From: Wannaskawriter
Date: Sunday, May 6, 2007 8:22 AM
Subject: Copy of email to Wendy in Austin TX
My dearest niece in Austin. Guess I owe you a letter at long last, we don't correspond much any mo'. Such is life. I just come in from outside, so let me get on to tellin' you about it:
Le' me bang the dust from my old cow hat here, jes' got in from the range a'roundin' up all dem li'l doggies, my old ass is jes' about worn t'rough my jeans. Now I knows why cowboys walk around bowlegged an' all, their knees jes' give out on 'em, they do, stand'n in the stirrups, tryin' to ease all them stinkin' bumps out of the trail, twist'n this an' twist'n that way, tryin' ta keep your ass from beat'n the seat that's always comin up to meet an' greet ya. The wors' t'ing about it, is your loins get all sweaty and chapt ag'in all that heavin' heated horse flesh and smooth-worn saddle leather. It hurts too much to stand up an' too much to sit down, I tells ya -- an' yeah, yous eat dust all day, all friggin day. Jeez I hate bein' a cowboy.
Could be worse, I could work in a toy factory in northwest Minnesoter and have to walk in from the parking lot behind two guys, one with tight black pants that don't reach the tops of his socks, a Mohawk haircut, silver studs in every orifice of his face and others besides; a black skin-tight sleeveless shirt and black army boots. The other guy friend wearin' a too-big red 'n black leather NASCAR jacket with "Dale Jr." in raised script font on the back, and sleeves so long you can't see the guy's hands. He wears his baseball cap backwards, at an angle on his head, -- then waits and holds the door open for me as I approach it despite my kindly urgings to, 'Go on.' With his next cigarette tucked between his ear and the side of his head, and walking like a small skinny ape, I follow his smoky shadow.
Which I was much better at ape-walking than he was. No kidding. I had the opportunity to put on a huge gorilla suit and anonymously act the ape in the Greenbush Nursing Home 4th of July parade in 2005, 'way short of being authentically 'gorilla' it was a fantasy come true, believe me. The theme of our float was, "Our Residents are The Top Bananas." We had four apes like myself, (Joe was a white orangutan) a couple monkeys and a float full of seniors in pith helmets and jungle safari wear and shorts (imagine dem stark white legs) beneath two big palm trees (no relation) with coconuts and bananas all around . . .
We handed out/tossed bananas and pencils with banana erasers, and anything remotely looking banana-ish. At the beginning of the Roseau County Fair parade in Roseau two weeks later (did I mention we took First Place in both towns?) I saw a neighbor sitting on another float so I yelled his name in my best monkey voice and threw a banana at him, but it landed just short. I don't think he ever knew who I was. You know how rented gorilla suits don't allow enough 'armpit room' to throw "the long bombs?" I just couldn't get the torque up a banana needs for real yardage, so it wasn't really my fault, you know what I'm saying?
And too it was a hot 90-degree day in Minnesoter to wear a black rubber gorilla suit. I hadn't prepared for that parade. The parade route over the 4th was 2 miles long! Two miles in July in a rubber monkey suit! By the time I was done parading around like a drunk monkey for two miles, why my face was as red as a strawberry! I was drenched in sweat! I couldn't have walked or crawled the length of another banana. I mean after you walk with your shoulders hangin' and in a half-stoop (okay, okay that should've been a natural) swingin your long hairy arms, beating your black nekked (hairless) chest every once in a while then stand and pick your nose--examine the booger closely and eat it! Hoohah! -- Despite this hilarity, it was still hotter 'n hell at the end of the parade.
At the Greenbush (translated in Swedish, literally as "bushes that are green, yah.") Parade the kids and people were fantastic participants. They had fun right along with you. One guy encouraged me to scare his little daughter he carried in his arms, she must have been about four. A darling. Well, I was silently reluctant.(Gorillas only talk to other gorillas.)
You know, some kids relish being 'scared' by a guy in a monkey suit and some kids don't. And he said, "Go ahead, she loves being scared." And I said, in a monkey voice, "Hoohoo, ruook,rook," (translated from Merriam-Webster's Anthropoid-English Dictionary: (1847) From the Greek word Gorillai (a "tribe of hairy women") as "Screw you, you abusive l'il bastard") and whacked my chest with one long hairy arm and fake monkey hand.
[They were out of gorilla hands at the costume rental store. The story was a UND frat house had these costumes last, so who knows where that gorilla hand was now? Wait, did you just hear a scream? I think it was from a sorority. I think we've found that gorilla hand.]
Ennaways, I whacks meself (I don't tell jes' anybody that, but yer family) in the chest, and shakes me head (don't go there) and was going to amble on an' catch up with the float (The parade waits for no gorilla--yes, you can quote me) I see "Joe Orangutan" walkin' up the street like an executive going to work. "What's he doing walking like that?' the gorilla asks himself, walking erect like he's homo neanderthalensis or somebody." He's carryin' his little bag like a briefcase completely out of character. Why, they'd fire him if he worked at Disneyland. I threw a banana at him to get his attention but overthrew it (these damn shallow armpits, the gorilla sez to hisself) and hit one of the residents 'smack' in the side of the head and knocked the pith off'n her . ..(You can quote me) I quickly slipped among the crowd.
