The 1000th Chimpanzee

Jerry looked at himself in the mirrored window of the Doubleday building. In the reflection Jerry saw himself sitting down at his desk for the very first time, he saw every day of the six months he sat in his room, not going out, not seeing his friends, just going to work and then coming back to the room to write, his real work. He felt the first exhilaration, how his soul had soared, the memory almost made him feel normal again, but not enough. He adjusted the black baseball cap on his head, the bill shading his eyes, he evacuated all thought from his mind, except for what he was about to do. His face betrayed no emotion, a mask to hide behind, impenetrable, he looked foreboding. He reached back to the small of his back feeling the security of the gun tucked into the belt of his pants. In one hand his manuscript, and in one pocket of his army fatigue jacket his latest rejection from Doubleday. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then walked into the building with a confidence in his stride and mind that belied the deeper conflicts.

‘It’s publish or perish time.’ He thought to himself, his new mantra.

Jerry strode into Amanda Robinson’s cubicle. She was a woman in her late forties, her hair up and she was still a little hung over from the one or two too many cocktails the night before, but no one cared about that except her. A shadow fell across her desk, she looked up and there stood Jerry.

“Can I help you?” She asked.

“Yes.”

“Maybe you remember me?” Jerry asked, as he dropped his manuscript down on the desk. Amanda slid it over to her, put on her bi-focal’s flipped to the title page and sighed.

“Yes, I remember, your main character is an unsympathetic solipsist, but there’s some good writing here.”

“Yeah, I read that in your rejection letter.” He said, ripping it out of his pocket. “Do I have to lecture you on the long tradition of the anti-hero, starting with the Greeks?”

“Please, I’d rather not.”

“If my writing is good, why can’t you sell it?”

“There’s no market for it.” Amanda quipped. “Books don’t necessarily make literature.”

“Well, after today, you’ll be publishing my book.”

“Why would we be doing that?” She asked, beleaguered.

“Because, I’ll be creating a demand for it.”

“How is that?”

“This is how.” Jerry said, reaching around to the small of his back, pulling out the silvered gun, pointed it at the ceiling and “BLAM!” A shot rang in the air, Amanda threw her head onto the desk, heads popped up, chairs skittered, bodies fell to the floor “because I’m taking you and everyone else hostage, and after I’ve been arrested and thrown in jail, you’ll publish it.” Jerry glowered at Amanda, “OK, now everybody into the corner of the room.” The ten or so people in the room herded over to the corner Jerry pointed at. “Did anyone escape?” He asked. The hostages looked nervously at each other not knowing what the right answer was, was it the truth or something Jerry wanted to hear? But they couldn’t find the answer in each other’s eyes. “C’mon, I just want to know if someone made it out, to call the media.”

“No.” A timid looking girl said, softly.

“What?” Jerry asked.

“No, no one escaped.”

“Well, that’s not good. What’s your name?”

“Paige.”

“Paige? Great, that figures. OK, Paige get out of here.” Jerry pointed to an exit “and don’t forget to call a TV station or something, this isn’t going to do me any good if the media isn’t here. Oh, yeah, call the police too, and don’t forget to tell them I have hostages and a gun.” Jerry held up the gun for all to see. “Now go!” The girl hesitated a moment, looked to Amanda who imperceptibly nodded an affirmation, and the girl left as quickly as her legs would carry her.

“Do you really think you can get away with this?” Amanda asked.

“Can and will, hell, I’ll probably even get off, a misguided publicity stunt that got out of control or some such thing. Is there a TV set around here?”

“In the break room.” Someone volunteered.

“Go get it and don’t try anything and no one will get hurt.” Jerry said, waving the gun in Amanda’s general direction. One of the men left for the break room, and upon his return, set it up on a desk, and turned it on; a soap opera was on. “Turn the sound off.”

Jerry exhaustedly plopped his frame down into the chair next to Amanda’s desk, the first wave of adrenaline leaving him, drained. Amanda was attractive in her own way, ‘maybe a little thick, in the body’, Jerry thought, ‘but not bad at all’, “you know” Jerry said, loudly, as if to everyone but only to Amanda, “I always pictured myself hobnobbing with celebrities, going to literary parties, getting written up in the New York Times literary section, fucking Winona Ryder.” Amanda looked at Jerry disdainfully.

“I met her once at a party, nice girl, sweet.”

“That’s not the point.”

“What is then?”

“I was always sure I’d do something great in this life, deserving of those laurels, those plaudits. I’ve always wanted people to see the greatness in me, see it as something obvious.” Jerry felt naked, as if everyone in hearing range could see into him, he felt defeated in their being able to see him exposed, and it suddenly felt as if his dream was slipping away. “NO! I will be a great writer!” Jerry said, reinforcing himself.

“What makes you say that?” Amanda asked.

“Because my biography reads like a writers, I see my reflection in those pages.”

“You’re one in millions who fantasize, and if that’s true there’s about thirty-two more like you in America.”

