The monkey was mocking him.
David had been ready to down the rest of his soda and move on to the lion’s den — if he was going to spend his time at the zoo moping over Veronica, the company of other predators seemed like the most suitable place. But when he ran his tongue over his teeth to rid himself of any unwanted lunch remnants, the monkey did the same.
David crushed his paper cup, sending a spray of ice and soda in every direction as he whirled toward a teenage boy standing beside him. “Did you see that?”
The boy, at least half of David’s thirty years, sneered. “You could have spilled that crap on me, mister.”
“But did you see that?” David spun back toward the cage to address the monkey. “You’re taunting me, aren’t you?”
The monkey grabbed a banana and crushed it the same way David had his drink.
David gave a triumphant slap to the railing that stood between him and the monkey’s cage. “I knew it!”
The boy yawned as bits of banana seeped through the monkey’s fingers. “It’s just a stupid monkey.”
“No, that’s not just any monkey.” David peered at the sign affixed to the cage — a Latin laundry list of genus, species, and subspecies. “That primate wants something from me.” David pointed a spindly, accusing finger at the monkey. “Don’t you? You’re a monkey with an agenda.”
The boy snorted. “Think you need a girlfriend, dude.” He shook his head and wandered off, past a sign pointing toward the lion’s den.
“It’d be a tragedy if the brat fell in,” David muttered. He’d had a girlfriend, and with the monkey’s mimicry to distract him, he’d finally managed to stop thinking about her. But now the memory that brought him to this spot every weekend hounded him again: this was where he had spied Veronica kissing another man. This was where she had admitted to using David — and countless others — to get back at a husband he never knew she had.
“Pathetic, aren’t I?” David said to the monkey. He leaned his hands against the railing and sighed. The monkey placed its hands on a branch inside its cage to imitate David’s grip, then stuck out its tongue and offered a loud “pbbbt!”
David glanced around. Except for a zoo employee tinkering with something in a nearby cage, it was just him and the monkey. He stared at the creature for a long while — glassy brown eyes and exaggerated ears, a nose that resembled a crushed walnut, and lips like Mick Jagger’s.
“Spending every weekend here with you — no wonder you’re making fun of me.” David ran a hand through his mussed hair. “I’d make fun of me too.”
The monkey flashed a toothy smile and ran a hand over the matted hair on its head.
“There’s gotta be something I can do that you can’t.” David thought for a moment, then slapped his thigh. “Aha! Opposable thumbs!”
He jutted his arms out, thumbs in the air. The monkey returned the gesture.
“Oh.” David’s shoulders sagged. “Guess you have those too.”
“Most primates do.”
David turned to find a young woman, no older than himself, standing behind him, her nose wrinkled in a contemplative expression as she studied the monkey. Her diminutive figure — as small as her voice — was buried beneath a green, rumpled zoo uniform, and her tawny hair was pulled up in an unceremonious twist. After a glance at the next cage over, empty except for a pair of slumbering spider monkeys, David guessed she was the zoo employee he had spotted there a moment before.
“He usually doesn’t imitate people that much,” she said, nodding toward the monkey as it imitated the nervous way David was tapping his hands against his thighs. “Especially not when there’s food around.” She giggled so hard that her wire-framed glasses bumped their way down to the tip of her nose. “Maybe he thinks you’re cute.”
“Not as cute as you.” David’s cheeks grew hot, and he fought the urge to slap a hand over his mouth — as if that would take back what he had just blurted.
The young woman giggled again, cheeks flushed, but still smiling. From the cage, the monkey offered another “pbbbt!”
David wiggled his fingers at the cage, but instead of copying the gesture, the monkey folded its arms in seeming triumph and curled its lips back to offer a toothy smile. David returned the smile, then turned his attention back to the young woman. “You work with the monkeys?”
“I’ve got some friends who would say that about their co-workers.” She laughed — a sound that David would have called a snort if she didn’t look so adorable while making it. “But yeah, I do.”
“You know what I think?” David pointed at the grinning monkey. “I think that monkey has been stalling me. I probably would have wandered off to the lion’s den if he had ignored me for his dinner. But I think he wanted me to stay here and meet you and ask you if you’d like to have a cup of coffee with me when you get off work.” David stuck out his hand, beaming with giddy confidence. “I’m David, by the way.”
“Lisa.” She blushed as she shook his hand. “And I just got off work now, actually.”
