Homo-Monkey...

It is a well-known fact that I come from an eccentric family. In fact, some of them are famously eccentric. Some of 'em are fucking loons, but that's beside the point.

My grandfather, Dr. Roy Todd Bates Sr., was a man of many mysteries. Until his death in January of 2000, nobody (not even his wife) knew his exact age. He was a full blooded Chickasaw Indian, stood about 5' 4", dressed like Austin Powers, had hair down the middle of his back, and looked exactly like Yasser Arafat without the printed turban thingy.

Oh, and he lived in wild kingdom.

Seriously, my fathers' father was an animal lover of the most extreme. He owned a huge piece of land in southeast Houston, filled with all manner of dogs, cats, chickens, raccoons, rare albino peacocks, and monkeys.



Yes, he had a monkey.

The Bates family has had many monkeys. Some walk upright and have last names, while most of them were just pets. My father fondly remembers "Pookey" the monkey he had as a child. It was a master of the drink, and taught himself the art of fermentation with pieces of fruit in his water dish. He became so proficient at it that he soon became a sloppy drunk and would venture into the house at night to raid the liquor cabinet when he ran out of his own hooch. I'm not making this up.

Well, my grandfather's last capuchin, a white faced one (the creepiest looking breed) was a character. He really hated women. To the point of throwing feces at them the moment he saw one. Gramps, my old man, and I could be in the room with the monkey and he was a hoot. He'd coo and play and just enjoy himself…and then Mom or Martha (Gramps' wife) would walk in the door and…well, the shit would fly. This went on for a while. Most of the time we all just laughed it off and said things like "silly monkey". He just didn't like girls. Silly monkey.

Yeah, okay then one day I'm reading some old magazine next to his cage. Grandpa had a huge house that was later off limits to enter because he was a packrat and had stuffed his monstrous estate with so much junk that it was impossible to navigate. In fact, that was true of his entire piece of land. You see, Grandpa Bates had an affinity for anything he ever owned. Ever.

The man threw nothing away, and collected things he would never use…going so far as to build places to store and house the gargantuan piles of shit he had amassed in his mysterious lifetime. He collected RV's and airport buses. He had an old Checker Cab Limo just sitting in his back yard, not to mention like 15 other classic automobiles hidden under decades of bushes and trees. He had a giant (I shit you not) mountain of grocery carts. That was actually a really cool sight, you should have seen it.

This trait, is actually a cherished aspect of being a Bates man. We're terrible packrats and absolutely neglectful of things like garages and storage facilities. We marry women however, who hate this trait. It's a means of crying out for help, really. We throw fits on the surface, but internally, we're relieved that someone had the balls to get rid of that vintage blender collection we had rusting away in the garage.

Hell, Grandpa had a pond in the back that had been abandoned for so long that a huge alligator had made it a home. I remember the day my oldest brother and I figured that one out. We were trying to find out why Grandpa was losing so many chickens. We were looking for some wild dog, and found gator-zilla splashing around in there. Scared the hell out of me.

Okay, so piles of really odd things and animals abounded at Dr. Bates' estate. Either way, here I am reading next to the monkey cage, among all the "priceless possessions" when I hear this funny, rhythmic sound. I can't figure out what it is at first and I turn my head to see that woman-hating capuchin, spanking his own monkey...

...while staring at me!

Yeah, well that was the last time I remember ever venturing into any part of the house. From that point on, when we would visit, I would just go into his office or one of the trailers he had set up outside the house. Why did he have trailers you ask?

Well the house was condemned by the county because it had so much shit in it that it was dangerous for human habitation. That, and somewhere deep inside that black hole of books, furniture, and mismatched electronic goods was a two foot tall rampaging homosexual primate that would either molest you, or toss shit in your face.

Yeah, Kayla said I had to tell this story. I honestly couldn't remember the monkey's name. From that day forward I had always called him homo-monkey. Next time you'll have to hear the story of how Grandpa used to torture us in his office with physical manipulation and machines that looked like toys Vlad the Impaler would have enjoyed.