“No, I’m good, I’m the one!” Jerry proclaimed vaingloriously.

“You know biographies, aren’t how to books.”

“You know,” Jerry continued, “you and I aren’t all that different.”

“That’s a cliche.”

“You recognize it, and you’re not encouraging it?” Jerry said, cynically.

“Humorous.” Amanda said, dryly, as she rested her head in her open palms. The phone rang, Amanda’s head popped up. She picked up the phone, “hello? Uh-huh, yes he’s here. It’s for you.” She said, handing the phone to Jerry, “it’s the police.”

After Jerry gave the police his list of demands he hung up the phone, “well, where were we, oh, yeah, I’ll bet your life is pretty close to mine. You’ve been reading on your own since you were ten years old, your mother reading to you before that, you were good in school, joined the activities, school paper but you harbored fantasies of being a famous writer, right?”

“Something like that.” Amanda said, trying not to let Jerry see how close he’d actually come.

“Then why don’t you understand, I live and breathe literature, this is my life, everything I’ve given up to it. Everything I’ve sacrificed for it, I’ve starved for my art, lived in a car, given up a family, written while my contemporaries advance their careers, can you say the same?”

“No.” Amanda whispered.

“But it can be a job for you.”

“I love my work.”

“Yeah, but you can go home at five maybe stop off for a couple of drinks on your way home. Me, I finish work, come home to an empty apartment except for my cat, fix dinner, and then I write. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I have something to say, while feeling like the proverbial one thousandth chimpanzee pounding away on the typewriter, hoping it’ll be Shakespeare.” Jerry said, pathetically.

“I thought it was ten-thousand chimpanzees?”

“Whatever, Jerry said before continuing, “knowing this “thing” inside of me, knowing I’m different, knowing I can never be normal, I want to come home to my wife and kids, a house, but knowing I, it can never be, never be normal, I feel like a criminal in my sacrifices.” Jerry could see what Amanda was thinking in her eyes, and felt the thought at the back of his mind become guilt. “That’s right I feel like a criminal, sitting in my apartment, sending out queries waiting for the big score to come through. I’m sorry, but I’m desperate, I’ve tried every legitimate way to get published, while sitting in my apartment, hearing of other writers getting book deals, having only a couple of chapters, or just a really good synopsis, while I sit and type away!”

“Maybe,” Amanda said, as diplomatically as she could, “if you had stayed in school and got a job in the industry, and worked your way up.”

“What about Kerouac, Hemingway, Fitzgerald they didn’t go to college or enter the industry.” Jerry said, as derisively as he could.

“Ghosts, all relics of a time gone by.”

“And maybe if you had taken a chance and pursued your dream instead of selling out for facile luxuries, rationalizing the fact that only one in a million make it, or you don’t have the requisite talent, which is all fine, I guess. But then you set yourselves up as the guardians of the palace, all the while dulling your senses with material you can turn into a quick profit, and worrying about what’s for lunch!”

“What’s wrong with making a profit.”

“You’re selling out the future!” Jerry stared angrily at Amanda “instead of finding a writer who’ll be read fifty years from now, you find writers who sell big for a few months but who really don’t have anything to say and are never heard from again. If you encourage art you’ll always have commerce, but when you encourage commerce you lose art.”

“You’re a dreamer!”

“It’s the main requirement for the job!”

Jerry watched as the last TV cameraman and news reporter left the room after interviewing him, one of his demands. So far it was going according to plan he was all over the news. Jerry was pleased with himself, Amanda looked exasperated.

“OK, look what, what do you want? What will it take for you to end this?”

“What I want?” Jerry asked, as much to himself as anyone, “you know what I want?”

“No, not yet.”

“All I want is to live where I want to, and make a living the way I want to! Just like you!”

“We all do, Jerry. But we make choices in life, you made yours and I made mine, you have to accept the consequences.”

“Don’t be so smug, one flip of the cards and you could be me, a buyout, a merger, hell, even a change of editorial policy and you’re me. All I’m asking for is a little vision beyond the horizon.”

“Jerry, why do you want to do this?”

“What?”

“Be a writer?”

“Because when I write I’m free, I can do whatever I want, invent any law, break any rule, create a world, destroy it.” Jerry heard the splintering of wood, and turned to see a phalanx of a swat team rushing towards him and he knew it was the end, the inevitable, but also the beginning. He’d been all over the news, he’d drawn a lot of attention, he’d even seen some network coverage, he knew his book would be published, he raised his hands over his head, a smile on his face. The police tackled Jerry, scattering the papers on Amanda’s desk.

After the police had hauled Jerry away, Amanda saw Jerry’s manuscript laying on the floor, she leaned over, picked it up. She noticed a few of the pages were flecked with Jerry’s blood, “I think I can use this now.” Amanda mumbled to herself.

*As you read this Jerry’s book is on the #1 best seller list.

**All names have been changed to protect the author.