank is off tonight.”
- patricia frank house -
“No, Patricia doesn’t live with Frank, she lives with me. With Dave. Patricia with Schwartz.”
- patricia frank - patricia frank house-
Patricia usually had Frank working with her; maybe that had the monkey confused. They went to the bar sometimes, Patricia with Schwartz and Brandi with Frank. Frank was a worn out forty, kind of skanky. So was Frank’s girlfriend Brandi.
The monkey worked its jaw like a horse gnawing a bit. They pulled the canine teeth before they ever came to the lab.
“Mouth okay? How’s your water?” It was rhetorical. He didn’t expect an answer. “Now let’s see you target.” Schwartz pulled a screen down over the monkey’s field of vision. A sensor in the monkey’s eye passed through a plug in his skull to a recording device that let them track eye movements.
“Okay, Seventeen, do you see the little house?”
- house -
“Now can you see the little crosshairs? Look up for me . . . good . . . look down for me . . . good . . . now left . . . now right . . . now look at the house again. Now think release, go away.”
An animation of a missile followed the animal’s gaze and made the imaginary house disappear. “Good job, you hit your target.”
- patricia good frank house -
“What d’you want to blow them up for? Let’s check your diaper, chief.”
Monkeys One through Sixteen had been injected with an isotope of technetium, and each taught to do a different task. Their brains were flash frozen and then sliced to find which “hot spot” controlled each task. That helped them place the electrodes in Monkey Seventeen.
“Okay, Seventeen, this time we want you to track a moving object with your eyes. See the bird?”
The ‘bird’ was a stylized plane, floating in an imaginary sky. “That’s right, follow the bird with your eyes . . . good - oop, he got away from you - good - now when you’re sure you have the bird, think ‘away’.” Another toy missile streaked toward the target. “Very good.”
- very good - very good -very good -
“Yes, you did good. Now we’re going to try something a little harder.”
- harder frank - frank good - frank good good frank -
“What, you decide your name is Frank now?”
-patricia good - patricia clean frank- good clean - harder frank -
Schwartz took out a cell phone and punched numbers that played a soft tune. The monkey watched him hold it up to his ear, listening as one listens to a tree to hear insects scuttle beneath the bark.
“Patricia, it’s me. Pick up if you’re there. Hello, it’s 11:30. Where are you? Patricia. Okay, I guess I’ll talk to you later, then.”
The screen in front of the monkey was full of birds of many colors. First, he’d learned to hit a blue ball on the VR screen, then to blow up little houses, and now to shoot down imaginary planes.
“Okay, now, Seventeen. Lots of birds now. Do you see the red bird?” The readout showed the monkey’s eye following the red silhouette. “Good. Now green. Can you show me the green bird?”
- show me - show me how hard-hard good - hard good frank - get big - get big for me -
“Now concentrate on the red bird.” Dave took out his phone, played the little dialing tune again, and again listened. This time he didn’t say anything, just listened, then clicked the phone shut.
- now frank now-
“I’m not Frank, dummy, I’m Schwartz. Can you remember? Schwartz? David?” It was easier when they just gave them a YES / NO light. The more words they developed, the more confusing things became. He lifted the screen out of the way to look directly in the monkey’s face. “See? Dave. My name is Dave.”
- dave - hello dave -
“That’s right. Dave. Patricia’s Dave.”
- patricia frank house - dave stupid -
“If I’m stupid, how come you’re the one strapped to the table? With wires coming out of your ass?” Dave turned his back to the animal and made scratching noises in the chart. Schwartz kept looking at the clock.
A buzzer sounded. Patricia came in, gasping, and shrugged into a white coat over her scrubs. “Sorry, sorry . . .”
“Where have you been?”
“What do you mean, ‘where have I been?’ I’ve been at home.”
“No, you weren’t. I called home.”
“I probably didn’t check the machine.”
“How come you didn’t just pick up when I called?”
“I went to the store; maybe that was when you called.”
“What’d you buy?”
“Just things I needed. Jesus. Are you bored, or something? How’s our boy coming along? Did you change his diaper?”
“Of course I changed the damned diaper.” It was part of Dave’s job description to change diapers, something Patricia never did.
“Well, pardon me for asking. Jesus.”
Patricia started connecting the monkey’s robotic arms. The monkey could see his new arms across the room. They felt like part of him now, though it bothered him that Patricia could turn them on and off.
One of the arms moved. “Damn it, shut that off until he’s hooked up.”
“Don’t be such a bitch.” Schwartz rolled over to slap the safety switch and the robot arm stopped moving. “I didn’t leave it on.”
“I just wish you’d check it before I started wiring him up.”
“I wish you checked a lot of things.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The outside door buzzed again, and Brandi slouched in behind Leo and Frank.
Frank was cheery. “Hey, how’s everybody doin’?”
“We’re fine,” Patricia trilled, and Schwartz glared at Frank like he wanted to chase him away from the troop.
