The Monkey, The Man, and His Baby

The summer sun shone through the layers of green leaves, sprinkling from canopy to ground glitches of light.  And the two friends walked up to the trail, which was winding and brown till it couldn’t be seen with the first hill.  The trail also was worn parallel from four-wheelers and bikes, as if really two trails with a hump of dirt and lumps of grass as a sort of median between them.  The friends looked at each other and then started walking down the trail.  They walked maybe 10 minutes, the one friend admiring the sturdy trees, sunlight, noticing the growth was different than the last time, the other friend stopped.

I need to masturbate, he said.

His friend really didn’t think too much of it, he was too busy spotting the eagle that had flown sharply high above.

Ok, but make it quick, will ya?

Ok.

So the friend went off and out of his friend’s field of vision, for about 10 minutes, and then came back.

That wasn’t that quick, Geez.  You actually missed a fox hop by down the trail, maybe a good 30 feet.  He was gorgeous.

So onward, they were heading to build a fire at a certain spot they used to build when they were kids.  The sun had subdued itself to a misty yellow, and the hills began to get more flat.  It was easy walking for a while.  Some of the cones on the ground were absurdly large.  The one friend picked one up to inspect the different ridges and patterns.

Gee, you know, I really gotta masturbate again.

Man, you gotta handle that shit.  Is this how you are in the city?  I mean, you’re eating lunch with family or friends, and oh wait, I have to go masturbate, could you hold the main course just 10 minutes longer?

Actually, I do masturbate in restaurant bathrooms, movie theater bathrooms.  I’m on a really perverted rhythm with it, but yeah…

Ok, go ahead, Geez.  You’re missing three squirrels jump from tree to tree, like with wings.

So the friend went off and did his business, while the other friend sat on a stump, patiently, noticing the breeze was mildly calm, and did in fact cool him.

Ok, I’m done.  Let’s go.

We have only 2 miles to go.  Once the fire is built, I don’t care if you masturbate till your peepee falls off.  I just want to keep moving.  Besides, you’re missing all the action.

The friend looked at him, on the stump, and then the trail, then hills and trees.  He noticed a beer can on the ground, heard the chirping of a few birds, and smelled something like a cross between a fart and swamp water.  Not that he didn’t like these walks and the fire, but it seemed so plain, in a way, so un-Transcendental.

So the two friends kept walking on the trail, until the one friend stopped and quietly said, see that cavern over there, you remember when we used to climb inside it, well, it’s—how you say—occupied now, so tread lightly.

A bear or something?

He nodded.  Black one.

They kept moving forward and, you guessed it.

Dude, I have to masturbate again.  I’m sorry.  I must.  You look at the birds and bees.  I wack it, you know?

No, I don’t know.  This is kinda unhealthy. I put my foot down.  You can’t.  You are not going to go jerk off and get semen all over your shorts.  God, the bear can see the spots from his cave.

What are you, like the police or something?   I’ll be over here for 5 minutes max.  Then we’ll be at the site before you can say Poplar.

So the friend went off and now his friend was getting passive aggressive in thought.  And in deed.   He went to the site and started collecting kindling.  By the time the friend finished masturbated, and realized to go to the site, the other friend said, ok, start the fire.

First, the friend pulled out a lighter, but that didn’t work.   Then he tried a lighter with some old dead leaves.  Didn’t work.

Dude, I haven’t done this in years, what do I do?

I’m not going to show you.  

And so they sat there in the dark.     

Dude, build the fire, will ya?

Nope, the dark’s kinda nice for me. I hear and smell more than usual.

Well, it just feels pretty cold.

Man, it’s about 75 degrees or something.

I meant it metaphorically.

Are you afraid of the dark?

No, just disturbed by it, that’s it.

Well, at least, you’re not humping a tree or something.  Just relax, it’s only darkness.  Did you hear the wind through the canopy?

Nope.

Doesn’t that shadow over there look like a 9 foot tall man?

I guess.  I’ll be right back.

Where ARE you going?

Uh, to admire the darkness.

You’re going to go fuck yourself for the 5^th time today.

So what?

I mean like some parents or friends or teachers just sort of understatedly imply or suggest that you can’t wack it every minute.  It’s just a society thing, man.  Even among close relatives and friends.  If I was your father taking you camping, would you tell me then and go off every 20 minutes?

My father doesn’t camp.

Just go jack off, will you.

And when the friend came back, his friend was gone.  But left behind was a little drawing of a monkey, a man, and the man’s baby in his arms.  Not that it was intricately drawn, but his friend was an artist, so even a quick squiggle was better than average drawings.

He had to squint hard to make out the baby, and in its mouth was a pacifier.

So he started to walk back from which they came.  And it was like 3 times as long of a trip, because he was sort of blindly swinging from tree to tree.  And when he made it back to the car, on the windshield was a picture of a monkey, a man, and his baby.  Like a calling card, he thought.  He sat in his car, turned it on, and mourned.   

Is This It?

Is this it?  Is this Adulthood?  (Disappointment)

I won’t speak for you, because you as an adult are probably just peachy keen on post-adolescence.  I mean you may have a nursing or CEO position, where saving lives or making millions simply spins your globe on your finger. 

