The Monkey

It’s funny how memories of events emerge as images apart from the surroundings in which they were first experienced.  On this sunny winter afternoon I remembered an organ grinder and his monkey, but not where I met them. 

The man was swarthy and foreign with little English.  The organ was antique even in those faraway times.  It was not an organ at all but a sort of ancient music box the man played by turning a crank, hence grinding it.  He apparently lived on pennies. 

I was given one to give to the monkey.  If the man was foreign, this creature was alien – more so than any cat or dog.  He was dressed in a faded red jacket and hat that must have been handed down through generations of monkeys as the organ was through generations of grinders, and the clothing that mimicked that of a person emphasized his otherness.

His tiny black hand touched mine as he took the coin.  It was dry, inhuman, almost reptilian.  The feeling startled me, and I remember the realization that he was not like me.  He put the penny in his pocket and tipped his little monkey cap quickly, snatching it off and replacing it almost in one movement.  I knew he was supposed to be saying, “thank you,” but he wasn’t.  There was no politeness – no gratitude.

He had bright brown eyes that regarded me intently.  Grownups said he was cute, but he wasn’t cute.  His head was about the size of a peach and was covered with gray brown fur.  I was aware of his teeth.  He wasn’t sure what I would do, and the feeling was mutual. The music was supposed to be gay, but it possessed no feeling at all.

The world is an unexplored planet to a child.  So much is new and strange, he feels that anything can happen.  It’s as though a spaceship has deposited him here, except there is no spaceship and no way home.