A Short Story About Monkeys.
1054: So what happened at Waller park with you and those monkeys?
Al: Well, there used to be 3 monkeys over there on the island. There was one that was kinda like a Macaques or Baboon, a bigger one and two smaller ones. The two smaller ones would come out and gather stuff, you know? If people put food out for them they would come out there and eat it. Well, the big one, if you started making faces at big one or started to tease it he’d grab one of the little ones by the back legs and just either slam it on the ground or beat the hell out of the other monkey with it. So yeah, it used to be pretty brutal like that.
Another thing is, they were there for years and they got taken out because someone went over there and i guess they shot em’ with a bow and arrow, you know a bow? I’m not sure if it was the big one or the small one that got shot but it was one of em’ and they came and took em out. No more monkeys, you guys can’t have monkeys.
1054: Why were there monkeys there in the first place?
Al: There used to be a zoo there, with all kinds of animals and shit. The only thing left are the horses there.
1054: So they decided to just leave the monkeys there?
Al: They had a house, they lived in a hut. But Yeah the two of em’, they’d never gang up on the big one they’d just scream at him a little bit. The big one was just mean, he was brutal. Probably all for the best that they got taken out, he was killin em’.
1054: How old were you and your brother when this was going on?
Al: 10, 11, 12 something like that. We were younger.
Me: How’d you meet that guy who was selling you the monkeys?
Al: He was just there, a guy from El Salvador or Panama.
Me: You said you met him at the transit?
Al: *nods head* Right when it was built, he had them in a shoe box, like a vans shoe box. He was like, “Ive got some monkeys for sale.”, and I was like, “monkeys?”. I thought he had meant some kind of dope or something so I was like, “alright let me see what you got.”. He opened it up and there was fucking monkeys there, I was like, “where’d you get these?”. He told me the whole story about his brother sneaking em’ over in toilet paper tubes. I was like, “What?”, and he was all, “yeah, they’ll just get them and put their shoulders together and put them in a tube like that.”. “How many of them make it?”, I ask, “well about maybe like 7 out of 10 die.”, he responds, “When I first got over here I had to pick up the order in Arizona somewhere in the desert and I opened up the suitcase and it smelt so bad.”. There was dead monkeys in there man and I ask him, “how many were in there?”, and he goes, “like 120”.
Me: So that means there were only like 30 monkeys that survived?
Al: Yeah, like 30 or 40 maybe.
Me: So he offers you these monkeys and what follows?
Al: Dude, I had like maybe 80 bucks on me (and he wanted 300) and I go, “I’ll give you 80 bucks for one of em'”, and he’s all, “ahhhhh I cant do it I cant do it.”. I’d see him all the time too, I’d hit him up and be like, “you still got it?”, and he’d be like, “yeah there at home, there in a cage.. there getting bigger there getting bigger..”. But, they weren’t like a monkey that got super big I think it was a monkey that stayed kinda small like a spider monkey maybe or something. God, I wanted one so bad.. Dude, if you get caught with one of those you can get in trouble. You know what’s crazy, monkeys, if they don’t like someone they’ll crap right in their hand and chuck it at you. You ever been to the zoo in Atascadero? They’ll do that there, there’s a big sign that says “don’t make faces at the monkeys, they get mad and throw feces at you” So what do you do? Fuckin’ make faces at the monkeys, of course, I want to see that shit. Dude, at that zoo I saw some little girl get sprayed in the face by a tiger from like, 15-20 feet away… It was gnarly.