“Perfect.” David offered her his arm, then cast one final glance at the cage before escorting her away.
The monkey winked, and David winked back.
Barbara A. Barnett is a 2007 graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, where she learned valuable things about writing and the evil ways of chickens. Since earning a dual degree in English and music, she has spent most of her professional life working for various arts organizations, from cataloging for a music library to grant writing for an opera company. In the real world, she lives with her husband in southern New Jersey. Online, you can find her and a list of her publications at www.babarnett.com.
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23 Responses to “MONKEY LOVE • by Barbara A. Barnett”
Comments
« PATERNALISMS • by saintsally | Home | THE SONG THE SOLDIERS SANG: A FABLE • by James Lecky »
January 29th, 2009 at 3:28 am
This is a real sweet story. An’ I love that monkey!
January 29th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Cute little story (though I would have had him throw a quick “Pbbbt!” over his shoulder back at the monkey, but that’s me!) Your ending works better.
January 29th, 2009 at 4:32 am
Thanks for the laugh. Great story.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:51 am
Very fun story, Barbara! A nice laugh to start the morning.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:53 am
The monkey got them together, that’s so sweet! I thought this was going to wind up darker for some reason, but I’m glad it didn’t. This was so sweet and romantic.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:56 am
aaawww…….
January 29th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Who can resist a story called Monkey Love?
January 29th, 2009 at 8:57 am
Oh, I enjoyed this story so much. It’s really sweet.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Lovely story, a 5 from me!
January 29th, 2009 at 9:46 am
I hate monkeys. But your story is cute. But I still hate monkeys. Your new challenge: write a story that makes me not hate them. Many have tried. None have succeeded. Good luck!
January 29th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Guess I’m a sucker for sweet stories, and this made my day.
January 29th, 2009 at 9:53 am
What a sweet story.
January 29th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Wonderful voice and flow!!
–dj
January 29th, 2009 at 10:26 am
This has really cheered me up, excellent and sweet story!
January 29th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Really liked this one. Good flow, and nice pace. and subject was…cute!
January 29th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
well done, I loved it. Thanks for a such a sweet story.
January 29th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Particularly with injured male pride already involved, that would almost certainly have led to David getting angry at the manipulation. He would already have been in at least a few weeks of steering clear of any form of deep human contact anyway, biting the head off anybody who offered sympathy and tried to get past his barriers and so on. After that he wouldn’t have gone for that particular woman, out of self respect. Without the manipulation, or if he hadn’t realised it (quite likely, for a male), he would still have had that behaviour but he would have been open to her afterwards.
He would have been going through a mourning period, with a typical male response to attempts at support, anger. Anger comes easier than grief and acceptance – and while the anger is there, positive attempts at support that go beyond just being passively available are pushy and intrusive, not friendly after all. People who try it deserve the blunt knock back they get, in the sense that people who climb into bear cages deserve what they get. The available ones who wait patiently to be asked when the time is right really do help – later, when the time comes. Nothing can help earlier, apart from keeping busy, which is like drinking Scotch when you have a cold; it does nothing for the cold, but you feel it less at the time (and woe betide anybody who is spotted trying to keep the sufferer busy!).
January 29th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Ah – I thought it was sweet! Living well is the best revenge.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Um PM Lawrence? You are a very confusing (and confused?) individual.
Very cute story. I would have left out paragraph 11 – you’re explaining too much. Otherwise, great story
January 30th, 2009 at 4:01 am
Kristy, try the experiment of offering sympathy to someone suffering who wishes to be alone. You’ll find out. Or try the experiment of match making in such a way that the victims notice, when one or both of them have just had a bad break up. You’ll find out.
January 30th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Sweet fairy tale of unusual inter-species understanding. But I think if monkeys really had that much sympathy there would of been more monkey pets. Can they be toilet trained?
Policemen and firemen are passively available. A friend is sensitive constant concern.
January 30th, 2009 at 7:46 am
Nice, solid effort, much cleaner and well-paced than some here. Thanks for sharing it!
Tiny nit: teenager was “at most” half his age, sted “at least”? (Seems like that’s how you were aiming the reference.)
Tinier nit: “Monkey Cupid” vs. “Monkey Love”?
January 30th, 2009 at 8:09 am
Well, I loved it. Pulling apart (and getting all ‘confused’ about) a story like this is akin to dimantling a rose to see how it works.
Great stuff. Cheered me up no end.