Capuchin Monkey – NEARING THE END OF THE LINE

TWEETER, JANE GOODALL, AND THE MONKEY MAN

(Previously, Chapter Two ended with…) “I pulled myself up onto my feet at last. Gizmo was watching me tentatively. So I leaned slowly down and looked him right in the face.

‘Next time, buddy!’ I growled softly. Which sent him scampering! ‘Yeah! You just wait till next time!’ I called after him.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

What had just happened is (A) I had been taught what I’d all along been doing wrong while trying to diaper Gizmo, and (B) I was just beginning to learn that the girl I’d married had somehow just crazily “channeled” Jane Goodall, right under my nose! I mean, come on! Not my mousey little Phyllis?

(Ahem. “Mousey” back then I’m talking, mind you— in 1989! Not the Twenty-first Century I am woman, hear me roar Phyllis of today…)

What, not the mousey little Phyllis who feared cats and dogs and bunny rabbits and chipmunks and lizards and lions and tigers, and bears, oh my!? Not the sweet, unassuming, little lady who, only a few weeks ago, had somehow succumbed to my sleazy used-car salesman’s “charms,” when I’d practically swindled into allowing (against her better judgement) one wild, hairy, tree-swinging, wannabe, nudist Tarzan into our living room and her life? Yes, her. I was flabbergasted!

But why should I have been surprised? Because If I’m honest, our marriage has always played out, and still does to this day, like a reverse variation of the I Love Lucy Show, wherein I’m the Lucy and Phyl is the level-headed Ricky Ricardo. But… whatever. At any rate, it had dawned on me that this no-nonsense Phyllis had stepped up to the monkey-business plate and… I’d been relegated back to the showers.

For instance, a couple of afternoons later, I came home from school and, dreading the answer, asked, “So. How did today go with our little friend today?”

And she answered me in a ho-hum, off-the-cuff voice, “Oh, I dunno. OK, I guess. I had to get groceries at the Shop and Save. Gizmo made quite a stir with all the shoppers…”

“What!? Let me get this straight… you, on your own… took Gizmo… our little Gizmo… out in public? To the grocery store? On your own!?”

“Yes.” Hmmm. Only that simple, matter-of-fact, little ‘yes?’

“Well, Jeez! That must have been pretty traumatic for you!”

“Nope.”

Me, with my jaw-dropping incredulity being cruelly teased by these single-syllable responses? “Well…? C’mon, tell me about it! I mean, I know it couldn’t have been easy…!”

“Actually, I just put him on his little leash, poked him into his carrier cage, and… just went!”

“What, that’s it!? That’s all you have to say?”

“Well, no. I mean, we were quite the celebrities, obviously. At least Gizmo was. Just trying to get up and down the aisles was the hard part, that little magnet attracted such a crowd. Everybody ooh-ing and aah-ing, talking to him in, you know, baby talk. I thought we’d never get out of there. So many questions to answer! And he cuddled in my arms most of the time, although a few others did get to hold him a little. But wow. I mean, we’re just doing this for a little over a week, so I can’t even imagine what Sandy and Brian’s lives must be like all the time, you know?”

And that’s the way it had become, you know? Suddenly we had so much company at the house! I mean, all the time! We honestly had to start setting up appointments. So many ‘friends’ were coming out of the woodwork, you’d have thought we’d won the Megabucks! Not that we weren’t enjoying the crazy ride, because we were. It was, however, beginning to become a little exhausting.

Meanwhile, I’d fell totally head over heels in love with the little guy. And he with me, with the exception of a few sporadic flashbacks of that unfortunate tail-in-the-door fiasco.

I really missed him when I was in school all day, though. So of course I suddenly came up with this ‘great idea.’ I went into the main office and asked Howard Ryder, the headmaster, “How about I bring Gizmo into my classroom for a couple of periods, to give the kids some time to meet and enjoy him? Both classes I have in mind are in the middle of our creative writing unit. This would give them something interesting and unusual to journal about afterward.” (Of course the creative writing plug was really just a cover for me to officially get my selfish “Bring Your Little Buddy to Work Day” rubber-stamped as… ‘legitimate.’ So yeah. Let’s make it legal…

Mr. Ryder, being the good guy that he was, readily OK’d the plan. Honestly, he was visually excited to have a little monkey-time himself during his otherwise relatively boring, day-long routines. So it was a go. The kids couldn’t wait. Me either! Phyllis (the really cool wife of the now-really-cool English teacher) dropped him off mid-morning. And what a day we were to have.

