17 Monkeys and a Postcard

One morning, a man drove into the park with a big van and got a site for the night. In the afternoon, he released 17 monkeys on the grounds. The monkeys ran around the park and ran onto the different sites to explore the occupants and their properties.

These were brown monkeys with white faces and white bums. Kind of like Curious George. Some of the kids were thrilled, some cried. Some people tried to whack the monkeys off their site with a broom or whatever they had. Most people just scratched their heads at the monkeys wondering what’s going.

Nash, one of the park residents, tried to gave beer to a monkey beer and tried to show him how to smoke cigarettes. The monkey ate the cigarette instead. The monkey man came running and cursing, saying Nash was corrupting his prize monkey.

Dean was beside himself. He said this is a trailer park for people, not for wild monkeys. He runs a campground, not a zoo. He was making such a ruckus about the monkeys and wanting to get rid of them that people said to him, “C’mon, calm down, Dean. They’re cute. Let’em stay.”

The monkeys’ owner, Abe Aberdeen, said he was an animal trainer. He was training these monkeys for the circus. He said the monkeys were not wild animals, they were highly trained performers. And to show how well trained the monkeys were, he blew a whistle in two short bursts. It was amazing. All the monkeys stopped what they were doing. It looked like monkeys came out of nowhere and ran to Abe’s site. Each monkey paired up with a partner and lined up two by two, in two straight lines, except for the monkey in front. He stood by himself. They all looked at Abe and waited for their next instruction.

Abe made a wide circle with his arm and the monkeys started walking around in a circle holding hands. When Abe clapped his hands, all the monkeys stopped, stood in two lines and faced Abe.

Then Abe said, “Front roll,” gesturing his hand in small forward circles low to the ground. The first two pairs of monkeys did front rolls across the grass.

Abe raised one arm over his head, said, “Twirl,” and made spinning circles with his other hand. The next two pairs of monkeys raised an arm each and spun slowly across the grass like ballerinas.

Then Abe took out a fiddle, held it up to his chin and played a few notes. He said, “Square dance.” The next four pairs of monkeys stood in a square facing each other. The lone monkey stood in the middle of the square. Abe played a dance tune and to everyone’s amazement, the monkey in the middle flapped its arms and stomped its feet, doing its own dance. The other monkeys did square dance steps. Sure, they bumped into each other but they sure did walk around in opposite directions, meeting up with new partners, almost to the fiddle’s beat.

Abe said to everyone, “We’re still working on that.” Turning to the monkeys, he said, “Bow to the nice people,” and he showed them how by bowing to them. All the monkeys mimicked him and made several bows to the people standing around.

The whole time, everyone was clapping, squealing, hooting and hollering. We were just so amazed to see monkeys could do these tricks.

Well there was nothing Dean could do but let the monkeys stay. He told Abe, “How are you going to follow each one to stoop and scoop?”

Abe said, “Sir, my monkeys do not defecate in public. They require privacy to do their business. They go inside the van.”

“You have to leave tomorrow or I could lose my operating licence. And keep them inside your van for the night.”

“You allow pets in here, sir,” said Abe, “these are highly trained pets, better behaved than some of your children here, I bet.” He looked around at everyone, and they clapped and nodded their heads.

It was such great fun. After that, people sort of went their own ways. Abe and his monkeys stayed more or less on his site. Some monkeys went off visiting.

Abe was obviously smiling with pride. He looked around and saw me still looking at him and the monkeys from my site. So he gave something to one of his monkeys and whispered something to him.

The monkey came bouncing up to me. He was holding something in his hand alright. It was a card. He shoved it at me. So I took it and put it down on the table and said, “Thanks.”

The monkey picked up the card again and put it back in my hand. He jumped up and down and went, “Eeek, eeek, eeek.” I guess he wanted me to look at the card.

The card had a picture of a camel crossing a busy city street as if it was the dessert, completely unaware it was stopping traffic. I flipped the card over. It was a postcard. And it was addressed to me at the park. It said,

Dear Mindy,

I hope you and Jesse are doing okay. I’m okay. I did what I could for you and Jesse. I guess this is it for us. I hope you have a good life. Good bye.

Love,

Mitch

The first thought that came into my head was, Thank god I don’t have to return the money. I’d already put in an order for a new trailer that’s got room for a few kegs of beer inside.

I Have No Son

I was so curious about seeing Ogden and Ray on the road last night that I had to go see Jesse in jail. I mean, what gives? Why's Og out and not Jesse?

To get a ride, I had to be real nice to Amy, one of stupid Shannon's friends. I went, "Hey bitch, whatcha doing today?"

"Nuthin' much."

"Wanna take me to Jesse's?"

"Guess so, I ain't got nuthin' better to do."

Amy isn't a bad sort. She's usually real accommodating and all. I just don't know why she hangs out with Shannon. The trouble with that lot is, they're real ugly and dumb and Shannon is the only one close to pretty and she knows it. So she hangs out with ugly people to make herself look better. I know how she works. And the bunch of them are too dumb to know she's using them to make herself look good.

So buck-tooth Amy drove her pop's car and got us to the jail. The guard at the gate told us we had to wait for Jesse to come back. For goodness sake, come back from where? He said he didn't know. That pissed me off 'cuz I had to be seen in public with buck-tooth Amy to get here and now I like owe her one, and Jesse's not here, and the dumb guard don't even know where he is or when he would be back. What, they just let prisoners wander around on their own and not tell anyone where they're going? At least he let us go wait in the waiting room inside the building instead of making us wait at the gate.

