Yep, It's a Wrap

‘There, the book’s done,’ I say as I give my keyboard a final tap.

It’s 3am. Bang on the winter solstice. I stand, beat my chest and release a ululating yell into the cold night air, one that’d do Johnny Weissmuller proud. In the distance, dogs howl and alley cats yowl. Closer—down the hallway—a sleep-disturbed voice shouts, ‘Who’s died now?’

‘Sorry, sorry, no one,’ I whisper. ‘I just finished the book.’

‘Thank the Lord!’ the hallway voice says. ‘You can get a life now.’

‘Go back to sleep. I’ll be there soon.’

I go to switch off my laptop when a snort comes from behind me and a voice says, ‘Finished, my arse.’

‘What? Who said that?’ I say, turning.

‘Me.’

I gasp, for there, on my swooning lounge, sits Cheeta, till then a stuffed life-sized chimpanzee, a gift from my grandchildren to keep me company during the loneliness of the long-winded writer. He has sat there for three years without moving or saying a word. All through the blood, sweat and tears. Now he’s decided to come to animated, opinionated life.

‘Good God,’ I say, ‘all that sugar and preservatives in those cupcakes I binged on have gone to my head. A talking stuffed animal? As if?’

‘Hey, buddy, you’re the one with the wacky imagination and a fetish for anthropomorphism. Just go with it! Look, the final scene’s missing.’

‘What final scene?’

‘The final scene! No book of humour’s complete without it, especially if you’re looking to flog off the film rights.’

‘But I’m spent. I’ve given my all. The humour well’s run dry.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ve your back. Just type it as I tell it. Right, here we go.

‘Tarzan reclines on a leather lounge chair while his analyst sits outside his line of sight. “How can I help you today?” she asks. Tarzan replies, “I think I’m going insane. I’m just so angry all the time.” She says, “What are you angry about?” He says, “Everything. My parents abandoning me whilst travelling abroad. My unconscious desire for my stepmother who raised me in the wild and the sense of rivalry I have towards my stepfather. My jealousy of Jane and her stunning wardrobe, while all I get to parade about in is a flimsy loincloth. My sense of inferiority when I mingle with her friends when we entertain at Greystoke Manor because I didn’t go to the right school or can’t shave myself with a razor without ending up with beastly balls of tissue stuck to my face cuts. My contempt for the mind-numbing formulaic drivel the Tarzan media franchise serves up whilst exploiting my name and legend. And my continuously getting speeding tickets when swinging on vines throughout the jungle. I just feel so burdened by it all. It’s as if I have this constant weight upon my shoulders.” The analyst scribbles on her pad, ponders for a few seconds whilst chewing the top of her fountain pen and then says, “A-ha! I’ve found the problem. It explains your ingrained feeling of resentment, your inferiority and Oedipus complexes, your anger and your feeling that the weight of the world is on your shoulders. It’s all idiomatic. You, my troubled friend, have a chimp on your shoulder.” And Tarzan turned his head and saw, perched on his left shoulder, a chimpanzee, who peeled back its lips and gave a toothy laugh.’

My Cheeta bursts out laughing. He snorts and shakes and rolls about as tears stream down his cheeks. Mucus runs from his nose and his face reddens as he struggles to breathe. He holds his sides, but his belly laughs split the seam on his torso. Stuffing spills out onto the lounge.

Eventually, his fit of laughter quells. He draws a deep breath and blares when blowing his nose on a discarded earlier draft of mine. Then he says, ‘Yes, that’s what you need. A final scene to leave your reader laughing. A last laugh. Yep, the old classic Tarzan Laughing Chimp scene. Works every time. A chimp on your shoulder. Brilliant.’ And he is lost to another minute of snorts and shakes and rolls and spilling stuffing.

‘Have you quite finished?’ I ask, somewhat curtly.

‘Yes.’ He quells his fit of laughter again, only to release a snigger.

‘All done, then?’ I ponder whether my grandchildren or the hallway voice will notice the stuffed, smug, smart-arsed simian missing if I were to deposit him on the hard-waste pile for next week.

‘I believe so.’ He attempts to push some stuffing back inside his torso.

‘So, it’s a wrap, then? The book being finished, I mean?’

‘Yep, it’s a wrap.’