Helper Monkey Island

Sometimes a man can only turn to monkeys for salvation...

It happened again. The first time was almost excusable. The second time was annoying. After being shipwrecked three times, I started to look for someone to blame.

Actually, I thought, maybe I should table the finger pointing for a while and get my bearings. It is a well-known fact that there are over four trillion islands in the South Pacific, but even if that estimate was wrong, I was surely on one that no one knew about. At least I was on a real island this time. Last time it had been a sandbar with a single palm tree. This one had a mountain, jungles, wildlife. I could hear the monkeys all in a dither about my arrival, although I couldn’t spot any in the tree line. I would set up some snares later. I would be damned if I was going to become a vegan.

Another bonus for this latest go-round, I had found a floating wood trunk when the ship capsized. It had served as my makeshift raft. When I was loading the unusual chest onto the ship, I noted that it was quite light. Even if it were empty, I could use it as shelter.

I had no trouble finding a large rock to smash off the padlock hinge that secured the trunk. I have to admit that I had a lot of ridiculous hopes for the contents: A raft, a radio transmitter, a flare gun, a tent. In reality, I knew it wouldn’t be anything that good, but I might find something useful.

Instead, I found a cryogenically preserved helper monkey in some sort of freeze-dry packaging, and a white and blue seersucker suit. The suit was soaked, but the monkey’s packaging prevented him from getting wet. The instructions were on the back of the packaging in faded ink:

Congratulations on the purchase of your new helper monkey! To activate, just sprinkle with water. Remember, one-word commands work best. Your helper monkey’s name is CECIL. Enjoy your new friend!

Damn my luck! I didn’t even get to name my own helper monkey. Just the same, in a few days I would probably eat him. I found a little pool of fresh water. It was probably filled from the storm that had sunk the New Lusitania. Never name a ship after one that has already sunk. It’s just bad luck.

I decided to just drop the entire contents of the helper monkey package into the pool. After a little gurgle, the beast launched out of the water with a shriek and scampered around the pool. “Cecil, stop. STOP!” I shouted.

The little monkey stopped and sat up on its hind legs like a human. He looked very irritated as he banged the sides of his head to get the water out of his ear. He then held out his hands with his palms up as if to say, “What do you want?”

“Umm. Food. Forage. FORAGE?” With that, the helper monkey ran off and brought back every stereotypical island fruit that I could think of: Pineapples, bananas, kiwis, melons, you name it. “Well, I’m not a vegetarian, am I?”

Cecil looked absolutely dejected. Then he got an idea. He disappeared for an hour and then came scampering down the beach with a smaller monkey of a different species. He was dragging the reluctant monkey by the arm, but was chattering to him - or her - reassuringly. When they came up to me, Cecil cocked his head toward the small, frightened monkey and then put his free hand to his mouth in the universal sign for eating.

As hungry as I was, I found this act of cannibalism by proxy to be nauseating. “No, Cecil. That’s gross. GROSS!” I said it the second time even more loudly. “Fine. I will eat the fruit. Go try to kill a bird or wild pig for me, will you? You can see if your little friend wants to help.”

With that, both monkeys ran off. An hour later, Cecil, the monkey that he was going to sacrifice, and two monkeys of a new species, slightly larger than Cecil, emerged from the tree line carrying the carcass of a wild boar. The monkeys dragged the swine to my feet and began slapping each other proudly on the backs.

“Okay, okay. Knock off the love fest, monkeys. I still have a lot for you to do. Let’s get a fire going.” They were really doing a pretty good job, but I didn’t want them to start to get satisfied with themselves and go soft. I picked up some rocks and began to smack them together to start a fire, but one of the new monkeys went back into the jungle and came out with some flint.

“Wow, okay. Give it here, monkey.” Before I got the words out, the monkey was sparking up a little blaze. While I was watching this, Cecil and the little monkey had cleaned and spit the pig. “Don’t you guys have any wine?” It was a joke, but the monkeys still looked hurt.

I decided that I should give names to the three new monkeys. I was going to go with island-sounding names like Mogobu or Bafi-Bafi, but then I realized that I had no idea what I was saying, so I went with English names instead. So Skyler, Rudy, and Ripley it would be.

I went to sleep on the hammock that they had constructed while I ate. I watched as Cecil directed the other three, often shrieking when they would drop a piece of vine. He even tested the hammock before allowing me to sit on it. Of course I chased him off. I had had an exhausting day. “Sleep, monkeys, SLEEP.” The monkeys took separate watches to make sure that I was safe throughout the night. I must have slept in because when I awoke, they were gone.

After a few minutes, I smelled bacon cooking. Cecil had hung it over a spit and was balancing some eggs between two sticks over the fire. I had been watching my cholesterol and fat intake on the ship, but I did have a weakness for bacon and eggs, so I gorged myself on the generous feast. When I was done, the helper monkey indicated a branch from which the seersucker suit was hanging. It appeared to have been cleaned and pressed. Cecil must have mistaken it for my suit. The clothes that I had on when the New Lusitania went down were little more than tattered rags.

I changed into the suit while Cecil appraised it. He scampered up to adjust a cuff on one of the pants legs. “Thanks. I got it, Cecil.”

“I need a hut. Go recruit some monkeys and build. BUILD.” Cecil looked insufferably pleased with himself at this point. He pointed one finger in the air to tell me to wait, and then indicated that I should follow him. He waved me along. “I just finished eating,” I complained, but Cecil became more frantic, so I got up to keep the peace.

He led me through the tree line to a clearing. I have to admit that I was impressed when I saw a legion of monkeys building a three-story townhouse in the clearing. It was made of bamboo and palm fronds, so I doubted that it was worth much, but it was better than my hammock. “Okay. This will do, Cecil.”

