Why? You Have It All

These characters are Howler Monkeys. People are also in it. Please know the Howler Monkeys are in South America, in the Amazon jungle. They’re sitting on thick branches, watching from a distance. The ‘movie theatre’ is a bamboo stage, complete with lights and animals managing it all. No humans were harmed in the making of this story.      

Her husband turned to her, resituating himself in his chair so he could clearly see his wife from the seat over after a few minutes of silence reigned after she asked why the lights hadn’t come up yet—the screen was black and she didn’t see anyone else around. “Why? You have it all.” Grabbing the box of popcorn from the ground below the cup holder in between the couple’s movie theatre chairs. “Don’t know why you need more. You have me, you have Theresa, Couch and Magnolia. What’s more?”

“Nicholas, I know I have a family, a career, a group of close coworker besties and a house we’re selling to move down into the city next to my cousin’s apartment.” The wife picked up her feet to put them on the seat so that her knees stared at the ceiling. “I just…” She looked around and knitted her eyebrows. Then she sighed. “The lights aren’t on still.”

“Yeah…” Her husband’s voice sounded as if his eyes were roving around, asking the same thing. “Maybe they will. When the person behind the film roll up in that window will turn them on. Whenever he will.”

“Honey.” His wife caught his attention once more, but he shook his head. “Honey, I just…I don’t want to bother you—”

“If you don’t,” he dug his hand into the buttery world of yellow food all clumped together like blueberries in a bowl, “then why complain about your life? You seem to just not be happy. If you are, you want to get rid of that groan in your voice, you know?”

The wife nodded agreeably. “Yeah, I just want to talk to you about something. Is that so wrong?”

“No—” He handed some to his wife, who said no. “It’s just you’re upset about something. Is there something wrong?”

“No!” The wife insisted. “There’s nothing. I just can’t get over,” she shifted in her seat so she faced her husband, “your cousin’s apartment.”

“My cousin’s apartment? It’s your cousin who’s the one who’s going to be our neighbor!” He scrunched his face. “Is that why you’re so upset? Over the cousin’s apartment?” He waved his hand. “Then call off the move. Couch will be infuriated. He’s hated this county since the last school break-in. Besides, can’t we all be happy? It’s not like you’re making anything better.”

“Nick!” The wife balled her fists, but then thought better of it. She smiled at thoughts of her cousin getting that new place, and how excited she’d been about the whole new living area. “You know, all I wanted was to be happy like her. And I am!”

“So why are you upset?”

“Honey,” the wife sat so that she was directly in front of her husband, and he her. “You’re not happy. You kind of growled your way through the day today. And tomorrow’s Sunday. What a great way to bless our children than on the Lord’s Day! Don’t you want Couch to be happy?”

Nick blinked and then nodded. “Well, yeah. But what—”

“What does that have to do with us being here in the dark? What does that have to do with me? Well, maybe you should reflect on what you’re doing to him and saying to him that’s making him wonder whether we’ll really be where we say we are.” She raised her eyebrows. “Hm? He’s been pretty upset lately, almost on the verge of tears. Didn’t even want to play videogames yesterday! How’s that for a thirteen year old? No teen goes without games on the Xbox, right?”

Nick took a deep breath and looked at his wife. After chewing some popcorn, he mused, “I did—I did slam the pantry door after retrieving some KitKat bars.” He threw his hands up. “But I apologized! Why’s that so hard?”

The wife pursed her lips and then said softly, patting her husband’s knee, “I know thousands of hours where I had lost my temper, and I sat there, wondering what was wrong with me. But it’s not something I don’t have. It’s something I can’t unless I change. How about you think about that?” She, he saw, turned around, sighing. He drew a breath. The suffocating darkness of the dark movie theatre seemed to press in them both like a wall closing in on someone on both sides—so much so that the wife said despairingly, “When’s the light coming on? We’re not supposed to suffer the atmospheric torture of a building inside a building! When? Why?”

“How about you ask the light guy up there?”

“I can’t go up there. We’ll have to wait.”

“Hey, did you like the movie?”

“Yeah—I would’ve if you had enjoyed it.”

“Hey! Don’t blame me when I was laughing and having a good time—”

“No, you weren’t.” The wife’s sharp tone made the husband drop the bag of popcorn abruptly. “You were laughing your jerk attitude away. You need to apologize to that boy right away! I don’t care if it’s a text, an email, whatever. Do it now!” Her voice had gotten a little shrill. “Before I do it myself—and include you on it.”

The husband reminded his wife harshly he’d rather go jump off a cliff than have his wife tell their son that he needed to apologize about something that he saw wasn’t his fault. He turned back to the movie screen that was black and looked up at the square lit area. Pursing his lips, he slipped out of his chair and told his wife he’d be back.

“Okay.” His wife said slyly.

