This is an interspecies love story. About me and a monkey. Sally the Monkey. Sally and I were hired to act in a Michelob beer commercial. The theme of the spot was evolution. I was cast as a Neanderthal Man. Four hours I sat while a crew of highly-skilled make-up artists glued thin layers of skin-colored latex over every inch of my face, transforming me from end of second millennium American Homo Sapien into Neanderthal. They sculpted a gigantic forehead with a scary hairy monobrow, wee sunken eyes, a flaring nose cauliflowering across my cheeks, thick rubber caveman lips, and huge wooly mammoth-eating fake teeth. My hair was almost fur, extending from the thicket atop my head to my jaw lines, and down both cheeks.

When I looked in the mirror I didn’t recognize myself. I looked for a long time but I couldn’t find myself in there anywhere. Until I looked all the way inside my eyes sunken deep in that simian face. There I was. I felt the strong desire to grunt and snarl and hump someone from behind.

Please note: animal work laws are very strict, due to years of abuse. On the part of the humans. So animals work very strict 12 hour shifts. This may seem trivial now, but it will prove crucial as our story unfolds.

After 4 hours of having latex and hair painstakingly glued to my face, I’m ready for my introduction to Sally the Monkey.

Her trainer comes up to me, very serious, doesn’t even notice that I look like a 2,000 year old Neanderthal Man-

“Don’t make eye contact at first. Let her come to you. Get down on her level and don’t make any quick movements. Be very calm and very still. They sense fear. A chimpanzee can jump six feet straight up in the air, and they’re ten times stronger than a human being. For example, Sally’s jaw is so strong she could snap your arm in two like a twig. But it’s really important she doesn’t feel any fear coming off you.”

All I can see is my bloody hand dangling out of her mouth.

Finally Sally the Monkey comes out of her trailer, hand-in-hand with another trainer. I squat down to her level. Avert my eyes. I can feel Sally’s monkey stare as she inches slowly towards me as only a wary monkey can. Sounds like a bass drum has been transplanted into my chest cavity. I’m so scared I have no spit. There’s a small crowd gathering, all quiet tension, waiting to see what Sally the Monkey will do to David the Neanderthal. Finally she’s right in my face. Since I’m not making eye contact for fear of having my Adam’s apple ripped out, I smell her before I see her. She smells animal clean, wild, untamed, and of the earth. I feel myself calm with smell of her. Slowly, ever slowly, I turn towards her, raising my head like a simian Southern belle, bringing my eyes up to meet hers.

Sally the Monkey’s eyes almost knocks me over. Wise, curious, clever, keen, deep, sharp, smart, mysterious animal passion beams from Sally into me, jolting my soul and rattling my bones. Her face is a picture of puzzlement, brows knitted, head tilted to one side. As she stares into my half-man, half-monkey face, I find I can read her thoughts. She’s speaking to me with her eyes-

“What are you?… You’re not one of them, but there’s no way you’re one of me… Really, what are you?”

Sally the Monkey sniffs me suspiciously, moving her mouth to my jaw. The tension is pulpy, and as I feel her hot breath on my lips, I’m trying desperately not to visualize her biting my nose off. She brings her lips to my cheek, puckers, and covers my face and lips with tiny sweet little monkey kisses.

I’m overcome, undone, head-over-heels in love with Sally. She puts her arms around my neck and hops into my arms. The crowd oohs and ahs, witness to the start of a great interspecies love story.

The whole rest of the shoot, Sally and I are like sweet and potato. Whenever she sees me, she runs up to me excited as a bride, jumps up in my arms, and covers me with kisses. I carry her around like she’s my sweet lovemonkey and I’m her ape loverman, holding hands and going bananas, swooning and spooning. I’ve never known a woman who was so openly, unabashedly, good-naturedly affectionate, who lit up so in my presence.

In the commercial I, Neanderthal, will be sitting next to Sally, Monkey, while an actress, playing a Homo Sapien waitress, flirts with me We block the scene without Sally. The actress walks up to me all stiffly and skitsy, just lobbing her line in my general vacinity, like an lazy newsboy tossing an errant morning paper:

“Hey good looking, come here often?”

