The Monkey’s In Charge After my family moved from Nederland Texas to Olney Texas in 1971, my dad went to work driving a truck for Coachmen Industries. He soon became friends with the other drivers as well. One driver named Bill was a close friend to my dad, and after Bill left the employment of Coachmen Dad and Bill kept their close ties. Bill, being somewhat a collector of wild animals, had a capuchin monkey (Jocko) that he had to part with after it had attacked his wife. Dad always loved animals and felt the addition of Jocko would be welcomed, so we built Jocko a cage in the garage and we became Jocko’s adopted family. Jocko made himself at home quickly and dad felt he could be let out of his enclosure to run free occasionally. The only problem with letting Jocko run free came when he was to be put back in his cage. He was too fast for anyone but me to catch, being a feisty twelve year old, I could catch Jocko rather easily, and he resented me for it too. When Jocko saw that it was me chasing him he would squat down as if to say, “I give up!” and wait for me to pick him up and put him in the cage. However, any time Jocko could catch me alone he would attack me, teeth bared and clawed hands at the ready. I therefore, always tried to have someone else around when Jocko was out. Oddly enough, Jocko never attacked anyone else when he was alone with someone. His resentment of me for being able to catch him seemed to guide his rage. During this period we also adopted Jeb, a beautiful black Labrador Retriever. Jeb was the greatest, he was so gentle with kids and seemed to love us as well. He also never barked at Jocko, in-fact the two of them seemed to interact very well. When Jocko was put away in his cage, Jeb and I would play together for hours. Jeb loved nothing more than retrieving, balls, sticks, even Frisbees. As long as we would throw them for him, he would run and bring whatever we threw back. I even threw a tennis ball once and it hit a tree and bounced back and Jeb ran into the tree before he could stop, but still managed to get to the ball before it reached me. Jeb was actually the perfect dog and he always showed nothing but love for my family. One day dad and I were cleaning on the garage, and dad had released Jocko to play outside while we were cleaning. As I swept the concrete floor and dad picked up tools and put stuff away we suddenly heard the strangest noise either of us had ever heard. Not exactly alarming, a low howl emanated from somewhere outside the garage. Dad and I both stopped and stared at one-another wondering what the noise could be. The howl would stop for just a second then resume, so together we stepped out of the garage to investigate, and when we saw the source of the howl we had to laugh but not until we rescued poor Jeb from the clutches of Jocko. Jocko was standing directly behind Jeb who was as rigid as he could possibly get standing on all fours. Jocko had Jeb’s testicles firmly in his tiny hand and wasn’t letting go, and poor Jeb was letting out the lowest howl possible as not to startle Jocko and cause Jeb injury. We got Jocko to let go of his prize and Jeb ran behind the house and hid. Jeb had learned his lesson, and from that day forth until dad had to give Jocko to another family, Jeb would always run and hide when he saw Jocko being set free. Dad finally ended the relationship with Jocko when on a Sunday morning as we headed out to church, dad stepped into the garage to check on Jocko. Jocko hid at the back of his cage until dad stepped close to see if he was alright and without warning Jocko jumped to the wire mesh as if to greet dad then peed all down dad’s suit, then jumped around his cage laughing with glee at what he’d done. Soon after Jocko was gone and I could finally stop worrying about being attacked and poor Jeb’s testicles were safe again.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 16:31:02 +0000
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