Did I tell you this was all Joe's doing? Joe works at the Greenbush Nursing Home as a senior care social worker, and he got railroaded into participating in this parade in the first place. In conversation, him in a long dour face, about the upcoming event he tells me about it with such dread that I'm inclined to listen closely to what he's sayin' --for once --(it's all this Irish gibberish usually, 'Gaelic my ass,' I sez inwardly.) And he says they have to all dress up like gorillas. . . .
Wham! Me eyes opened like an overhead garage door. "Gorillas?' I askt him in an excited prose hardly able to contain mese'f , 'You're goin' to wear gorilla suits?"
"Yea-ah," he replied in his best Bostonian accent reserved for just such occasions; looking at me in a rather frightened way as though I had gone quite mad. (It may have been that little bit of drool that came to the corner of my mout' about that time.)"Gorilla suits? You're-going-to-wear-an-authentic-looking-gorilla-suits-in-a-parade?" I said with a particular emphasis on each word just so there was no gross misunderstanding on his part; every hair follicle on my head a-tingle (Okay, okay, both follicles on my head a-tingle) and he sez,"Yea-ah."
"YABADABADOOOOOOOOOOO!' sez I, emphatically. "Do you need anybody else to help out?" He wondered if I was kidding, just joshin' him in his time of need, just foolin' wit' 'is mind, bee-ess-ing him. But I wasn't. I was serious as hell to play out my fantasy--well, it wasn't the complete scenario. The original idea did have its origins in a bar, I admit. And yeah, it had something to do with meeting women -- but sometimes you have to settle for jes' wearing a rubber monkey suit on a hot 4th of July parade behind a wagon pulled by Belgians without poop-bags on, you know what I'm saying? What's a little poop to a guy in a monkey suit? (Ditto)
We got to the nursing home just as the costumes were delivered and I was eager to check them out. The activities coordinator was pulling them out of a big cardboard box where the costumes were all mixed together, which was the first giveaway --I started to have second thoughts.
But when a woman pulled a psycho-Billy Bob ape face from the box with a strawhat on its head and a yellow daisy stickin' out of it, I wanted to run from the room. My hopes were dashed. I felt a tear comin' on. Joe jerked out a huge white-maned orangutan headpiece and his wife fished its white bodysuit out of the black jungle of monkey feet, hands, and suits.
At this point I resolved I was sick and couldn't go through with it even anonymously. His suit was a lamb costume leftover from the nativity scene at Zion Lutheran Church children's Christmas program, I swear. It had tight white curls that were all matted down. His street shoes stuck out from it, the legs didn't go all the way down. It had a little bob-tail. I was so embarrassed for him (or of him?) But what was I to wear?
There on the bottom was this, this suit with an open back, that tied at the neck, and long gorilla-like feet that sorta went over your shoes, and one left-over gorilla hand, an extra monkey hand . . . but no. . . Wait a minute, somebody hollered from across the room they had two heads! It had a stupid hat attached to it. But was the best gorilla face of the bunch even though it had a sly look about it with gaping eye and mouth holes. ARGH! This wasn't what I intended. This wasn't what I wanted to wear... I felt physically sick for a moment, I did, until one of the residents laughed when Joe started to 'monkey' around in the hallway. Then, I got into the spirit of the thing and pulled the mask down over my anguished face.
Poof! I was transformed -- into a guy wearing a gorilla mask, but what the hey? It was for a good cause and no one would recognize me anyway, so I slipped into the stinky old suit with its one gorilla and one monkey hand, and gorilla feet, and grabbed a bunch of bananas for effect. Oh yeah, I could get into this after all, I started thinking. But it needed something else... I needed to 'fill-out' somehow, and Jackie suggested some pillows or something be stuffed in it and tied to me, not thinking this was July. . .
So Joe, bless his cotton-pickin' heart, took me into the bowels of the nursing home next to the cafeteria where there were closets and cabinets of bedding and towels, etc, and residents and staff were present in all their comings and goings, and Joe drags out a couple clean pillows and hands 'em to me. It was impossible for me to shove them into the suit myself, so Joe had to push them in from the back where the opening in the gorilla suit was and push them around my waist as I held onto the door of the cabinet so I wouldn't get pushed off balance.
A dark light bulb went off in my monkey brain, and I started making loud noises like monkeys do, (I suspect) when they're getting it from behind..."HOO-HOOO-HOOO-HOOO" and Joe bursts out laughing and gets himself away from me as fast as he can.
The stage is set. I am a gorilla. Let's go, Joe! I never broke character as long as I had my gorilla suit on. I had so much fun with kids in Greenbush, but the kids in Roseau were horrors. One kid started punching me (Yes, he alone made me speak English expletives with a hisss behind them, but he left me alone afterward) We didn't have as much fun in Roseau. One guy in Greenbush that I work with, I recognized along the street with his son. I ambled over near him, around through somebody's yard and came out from between two bushes in a dead monkey run--and slapped him in the back of his head. I was all over the parade route. This side of the road to the next. Up the parade route and down just sweating up a storm. Near the end I started seeing stars and slowed down, stopping to drink a couple bottles of water that were available. One neighbor that I saw, I crouched down beside and picked bugs from his hair and ate them. He didn't recognize me, I never spoke a word. HooHah! It was a fun time.
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