Chapter 4

My wife Rochelle shut off the 6:15 alarm and started getting dressed. She reminded me, “I’m taking Jonathan to a soccer game after school. We should be home around six.”

I sleepily mumbled, “Okay. Have a nice day.”

“You too, Gerald. See you tonight.”

I volunteered at the museum and didn’t have a set schedule. I usually left home around 8:30 am. I pulled the sheet over my face to block the early morning sun and pondered my situation.

I’d met Emily when I stopped at an antique shop near the museum two months earlier. I glanced at the young and attractive redhead several times as I browsed the interesting items. I was quite surprised to see a cannon monkey leaned against the wall. Sometimes they were called ‘ball monkeys’ instead. The large and heavy square plate of arsenical bronze had 25 hollows bored into it at even intervals, to keep cannon balls in place on the gun deck of a sailing ship. More cannon balls would be stacked on top, forming a pyramid.

Later versions were more efficient, with a bar of brass bent in half longitudinally, then snipped into four equal sides and nailed to the deck in a square. I thought it would make an excellent conversation piece in my basement rec room, or a nice decoration for the back patio. I looked at the price and was quite surprised. The person running the shop knew how rare the older ones were and what it was worth.

Emily saw me looking it over quite a while and walked near me. She asked, “Do you know what it is?”

“Yes, it’s a bored plate cannon monkey, the early type, from around fourteen sixty to sixteen hundred. Christopher Columbus had three on the Santa Maria, to supply it’s six bombarda cannons. I like it, but the price is a bit steep.”

She said, “My grandfather tells a story about a ship sailing in the far north carrying some Arctic explorers, Fred Cook’s expedition, I think. In the cold, the brass monkey and the iron cannon balls shrank at different rates. When it got down to 35 below, a stack of cannon balls came loose and scattered all over the deck. They discovered 35 below is...”

I’d heard the story before and finished it with her, “ ... cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Hahahaha!” She blushed as she laughed, and I thought she was terribly cute.

She was a literature major, planning on a minor in history. She worked at her grandparent’s antique shop when she had time between classes, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

I bought the cannon monkey and returned to the shop on Tuesday afternoons to browse and chat with her. I loved my wife Rochelle and thought I’d never actually cheat, but Emily was amusing and quite tempting. I started fantasizing about her as I made love to my wife.