Day CLX

Masturbating Monkey

     One Saturday evening, we were enjoying a couple of drinks at the bar of the Corso, a popular Latin Jazz dance club in the City, and as we listened to Eddie Palmieri tickle his piano, Marty looked at me, smiled, and said:

     “Yo bro, ya na what I need?”

     “Uh!”

     “What I need is a good fire, a really good fire, man!”

     “Come again, dude!”

      “A fire man, one that will burn the store up, so I can collect on my insurance, man. Hell I’ve been paying that shit for a long time, man. It’s about time they paid me back, ya na.”

     “You serious man, you could go to jail for a long ass time, dude.”

     “Ha ha ha…he, hee hee, heee heee heee…”

     “Ya kidding, right?”

    “Dude I ain’t no criminal, man. I don’t have the balls to do that, but damn man, that’s what I need or I’m done, ya na. It’s all over, dude.”

     “Keep the faith, man, keep the faith,” I said as I motioned the bartender over for another round.”

    He wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t about to do it himself, he knew that was arson, and he wasn’t a criminal. As the store was going down, a crazy, bogus, hippie opened a pet shop next door. He had all kinds of animals, and I remember in particular, a chimp, a bonobo monkey. He was the main attraction in the window, and he the had habit of masturbating in his cage, every day at three o clock in the afternoon. It was the same time as the kids came out of the high school a few blocks away, and they flocked to check him out.

     “Yo, yo yo…check out the monkey beating his monkey!”
 
     They yelled, the girls shrieked, and the monkey enjoyed the attention.