As I see it, no job position, no incentive ladder, no growing family, popping out cute squirmy babies, no avant garde film, no elaborate book, no educational status letters next to my name, no fee-simple house by the angry sea, no yacht, named after a Melville character, with mates on each deck, no monogamy, no polygamy, no threesomes, no one night stands, no fame before the masses, no jogging in the gym, no climbing Mount Everest or Mount Vesuvius, no hiking from Georgia to Maine, no jet setting from here to Milan or Singapore for a dinner or a vaca, no cruise to a Caribbean with fake smiley locals, no Air Force to break sound barriers, no NASA to build a spaceship to the next inhabitable planet, and, certainly, no sheriff or governor or senator or president; no, not even comfort on a bed, rolling over to my lover, or, hand-swinging-hand, at the carnival; no, not even the pop, pop, of popcorn—compares to childhood innocence, my mother fucking childhood and its innocent grace.

I’ll come right out and say it, I’m 31.  Not the most mature 31 you’ll meet, but I don’t play X-box while smoking dope.  So apparently, I’m ahead of the curve on maturity.  But let me not even compare dope or videogames or ages.  I was a child from birth to about 15. Technically, I was a teenager by 13.  And it’s like some slow torture to adolescence and even slower torture to 30.  Really breaking out the cat-o-nines and paddles along the way.

And why am I at 31 disappointed?  Why do I sit and describe these things?  Not because of some Rolling Stones Satisfaction, and how I can’t get it.   No, from Hawaii to Alaska, to Maine, to Florida, to Texas, we have a country that has an arrow point at you.   And it says Be An Adult.  Be Mature About Things.   And I’m fucking pissed.  Because I thought, when reached adulthood, life would be better.  Don’t all children believe the 25 year old teacher has a better life?  Don’t all children want to be like their parents and siblings and adults, and do Big Boy or Big Girl things?

I mean, I loved playing.  Did you notice the period in the last sentence?   I mean loved playing games, climbing hills, running around the house, running in the yard, and playing with toys (do I have to go into specifics with “toys”).  And rather than imagine, with a chemistry set, magical potions that make me invisible, I drink espresso a Starbucks—definitely nothing magical is going on.

So what went wrong?  I do more productive things.  I write articles for magazines, websites, and imaginative poems for literary journals.  I use my imagination like a state trooper uses his radar detector.   And yet, Disappointment Song.

So is this why, after work, after a job of expertise, others face the distraction of TV, drink poison bottled since before America, compare their lives to a sport, with winning and losing on the line.   Is this why Shakespeare truly etched Hamlet?  Out of the disappointment of Adulthood.

Now do not, I mean, do not mistake what I say for an immoral, disgusting Peter Pan lifestyle.  I’m talking about the whole shabang of Adulthood.  Filled with waters to the ceiling of worries, worries about children, teenagers, strangers, murderers, kidnappers, taxes, the having and having-not of money, the State of the Nation, the State of the Nation within a Global Sphere, the pleasing of superiors, the teaching and guiding of subordinates: you name it and it has some adult worrying about it.  I mean wrinkles and suffering lines just crawl across faces as time goes by, and then to counteract with surgery everywhere from face to boobs to toes.  Fucking Ridiculous.

When you’re 21, you talk about girls or boys, movies, books, news.  When you’re 65, conversation pieces center around funerals, weddings, baptisms, strange behaviors in families, and your own knee or hip or bowels, for fuck sake.  Should I look forward to these “discussions?”   What about when I’m even older?  Do baths and nurse’s aides and reading obituaries for necessity, do these things seem enjoyable?        

I’m sure you’re girlfriend’s pussy, or boyfriend’s long dick, fulfills your desire, your artsy yet commercial job fulfills your need to create and earn a living, and your church pastor fulfills your spiritual notions, but, in reality, face it, fulfillment is just another way of trying to Rolling Stone it and get some satisfaction.

The fact is, puberty and subtle event after event tears the rare fleur-de-lis on the side of the mountain that is innocence.  Some call it “sheltering,” but my parents were the solo climbers of shading the rare lily on the mount.  They protected me from the Wide World of Compromised Good.   And I played, man, like when the coyote runs after the roadrunner, falls off the desert canyon, and picks himself up, shaking his head and tongue.  Man, I played.

And my dad has worked in rooms where the stench of death was unbearable and the toes of bodies had strings with numbers on the licenses.  And to-this-day he eyes at bones of men and women and spots inconsistencies.  And he still fears when I drive from one side of town to the other.

But what do we make of innocence?   According to Bill Cosby, albeit in a humorous way, children lie, cheat and steal.  And, of course, are Brain Damaged.  If being a child is brain damaged, that is the damage I want to my brain. 

No, they know not what they do.

Children are innocent, which is why there are so many restrictions and laws to prevent them and adults from meeting in the horrible Adultworld.   Children can’t drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.  Adults can’t have sex with teenagers.  Why?  Obviously, because, with these adult things, children wouldn’t be fully reasonable in their actions and decisions.  So a child is not reasonable enough to drink a whole beer in the US.  A teenage boy can’t have sex with a woman older than 21.

I won’t attack reason at all here, but I will say that little by little, the child wants to be an adult and finds illegal ways to make that happen.  And this is the real problem.  That a culture such as ours may celebrate the child, but the child still desires to be an adult.   Perhaps the grass is greener, perhaps, evolutionarily, reason is more desirable than protected innocence.   These things may or may not be true.

But the fact remains, that what we have created with our reason has a Long Way to go, to even compare with the grace and forgetful-minded bliss of childhood.