The Monkeyface Chronicles by Richard Scarsbrook Page B

sixty-second countdown, another screen that read, “ Auto-fix sequence successful! ”

    Since his Y2K cash-in, Dennis has been looking for an equally lucrative yet non-labour-intensive method for quickly making money. He regularly trades penny stocks on the internet from the computer in his bedroom, usually losing all of his pool-shark earnings in a single sitting. He also does a lot of online gambling, and has had about equal success with the computerized slot machines. Our parents know less about Dennis’ financial activities than we know about my father’s scientific work.
    â€œDad’s got a meeting soon,” I tell Dennis. “We’d both better go upstairs.”
    Dennis sits upright, tosses his magazine on the coffee table, and says, “Not this time, buddy. Not this time.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œTonight we’re going downstairs .”
    â€œTo the basement ? Are you crazy?”
    â€œI’ve got a great idea, but I need to do a little experiment first, and I can’t do it by myself.”
    â€œNo way. The basement is off limits tonight.”
    â€œCome on, buddy. Five minutes. We can both profit from this. I haven’t forgotten the promise I made you.”
    â€œForget it, Dennis. If we get caught . . . ”
    â€œYou won’t get even with those little rich bitches by throwing mud at them,” Dennis snaps. “The only way to beat people with lots of money is to have more money than they’ve got. If they wear three-hundred-dollar pants, you show up in a three- thousand -dollar suit. They hate it. It makes ‘em crazy.”
    How did Dennis find out about the mud-bomb incident? He wasn’t even in the house when Mom and I were talking about it.
    As if he’s reading my mind, Dennis says, “I was kicking Boner Simpson’s ass at the pool table in Jackie Snackie’s when his little brother Sam came in crying that you had pasted him in the face with a mud ball. Boner sends his congratulations, by the way. He says his brother’s a shithead.”
    Dennis glances into the kitchen, where our father is still wringing his hands and staring at the refrigerator. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “Philip, there’s another reason you need to come down to the basement with me.”
    He’s got my full attention now. He just called me by my name. Usually he calls me Douchebag , unless he wants something from me, then it’s buddy . He never calls me by my actual name.
    â€œIt’s time you knew the truth,” he says.“The truth about what?”
    â€œThe truth about Dad. The reason why you’re the way you are.”
    â€œI was born this way.”
    â€œThere’s more to it than that. And it’s time you knew.”
    Dennis rises and walks toward the door to the basement. “We’ve got half an hour.”
    â€œYou’re just saying this to trick me into helping you with whatever you’re planning to do down there.”
    â€œMaybe. Maybe not. There’s only one way to find out.”
    So I follow him down the stairs, holding on to both handrails as we descend into the darkness below.

Jacob’s Ladder
    D ennis closes the door at the bottom of the basement stairs, and for a moment everything is pure black. The total absence of visible radiation ; no wavelength, no colour, nothing. It is silent and cool, like I imagine the inside of a crypt would be. When the flame inside the water heater ignites, it sounds like an explosion.
    â€œDammit!” Dennis curses, “Where is that friggin’ light switch? I can’t see a damn thing . . . ah.”
    The banks of fluorescent tubes crackle and then hum overhead, flooding the space with white light. The basement still looks much the way it did when it was built by the crazy gas speculator who wanted to be a Medieval Lord. The joists and support posts are all rough-squared and blackened to look like castle beams, and the grey