The crowd was stirred up plenty. The mayor acted as chairman. Or was trying to. Folks crowded around the bonfire brandishing rifles, shotguns and pitchforks. There was a loud clamoring and shouting, but the mayor was intent on keeping the situation under control. He recognized each speaker and allowed them to say their piece.

"I caught the thing trying to engage my cat...you know, in an overly familiar fashion," one woman said.

A man blurted out, "Are you saying that thing was trying to have sexual discourse with your cat?"

She nodded innocently. "That's exactly what he was fixing to do."

"That ain't right! Someone in the crowd roared.

"I saw him up on the roof of my barn," one man shouted in testimony. "He was mocking me and my boy. Took to pissin' on us and pert near got me. He did hit my mule with his stream. Then he took to whacking hisself and that was the last straw! He's crossed the line. I ain't no Darwinist, I tell you, and I won't put up with that nonsense. I ran to get my rifle with the aim to bring him down but lo and behold my box of bullets was missing from my dresser drawer."

"Law, I bet that monkey done took your bullets!" a woman cried out.

"I bet he did too. But I came out with my rifle anyway and aimed it at him as if pretending to shoot him, to scare him off. But he knew it wasn't loaded."

"How you figure?" another man asked.

"Oh he knew," the farmer said.

"Cause he had your bullets!" the same woman added.

"The farmer nodded and continued, "He stood up there on the barn roof in the sunset, staring out to the horizon, not paying us any mind. Gazed out like he was the lord emperor, Caesar hisself, seeing the great beyond. And stood there just awhacking and awhacking at hisself!"

"Lord have mercy!" one of the church ladies from the choir said.

The strong baritone voice of Ezra Anderson boomed, "He only did what we all want to do!" And he's what we all want to be," he said. Then added, "What does he see that we don't? What grand paradise does he gaze upon on yon horizon? What secrets may he yet reveal to us?"

There was a moment of silence as everyone wondered just what the heck Ezra was talking about.

"He stole the clothes right off my clothesline!" Mrs. MacAdams interjected to break the silence. "And ran into the woods wearing my bloomers on his head!"

"Dis-graceful!" Mrs. Nelson exclaimed. She was a rotund woman who worked at the farm supply store. Fond of caramels, she had legs the circumference of ten-year poplars and had a weakness for tiny high heel shoes. She didn't walk so much as teeter from place to place.

The three of us took in the crowd and the speeches and the bonfire and were lit up by it. It was hard not to get swept away.

"He's Darwin's curse is what he is!" a lady hollered.

Another man chimed, "I heard from a man in Mobile that same thievin' monkey got loose on votin' day last November. Said he scampered across the floor of the gymnasium over at the fourth precinct, jumped in a voting booth and made his mark for FDR!"

A man standing next to us, no doubt a Democrat, shrugged as if to suggest maybe the monkey wasn't all bad.'

The mayor tried to call the crowd to order but Ezra found an empty fruit crate and stood up on it. He was tall anyway, but the added height lent stature and caused people to look at him and listen. "I composed a poem for the occasion," Ezra hollered. "An ode, if you will. And it goes like this." He cleared his throat.

One by one, look by look

Monkey saw, monkey took

Retreated to his oaken den

Never to be seen again

The poem was greeted with silence for the most part, but there was a smattering of polite applause from the children. In the moments following, the mayor finally got the crowd settled down. Nonplussed by the whole affair, he did what any political man of action would do. He formed a committee.

The committee lacked nothing in the way of fervor. They met three times the next week for target practice, to rehearse tracking techniques and to watch newsreels of monkeys in the wild. But they could never find his lair or even pick up his trail. Eventually the committee turned on each other and three camps evolved. The conservatives wanted to burn down thirty acres of nearby woods to root Mickey out. The liberals wanted to rehabilitate him and see if they couldn't bring him around, make him a contributing citizen. And the moderates just wanted the heck off the committee.

© RDBrooks 2015

Cover art painting by William Skilling (1892-1964)