Sock

When a woman is found dead in the waters off New York City, the police diver-known as Little Fool-who finds her body turns out to be an old lover of hers. When he sees her, he realizes she was the love of his life, so he sets off to find her killer along with her best friend, a gay hairdresser. But that's just a thumbnail plot of a novel that is a very interesting ride indeed-the sock monkey of the title narrates a story that swerves and veers, takes off into philosophical riffs, occasionally stops to tell a side story, and references everything from pop culture of the 1970s and 80s to what it feels like to be a killer, to be gay, to be a victim. Sock turns the notion of the buddy cop story on its ear to create a wraparound world of disenfranchisement, hostility, and intensity. Sock is a surprising, maddening, fascinating piece of work.

Penn Jillette has been the larger, louder half of the performing team Penn & Teller since 1975. Penn's articles has appeared in The New York Times, Playboy and other publications. This is his first novel. He lives in Las Vegas, NV.

CHAPTER ONE

Sewn Under a Bad Sign

Bad monkey wammerjammer. Sewn in a crossfire hurricane of nee-dles and pins. An imaginary friend's howlings in the driving rain of the washing machine. Don't you wanna live with me?
Look at my eyes. Look at them. I told you to look at my eyes!

Look at my eyes! These aren't giggly, jokey eyes to make babies giggle. My button eyes are like a shark's eyes. Buttons from a sharkskin suit. My eyes have been fiddled with by a hustler. Nervously tapped by a bad man. My eyes are worn right in the center from the tapping of a diamond pinky ring. It was his gambler's tell. When the owner of that expensive but cheap suit was lying, he'd click click click click his flawed diamond against the buttons of his suit jacket.
And he was lying all the time. Click click click click click. Those buttons are my eyes! They were always my eyes. They saw everything from the coat of a wheeler-dealer: Mr. Ferris, the big wheel down at the carny, Doctor, my eyes have seen the pain of a lying diamond. Black eyes. No emotion. Predator. Predator sock monkey. Bad monkey.

Look at my skin. It wasn't born from a clean, new sock. No way. This is a sock that has been used. Look at my mouth. My mouth sheathed a real heel. A man's heel. It rammed against the end of a steel-toed boot. That makes a monkey tough. Very tough. There's human blood in my mouth. Blister blood. And foot sweat. I taste foot sweat all the time. Lumberjack foot sweat. I'm worn. I've been around. My mouth has walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire. Bad monkey.

And the toe of that sock skin. You know where that is. You know what that toe became, don't you? You have your little baby names for it, but you know what it really is. Yup, it's that toe that kicked me in the you-know-where. My very fiber is a kick in the behind. That's what I am. I am a kick in the behind. Bad. That's me. Kick it. Kick the bad monkey in the behind. Kick it.

Kick it. Turn it up. Louder, louder. The Little Fool never played Mr. Rogers pap in the Little Fool's bedroom. This ain't no nursery, this is our room, brothers and sisters, and we kick out the jams. We play the radio. We play it loud. Kick it. Going faster miles an hour. The Top 40, the FM college station. Janey said when she was just five years old, Little Fool never once gave it away. The Little Fool taking it. It's all pumping in. But do you like American music best? Mon-key?--Records. Eight tracks. Cassettes. CDs. MP3s.-The Little Fool always listens and I always remember. Everything. He left the music on in the room. He didn't turn the music off, ever. Even when he wasn't there. Even when he slept. And he left the refrigerator door open. Bad monkey. Bad rocking monkey.

Bad to the nylons stuffing my innards. I'm not stuffed with old pjs. There's no reassuring baby smell deep in me. No way. And I'm not stuffed with sensible, modest pantyhose that got, oh, pshaw, a run. No! I'm stuffed with nylons. Nylon stockings. Modern petro-leum, chemical, artificial nylons that were held on with black lace garter belts around the legs of a woman. A woman. A woman with legs up to there. Not a lady. Not a child. A woman. That's what my stuffing is. My stuffing smells like cheap perfume. Cheap perfume that was put on those shapely upper thighs. That's not where you put perfume. Bad monkey.

Lumberjack sock stuffed with a woman's nylons. Yeah, the old lady washed them. She washed me all. I was created clean, but that smell is deep. Deep. Deep. It's a smell of the soul, and my soul is a lumberjack's sole. I've been worn. My soul has walked miles of barbed wire to smell the nylons of my innards.

Hustler eyes, lumberjack skin, the heart of a woman's legs, and a grandmother's spoiling love. I got it all, baby. I got it all, my little baby boy. Drool on me. Grab me. Carry me. Rip me apart. I'm a bad monkey.

The Little Fool calls me "Dickie." That's my name.

"Why do you call him 'Dickie'?" the parents ask.

"Because he's dickie colored," the Little Fool answers.

They laugh. They laugh at how cute the Little Fool is.

But he's lying. He learned how to he from my button eyes. He calls me "Dickie" because it's the baddest word he knows. And I'm the baddest wammerjammer monkey he will ever love.

He will rip me apart with his love. And he will grow big. He will be very big. And he will never forget me.

And I'll love him forever like a bad monkey. Like a very bad monkey.


Copyright 2004 by Penn Jillette