He walked across the aisle, turned and walked up the wide lit stairs. Soon, he came to the top, where he strived to stay clear of tripping over the chairs lined up against the wall in front of him. They were all empty—the husband felt everyone had already gone home—and tried seeing someone in there. Leaning back and squinting, he couldn’t see anything but a well-lit room. Waiting a few minutes, the husband leaned back again, and then impatiently tapped his foot. Shaking his head, he went back down and told his wife he never understood these places. A place where the light was on and no one was home!

“Hm.” The wife said like it was obvious. “A place where the light is on and no one’s home!”

The husband stared at her, she saw with satisfaction. Then he drew a huge breath. “You know what, Lissa? Whatever.” He grabbed his bag of popcorn and stormed out of the theatre, grumbling to himself about irony and hypocrisy. “You coming?” He called.

“No.”

He stopped before disappearing around the island between the stairs and the aisle way leading into the movie theatre. “You’re not coming?” He chuckled. “But…you always do. Remember all those times we used to hold hands after exiting the movies?”

“Yeah.”

He shivered—his wife’s voice was stone cold.

“Honey, what’s going on? I thought we had discussed right after the movie ended about an hour ago. or maybe it was less. Whatever. Anyway, why are you so different?”

“I’m not.”

“Please?” His voice whined a little. He couldn’t help it.

“Nick, come back here. We need to talk.”

“We talked.”

“About me. It isn’t about me.”

“Yes, it is.”

His wife emerged from her seat and walked up to him. In the darkness, they could make each other out. “No—we didn’t.”

“So we’re just going to make this place our new home? We’re just going to move here, feast on popcorn until we die of diabetes and then what?”

The wife sighed. “Honey, please listen.”

“No—” he jabbed his finger at his wife’s chest. “No, you listen! You’re upset about something, and I’m trying to help. You don’t get to tell me what to do. I can—”

“Listen to someone who’s right for once.” The wife skirted around him like an ice skater on an ice rink. “Let’s go. I want some dinner.”

“Well,” her husband’s voice rang out loudly and harshly, “I want you to listen to me for once—”

“I do!” She thundered, whipping around. “I’m happy. Have been this whole time. Until you bring up your own troubles. You start listening to me. I’m always the one guiding you and helping you along the way. Yes, I’m your wife. But can you just do me a favor? Listen to me? I’m right.”

“How?” His voice was icy.

She ignored the tone. “Because I went up to Couch’s room, where he was crying. Tears of pain ran down his cheeks like trickles of water down a dry, hot desert rock.” Her voice was cool but it then became warm. “Please, honey.”

“How’d you—”

“Become like this? Have such a calm demeanor in the face of this all nonsense? Because I learned to have patience with people. Pe—”

“People like me?”

The wife didn’t respond. She said she heard him blubber like he was about to cry. She said she’d best wait for him to relax. Then she said, “Honey, please, be a good listener. At least for me. Couch was upset. You need to make it up to him. Please?”

“So I can’t cry?” Her husband begged.

“Honey,” her voice was thin as ice, “I’m being as calm and caring as I possibly can. please don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be.”

“I’m not. All I ask is that you stop thinking about what you want, and start thinking of others. starting with me.”

The wife was silent. then her husband’s phone lit up with a text soon after. You can come eat dinner with us if you want. I left a plate out for you. it’s in the microwave. All you need to do is press ‘Start.’ Okay, honey? Please?

The husband grunted a reply to his text message’s words and then pocketed the phone. Here’s one, he started walking down the ramp of a walkway, heading home a few blocks down the road, how about you tell Couch I’ll be home? He’ll see me. he’ll know I’m there. I’m eating dinner with him, right? He doesn’t need to tear up and cry when I’m home, right?

When he got home, Magnolia and Theresa quipped that he should go talk to Couch. The father nodded silently, they saw, and then went back to their text messaging. “Get off the phones and hit the homework, girls!” He ordered as he walked upstairs to the clattering of phones and rustling of pages and slapping of textbooks against the hard wooden kitchen table.

A knock on the door, and the father slipped his head in between the door and Couch’s room’s wall.

“Hey.” He went in uninvited. “How’s everything?”

“How do you think?” Couch kept his eyes on his Xbox screen, maneuvering the player with his controller. “Why’d you leave in the middle of our conversation?”

“Argument.”

“No—conversation.” Couch slid his eyes over to his father, turning his head. looking him dead in the eye, Couch let out a stream of words followed by a yank of the door as he escaped his room. His father’s call to him fell on deaf ears.

The father stood there, thinking to himself. I’m told by my wife I’m not happy when she’s upset about the move, maybe. Couch doesn’t understand why I had come in his room. What’s the big deal? He left the room, going downstairs. Calling Couch’s name, his wife told him he had gone to take a walk. The husband got in his car and drove Couch’s usual route, catching up with him. rolling down the window, he called to him, but Couch walked more intently, the teen’s sour face turning into a poker face.

“Come on, man!” The father begged. “Please? It’s your father. What’s up?”

“Nothing—”

“Nick!” Couch said. And then said it more intently. “Nick!”