- frank - frank - frank -
The monkey wasn’t sure how to proceed, so he just repeated himself , hoping one of his targets would jump in and provide him with an opening.
“Hey Frank, your boyfriend’s calling.”
“Yo, Seventeen! What is your problem, stud?”
Schwartz had his outside jacket on and was jingling his keys. He was supposed to leave, but he didn’t want to leave Patricia with Frank.
Leo, the big clumsy one, went into his glass box. Leo was something of a eunuch compared to Schwartz and Frank, but he was somehow of higher status, even though they made fun of him when he wasn’t there.
The women hunched together and made clicking and scratching noises in the charts. Brandi had the worst grooming of any, except Frank. There were always little spots of fear on her lab coat, blood and bile from the other animals. Brandi must be on the bottom; no one groomed her very often.
Frank was not much cleaner than Brandi. There were spatters of fear and urine on his lab coat, too. Frank wanted to top Patricia, but he settled for Brandi, lower in order. Schwartz would chase Frank away if he tried to groom Patricia.
- patricia - patricia - patricia-
“Ohhh-kay, Mr. Seventeen-” She checked to see that the robot arm was moving at the monkey’s command. With a thought, he made the pinchers open and shut and flexed the arms up and down.
- dirty - dirty-
“Are you dirty?” Patricia fingered the monkey’s diaper.
-dirty - dirty fat - brandi dirty fat -
They all laughed, all but Brandi.
“Little fucker!” Brandi slapped at the monk and knocked several wires loose.
“Son of a bitch - Brandi, you bitch . . .”
“Fuck you, Patricia.”
“You can hook him up again, then, dummy.”
“Fuck you too, Frank.”
“Got your number, Brandi.”
“One of you fuckers did that,” Brandi snarled. “Come on, which one of you typed that in?”
“Now how are we going to program that? I don’t know shit about programming that thing.”
“It’s not like it’s difficult,” Schwartz said.
Brandi was desperate and furious. “Someone on second shift did it.” She spun toward Schwartz. “Is that why you’re hanging around here? To see me insulted? Humiliated?”
“Whoa whoa, slow down,” Schwartz said. “I didn’t do it. And you better shut your mouth before you start climbing up my ass.”
“Why are you still here, then?”
“That’s my business why I’m here. Ask Patricia why I’m still here.”
Patricia’s expression was blank. “How would I know? Why are you still here?”
“They can’t make things up. It just repeats what he hears us say.”
- brandi bad fat - patricia good -
“This is bullshit!” Brandi screamed. “I don’t have to put up with this shit. Little fucker.”
Brandi might be pushed into being so angry with the monkey she would send him away. She had gotten impatient with the Rottweiler and clicked something when the others weren’t looking; the Rottweiler stopped crying and they took it away. Schwartz was upset, but Patricia thought the rott was a “crackerbilly” dog, like the chow and shepherd mixes that were “a dime a dozen around the lab.”
The monkey tried to file this in memory. Patricia meant the pound dogs were crap, dirty, waste — to be thrown away like the stuff in his diapers.
“Little bastard.” Brandi flicked water at the monkey when Patricia wasn’t looking. Schwartz was looking, though, and Frank.
- wet -
“You’re wet? We need to change you?”
- no wet - patricia wet -
Frank snorted nastily. “I’ll just bet she is.”
- patricia frank good wet - frank big - frank big patricia good -
Schwartz took the chart he was writing in and swung the edge at Frank’s head as hard as he could. The chart tore blood from Frank’s scalp, but the chart wasn’t heavy enough to cause major damage. Frank did fall off his rolling chair, and Schwartz was on him. The monkey would have expected Frank to run off in submission, but Schwartz wouldn’t let him.
“Jesus Christ!” This was enough to bring Leo out of his glass cubicle, but he had never established his authority solidly enough for the others to scatter when he roared. Frank and Schwartz ignored Leo and kept squalling and kicking.
Things quieted when they were both gone. Leo had to sit with Brandi and Patricia and help with their measuring and clicking. Leo was always in a hurry, moving too fast and then swearing when things broke out from under him.
- patricia - patricia - patricia -
“Why do you keep saying my name?”
- patricia - brandi bad -
“Not now.”
- brandi bad patricia - brandi bad - brandi bad patricia -
“Brandi doesn’t like me? Well you know what?” Patricia whispered to the monkey. “I don’t like Brandi, either.” Patricia started changing the set up for the monkey’s robotic arms.
Brandi started to help but Leo rolled in her way. “I can do that quicker.”
“Be my guest,” Brandi said. Brandi was sullen when she thought people didn’t like her, and she was sullen most of the time.
The LED scrolled: - brandi bad - leo brandi bad -
“You know what, Leo? If you don’t think I’m competent enough to do my fricking job, you can just fire me.”
‘What are you talking about?”
