MONKEYSHINES Monkeyshines One of the most entertaining things about living ...
One of the most entertaining things about living in New York, as we all know, is that there's always some Huge Story in the news?and every day it's different. If it's not ferry disasters or terrorist attacks, it's some sensational murder, kidnapping, fiery car wreck or over-the-top mugging. Some guy in Harlem whose pet tiger gets fed up, maybe the occasional cannibal, sex dungeon or voodoo cult. Read through the tabloids?just skim them, even?and every day there's something new and lively. Even if it's not front-page news, you're bound to find something incredibly odd.
The downside to this, of course, is that things become a blur. Each new day of stories eclipses what happened the day before. Things happen, then they're gone?if not for those involved, at least for the rest of us?regardless how many questions might remain unanswered.
That's one of the advantages (or disadvantages, depending on how you look at it) of life in a smaller town. Fewer exciting things happen, fewer sensational murders and voodoo cults, but when they do happen, man oh man, the papers shake it until there's nothing left. If some guy in Wisconsin, say, had been found with a tiger in his apartment, look out.
That's sort of what happened?and continues to happen?with the Jasper story. He may not be on the front pages anymore, but he's still making the news?and every time he does, my dad clips it and sends it along.
The story began last April, when 30-year-old Green Bay barfly Tracie Cornelius went to the Rock City Pub with Jasper, her two-year-old black-capped Capuchin monkey. At some point during the evening, Jasper slipped away, snuck out the bar's back door and vanished into the night.
What followed over the next three days was a crazy, news-topping citywide search for Jasper. Citizens and cops alike were out looking in the trees, the alleys, the windowsills. But it was more than just a search for a lost pet?it was a race.
Cornelius, see, like our friend in Harlem, bought her pet over the internet, never much thinking about the fact that she'd need an exotic-animal permit to keep him. So on the first day of the search, the head of the local animal- control office was in the papers saying Cornelius wasn't allowed to keep the monkey, and that it would be removed from her if and when it was found.
So now not only were Cornelius, her friends, and hundreds of local citizens out looking for Jasper?the Man was, too.
Three days later it was reported that Jasper was home again and safe. There was, however, still that little matter of a permit. Animal Control was still threatening to take him away, so Cornelius stashed Jasper at a "secret location outside the city limits" while she began filling out the necessary applications.
The story struck home with me because when I was a kid, all I ever wanted was a monkey. The serious simian obsession followed on the heels of the short-lived dinosaur obsession, and preceded the shark obsession. It lasted about five years. So every Christmas, birthday, whenever it was appropriate to ask for a present during that stretch, I asked for a monkey. Never got one, though. The closest my folks ever came was picking me up a "How to Care for Your Monkey" book. Thinking back on it, it was probably an attempt on their part to show me how much time, effort and money caring for a monkey would require, thus scaring me out of the idea.
Their little plan didn't work. Thing, is, I didn't even need the internet to get one. There was a pet store right there in town (well, a department store with a pet section in the basement) that had one for sale.
I forget exactly what kind of monkey it was. The hand-printed cardboard sign in the store referred to him as a "miniature chimpanzee." I was young at the time, but I knew my primates, and knew damn well that it wasn't any "miniature chimp." It had a tail, for godsakes. I'm guessing he weighed 40-50 pounds, only slightly less than I did. He might have been a macaque, or a rhesus monkey. Lord knows where they got him, unless one of the local universities was foisting him off on anyone after they made some horrible mistake. He was kept in an enormous cage in the middle of the floor, surrounded by parakeets and goldfish and bunnies. He stank to high heaven. The asking price was $250, which I thought was very reasonable at the time (circa 1970).
Every time my mom took me to the store, I'd sneak away from her and scamper down to the pet department to make friends with the monkey. He seemed pretty despondent most of the time, so I thought my visits might cheer him up.
Well, I was mistaken about that. This monkey hated me. It wasn't just the result of an animal's frustration at being caged up, either?this was a very deep, abiding and personal hatred. My mere presence drove him into paroxysms of rage. The moment I walked around the corner, he would begin hissing and shrieking at me. I could stroll around the store, look at other animals, but every time I was in his line of sight, even if my back was turned, he'd bark at me and pound the floor. It was like that scene in The Omen. One time when I got too close to his cage, he shot out an arm, grabbed hold of my hair, and banged my head against the bars, hard. At least the store kept his cage clean, so he didn't have any shit to throw at me.
In later years I'd hear stories about primates who take a personal and immediate dislike to specific humans for reasons we don't yet understand. At the time I refused to believe what was clearly the case. I did what I could to ignore the violence that burned in the beast's eyes whenever I drew near. I was determined to make this thing like me?and once I did, once we were inseparable, my folks would have no choice but to buy him.
They never did, and the smelly, awful monster only grew to hate me more with each visit, so it's probably for the best. He would've gone straight for the throat had anyone opened that cage door.
Ms. Cornelius didn't have problems like that with Jasper. Apart from that "running away" incident, by all accounts they got along very well.
The months and the application process rolled on after those exciting three days in April, and in time, Jasper's story faded from the local headlines. Then in September I received a clipping from my dad.
City officials ruled that monkeys were just too damned dangerous to be kept as pets within city limits and rejected Cornelius' final appeal. I'm sure the real reason was all that fuss she caused, but city officials insisted her appeal was rejected on account of the Simian B virus?which many monkeys carry and which is fatal to 70 percent of humans who contract it (either by being bitten or by swapping spit).
There was some good news for Cornelius, though?Bellevue, a nearby suburb where my sister Mary lives, had no such anti-monkey ordinances on the books, so Cornelius and Jasper made plans to pull up stakes.
That's what worried my dad. The note that accompanied the clipping read:
Strangely, over the previous two months, my dad's attitude toward Jasper had changed. I was first tipped off by the "Long Live Jasper!" he'd scrawled on the back of the envelope. And his accompanying note this time read: