In the Casbah of Tangier, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, sweaty as nitroglycerine, drunk as a skunk and just as smelly, resided in his stained white suit on a loose mattress that bled goose down and dust, and by lamplight he pondered the loss of his shoes and the bloated body of his pet monkey, Huck Finn.
Huck lay on the only bookshelf in the little sweat hole, and he was swollen and beaded with big blue flies. A turd about the size and shape of a fig was hanging out of his ass, and his tongue protruded from his mouth as if it were hoping to crawl away to safety. He still wore the little red hat with chin strap and the green vest Twain had put on him, but the red shorts with the ass cut out for business were missing.
Twain was uncertain what had done the old boy in, but he was dead and pantsless for whatever reason, and had managed in a final gastronomic burst, to stick that one fig-sized turd to one of the two books on the shelf, Moby Dick, and his distended tongue lay not far from the other book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, written by Twain's good friend Jules Verne.
Huck, bookended by sea stories, lay in dry dock.
Twain rose slowly, bent over his pet and sighed. The room stank of monkey and monkey poo. With reluctance, Twain clutched Huck by the feet, and as he lifted him, the tenacious turd took hold of the heavy tome of Moby Dick and lifted it as well. Twain shook Huck, and Moby Dick, along with the turd, came loose. Twain then peeked carefully out the only window at the darkness of the Casbah below, and tossed Huck through the opening.
It was a good toss and Huck sailed.
Twain heard a kind of whapping sound, realized he had tossed Huck with such enthusiasm, he had smacked the wall on the other side of the narrow alley.
It was a cold way to end a good friendship, but Twain hardly felt up to burying the little bastard, and was actually pissed that the beast had died on him. Huck had wandered off for a day, come back sickly, vomited a few times, then set about as if to doze on the bookshelf.
Sometime during the night, Twain heard a sound that he thought was the release of his own gas, but upon lighting the lamp, found it in fact to be Huck, who had launched that sticky, fig-shaped turd. He saw the little monkey kick a few times and go still.
Twain, too drunk to do anything, too drunk to care, put out the lamp and went back to sleep.
A few hours later, hung over, but sober enough to wonder if it had all been a dream, lit his lamp to find that Huck was indeed dead as the Victorian novel, but without the shelf life. Flies were enjoying themselves by surveying every inch of Huck, and due to the intense African heat, Huck had acquired an aroma that would have swooned a vulture.
No question about it. He had to go.
With Huck dead and tossed, Twain decided to pour himself a drink, but discovered he had none. The goatskin of wine was empty. Twain dropped it on the stone floor, stood on it, hoping to coax a few drops to the nozzle, but, alas, nothing. Dry as a Moroccan ditch in mid-summer.
Twain removed his coat, shook it out, draped it over the back of the chair, seated himself. He sat there and thought about what to do next. He had sold all of his book collection, except Twenty Thousand Leagues, which was signed, and the be-turded Moby Dick. He didn't even have copies of his own books.
It was depressing.
When he was strong enough, he rose and made coffee in his little glass pot. It was weak coffee because there were only yesterday's grounds left, and the biscuit tin contained only a couple of stale biscuits which he managed to eat by dipping them in the coffee.
By the time he had finished breakfast, light was oozing through the window and he could hear the sounds of the Casbah below. Blowing out his lamp, he recovered Moby Dick from the floor, wiped it clean with a cloth and the remains of the coffee. It left a slight stain, coffee, not shit, but he hoped it wouldn't damage what value the book might have. Tangier was full of readers of most anything in English (except his books, it seemed) and he might get a few coins for it, as well as for the signed copy of Twenty Thousand Leagues.
It would be just enough money for a real meal of fruit and olives, and a bit of wine, as well as the rent. Which seemed pointless.
What after that? There was no place for him to work, and his new novel was going about as well as his life had. Everyone he knew and loved was dead. Well, almost. There were a few friends, Verne among them.
Twain searched about and found his missing shoes, then he grabbed a big white canvas bag and stuffed it with a few belongings, his manuscript in progress, gathered up the two books and headed out into the Casbah. As he climbed down the narrow stairs and rushed into the street, he came upon Huck's body being feasted upon by dogs.
The biggest of the dogs, a mongrel with one eye and scum around it, wrestled Huck away from the others, and darted down the street with his prize, the monkey's tail dragging on the flagstones.
Twain sighed.
Perhaps when he died, that was what was to become of him. Tossed in the street, eaten by dogs.
It was better than being savaged to death by book critics. The sonsabitches.
The street stank of yesterday's fish and today's fresh fish. Blood dripped from the tables and gathered in little rust-colored pools and slipped in between the grooves in the stones. The reek of ripe olives bit the air and chewed at Twain's nostrils. He wandered the crooked streets, which just six months ago he would have found harder to navigate than the Minotaur's maze, and came upon Abdul laying out his sales goods on a worn but still beautiful Moroccan rug of blue, green, and violet. Among the items on the rug were a few books. Twain recognized titles he had written, books from his very own collection. Each one of them reminded him of the few coins he had contributed to drink and women, mostly drink.
Abdul eyed Twain with his bag and two books under his arm.
"My friend. More books. You can see I do not need them."
"These are my last books, Abdul. I sell these, I'm taking the ferry to Spain."
"And what there? You should stay here among friends."
"You old pirate. You've given me little for what I've sold you. These are fine books."
"They are not worth much."
"I sold you copies of my own novels, signed."
"Alas, they are not worth much either. Perhaps had they not been signed."
"Very funny, Abdul. If I didn't feel like an elephant had sat on my head, I would give you a good old-fashioned American ass whipping."
Abdul pulled back his robe and revealed in his belt a curved, holstered blade with an ornate handle of jewels and silver.
"Well, maybe I wouldn't," Twain said. "Will you buy the books, Abdul?"
"Promise you have no more?"
"I promise."
Twain squatted, laid them on the blanket Abdul had stretched out on the ground.
"What's this stain on Moby Dick?"
"A fig got squashed on it. My monkey did it."
"Where is Huck?"
"He leaped out of the window this morning and committed suicide. Landed right on his head."
Abdul looked at him.
"Even monkeys fall out of trees," Twain said.
"Very well, I will give you . . . "
"In dollars, Abdul."
"Very well, I will give you four dollars."
"Jesus Christ, the Twenty Thousand Leagues is signed to me by Jules Verne. The both of us certainly have some coinage for collectors."
"Okay. How about I give you ten dollars?"
"How about you give me fifteen?"
"Deal."