Leo and Patricia were still bent over the tiny jacks that led to the mechanical arms.
- leo patricia good - brandi bad - throw away - fat bad brandi - slow fat brandi - white trash fat -
“In fact,” Brandi slammed her rolling chair against the drug cart, “you can just go fuck yourself. I fucking quit.”
“Goddamnit, Brandi!” Leo looked up now. “What the hell are you doing?”
Brandi didn’t actually leave, but fled into Leo’s glass cubicle as though she wanted him to come after her.
“What crawled up her ass?” Patricia muttered.
- up her ass -
“Well, I can’t lose any more people,’ Leo complained. “I’ve already got to replace two.”
Patricia shrugged. “Though I personally couldn’t care less about her and her crackerbilly tantrums. Jesus Christ, Leo, when are they going to hire some decent people around here?”
“The monkey cost more than they make in a year. And you know management: bend over and smile.”
- crackerbilly bitch -
The monkey tested the words.
- bend over - smile - bad fat crap -
Leo sighed his way into the cubicle with Brandi. They could hear her complaining and Leo’s occasional low murmur.
-patricia - patricia - patricia -
“Monk, monk, monk.” She was busy with her wires and not paying much attention.
- bend patricia over -
“Did I drop something?” She looked at the floor.
- leo bend over - bend patricia over [NO SIGNAL] - up her ass - patricia leo -
“That’s bad. That’s very bad. Don’t say things like that.”
- leo Patricia leo bad - leo bend over up her ass -
“You heard Leo talking like that? Nasty old fucker. In his dreams.”
Patricia glanced at the office. Brandi was screaming now and Leo’s tired voice was trying to slow her down.
- brandi leo - brandi leo -
“Not even Leo is that desperate. Maybe Frank was that desperate but he couldn’t get anything else. Brandi Leo? No way. Ew, it grosses me out to even think about it.”
- brandi patricia bad - brandi leo patricia bad -
“Oh, now you’re just being silly.”
- bad patricia drug key cart brandi drug key - brandi drug key -
“Brandi took a drug key? The key to the drug cart?” Patricia had never thought about what was available in the drug cart. The stuff they shot into the monkey was radioactive, and hand delivered by the pharmacy - but Brandi and Frank liked to joke about the money they could make by tampering with the inventory.
- brandi drug key - see the bird - brandi bird key brandi - brandi leo patricia bad - patricia bad cart key -
“Patricia didn’t take the drug key. I don’t do things like that.”
- brandi fat bad - brandi cart key - patricia cart key - patricia bad - patricia target release go - patricia go away -
Patricia went into the office with Leo and Brandi. “Exactly what is that bitch telling you about me?” she yelled. Patricia slapped Brandi.
“What are you talking about?”
Patricia slapped Brandi again. Leo pulled Patricia out of the office. Patricia backed over the yellow line that read DO NOT STEP OVER THIS LINE WHEN POWER IS ON.
The monkey flexed the robot arm and snatched at Patricia’s lab coat. She shrugged out of the coat but fell to the floor. Leo might have cut the connection then, but instinct made him step toward Patricia. The robot arms grabbed Leo by the throat and arm with a much more sturdy grip.
Leo barked like the Rottweiler as the robot arms were ripping him in two. The poor Rottweiler had gone on for weeks, able only to recite its pain and hope for rescue. Leo’s yelps lasted only a few seconds.
They could all smell sheared copper and Leo’s excrement. The smell did something primal to Patricia and Brandi: for one second they locked eyes with the monkey and recognized one another not as subject and experiment, but as fellow creatures that shared a dark and bloody plain.
Patricia crawled on all fours towards the monkey and the cutoff switch. She was screaming at Brandi to cut the power.
Brandi stood in the office doorway. “Hey, I don’t get paid for this shit.”
The robot arms threw pieces of Leo at Patricia, hoping some would hit her. Patricia vomited and that was enough to make Brandi vomit too.
- [NO SIGNAL] -
There was no clear word for the monkey’s outrage in the vocabulary of the targeting system.
Patricia was out of his line of sight now and the power to the mechanical arms was cut. Another waft of Leo’s dead body reached them and he heard Brandi and Patricia lurch away down the hall.
They left him alone with the beagle and the shepherd mixes that paced in the kennel. The beagle yawned an anxious whine, but for now the monkey had driven the tormenters away.
They might blame the robot arms and not the monkey. Patricia and Leo sometimes scolded the others that “the monkey cost more than you make in a year.” If hurting Leo made the monk a “crackerbilly” dog like the Rottweiler, they would take him away from here. Other animals went away from time to time; why did the monkey have to stay in the chair?
Patricia and Brandi would come back to hurt him, the way scattered birds come back to scavenge for blood. It was hard to think past this moment of pain, but Seventeen had already crossed a line by effecting a change in his environment. He could only wait and watch for whatever chance they gave him.
