Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants by Goldberg, Lee (books for students to read .TXT) 📕

It enthralled me.

Monk couldn’t look at it. For one thing, just looking at the ocean, even in a painting, made him seasick. But I think what bothered him the most was that it was a shipwreck. It was something that needed to be put back together but was instead forever captured in the painting in a state of disorder.

For Monk that image was like what Kryptonite is for Superman, or what a crucifix is to a vampire.

It was a painting of a mess that could never be cleaned up, a thought Monk simply could not reconcile himself with. We had to cover the painting with a sheet whenever he visited the house.

For me, I found peace in the Cement Ship. It relaxed me and centered me somehow. Sure, the painting was creepy, and a little bit sad, but there was a beauty in it, too.

The Peralta, the sister ship of the Palo Alto, was also a wreck. It was one of ten rotting ships strung together to form a breakwater on the Powell River in British Columbia. I’ve never seen it, but I wonder sometimes if anyone has ever done a painting of it.

If so, I’d like to have it.

There’s something I find beautiful, captivating, and scary about shipwrecks. But the Cement Ship wasn’t just any shipwreck. It was my shipwreck.

Sometimes, it felt like my life was a cement ship and that I was constantly battling not to end up beached.

Maybe Monk’s life was a cement ship, too.

We were the Palo Alto and the Peralta, leaving port together in San Francisco.

And I believed that if we were separated now, we’d both become grounded somewhere and end up slowly eroded by the relentless surf.

I arrived in Burbank in time for lunch, but I didn’t have time to go out to eat, so I bought an overpriced bag of potato chips and a Diet Coke in the terminal. It’s a good thing I don’t gain weight easily. I wolfed down that healthy snack on my way outside of the airport, where I snagged a taxi and told the driver to take me to the jail downtown. Between the plane ticket and the taxi fare, I’d burned through most of my personal fortune.

Captain Stottlemeyer had called ahead and arranged everything for me, so things went very smoothly. The security staff was expecting me and my pass was ready. So after I went through security, which was almost as tight as what I’d gone through at the Oakland airport, I was led directly to the visiting room.

It was just like what you’ve seen on TV. The room was divided by a Plexiglas wall with cubicles on either side. Each cubicle had a telephone receiver attached to a long cord. It could have been 1967. You’d think they’d have come up with something more sleek and high-tech since then, something like those force fields they used in the brig on Star Trek. I was lost in big thoughts like that when Trevor sat down on the other side of the Plexiglas, startling me.

I knew he was about my age, but he looked to me like a frightened child with his arched eyebrows, ruffled hair and pouty lips.

There was something undeniably East Coast about his features and bearing, though if you asked me to pick out something specific, I couldn’t tell you. He had the same look as all those guys on The Sopranos, though without any of the subdued malevolence. What I saw in his face was sadness, fear and confusion.

We picked up our phones and openly stared at each other. He was studying my face as if searching for landmarks. I was scrutinizing his for glaring signs of guilt.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“I’m Natalie Teeger,” I said. “I work for Adrian Monk.”

“Monk?” He seemed to inflate with hope and relief. “That’s terrific. Whew. I knew Sharona wouldn’t let me down. Is he going to help me?”

“You have to convince me first,” I said.

“Why? I’m Sharona’s husband. Isn’t that enough? Besides, Monk owes her plenty for—” He stopped, seeing the answer on my face. “She didn’t ask Monk to help me, did she? She really thinks I did it, that I could kill somebody.”

I nodded. And then he began to cry.

CHAPTER SIX

Mr. Monk’s Assistant Makes a Discovery

There’s something about seeing a man cry that makes me feel like I should avert my eyes. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it this time.

I stared at Trevor and openly studied each stinging tear on his face, each pained grimace, each tortured heave of his chest. I haven’t seen many men cry, but when they do, there’s a nakedness about it that I think is even more intimate and revealing than sex.

I’ve only seen my father cry once. I was nine years old when it happened. I was heading to his study to show him a drawing I’d done of our dog. The doors weren’t closed all the way, and something made me stop and peek through the crack before I went in.

He was alone at his desk, his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking. At one point, he dropped his hands and I saw his tear-streaked cheeks. But I saw much more. I saw vulnerability. I saw fear. And I saw shame.

He didn’t see me and I never said a word about it to him. I didn’t know then, and I still don’t know now, what he was crying about. But I’ve never forgotten that moment or what it felt like. The only thing that comes close to it is the uncertainty and fear that I feel whenever there’s an earthquake and the once-solid ground below my feet turns to Jell-O.

As I sat in that visitors’ room, I wondered if that was what Dad felt like