Circus monkeys, deep down, are mean.
Someone once told me that a decent circus monkey is only good for about seven or eight years until he decides to retire, which can come at any time – hanging around the other monkeys, in the middle of a show – no one ever knows when, exactly, a monkey suddenly says to himself, “Okay, had enough” but when he does, here’s what happens.
He begins, I was told, by stopping in the middle of whatever it was he was doing. Then he waves his arms slowly in a criss-cross fashion above his head. Like a surrender. And then he stops.
And then he attacks.
Yeah, attacks. Something inside him snaps, I guess – all those years of silly hats and tiny vests and hopping around for the crowds, the performing and traveling and years in a cage – all of it just wells up in him and the minute he’s done, the minute he says to himself, “uh huh, not so much of this anymore” the pent-up rage comes cascading out of him in an immediate and frenzied attack.
And the person he attacks, mostly, is the clown on stage with him.
Monkeys are vicious – they’re excellent street fighters, totally unencumbered by the rules and traditions of a fair fight. There’s biting and scratching and eye-gouging and every kind of below-the-belt violence. Plus, they scream.
And here’s where it gets worse. The other clowns, they just back away. When a monkey goes rogue, no clown will come to your aid. That’s just the way clowns are – every clown for himself.
