Monkey Maids: or, the Roommate/Primate Experiment, Pt. 4

That day went beautifully. I fielded all the calls for “Party Primates” and Liz got to know the animals. She took a particular shine to the squirrel monkey, which was good since he sometimes seemed a little left out during grooming. She spent most of the day with him on her shoulder and had taught him how to feed her blueberries by evening grooming. We gave out snacks to keep them busy for a while and set to work on the evening toilette. It went a lot faster with two people – I washed them up and Liz blew-dry and styled them. We had everyone ready to go before the first customer showed up; not bad, considering we had seven paying gigs that night. Things were looking rosy.

We went to the store for more fruit and got ourselves a few bottles of wine to celebrate. On the walk back to the apartment, Liz suddenly regressed. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. This is insane. It can’t possibly work.”

"Why not? Think about it: the monkeys are really happy – there weren’t even any fights today. I’m happy having the monkeys around. They’re making us money. It’s beautiful.”

She nodded. “It kind of is. But. It’s too beautiful. I mean, what if they get into a shit-flinging contest while we’re at the store? What if the macaque decides to pick a fight with the tamarin? They’ll all go... well… apeshit. Not to mention the absolute certainty that we’re going to get caught. I mean...” She looked at me, and there was no anger in her eyes. Just that bald look she gave me sometimes, that completely unguarded trust in me. Very disquieting. I appreciated it but she never seemed able to keep it on her face for very long.

I shook my head. “Ok, first of all, shit flinging is just a myth. Monkeys only fling shit if they have nothing else at hand, and only if they’re agitated. If we make sure to spend as much time with them as possible and work for the peace of the group, no flinging needs to happen. After a while they’ll learn to behave even when we’re not around. You’ll see, they’re smart. And they want to please us. They’re all so happy to be out of the lab that as long as we make these first few weeks good for them – we’re home free. They’ll love us forever. And hey, it’s a big city. We’ll be fine. People get away with crazier shit than this every day.”

She scoffed. “Crazier shit than keeping seventeen monkeys of all shapes and sizes, illegally, in a two bedroom apartment? I don’t know about that.” Doubt had crept into her expression, but still, there was no anger. Once again it was a deep weariness that I’d only begun to see on her face over the past month or so.

“Seriously, Liz, I’m not making this up: last week I read about a guy who was arrested for keeping a fourteen foot alligator in his studio. He’d had it with him for eight years. We don’t have any fourteen foot monkeys. We’ll be fine.”

Her eyes switched into frustrated glare and she shifted her grocery bag to her left hand. “No, but we do have seventeen less-than-fourteen foot monkeys, all of whom make a lot of noise and who have opposable thumbs. One of these days that macaque is going to figure out doorknobs and walk outside.” She shifted the bag again. “This fruit is really fucking heavy. My hand hurts.”

“Let’s stop walking for a minute. Take a breather,” I said, setting down my fruit and massaging my hands, then reaching over and grabbing hers. She started to pull away but then sighed and looked up at me. Her eyes were tired. “Look, Liz. I understand your reservations. I do. But I’ve thought about all of this and I still think it’s a really good idea. I think it’s going to be great.”

She looked down at the sidewalk for a minute and when she looked back up, the weariness had been joined by mournful, closed off expression that meant trouble. “You thought us moving in together would be great, too.”

We stared at each other for a minute. I said nothing. That look meant I’d be an asshole no matter what I said to her, and probably if I didn’t say anything, too. I waited.

“And that hasn’t exactly turned out like a bowl of cherries." She turned to pick up her bag again. "I don't need to tell you that your judgment about what we can do together is sometimes off,” she finally said.

“But we have a bowl full of cherries now,” I said with a grin, hefting my bag of fruit and pointing to the cherries. “And… I didn’t think things were all that bad,” I couldn't help adding, my stomach hurting as if I'd been punched.

She pursed her lips. “Well, here’s hoping,” she said as we began to walk. She held her breath for a minute, then studiously looked away. “And we’re not going to be able to have people over anytime we want anymore, either. Who knows what the monkeys would do if one of us showed up with a stranger late at night.”

I hadn’t really thought about it, but now I nodded.

“So, I guess…” she trailed off, still looking away. “No more strange girls in the house. Just us and the monkeys. At least for a while...” She let the sentence fade into silence.

I didn’t know what to say, so we walked home in silence.

* * * * * *

I had no idea that star fruit was such a favorite with primates, but they went nuts over it. The capuchin ended up clubbing the female spider monkey with it after he’d wrestled it out of her hands, at which point the male spider monkey jumped on the capuchin’s back and started screeching and scratching at his face. I had to pull him off and spend the next hour holding him while Liz cuddled the female. The capuchin forgot about it immediately and picked his nose for a good fifteen minutes before Liz slipped in and took the star fruit away. He didn’t even notice, but we decided that star fruit would be nixed from the shopping list thence forth, just to be safe.

After all the paying gigs came home that night, Liz and I got drunk on wine and groomed everybody, then each other, with much giggling. Our spat from the afternoon seemed to be forgotten, but I caught that tired look on her face a few times between fits of laughter. We schemed about all the jungle gym equipment we would buy for the monkeys and the furniture we’d buy ourselves. We play wrestled and tried again to teach the macaque how to use the toilet. Liz fed the marmoset a little wine and we laughed when he dozed off next to the bottle. We finally fell asleep around 2:00 on the couch. I woke up at 4:00 and got Liz and the squirrel monkey into her bed before heading back to my room with the tamarin. Things were great. Everything was perfect.