I was separating the beds when Ketut brought the bottle in.

“Trouble, Mr. Jim?”

“Nothing that bottle won’t cure. Mix me a Rickey, would you?”

I moved the nightstand between the beds, and opened the porthole. Calm seas, clear skies. We’d make good time.

Ketut gave me the Rickey on a tray. The lime was fresh, and the water had plenty of fizz. “Perfect, as usual, Tut. But I do have one piece of advice for you.”

“What, Mr. Jim?”

“Never get married.”

When I looked up, she was standing in the door. Milky skin and auburn hair. Ample curves squeezed into a black cheongsam. She glared at me with her green cat’s eyes and said, “Get out.”

*** 

I leaned over the rail and scanned the horizon. The Riau Islands were visible off the port bow, hazy in the tropic sun. Braithwaite appeared beside me in a crumpled linen suit. “The little one is Palau Salor,” he said. “Won’t be long till Singapore now.”

I didn’t care about Singapore. I was thinking of Rangoon and my lumber contracts. “Would you mind, terribly?” Braithwaite assaulted me with his deadly breath. He was after the bottle. “Go on,” I said.

We passed the gin and smoked. A door clanked open behind us and the gorilla came up from below. He was sweaty and smelly, his fur caked with coal dust. “Eastern lowland,” said Braithwaite. “Beastly things.”

The gorilla knuckle-walked past us, grunting, his muscled hindquarters flexing with each stride. When he entered my cabin, Braithwaite raised an eyebrow.

****

The ceiling fan in the bar was broken, and the heat and smoke were stifling. Braithwaite sat at the piano and played.

“What is that?” I said.

“‘Put the Blame on Mame.’ I could sing a verse.”

“Don’t.”

Ketut was rubbing a stain off his white jacket with seltzer. He put the syphon aside and gave me a serious look. “Gorilla’s big trouble, Mr. Jim. Watch out.”

I wished Ketut had been around three years ago, when I first saw my wife in that San Francisco nightclub. He would’ve warned me. “No good, Mr. Jim.” As for the gorilla, I wasn’t worried. The Maputo & Martaban Line had been using trained monkeys and apes as crew for years, and as long as they stayed sober, they seldom got out of hand.

Braithwaite transitioned into “These Foolish Things” and I ordered another Rickey as we steamed into Singapore harbor.

****

The next morning, we shoved off before breakfast. Bumboats crossed our bow one after the other, carrying rubber and rice and tea to and from the freighters anchored offshore. Singapore had been a disappointment. My wife had gone into the rainforest with the gorilla, and Braithwaite had taken me to the Cricket Club, where he quarreled drunkenly with the consul.

Now I was drowsing on a deck chair in the sun, watching the city slip away. The captain walked up and flicked his cigar overboard. He was unshaven and looked worse than I did. “Strait of Malacca dead ahead. Ten days to Rangoon.”

“What do you mean ten days?”

He squinted. “New stops. Penang and Port Blair.”

“I have business, damn it.”

“Everybody has business.”

The days dragged on. My wife took her meals in the crew mess, with the gorilla. Said she was really starting to like bamboo shoots. At night we retired to our separate beds. Braithwaite was as anxious to get to Burma as I was. A check was waiting for him, and if he didn’t get it soon, he’d have to quit drinking.

We were at the bar nursing gin pahits one afternoon, when the gorilla came in with my wife. She was smoking a Jakartan cigarette and bulging out of her sarong. The gorilla made a drinking gesture with his hairy hand and pounded the bar.

“Go away!” said Ketut. “No crew in here!”

The gorilla raised himself to his full height, poked me in the chest, and wrapped his arm around my wife.

Braithwaite picked up a bottle, but she stepped in front of him. “Take it easy, rummy. We’re leaving.”

“Ooh, ooh, oh!” said the gorilla, baring his fangs.

“C’mon,” she said. “I wouldn’t drink with these bums anyway.”

**** 

The night before we arrived in Rangoon my wife pushed the beds back together and cooed at me: “Where we staying? The Strand, I hope.”

“We? I thought you’d be shacking up with your primate pal.”

The humidity had melted her mascara. She looked in the mirror and laughed. “That dumb ape? You must be kidding.”

The next day the gorilla charged down the gangway and confronted us on the wharf. “Uhhh!” he said, grabbing her arm.

“Take your filthy hands off me,” she said. “Did you really think I’d throw in with a penniless slob like you?”

The gorilla looked at me dumbly. When he understood what was happening, he picked up my wife and tossed her in the water. She splashed around, trying to get a grip on her suitcase. “You animal!” she said. “You lousy banana-breath!”

Braithwaite advised me to keep walking. I knew this was my chance to get away from her, but I couldn’t do it. I went back on the ship and told Ketut to bring a lifebuoy. Then I fished her out of the soup like I always did. 

Dan Morey is a freelance writer in Pennsylvania. He's written about Gorillas in McSweeney's Quarterly, Menacing Hedge and elsewhere, and he still can't believe Dom DeLuise didn't get an Oscar nomination for Going Bananas. Find him at danmorey.weebly.com.