I began feeding it bananas almost immediately. “Do you have a banana?” he asked, only an hour or so after he had made himself comfortable on my shoulder. We had been staring blankly into my back yard and the day was actually becoming more and more beautiful, or bearable at least. And I did have a banana and it was ripe. I secretly had a bunch of them, but I made the decision not to let on. I had a feeling if I told him, he would grab the lot and run. As I hoped, we soon found ourselves spending the evening together on that porch, sharing tiny bites of the browning banana until it was gone and all that was left was the peel, a pale, deflated octopus that the bonobo kept squeezed tight in its fist for nearly the entire night. I later found the peel in the yard, a black and shriveled corpse that looked too much like a dead octopus. “If you give me a quarter I’ll do a back flip for you,” he said several days later. I said sure and gave him the only quarter in my pocket. I later received a parking ticket because I didn’t have change for the meter.
The back flip was good, though, and I felt myself thoroughly entertained. “Would you like to sit on my shoulder?” I asked him. “I’ve seen that type of thing in movies. I think you’d like it up there.” “Why not,” he said. And that was that. A year has passed and the bonobo has only showered twice. His fur is mangled and infested with fleas that I find crawling across my bed sheets in the night. I tell him to leave, but once he lifts even a hind leg from my shoulder I begin to miss him. “Wait, don’t go,” I always end up saying, regretting the satisfied, toothy grin he returns. There was one time when I went an entire five days without looking at or speaking to the bonobo. He didn’t seem to care, just went right along eating peanuts and winking at my roommates. I finally gave in and asked if he wanted to see a movie. He said no, that he would rather just take a nap on my shoulder. So he did, and I felt relieved that he had even responded to my voice. I was grateful for his weight on my shoulder.
Last spring, the bonobo tried to leave me. We were walking downtown when he saw a very skinny girl in a paisley dress sitting in a coffee shop. He hopped off my shoulder and went to meet her. For the next two days he was gone, having made himself a new home around this girl’s slender neck. I often thought he left her because there was simply not enough area for him to rest on, what with her shoulders being so small. But I later found out it was because the girl had a strong banana allergy. I often wonder what life would be like if I had never let the bonobo climb onto my shoulder. I think of all the shawls I could be wearing, of the somersaults I’ve never done. The weight on my shoulder is starting to hurt. The skin underneath it feels hot, and I suspect there is a rather serious rash spreading. I feel unbalanced, always like I am about to tip over.
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