The helper monkey then led me on a guided tour. There were four bedrooms and three baths all equipped with showers constructed from coconut conveyor belts. The water was warm, but I would need temperature controls soon. I mentioned this to Cecil.

“Also, I’m not sure about vines holding everything together. Maybe you should use nails.” A few of the monkeys looked confused. “Oh, no metal? Mine. MINE!”

A small number of of the helper monkeys went off in the direction of the mountain to begin prospecting. I wasn’t going to name all of these new damn monkeys. If they wanted to hang out with me, they could, but I certainly wasn’t going to waste time naming everyone.

I moved into the townhouse that night. There was no television, but the monkeys had erected a stage for me to watch some of the more talented ones do acrobatics and plays. If you’ve never seen a monkey play before, they really aren’t that bad. Kind of like the old silent movies with more dung being thrown.

After being taught how to mine and smelt ore, they didn’t require a lot of instruction. Yes, I had to teach them about magnetism, the dry cell, and a few other advances, but they made their own tools and began to build all kinds of things. Of course I moved out of the flimsy townhouse to a larger stone house that they had built. This one had many more innovations, including a television that was able to pick up a few English-speaking channels.

After a week of being stranded on this island with a bunch of filthy, sweaty monkeys, I decided that I wanted to get off. I called a meeting over in the corporate offices. The monkeys had insisted on incorporating and building a high-rise.

“Gentlemen, I think it is time for me to go back to human society.” At that, the monkeys began to eye each other. I didn’t really like what I was seeing. It was time to get tough. I pounded my fist on the table. “You will build me a seaworthy yacht with a crew to take me to the mainland.”

The monkeys dejectedly slunk out of the room without making a sound. I did, however, hear a good amount of shrieking coming from the elevator. After that, a detachment of monkeys went to work on my yacht. I noticed that Cecil had made it a punishment detail for the laziest and stupidest monkeys. I sent him an e-mail telling him that I wanted this to be a priority and to reallocate monkeys off of the library and tourism center projects.

After a week, it had become apparent that the yacht was not being constructed with the same speed that other priority projects were being completed. The children’s research center had already developed cures for Ebola, jungle rot, and monkey fever. The Monkey Aeronautics Space Agency had launched a few satellites. However, despite how much I enjoyed spying on Red China, I was craving the warmth of a woman, the taste of a steak, and a monkey-free home.

Around that time, two disturbing things occurred: I caught two monkeys having intercourse in my conservatory. I also realized that although the yacht was very stately and had a hot tub, gourmet kitchen, and Japanese rock garden, it was not yet seaworthy.

I had sentenced the two monkeys to death, but eventually pardoned them. The issue of the yacht was another matter. I didn’t say a word. These monkeys were not letting me off of the island. I couldn’t trust any of them. In addition, they had advanced to the stage where I could no longer trick them. Whenever I asked them to build something that could help me get off of Island Mogobu (hey, why waste a good name?) they would sabotage the project. The radio, the bridge to bring in beef, the cologne courier plane - none came to fruition.

With my direction, the monkeys had finally solved for the last digit of Pi. They had learned how to travel through time - but only for short distances - and had managed to reverse my aging. But I was a prisoner…of love.

I moved onto the yacht despite the fact that it would never sail…or steam. Whatever you want to call it. Initially, the only reliable source of fuel was a propane repository discovered by the monkeys when I had them mining for tungsten. Now they were on this whole green kick and were powering everything with solar cells. Honestly, for a stevedore, I’m not the most nautical guy in the world. Even I could tell, though, that the yacht was missing hull panels and would surely take on water if it were ever lowered from the framework.

When I called a meeting with Cecil and the other top monkeys on this project, they scratched their heads and jumped around in circles. I recognized this behavior as being consistent with the supply problems that they had in the past. I wasn’t buying it. I was getting stonewalled here.

I also couldn’t get an e-mail out to the human world because of the sophisticated firewall. It appeared that I was damned to stay on the island with my vast legions of helper monkeys with nothing else to do but eat, sleep, and participate in one of the hundred or so activities that the monkeys had devised to keep me entertained.

After about six months from the time I had first opened the package in which Cecil had been preserved, my break finally came. I observed a large US military vessel anchored off of the southern coast of the island. It must have arrived during the night. As I looked at the boat through a powerful set of binoculars, I saw two armed crews board smaller vessels and pilot them toward the area of the beach on which I was standing. I must have been an unexpected sight, standing there in my spun silk suit in front of the urban sprawl that the island had become, a multitude of monkeys standing behind me.

One of the men that I recognized as an ensign addressed me. “We heard about this island. We thought we had better check it out. What country is this?”

“Mogobu. I was shipwrecked here.”

“I’ve never heard of this place. We thought maybe our instruments had failed.”

“No. You’re at Mogobu. It’s kind of new.”

“Did these monkeys build all of this?”

“Yeah, but they’re idiots. I just wanted a damn boat.”

“Yeah, that does suck. How did the monkeys solve the hydrogen fuel storage problem on your cars?”

“No idea.”

“Well, you can come back with us. You won’t be as comfortable, but we can get you back home.”

I thought about the proposition. Leave Mogobu. As I looked over the faces of my faithful monkey companions, I saw a group of them parting a little as Cecil worked his way through the crowd. Two times before I had been marooned without so much as a crossword puzzle to keep me from getting bored. I looked at Cecil’s sad little face. He held his hand up in the air to let me know that he wanted me to stay, or at the very least to take him with me. I owed this little guy everything.

“Yeah. Get me the hell out of here. These monkeys get weirder by the second.”

http://www.myspace.com/chanceransom