Evolution Has Painful Consequences

I went to the zoo Saturday. Lincoln Zoo in Chicago is small. It houses a few hundred animals from seals and bats to tigers and gorillas. My favorite exhibit was the primate house. Agile gibbons danced and flipped about fake vines, and a large baboon stalked proudly in his environment. One animal, however, scared me.

The Geoffrey Tamarin has a stark black face flecked with white and a ruddy red mane. One tamarin looked remarkably human, and its beady black eyes stared out of the cage. This human resemblance continued as the tamarin moved, walked, and bounced around bushes and trees. The tamarin was a veritable mini-human with a flowing red cape and a tail! No wonder some people think we descended from these creatures. All they lack is some sort of language, and even that they might have, as no one has ever managed to interpret a primate's chirps and yells.

But what happened next may shock you. The tamarin I was watching jumped from the back of the habitat, dashed across a branch, and landed on the wire mesh directly in front of me.

"Quick, Quick, come here!" the tamarin whispered. I was shocked. The little primate's dash had startled me, but his speech nearly sent me into shock. Not the fact that he spoke, but the fact that he had an accent. A Spanish accent.

"Come here, man! Before they see me!" My tamarin glanced from side to side. He looked afraid, and began beckoning me closer with his hands. I took a few steps closer and bent down until I was looking into the tamarin's eyes.

"Uhh, you speak?" I knew the question was stupid, but what else do you say to a monkey?

"Stupid question," the monkey whispered and then muttered something about the quality of education these days.

"I need you to bring me something, man. I need a fresh banana. They only serve nuts and small crickets in this joint."

"And you couldn't ask your zookeeper?" I asked. I didn't want to be saddled with this mundane task, as it was getting late and I still hadn't visited the Bat and Snake House.

"You’re talking about the waiter, yeah? I asked him, but the guy fainted, man, and when he woke up he didn't remember my order! But this is necessary! I don't want my brothers to find out I talked to you. They get rough when anyone gets special treatment. I might get neutered!" The tamarin broke away from our conversation at this point.

"Don't forget, man, fresh bananas!" he shot back as he dashed up a tree.

"Aahh, a banana?" I thought. "Where am I going to get a banana?" I didn't want to leave the zoo. Luckily, as I turned to leave the exhibit, a tamarin bounced up and yelled at me.

"Hey, did I ask you for a banana?" I looked at the tamarin closely. I stared at his features, his freakishly human features, and couldn't tell if this tamarin was the one I spoke to before. He might be a vengeful brother seeking incriminating information. He might have a neutering tool hidden on his person. I didn't want to be responsible for neutering a talking monkey.

"A banana?" I feigned ignorance, hoping his next sentence might reveal some identifying bit of information.

"Yes, a fresh banana." the tamarin repeated, annoyed at the repetition. At this point I knew this was a different tamarin. His accent was Irish.

“No…no…you’re not the same monkey I talked to before!” I stammered in surprise. The Irish tamarin glared at me, as if I had betrayed vital evidence.

“He asked you for a banana, didn’t he? Diego, Diego, Diego. When will you learn that the pursuit of selfish favors can never be hidden from the community’s watchful eyes? When will you learn that actions have consequences? Dire consequences.” The Irish tamarin looked pointedly at me and slowly raised his tail. It held scissors. “It’s an offence a monkey could loose his manhood over,” the Irish monkey stated, and in an instant he turned and dashed, howling to the back of the cage with scissors.

I never looked back, and ever since that incident I’ve always know the humanity, and inhumanity, dwelling in every monkey’s heart.

Why I Don't Like Opinions

I was three months old
when my mother took me to the doctor.
I was dressed in blue pajamas,
and my mother wore frayed jean shorts
and a flowery pink top.
“He moves in his sleep,” my mother told
the doctor, who sat legs crossed,
his shiny black-rimmed glasses hanging
off his nose, his pencil hovering
over a pad of paper.
“He rocks back and forth,
waffling like that for an hour every night,” she explained.

The doctor repositioned his glasses
and scribbled a note. “He’ll grow out of it in time,”
intoned the doctor.
He stood up and sat down again. Small talk
and general inquiries filled
the final twenty five minutes of the visit.
That night, my mother placed my
blue pajama body in a bundle
of warm blankets, and
I waffled until sleep stole my waking moments.

My father had a friend who rocked like me.
He was charismatic. Conversations were his love
and humor his tool to make them alive.
“He would take over a room. It was amazing
how all eyes would follow him,” my father
would say, his eyes brightened
by the memory’s light.
My father loved this man
and would likely still call him
“best friend” if he hadn’t died from brain cancer
at the age of thirty-two.

“You will grow out of it,” my mother exclaimed
the morning my bedroom door inadvertently
swung open to reveal my body waffling back
and forth. I stepped over dirty,
black athletic shorts to shut the door
and went back to bed.
“You will grow out of it,” my father firmly insisted,
as he mentioned his friend who had
died of brain cancer caused by rocking.
I turn twenty-one today, and I still rock or waffle.

Only eleven years left.