Who Made Stevie Crye? by Michael Bishop Page B

resembled a piece of placid Buddhist statuary with an animate clockwork skull set into its paunch. Stevie hated having the animal in the dining area, but she was grateful that Seaton had not put ’Crets down and given him the run of the kitchen. There was a highchair in the attic, but to get it out for no longer than she intended her visitors to be on the premises would have required a much better hostess than she.
    “He doesn’t like cold weather,” Seaton was telling the kids. “That’s why I’ve got him in this outfit. My mother made it for him—before she got sick a while back.” Seaton paused, as if considering the relevance of this last bit of exposition. Then he said, “He watches football on TV, and he can throw a plastic football—one of the little toy ones—just like Bartkowski . . . sort of. Sometimes his throws end up behind him.”
    The kids laughed.
    Stevie flipped the eggs in her skillet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that ’Crets had stopped playing tennis-match spectator. The animal was staring at her, its black-ringed eye sockets like little portholes into nothingness.
    “What kind of monkey is it?” she asked defensively. “He, I mean.”
    “White-throated capuchin,” Seaton responded. “Capuchins are what you call organ-grinder monkeys, sometimes. You don’t see very many organ-grinders anymore, though. ’Crets has never worked with one.”
    “Only with a typewriter repairman, huh?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Seaton gave a polite laugh. “’Crets likes to watch me fix ’em, but Dad doesn’t like having a monkey around the office. Not one that’s, uh, not related by blood, anyway.” He gave another perfunctory laugh to indicate that this was a standing joke between his father and him.
    So rapidly did the boorish in Seaton’s character alternate with the pathetic that Stevie no longer knew whether to despise or pity him. The sinister aspects of his personality—if you ignored the vague menace embodied by the monkey—had given way to a shallow blandness. ’Crets continued to disturb Stevie, but she no longer feared his master. Owning a white-throated capuchin and riding a big black motorcycle were Seaton’s transparent attempts to distinguish a life devoid of any accomplishment but his mastery of typewriter repair. At twenty-five or twenty-six he was still an adolescent.
    “Okay, kids,” Stevie said, “get off your fannies and set the table. I’m supposed to get some help around here.”
    “Only one plate for ’Crets and me,” Seaton put in as Teddy went for the china and Marella for the silverware. “I don’t want you to have to clean up for two guests, Mrs. Crye.”
    “We can spare an extra plate, Seaton.”
    “No, no. Please don’t do that. Just one.”
    “Does he need a fork?” Marella asked from the utensil drawer.
    “Do you maybe have a cocktail fork?” Seaton asked Marella. “A cocktail fork’s about the right size for ’Crets.”
    Stevie left the stove to help Marella find a cocktail fork in the jumble of the utensil drawer. Maybe ’Crets would also like a silver-inlaid napkin ring, a stem of imported crystal, and a finger bowl. Hey, a finger bowl might not be such a bad idea. She could tip a couple of drops of Lysol into the water while neither Seaton nor the monkey was looking. As it was, she would not feel right about her kitchen again until she had scrubbed it from baseboard to cornice and invited the county sanitarian in for an inspection.
    The meal went well enough. ’Crets preferred his fried-egg sandwiches without bread, a stipulation Seaton had failed to make while Stevie was cooking. Consequently, the bread had to be removed from around the egg and the egg cut up into vaguely lozenge-shaped pieces before the capuchin could begin to eat. Seaton took care of these minor exigencies, transferring the bread slices to a napkin beside their plate (which slices, later on, Seaton ate), and Stevie was surprised by the daintiness with which