"Mischief"

by Kendra Lester

Part 1 - In the beginning

Climbing out of my cast iron bed, sticky and hot shouldn't have been the greatest way to greet the morning.  But this was the time in my life when I was too young to understand the inevitability of my future and too intoxicated with the world around me to care. I threw on my denim shorts and ran a brush haphazardly through my auburn, waist-length hair and dashed out the door, snatching at my van keys as I flew through the door. That Alabama sun was already scorching the grass under my feet. And for once I was glad I had slipped into shoes instead of running out the door barefoot.

It was Saturday; freedom, fresh air and playtime. My morning wouldn't consist of anything more taxing than picking thorough trinkets and baubles at the Lacon Flea Market. I did my usual lazy stroll through the aisles, looking at nothing particular and yet taking in every glorious thing. The closer I got to the back aisles, the faster I usually went, nothing holding my attention for long.  Pacing myself, trying hard to hold back as long as I could, for the whole backside of the market was nothing but animals.  Sad eyed mules, bony backed horses, fat bellied puppies and a hundred squawking chickens.  You name it and someone had it for sale.  This part of the flea market was my heaven on earth, my Garden of Eden, including the snake. My hands patted, rubbed, groomed and preened every wiggly, whining, meowing, crowing critter in its path.  And my heart went out to each and every set of sad eyes I encountered.  

Then I saw it, in a rickety old chicken wire cage, tied to the top of a rusted, dilapidated station wagon, the most pitiful excuse for a monkey I had ever seen. I tried to reign in my excitement for surely this exotic beast, even as pitiful as it looked was way out of my means.  I approached the vehicle slowly, my eyes locked on the frighten brown ones peering from between the rusty, jagged wire.  When I found my voice, the only words I could croak out, was "how much?"  When my astonished ears heard that the price named was within my means, (if I cleaned out my entire checking account), I knew this rag-tag, mangy-hair, potbelly beast would be mine.  I hurriedly ask if they could hold on long enough for me to get to the front and have the owners cash my check.  Thank God, my uncle was the owner and would do this huge favor.  I had to seal the deal before anyone else saw this beauty.  Yes, you heard it right, this little girl, as I soon discovered it was a she, was a beauty, because she was soon to be mine.

I returned with the money held tightly in trembling hands and giddily gave it all to them.  Through the whole transaction never once did it occur to me, how little I knew about raising a monkey.  I mean I had raised all of my younger brothers after my mother left, so how much harder could this be? Now that the money had changed hands and my rightful ownership established, I began to ask questions. I discovered she was a spider monkey and possibly 4 or 5 years old. She didn't have a name except Monkey. Feeling kind of charitable now, they did volunteer that she did bite sometimes. And from the scarred look of a couple of their arms, I would say more than a few times. 

In their Hillbilly, nasal voices, they laughingly told me about the time cousin Joe shot at her with his gun. They belly laughed as they told me how drunk she got on beer. Like knowledgeable keepers they boastfully explained how she didn't cost all that much too feed cause all she ate was peanuts.

The adult and child in me battling it out, as I fought the urge to slap their stupid faces. The adult winning, when I realized I still needed their help in unloading her from the wagon and loading the cage into my van. 

The ride home became extremely unnerving as her shrill screams echoed around the van. For Monkey had started screaming and running side to side, as soon as they started unloading her and had continued on after they loaded her into my van.  In desperation, I pulled off on the nearest dirt road.  Crouching eye-level on the floor, I started talking to her in that soft, crooning voice we use to comfort scared puppies and crying babies.  Not forcing her space or trying to touch her, but using that universal, mama-talk that all babies, large or small recognize. Her scream became ragged, sobby noises. My heart constricting as I wondered what her life had been like before?  I looked closer into her limpid, amber eyes, I knew I didn't need to know.  I just knew that no matter whatever horrors came before, would never come again.  She was home, both physically and in my heart.  Someday, somehow I would find a way to replace that frightened look etched deep in her little face. Those worried brows would loose their stiff lines and learn how to raise themselves in delight and joyful laughter, if I had anything at all to say about it.

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