First of all, I had arranged the students’ desks in a wide circle, so everybody’d have an equally good chance of watching the Giz. And man, were the kids in both classes excited as they came pouring into the classroom! And of course Gizmo picked right up on that excitement as well. Inside the circle, I began by walking around with Giz in my arms and introduced the little fella to each kid. I gave some info about the Helping Hands program that he was in training for; gave the kids the warning that he was bound to be unpredictable, that he might want to climb up on their shoulders; that as cute as he was, he did have a set of vampire fangs; that I would stay close and vigilant, and be on the ready to remove him and answer any questions that might come up. In the meantime, Gizmo was squirming like a worm on a fish hook, wanting madly to get at this new audience. So eventually… I set him down on a student’s desktop. And let go.

And he was off!

Watching him tearing around that circle of boys and girls, stopping here, stopping there, I was reminded of the little ball on a roulette wheel table. With his speed, he was like a sweet Tazmanian Devil. He picked up and examined anything and everything a kid might have in her/his desktop or breast pocket: a pencil or pen, a paperback textbook, a comb… you name it. The world was his oyster.

Unfortunately for me, the Giz didn’t keep himself confined to just their desks. He leaped onto my bigger one, of course, and sent a blizzard of essays and quizzes waiting to be passed back up into the air, leaving me rushing to retrieve them and squirreling the away into my desk drawers for safe keeping. He was up on top of my file cabinet; he was examining my pencil sharper; he was sitting on a girl’s shoulders, examining her barrette with his little curious fingers; he was peering into my wastebasket! And then back down onto the roulette wheel of student desks he’d land once again, and round and round he goes, where he stops nobody knows…

He was… everywhere! It was wonderful. It was crazy. It was exhausting.

Soon the headmaster and assistant headmaster came in to join in the fun. And they ended up having as much of a good time as any of the kids.

Jim Smith, Asst. Headmaster with Howard Ryder (& the Giz)

Howard Ryder, Headmaster, Foxcroft Academy, 1989

All in all, it was a day to remember. And remember it, I always will.

Please stay tuned for Chapter 5: The Epilogue

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Throughout my life, I’ve been one of those guys to whom things just seem to… happen. I mean, right out of the blue. Unxpected things. And sometimes even rather outlandish things. Why? Because Life is The Joker, the Grand Comedian. Because Life seems to find it fun, having its way with me. Today, I’m hell-bent on sharing with you a sample of of one of those things…

CHAPTER ONE: WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE

I was still in pretty good shape at 43. Big into push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, running, and even doing a little weight-lifting. This was back in ’89.

(And so man oh man, when and why did I ever let myself go like I have?)

Anyway, ’89 was the year my wife, Phyllis, and I got memberships to the Y and added a daily morning swim to our routines. I remember getting up so damn early, long before breakfast, and doing those laps: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. A somewhat boring regimen, sure, but it did feel great in the long run, pushing the envelope by adding on a couple of extra laps every week or two. Plus, it seemed to be having a pretty positive effect on my attitude and general outlook. And that was great.

Ah, to be young again…

(Oh wait— yeah, now I remember why! I was forgetting about the ‘GETTING OLD’ part. I’m 77 now. It must’ve been somewhere between 43 and 77 that I let it happen. So I guess maybe I can lay at least part of the blame for my slacking off on all the arthritis, surgeries, and all that other geriatric medical yadda yadda yadda.)

But I digress. So anyway, we’d show up at the Y half-asleep, zombie-shuffling in, barely aware of our surroundings. Speaking for myself at least, I know I was pretty much flying on autopilot those mornings, barely alert enough to swap the nominal good-mornings with the friendly staff on our way to the locker rooms. Basically sleep walking. That’s just the way it always was. So yeah, no wonder I was taken totally by surprise when…

wait for it…

A MONKEY literally (not figuratively) crash-landed down onto my head like a little sandbag?

I mean, who wouldn’t be?! I was like, I dunno, did somebody slip me an LSD mickey when I wasn’t looking? I didn’t have clue-number-one what the hell the thing even was. I mean come on, it was the Y! Not the frickin’ jungle!

