“HEEEEEET-Lah-ree-yoos!” howled the monkey with glee, a little too enthusiastic about my minor visual joke.
I’ve got to be more careful about what I say in front of him, I thought. I’m his fucking role model. I haven’t really been able impress on him that ‘hitlerious’ is only appropriate and/or semi-clever in certain very specific situations. He’d latched on to it as an all purpose howl and I was getting a little sick of it.
I’ve spoken once really well, outside of a few isolated moments of deadpan eloquence in seedy courtrooms. I wish the monkey had been there to see me at my best. It was at my mother’s memorial service. I killed, as the comedians say.
“YOO keeled at your mother’s memorial! HEEE-TLAH-ree-yoos!” yapped the monkey.
I’ve got to figure this out, how to get him off that stinking throw away. It reminded me of when I taught a friend guitar years ago and got to hear every one of my worst musical tics played over and over and over. At least then it forced me to learn some new musical tics, but it was painful.
“Better musical tics! Adolflutely Hitlerious!” barked the monkey, embellishing now, I noticed– not without chagrin.
“Listen, lice picker,” I said to my pet, “if you live a good life, and are a loving person, or monkey, or whatever, then perhaps when you die someone will memorialize you the way I memorialized my mother in that nice chapel in Peekskill. A guy in a suit will stand up there and talk from the heart, and one last time people will see you in your best light, and laugh, and be somber, and recall that you were a unique character, endearing and tough, and that you lived and left a range of colors and flavors that people can consider after you’re gone.”
“Colors and flavors!” howled my monkey, by now completely out of control, “oh, stop it, please, you’re Goering to kill me!” Pleased with his joke, the tiny fascist scrunched up his face again and shrieked “Heeet-lah-lah-LAH-ree-yoos!”
Clearly, I will have to do something about this.
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