Zip Line Monkey Boy

Gray clouds hover over Central Park to the northwest, sunbeams peak their way through, slicing the air into tasty bites of floating freedom. I want to pull a James Bond, and bust my way out of here, down a zip line of light, leaving this tower of banking terror behind. Reach the trees, bounce off the leaves, because they look soft, and hang like a monkey on a limb and eat spicy tuna hand rolls with my plush wife-monkey. Our fur isn’t itchy like a beard, so holding each other is like laying on a bear-skin rug, but we’re monkeys.

We’ll learn to use our tails and hang above park walkers, dropping acorns on their heads, watching them freak out at the size of those monkeys. That’s right, point and run away as we pelt you with natures weapon, and tasty seed. Yum. Crunchy.

We’ll elude the zookeepers and animal control, pulling a King Kong on Yoko Ono’s building, the Dakota, across the street from Strawberry Fields, only after dancing a jig with the local, ex-hippy, guitar resident, playing “A Little Help from My Friends.” Arm-in-arm, tail-in-tail, we’ll get tourists to pay the axe-man, theN flee to the heights of Yoko’s white sanctuary.

Our nimble fingers will unlock the windows, and we’ll climb in, ready to play a sonorous swing on the white piano. We like to swing. The pounding of animal angst will echo the hallowed halls of John Lennon, in our "Ode to Bread-making and House-Husbandry." Hopefully she’s not home, and we’ll go through her sunglasses collection, place Terminator-style shades on each of our flat faces, and walk out the front door. If she is home, we’ll leave her a script to read about spirit-swapping, and souls transgressing into other mammals. She’ll enjoy our swing in her reserved Japanese way, smiling behind her shades.

She’ll thank us, pleasantly, and we’ll bow, tails high, followed by our quiet and zippy exit down the private elevator. Slip past the doorman, after dropping a 20-spot, we like to tip, scratch my booty on the street, but dammit, I can’t get it. Agh! Can you get it, love? And my wife picks off a nasty little bugger of a flea, sniffs it, then eats it for a post-lunch snack. Tasty and symbiotic of you, dear. Thanks. Anytime, monkey-love.

With that, the clouds will part, and a shimmering sedan will lower it’s hermetically-sealed wing, and we’ll hitch a ride back to the loony planet of Jon on the 37th floor atop the investment banking corporation.

What the hell just happened? The jell-o in my neck hardens, and my eyes focus on the Nortel phone in front of me, screaming for an answer, flashing a caller’s name and a badge, credentials to boot, at me, the lowly temp.

I’m nothing but a guy who dreams of being a monkey on a sunbeam. Can’t even dream about flying or floating my way out of here, still hindered by Newtonian Law. Snap out of it! Free yourself, bound-boy. Unshackle the dream, and the reality will palate better.

Take a swig of Poland Springs water, masquerading in a Fiji bottle; refills are free. Rub my face and eyes with palms and fingers, filling each crevice of nose and eye sockets with a digit, while inhaling a cleansing breath.

Let it go.

I feel like a trained monkey, ready to dance for the peddling banker, organ grinder in hand, hanging over his billion-dollar account statement.

Maybe the corner of 57th and 5th is better. At least it’s not in a cubicle. Although the whole roof is a glass cube. Hope I don’t have to dance there. At least the other monkeys there dress like me, jeans and a T-shirt.

It could be worse. I could be a trained seal, paid in tuna.