by Tantra Bensko

Well, it wasn’t ending up quite like Kundra had expected it to in Mexico. Turned out, the big eyed, playful guy she had gone there to be with had been sent off by the Peace Corp to save sea turtles someplace else. And there was no record of where he had been sent. She put down the phone and stared. She had to make the best of it. No reason to keep learning Spanish. Well, she was kind of relieved about that, anyway. No reason to go far into Mexico. Well, not sure if that was a plus or not. She wondered what she would do next. At least, she could go to the zoo. That seemed to be the only thing of interest where she was. And it would be a good chance to practice her Spanish. Oh yeah. She didn’t need to learn Spanish.

The zoo was one of the saddest things she had ever seen. The animals looked miserable. It made her eyes tear up to think of them in cages. Especially the gorillas. She vowed to give them a tenth of whatever she made with her art in the future. If she ever made anything with it. She had almost forgotten how to do it. Bright colors, in the Fauvist style, in which colors clashed, rattled their cages in her mind.

There was some strangeness about her ex husband and zoos. Whenever they went to the Memphis zoo, the tiger would go crazy. Apparently, he had always been terrified of tigers, according to a secret his mother told her. But, maybe it just was her husband’s extreme height. That was what he guessed. She thought it was something in his moldy, academic, black thumbed, civilized slouch that made the tiger hate him so much, have such an instinctive desire to tear him apart. She just kept quiet, though it made her smile.
The little whooper monkeys were cute, and enthusiastic, and she liked whooping with them. But she moved on, in a kind of a daze.

She had left her husband to go to Mexico to be with the young, tousled headed fella, Brian. But there he was, not being there. She felt like she was in a slow dream. She had no idea where the rest of her life would lead. There were no leads on him. She had no place to live, except her car she had driven to Mexico in. She had her paintings to do, but she knew they would be nothing like what she had done before. The Wild Beast style was only the beginning. It was outdated. She had to go beyond. She had to become a wilder beast.

Her husband had told her she had to stop painting her pictures of her wildness in her heart when she didn’t get all the dishes washed one day. She had to take down her easel, pack up her paints. Married life was a strange convention. She deeply felt she had to live as if she was going to paint something worthwhile. Her husband didn’t agree with that. But she agreed with herself. Which was a good start in today’s society, according to the pamphlets she had read and thrown away before anyone caught her looking at anything so stupid.

So she had taken off, inspired by “The Monkees” TV show, to lead a life of adventure and spontaneity and verve. Unsheltered, not caged in, her experiences not all colored by him being by her side, telling her what she could do. And there she was, at the zoo, with nothing defined in her future at all. Except peanuts in her hand to give to something with lips, whatever would take them from her.

A chimanzee she passed by on her zoo walk got her attention. It was the only creature in the large area set aside for it, which mimicked reality with trees and water and vines to swing on. It didn’t seem so sad as most of the others. It had some room to play, at least. She wanted to set it free like she wanted to set all the animals free, but this one seemed to be beckoning to her to do it in a specific way.

It had a stick in its paw. And it was banging it on the concrete. In a rhythm! She moved her head with the rhythm. No one was around for her to look funny to. So she bopped her head goofily. The chimp seemed to smile. She thought it was a smile, anyway. Yeeeee haa!!
Kundra fumbled in her purse almost frantically. She wanted to play along. A ylang ylang essential oil bottle. Would break. A mascara stick. One of her little embarrassments in the new natural crowd she hung out with. She’d never get a chance to explain to them that it was all natural. All she could do was flash them her unshaved armpits and hope they forgave her. She was in touch with her animal essence! No, the mascara was too clangy. A pen: Also too high pitched. She was worried the chimp would stop playing. It was looking at her expectantly, and there was magic in the air. A hairbrush! Yes!

She desperately disentangled it from the tape measurer. Her husband had said he’d leave her if she gained any weight. So, every day, she had measured. His proposal went: Well, if you gain weight, I guess I can just divorce you, so let’s get married. And then, a few days ago, She had left Him.

She showed the hairbrush to the chimp, who was on the other side of the moat, still hitting the concrete with the stick, regularly. Expectantly. How did it know she would be the one? Did it try that with everyone? Was it her armpit hair? Her Fauvist colors in her aura?
She started hitting the metal fence with the hairbrush, as hard as she could, in sync with the chimp’s stick.

It started making some excited little sounds that were the happiest things she had heard in months, other than the reruns of the Monkee’s TV show. She had obsessively watched them, and listened to their records, the only show she watched at all. She wanted that life. She wanted that freedom. She loved Davie and Peter both. What would she do if she were backstage with them both? How could she choose? It kept her up at nights.

And she loved this little chimp. And she loved herself. And music. And the fence the chimp was in, cause it made such a satisfactory sound with her hairbrush. She was glad she refused to use plastic ones. Only wooden ones. Yes, they had to cut down trees for them. That was bad. But it wasn’t plastic. It was real.

And plastic would have made a stupidass sound on metal.

Bang! Bang! Bangbang! Bang! Bang! Banghang!

She started dancing along with her beat. Her face could hardly contain her smile. She put everything into it. The chimp could hardly contain itself either. It was dancing too! It jumped with the beat it played. It stared in her face. It was the moment it had been waiting for its whole life in the zoo. Finally! At last! Halleluhiah!

Her arms were getting tired, but she pressed on, as long as they could stand it. She stared at the chimp. She felt her heart merge with it. She didn’t want to ever leave. She varied her beat, making it more interesting, adding to the complexity.

She gave up all she had hoped for Mexico. This was it. She was ready to leave and face her future. This was the beginning of her future. She was free. She was an honorary monkey.