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Me & Sally: A Real-Life Interspecies Love Story (cont'nd)
Sally the Monkey's stare almost knocks me over. Wise, curious, clever, keen, deep, sharp, smart, mysterious animal passion beams from Sally into me, jolting my soul and rattling my bones. Her face is a picture of puzzlement, brows knitted, head tilted to one side. As she stares into my half-man, half-monkey face, I find I can read her thoughts. She's speaking to me with her eyes-
"What are you?... You're not one of them, but there's no way you're one of me... Really, what are you?"
Sally the Monkey sniffs me suspiciously, moving her mouth to my jaw. The tension is pulpy, and as I feel her hot breath on my lips, I'm trying desperately not to visualize her biting my nose off. She brings her lips to my cheek, puckers, and covers my face and lips with tiny sweet little monkey kisses.
I'm overcome, undone, head-over-heels in love with Sally. She puts her arms around my neck and hops into my arms. The crowd oohs and ahs, witness to the start of a great interspecies love story.
The whole rest of the shoot, Sally and I are like sweet and potato. Whenever she sees me, she runs up to me excited as a bride, jumps up in my arms, and covers me with kisses. I carry her around like she's my sweet lovemonkey and I'm her ape loverman, holding hands and going bananas, swooning and spooning. I've never known a woman who was so openly, unabashedly, good-naturedly affectionate, who lit up so in my presence.
Animal work laws are very strict, due to years of abuse. On the part of the humans. So animals work very strict 12-hour shifts. This may seem trivial now, but it will prove crucial as our story unfolds.
In the commercial I, Neanderthal, will be sitting next to Sally, Monkey, while an actress, playing a Homo Sapien waitress, flirts with me. We block the scene without Sally. The actress walks up to me all stiffly and skitsy, just lobbing her line in my general vacinity, like a lazy newsboy tossing an errant morning paper:
"Hey good looking, come here often?"
It was bad. Bad, bad, bad. The director stopped everything, walked over to her all cocksure and said, "I need you to hot it up, honey, make with the goo-goo eyes, like you did in the callback, babe." She promised she would, shot him an obligatory sex-baby look, which evaporated into disdain as soon as the director turned and walked away. I noticed she was a bit aqua green in her gill area as she thought about how Sally's powerful jaw could snap her arm like a dry twig.
The lights were tweaked. The camera focused. Hair, make-up and wardrobe were fluffed, patted, and tucked. Finally everything was ready, hundreds of highly-paid technicians and advertising geeks all set to make commercial magic.
Sally was brought in, hopped up on her stool next to me at the bar, reached over and kissed me on the cheek as I whispered sweet little monkey nothings into her ear.
"Scene 4, take 1. Roll camera!"
"Camera rolling. Speed."
"Sound?"
"Speed!"
"And... Action!"
The actress walked towards us like a nervous cat at a dog show. Even I could feel her fear, and I'm certainly no monkey. She started to make the most tentative of flirty eyes in my general direction.
Well, Sally the Monkey went bananas, jumped up on the bar, bared her teeth, and hissed, looking like she was going to rip this poor spooked woman's heart out, show it to her, then eat it.
The actress' scream curdled blood as she ran raging wailing and weeping through the set, and out the door.
I thought the advertising geeks should have used that in the commercial, because it said more about evolution than any of the lame shit they can come up with.
But no, they decided to write just the waitress out of the commercial.
So now it was getting to be 6:30 PM, and because the advertising geeks had been so busy figuring out which swanky restaurant they were going to eat dinner at that night, they were way far behind schedule. So they sent some junior assistant flunky over to Sally's trainer and he asked if they could get Sally to work overtime, because if they don't get all her shots, they were going to have to bring everybody back and go way over budget.
The trainer says he doubts Sally will want to work overtime but he'll see what he can do.
The geeks huddled furiously, whispering toxically. It was now 6:45 PM. A much better-dressed executive walked up to the trainer. They'll pay whatever he wants. Name the price.
The trainer smiled. Slowly reminded the executive that Sally's a monkey, and not particularly financially motivated.
"Well then we'll give her all the damn bananas she wants," said the better-dressed executive.
"Well," explained the trainer patiently, as if he's talking to a dumb animal, "Sally already gets all the bananas she wants, but I'll see what I can do."
Finally it was 6:58PM. The best-dressed executive hustled over to the trainer.
"Listen, I don't care what the damn monkey wants, we need to get three more shots off before she leaves, is that clear?"
You could see the trainer was just about to lose it, wishing to God that he only had to deal with reasonable animals.
But before he could say anything, it became 7 o'clock, exactly 12 hours after Sally started working.
Sally then stepped up on the bar, and slowly, dramatically, like the consummate performer she was, raised her left arm over her head, and slapped her wrist where a watch would be, the international sign for:
"Look what time it is."
She then jumped down, and started pulling me toward the door. As the highly-paid technicians tried desperately not to laugh, and the advertising geeks shat themselves, Sally and I proceeded through the set, and straight out the door, hand-in-hand, like a monkey bride and Neanderthal groom heading for our abba dabba honeymoon.
They had to bring everybody back the next day, and Sally the Monkey became a hero. She got us all another day's pay, and with incredible style, panache, and savoir faire, she told the oppressive exploiting fascist Boss to stick it. Power to the People! Power to the Monkeys!
When I asked the trainer, he told me that monkeys have an acute sense of time. Because she worked so often, Sally knew exactly when 12 hours were up, and had figured out that by making the sign for time, not only would her day be over, but she'd also make everyone laugh real hard. All day, whenever it was time for a meal, or a break, everyone from actors to Teamsters would raise their left hand up over their head, and slap their wrist where a watch would be, in silent homage to Sally the magical monkey. Much to the amusement of everyone except the advertising geeks, who seemed basically jaded and disgusted by pretty much everything except what swanky restaurant they were going to eat at that night.
As for me, I fell in love with Sally that day. One of the great regrets of my life is that I never got to consummate the relationship, because I know she would have been a powerful, wild, romantic, spiritual and highly rocking lover. But alas, we were from different worlds, and ours was a love that could never be. nth.