It was bad. Bad, bad, bad. The director stopped everything, walked over to her all cocksure and said, “I need you to hot it up, honey, make with the goo-goo eyes, like you did in the callback, babe.” She promised she would, shot him an obligatory sex-baby look, which evaporated into disdain as soon as the director turned and walked away. I noticed she was a bit aqua green in her gill area as she thought about how Sally’s powerful jaw could snap her arm like a dry twig.

The lights were tweaked. The camera focused. Hair, make-up and wardrobe were fluffed, patted, and tucked. Finally everything was ready, hundreds of highly-paid technicians and advertising geeks ready to make commercial magic.
Sally was brought in, hopped up on her stool next to me at the bar, reached over and kissed me on the cheek as I whispered sweet little monkey nothings into her ear.

“Scene 4, take 1. Roll camera!”

“Camera rolling. Speed.”

“Sound?”

“Speed!”

“And… Action!”

The actress walked towards us like a nervous cat at a dog show. Even I could feel her fear, and I’m certainly no monkey. She started to make the most tentative of flirty eyes in my general direction.

Well, Sally the Monkey went bananas, jumped up on the bar, bared her teeth, and hissed, looking like she was going to rip this poor spooked woman’s heart out, show it to her, then eat it.

The actress’ scream curdled blood as she ran raging wailing and weeping through the set, and out the door.

I thought the advertising geeks should have used that in the commercial, because it said more about evolution than any of the lame shit they can come up with.

But no, they decided to write just the waitress out of the commercial.

So now it was getting to be 6:30 PM, and because the advertising geeks had been so busy figuring out which swanky restaurant they were going to eat dinner at that night, they were way far behind schedule. So they sent some junior assistant flunky over to Sally’s trainer and he asked if they could get Sally to work overtime, because if they don’t get all her shots, they were going to have to bring everybody back and go way over budget.

The trainer says he doubts Sally will want to work overtime but he’ll see what he can do.

The geeks huddled furiously, whispering toxically. It was now 6:45 PM. A much better-dressed executive walked up to the trainer. They’ll pay whatever he wants. Name the price.

The trainer smiled. Slowly reminded the executive that Sally’s a monkey, and not particularly financially motivated.

“Well then we’ll give her all the damn bananas she wants,” said the better-dressed executive.

“Well,” explained the trainer patiently, as if he’s talking to a dumb animal, “Sally already gets all the bananas she wants, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Finally it was 6:58PM. The best-dressed executive hustled over to the trainer.

“Listen, I don’t care what the damn monkey wants, we need to get three more shots off before she leaves, is that clear?”

You could see the trainer was just about to lose it, wishing to God he only had to deal with reasonable animals.

But before he could say anything, it became 7 o’clock, exactly 12 hours after Sally started working.

Sally then stepped up on the bar, and slowly, dramatically, like the consummate performer she was, raised her left arm over her head, and slapped her wrist where a watch would be, the international sign for:

“Look what time it is.”

She then jumped down, and started pulling me toward the door. As the highly-paid technicians tried desperately not to laugh, and the advertising geeks shat themselves, Sally and I proceeded through the set, and straight out the door, hand-in-hand, like a monkey bride and Neanderthal groom heading for our abba dabba honeymoon.

They had to bring everybody back the next day, and Sally the Monkey became a hero. She got us all another day’s pay, and with incredible style, panache, and savoir faire, she told the oppressive exploiting fascist Boss to stick it. Power to the People! Power to the Monkeys!

When I asked the trainer, he told me that monkeys have an acute sense of time. Because she worked so often, Sally knew exactly when 12 hours were up, and had figured out that by making the sign for time, not only would her day be over, but she’d also make everyone laugh real hard. All day, whenever it was time for a meal, or a break, everyone from actors to Teamsters would raise their left hand up over their head, and slap their wrist where a watch would be, in silent homage to Sally the magical monkey. Much to the amusement of everyone except the advertising geeks, who seemed basically jaded and disgusted by pretty much everything except what swanky restaurant they were going to eat at that night.

As for me, I fell in love with Sally that day. One of the great regrets of my life is that I never got to consummate the relationship, because I know she would have been a powerful, wild, romantic, spiritual and highly rocking lover. But alas, we were from different worlds, and ours was a love that could never be.

But I will always have a very soft spot in my heart for Sally the Monkey.