“What?” Nick jumped, turning to his wife. She was looking at him intently, and then flicked her eyes up to the ceiling. He looked up, and blinked, a bright smile stretching on his face. “Wow! The lights are on, finally! Let’s go.”

“Yeah—ya think?”

As they gathered their things, the husband and wife chattered about the husband’s little nap.

“Well,” he shrugged, chuckling, “I guess so. Couch will be so happy.”

“Yes,” the wife shook her head, looking wonderingly at him. “Yeah…he will.”

As they went to their car, the wife stopped her husband. “What’s going on? You’ve been in your own little world lately.”

“Uh…” The husband tugged on his shirt collar. “Everything’s okay. I mean…I can’t wait for the move!”

“Nick, you’re always spacing out. I saw you in the movie theatre; you just kind of laugh to yourself and look down at your cellphone. Are you talking to Couch?”

Nodding, the husband admitted, “I wasn’t kind to him lately. I needed to apologize. It wasn’t that I was spacing out. It was just that I needed to talk to him.”

“But you can’t be on your phone during the movies!” His wife wailed. “Nick! Did you even see when the sea monster pinned the guy to the ground, its blood-stained mouth wide open as spit hung from its maw like stalactites from its cave roof?”

“Uh.” The husband’s stomach churned. “You and your descriptions. You should be a writer!”

The wife was unmoved. “Nick, stop changing the subject.”

Bobbing his head, Nick consented. “Alright, alright. Okay. So…your cousin?”

Disgruntled, the wife got into the car a little messily. Her husband held up both giant grey hand-like paws. “Okay. I’m sorry. Please. Just let me say it. I won’t be on the phone anymore. Couch was upset. I just needed to get back to him. He was crying in his room.”

His wife looked at him a minute and then nodded calmly. Then she said, “Magnolia and Theresa made dinner.” Then she grinned. “Aw—how sweet!”

The couple sat there, munching on a single big bag of fruit and nuts. Then when the animals bowed and then the theatre went empty, macaws, jaguars, other Howler Monkeys, Poison Dart Frogs and snakes started flying, leaping, jumping, slithering and scampering away—in the darkness of the leaves covering the sun. The couple stayed, the branches being pulled apart to shed the light.

“Thanks!” The husband put an orange arm around his wife, who smiled over at him and he over at her. “That was great. We were watching…people. A couple. Just like us…they had the same personality, the same story, the same everything. It reminded me of when Couch and I were butting heads. Seems…similar…” He blinked his eyes. “It also…ah, never mind. All that’s in the past!” He sighed in relief. “We’re over it. Maybe this show was just an act. But I don’t want to be reminded of our screaming matches and our arguments of fists and fights. That wasn’t a show, definitely.”

“Yes—everything was. Hope you didn’t get too sucked away into the past!” The wife grabbed the bag and stuffed her face. The husband chuckled and shook his head.

“Yep—now what?”

“Din’er.”

“Diner?”

The wife swallowed her cheeks full of fruit and nuts, and then repeated herself.

“Oh!” The husband bobbed his head, and then they got up and hopped along the branch.

“Do you see it?” His wife asked as they exited. “Do you understand? It’s not me.”

“Yeah…” The husband nodded, truth sparkling in his eyes. “Yes—I do. Especially after that show reminded me. I mean, one event after another. Thought you’d have to resolve a problem, too, just like that couple in the show.”

“Yep.” The wife grinned satisfactorily as they swung off the branch a little ways off. “After that show. What an eventful evening. Besides, how do they do that? We see people, but they’re animal actors. How is that done?”

A few more branches were swung and a grassy, leafy, muddy, damp ground was hit before they talked again. “I have no idea. But let’s go do something else. To get our mind off of what we just saw.” The husband shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “Let’s go home, and get food in our stomachs after all these berries and nuts! Real food.”

The wife stopped suddenly, the husband almost bonking into her. He put out his arms. “Whoa!”

“I don’t think.…” She thought. Her husband leaned around to her, his face a complete picture of worry and fear.

“Um, honey. You okay?”

The Howler Monkey ran off, calling after to her husband she was going to the bathroom. Then the husband heard her repeat, Wake up. Wake!

His eyes flashed open. He hurled up in bed. He checked himself. He had flesh. He looked over at his wife. She was human too, breathing quietly. He muttered to himself that he had had the weirdest dream. Then he heard crying. The husband got out of bed, tiptoed to his son’s room and opened the door. “Couch?” He whispered hesitantly.

Sniffles made him go into the room entirely. He sat on the bed, put his hand on Couch’s shoulder, and sniffed himself.

“Couch, I’m sorry I was so ugly to you. I’m,” he saw his son move so that he was looking at him from below on his bed. “I,” he blinked back tears. “I’m sorry.” His voice was hoarse. “Can you forgive me?”

“Yes, Dad!” Couch sat up and hugged him. “Yeah.”

Then the father got up and smiled at Couch and left, muttering, “Hope you like our new place next to the cousin’s apartment in the bustling place of cars, taxis, tall office buildings and new classmates and teachers!”