So I went a little berserk, didn’t I. And by berserk, I’m talking about emitting one long, not-so-very-macho wail; pirouetting round and round; and all the while, clawing and batting away at the very alive Davy Crockett coonskin cap I thought was trying to burrow into my brain! I mean you know, I had seen Alien with all those creepy giant eggs just waiting to hatch one of those flying face-huggers at you! But a flying monkey?! Shades of The Wizard of Oz!

Mercifully, I was rescued by one of the staff ladies who leapt out of her chair, stopped me mid-spin, and carefully began extricating the four little limbs and long tail of what turned out to be an eight-month-old, baby Capuchin monkey! What the hell was a monkey doing at the Y?

Turns out what the monkey was doing at the Y was this:

The staff lady, Sandy, was keeping him with her during her workdays because reliable monkey-sitters were impossible to find. He, Gizmo, was totally under her care. Not as a pet per se, but as part of the national non-profit foundation, Monkey Helpers for the Disabled, Inc. (now known as Envisioning Access). Their motto: “Meet a monkey. Adopt a monkey.” So Sandy had “adopted” a monkey. Gizmo.

The “adoption” wouldn’t be permanent, however. It would only last for three years, after which he would be returned to the foundation to begin his actual training which would last many years. Sandy’s job, in the meantime, was to give him a home, bring him up from babyhood, and train him to be not only accustomed to people but be safe and people-friendly (think user-friendly).

I hadn’t noticed it at the time but when I came to, there it was, standing tall right there in front of me in the Y office like some huge, wooden, open-faced armoire. But I guess “kennel” would be a more accurate term for it. It was huge and roomy, seven-feet tall and at least five-feet wide— and so much more than just a simple “cage’” even though of course a cage it was. It was obviously Gizmo’s living quarters/play pen. Inside there were roped rings hanging down for swinging on, soft bedding, an assortment of toys, and what I came later to call his soft security pillows, one looking like Garfield and the other looking like a mother hen.

Turned out Gizmo was only seven months old, a baby. And after my fear-induced adrenalin rush had worn off, I began to see him as the cutest little head-hugger I could ever imagine laying eyes on. He was undeniably adorable.

And after a few minutes of getting to ‘know” him, I have to admit it was practically a case of love at first sight for me. (And it wasn’t just me. As I was soon to find out, everybody who came into contact with the little guy fell head over heels in love with him too.) But admit it. What child at some point hasn’t wanted a monkey? They always look like such fun, in the movies and on television. And OK, granted, I was no longer a child. But of course I’d fantasized about having one as a kid.

And isn’t there always a little inner-self kid left over somewhere inside each of us after we’ve aged? So I was a child at heart.

So guess what. I swam a lot fewer laps in the pool that morning. Seems Gizmo had taken to me as much as I had taken to him. And that felt so special. (Of course, Gizmo simply loved people. All of us, in fact. Of course I just preferred to think that what he and I were building was an extra-special relationship. But…)

So yeah, it took me about twenty minutes to pull myself away from him and trudge myself off to the pool.

Next morning went exactly the same way. And ditto for the morning after. Not swimming was suddenly threatening to put a dent in my physical regimen. But as far as I was concerned, who cared? Not me. The joy that I was getting playing with hat little rascal was so addictive.

Then, some mornings I didn’t swim at all. Hell, some mornings I didn’t even bother to bring my swimming trunks. What a loser I was becoming. But what a happy loser. Because just like they appear on TV and in the movies, monkeys really are a lot of fun.

OK. So let’s do the long-story-short thing:

Gizmo’s and my rapport seemed to really be pleasing Sandy. To the point where she took me aside one morning and offered me a proposition that would (temporarily at least) change my life. It seems she had to attend a conference in California for a week, and was at a loss as to what she was going to do about Gizmo.

So yeah, you can probably see where this was going. Soon I was running like a 43-year old little kid to Phyllis, my darling wife, begging “Please, please, PLEASE! Can I? Huh? Come on, huh? I’ll feed’im, I’ll change his diapers… why, you won’t hafta do a thing! I PROMISE!”

(Stay tuned for Chapter 2: “TWEETER AND THE MONKEYMAN”)

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THE GIZMO CHRONICLES, 1989— CHAPTER 4

THE GIZMO CHRONICLES, 1989