The Monkey House

It's summer, Saturday in New York City, I'm nursing a hangover so I drink a gallon of water. People die from drinking too much water, how fucking freaky.  

It’s hot out, I roll my hair up, rub sunblock on my face, putting on shorts and a shirt. 

I walk for blocks and blocks, awestruck by the psychic world around me, sedentary objects are undulating in tandem. I feel seasick. I go to Brooklyn Bridge Park and lay down, hoping to avoid the worst and failing, dashing to the public restroom. 

Being a boozer is a wreckless existence because you don't take care of yourself.  

My mind's programmed to drink, so I take a bus to The Ear Inn on the Lower East Side. 

The joint is 100 years old, smelling stale and mildewed. 

The flavor of the bar is bleak with unwashed faces looking down as they suck up their booze.

The bartender says, 

you ain't no bum buster, you's somthin, 

right, I'm a freelance writer,

what do ya write about fella, 

sleazy bars. 

I finish my drink and go.   

Inside Sam's Diner, I look out the window watching folks walk by. They have goat masks on, I'm in The Twilight Zone. 

A hatchet-faced old waitress takes my order,

blueberry pancakes, coffee, a vanilla milkshake, and a bowl of grits. 

After eating, I walk nowhere in circles, buying an 8-ball of cocaine from a Black dude dressed like SuperFly, indiscreetly snorting it.

I had a friend, Neal, a jazz trumpeter who'd played with big names at the Village Vanguard and other joints in the city.

Neal began snorting coke, then moved on to crack.

The crack ruined him; he lived in his mother's basement, where the floor was lined with broken car antennas and empty Bic lighters. 

Looney,  I take the bus to Queens Zoo. 

The activities at the zoo focused on the feedings. 

The seals lived in a freshwater pool, sculptured into a 20-meter-high painted cement hill they could climb on, you could see in their eyes something wasn't right. The seals dream of swimming free but are stuck in the zoo 

A zoo is no place for an animal, wild animals are programmed to live in the wild. 

The Monkey House is the saddest place of all. The primates are out of place, their minds are listless as they go through the motion for a peanut or banana. 

Climbing trees and frolicking with one another are short-term escape from the pain they feel in the cage.