A RIDE IN THE MONKEY TRUCK

I had a highly unlikely experience yesterday. This, of course, happens all the time. The likelihood of an unlikely experience is, in fact, often more likely than a likely one. If this seems untrue, then you might be driving in circles. Stop for a moment and ask yourself—have I suddenly become a race car driver? If the answer is yes, see above. If it is no, remember where you were going and try again.

There are some things about this world that I just don’t understand. These are two of them:

1) What is so fascinating about driving very very fast in a circle?
2) One step beyond the aforementioned mystery, what is so fascinating about watching other people drive very very fast in a circle?

No, I haven’t become a race car driver—that wouldn’t be nearly as surprising. Except that I don’t like to drive fast in cars, so I’d be a really bad race car driver, but if that was acceptable, then what the hell—It’s as likely as anything else.

You know, I saw the Monkey Truck once. Only once. Sure, I’d seen it numerous times in visions, but that one holy full-mooned night I saw the Charioteers of Liberation actually driving down my street. Really. Here. In three-dimensional reality. It was late at night—four in the morning or so—when I heard it roar around the corner a block away. Engine growling like four rabid mastiffs trapped inside a pillowcase, headlights cutting zig zag lines back and forth across the deserted and thankfully vacant rain strewn street, tearing across the silent neighborhood like a small boy chased by a swarm of bees, one lone wiper blade ineffectually splashing rain back and forth across the windshield. It was a white truck. A pick-up truck. And the back was filled to capacity with negligently handled television sets.

I’m sure that there are a variety of unintriguing ways in which I could have chosen to assimilate this unlikely event into my consciousness, but they are not the reality options which would most readily pop into the mind of one such as this. Nay, I say, back off with your stories of fenced goods and drug deals… It was the Monkey Truck, I tell you.

After years writing about it, envisioning its myriad of mythic qualities, while at the same time believing that it was just a metaphor, suddenly, there it was. In the flesh, so to speak (if you consider rusted white metal and flesh to be synonymous). Naturally, the windows were tinted (metaphorically speaking) so I couldn’t get a very good look inside. And it was dark. (but isn’t every thing) Except for the moon. (really) But I’m certain that the cab was full of monkeys.

I was certain that they had just returned from a mission, from a long night out in the field doing what jacked up little monkeys like that are apt as not to do. It was an act of guerilla warfare waged for the liberation of the human mind, a noble quest to free the prisoners from their respective boxes, unplugging a life support system feeding the slavering corporate machine. Free at last, the celebrants would pour forth from their homes and out onto the streets, many of them seeing their neighbors face to face for the first time, actually interacting and gaining knowledge first hand rather than simply digesting a highly mediated cube shaped representation of reality. They would dance with joy as children would at the beautiful world outside, gasp with wonder at the surface of the moon, and play music around the pile of burning televisions until dawn.

Metaphors were my imaginary friends when I was a child, but once in a while, one of them gets loose and surprises me by driving past my house at four a.m. on a Saturday morning. They do this more often than you would think.

Some might say that the experience of seeing the Monkey Truck, THE Monkey Truck, is unlikely, but it is still not the unlikely experience of which I speak. Alas, I have foreshadowed enough… I may as well come right out and say it. Those who know me may shudder with horror right about now and scream “Dear gawd! Please say that you haven’t caved into cultural pressure and purchased a television set!”

No. That horror is not mine. However, the unlikely event was of a consumer nature. I did, in fact, purchase something which I was not expecting to own, much less own yesterday. But I do.

It was a strange event, an unlikely one to say the least. Unprepared to deal with this unexpected eventuality, my mind found an intriguing way to integrate it into the rest of my experience. In Indianese culture, we have terribly complex courtship rituals. They can go on for years and years, leading again and again to the culmination of marriage. In our culture we believe—hey—more weddings = more honeymoons, so why only do it once? If you REALLY like a person, you’ll just keep marrying them over and over again, the beginning of one marriage leading naturally into the courtship dance for the next.

As you can see, this belief would lead to unorthodox courtship behaviors, such as the weaving of walls from sticks decorated with ornamental feathers and the ceremonial gifting of the Oxford English Dictionary. Of course, we had already long since been granted the Blessing of The King followed shortly by The Exchanging of Rings and sacred Singing of Viva Las Vegas to seal the marriage in the eyes of Elvis. Along with the rite of Giving Away the Redundant Copy of Prospero’s Books, the Merging of the T-Shirts, and the Bringing of Breakfast in Bed, is the age-old Pick-Up Truck Acquisition Initiation. It is believed that when two people make the commitment to buy a pick-up truck together they have achieved a certain quantifiable level of intimacy and trust and are considered to have passed the test of Navigating the Salesman by the community.

In celebration, we traveled to the southeastern province of the Indianese Territory to visit the homeland. There was great feasting—elk, boar, ostrich, and the traditional deep fried turkey. The ancestors were called to join in the “oohh” ing and “ahh” ing as the family ceremoniously circled the pick-up truck, looking appreciatively under the hood, admiring the auspiciously low purchase price and suggesting accouterments to promote aesthetic longevity. The ritual closed as my father gave the traditional blessing: “It really is a cute little truck.” This said, we returned inside to eat the celebratory fruit crisp and pumpkin pie.

Later I watched my “new” spouse drive the pick-up in a circle in the parking lot next to our house. Round in a circle it went. Only once. I watched. All is right with the world.