My Life as a Cartoonist (9 page)

At this point, my mother gives up, as I hoped she would. (The older she gets, the easier it is to wear her down. Lucky for me, my energy for such tasks is limitless.)

As my mother takes Frank out of the cage and hands him to me, she doesn't have to tell me he needs to be changed; anyone with a sense of smell would come to the same conclusion. I go next door to her office to change him on one of the large tables. On the way back, I grab a dog biscuit from the receptionist's desk to give to Bodi.

Matt's still sick, so I skateboard by myself around the neighborhood, then head to UCLA. There's some kind of worker protest at the quad, which I hang around to watch until the whole thing makes me hungry and I head back home.

When I take Frank out of his cage later, he immediately runs up my arm and sits on my shoulder. Even though we're a foster family and we're technically not supposed to train him, I've taught Frank several basic skills he can use when he graduates to being a companion for someone with physical challenges. I haven't taught him anything difficult, like opening water bottles or dialing a phone, but I have taught him how to open a DVD case and take out the disc. It took me a week of opening and closing DVD cases, but Frank eventually accomplished the task. Just to keep him in practice, I find an action movie in the den and hand it to Frank as I make myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich. He opens the case in no time flat and takes out the DVD.

I use the last of the peanut butter, scraping my knife along the edge of the jar to get the bits along the side. I'm not two bites into my sandwich when I turn around to find Frank with his head inside the jar.

“Frank! What are you doing? There's no peanut butter in there!”

But Frank can't hear me; his head is wedged inside the jar and he can't get it off. He flails around the kitchen, looking like one of those astronaut monkeys the Russians shot into space in the 1950s.

I try to calm Frank down, but he's running around the kitchen, unable to see. The commotion upsets Bodi, who begins to bark. It's just a matter of time before someone from my mother's office comes over to check on the noise. I hurry to catch Frank before they do.

I use my best sing-song voice to get Frank's attention but it doesn't work. I try to grab him, but now he's up on the counter, shrieking.

“What's going on here?”

I turn and find my father standing in the doorway. He tells the person on the other end of his cell that he'll call him back.

Together the two of us slowly and calmly walk toward Frank. My father gets to the left of him, I get to the right and gently grab him as he tries to jump onto the cabinet. I hold Frank steady while my father carefully removes the jar from his head.

Frank's fur is now covered in a helmet of peanut butter.

“Let me guess,” my father says. “You were playing space man? Or is this an undersea adventure?”

I make a mental note about a potential adventure game to be played at a later date and tell Dad the whole thing was 100 percent accident. I can tell he's weighing my answer, trying to decide whether or not to believe me. While he does, he fills up the sink with sudsy water.

“You have to give Frank a bath,” Dad says.

I tell him no problem, not just because Frank is filthy but because giving a monkey a bath is a chore I actually like. Bodi's already licked a lot of the peanut butter off Frank's fur. I pick up Frank from the floor, remove his diaper, and place him cautiously in the sink.

I'm eternally grateful that my father doesn't lecture me on the danger of cylindrical objects and instead just stands next to me at the sink, helping me spray down our monkey.

“I'm going to miss him when it's time for the capuchin organization to take him back,” my dad says. “He's almost part of the family now.”

“But we've got him for at least a few more months, don't we?”

“I guess it depends on how many people they have on their waiting list.”

My body suddenly quivers as if I've just been struck by a bolt of lightning. As I wrap Frank in a towel, I realize my initial idea to tell Umberto about Frank was correct. I've let myself be derailed by Umberto's harassment; I've got to get back on track. A monkey helper is the perfect olive branch to offer Umberto, a way to turn him from bully to friend in two seconds flat.

I set to work on my new plan of training Frank to be Umberto's companion.

The Perfect Monkey Friend

I find all the brochures and DVDs from the monkey organization in a box in Dad's office. I tell him I want to study up on what Frank will learn after he leaves us, but what I really want to do is scour the information to see if Umberto would be a good applicant to receive a monkey helper.

Even though it's not a school day, I don't complain about all the reading and make myself comfortable on the floor of the den, Bodi by my side. It takes a while to get through the material but I learn several things. The training Frank will be attending is called monkey college and will last about three years. He'll learn how to fetch various objects around the house, adjust someone's glasses, turn the pages of a book, scratch someone's itch—awesome!—even reposition someone's arms and feet. I've been so proud of Frank for being able to open and close a DVD case that I didn't realize how many other tasks he'll have to master.

After applicants fill out the twelve-page (!!!) form, it might take a year before finding out if they are eligible for a monkey helper. But if they do get one, their relationship can last for years. Like my friend Michael who's been with Pedro for almost a decade, Umberto might benefit from having more help around the house.

I take out my pad and make a list of all the steps Umberto will have to take to make this happen. Even if it does seem insurmountable, within a year Umberto could be hanging out with a super-cool monkey friend. I'd no longer be the cartoonist in the next desk that he hates but the kid who got him a MONKEY. I text Matt that he has nothing more to worry about, that I've taken care of what he calls
THE UMBERTO SITUATION
by coming up with a new and improved idea.