I got some coffee and just sat there waiting and smoking. But Amy, I can't believe it. She was flirting with this old geezer mopping up in the hall. I could hear her giggling and him snickering. Don't they know this is a jail and not a place for flirting?

A long time later, Jesse still hadn't come back, so I went down the hall to the entrance to check with the guard again. But holy shit. I'm walking down the hall and I see Amy and the janitor. He looked kinda familiar. I went up and said hi. He looked me up and down, scrutinizning like. He's an old lecher, I can tell you that. She's gotta be kidding if she's really considering him. He must be 70 or something close to it. Sure, he could've been good looking once, a long long time ago, like once upon a time. But he's all wrinkled, has that cracked leather face, with a big gut, and still got a pack of cigarettes tucked up his T-shirt sleeve.

"I'm going to check with the guard again," I said to Amy.

"Oh, okay," she said, "Hey, this here's Scottie."

Scottie winked at me, clicked his tongue, and pointed his thumb and index finger at me like a gun. God, that's familiar. I know this old geezer from somewhere. Even his name is familiar. But he don't look like he recognized me though.

"Scottie, do I know you from somewhere?" I asked.

"Hey, cut it out and find your own guy," said Amy.

"No, I'm serious. You look kinda of familiar Scottie, but I don't know where I met you before."

"I know lots of girls," said Scottie, "so if we've met before, I hope we had a good time." He winked at me again.

"See, he don't remember you," said Amy.

"Okay, whatever." I continued to the gate.

The stupid guard said yeah, Jessie's been back half an hour. Why didn't he come tell me? He said Jesse said he'd come look for me. Jesus. I'm just wasting all this friggin' time. So I went to look for Jesse and found him in his cell, just lying on his bed, reading. Ogden's bed was empty.

"Ferchrisake Jesse, what, you forgot I was waiting for ya?"

"Oh hi, mom. Good to see you too."

"What happened to Ogden? Thought I saw him in a car last night."

"He's not back yet."

"Where'd he go?"

"He went with his dad somewhere."

"Did his dad put up bail?"

"No."

"How'd he get out?"

"He just did."

"He just did how? He scaled the walls or what?"

"He left for the day."

"Can you stop beating about the bush and just tell me how he left without bail?" Just then, one of the inspecting guards walked by. I've always like this one. He's handsome and rugged looking. I stood up taller and thrust my chest out. Good thing I was wearing my mini top. Cleavage and an exposed midriff gets attention in a jail.

"Jesus, mom, can't you even stop whoring long enough to talk to me?" hollered Jesse.

What's the matter with him? I wasn't being a whore. What kind of a way is that to talk to your mom? "Jesse, don't talk to me like that," I said. "How dare you? I come to visit you and try to get you out and all and you call me a whore. How do you think that makes me feel?"

"How do you think it makes me feel when you're always coming on to every guy you see, even in front of me?" he said.

I have no idea what he's talking about. I always separate sex from my son. I mean, it's indecent mixing son and sex. He just has no idea how hard I try to keep him upright. "Jesse, I won't have you talking to me like that. I'm trying to help you get out of jail, I see your friend got out, you tell me without bail. How the hell did he manage that? He pull someone's string? He sucked someone's cock? Maybe I can do the same thing to get you out. I'm just trying to help you."

"Christ, will you listen to yourself? Don't talk to me any more."

What, what?! I'm listening to myself. What's he objecting to? There's no talking to moody teenagers. And mine's in jail. That makes him worse. "You know Jesse, sometimes I think you would rather stay in jail than come home."

"Home? Home? Where is home, mom? What does home look like, mom? Your fucking boyfriend burned down what home we had. Where do you think I would live if I got out of jail? Sleep in a fucking tent with you? Should I pretend to be asleep in the tent when you bring home meat to fuck?

"You want to know the truth? Ogden left with his dad on an overnight pass. You can get an overnight pass. I never told you because I don't want to go home with you.

And you know what else? I do like it here better. I sleep in a real bed. They give me real food. I work. I like the work I do. They let me volunteer at the school. I help out in the classroom and I get to teach the little kids how to read. They like me, the teachers and kids. They think I'm normal. The teachers think I'm smart.

"And here's what else. Even if you could put up bail to get me out, I don't want to leave. So don't bother raising money. I like it here. So don't fucking try to get me out!"

Well, that was unexpected. What a bastard son I raised. What kind of a son is he that he'd rather live in jail than with his mom? Screw him then. I have no son. I was so mad, I marched right out of that jail and slammed his cell door.

I marched past Amy who was still flirting with Scottie the geezer janitor. "Amy, we have to go, now!" I shouted.

"Whoa, whoa there horsey," said Scottie.

Whoa there horsey? Yup, I recognize him now. I know who Scottie is. Years ago, when I was 16, Scottie was my mom's boyfriend. When mom wasn't home one day, Scottie came over and we fucked. I didn't think mom minded. She was always bringing different boyfriends home and Scottie was sleeping with just about girl in town. So why not me? But boy, did mom get mad. The third time Scottie and I got together, mom caught us. She raised hell and threw me out of the house. I've been on my own ever since. Never seen mom since either. But I heard that she kept fucking Scottie a few more months after she threw me out.

Today, I would have kicked my son out of my house if I had one and I met the man who got me kicked out of home. Christ, I'm not having a good day.