As Promised: The Ungraceful Money and the one that Purrs

Some of you have pictures in your heads of monkeys swinging gracefully through the trees, a perfection of balance, but that’s most monkeys, and then there’s Konge (pronounced: congee). Konge is a monkey of action, a monkey a few words, and fewer thoughts. Konge jumps first and thinks later, if at all. Konge, a wooly monkey, is the only monkey I’ve ever seen jump for a branch, and miss. Konge has electrocuted himself 3 times because he forgets he can’t swing on the power lines when the generator is on, though every other monkey in camp seems to have figured this out. Konge is definitely a male, you could tell even if you couldn’t see his fairly large monkey balls dangling as he swings furiously from tree to tree. He’s always hanging around the mess hall at meal times, except for breakfast because he doesn’t like to get up early, looking for someone to play fight with. He’ll have his tail wrapped around a branch, hang down, and take a swing at you waiting for you to swing back sometimes grabbing your hand pretending to bite it. He’s a bit of a bully too. He knows the women in camp are afraid of him, so he likes to chase them, though the men he only tries to play fight with. He also likes to pick on Nicolau. He’ll chase him through a tree until he catches him, and they dangle in the air wrestling only attached to the tree by their tails. Konge is twice Nicolau’s size, but in another year or two, Nicolau will be bigger than Konge. I’d like to see how the tables turn then. Konge likes to dangle Nicolau, so he can’t get away while they’re wrestling. Now I would intervene, but most of the time Nicolau isn’t that innocent. To get back at Konge, he sneaks up behind him, and pulls his tail, and of course Konge chases him half of the time catching him.
Like all bullies, Konge is not as brave as he would have you think. While he’ll taunt you from a tree trying to get you to fight, if you catch him by surprise taking a run at him, he lets out a loud monkey wail like you were trying to kill him. It’s really quite funny because he acts so fearless the rest of the time, and even right after an episode like that.
Back to Nicolau, I found out something the other day I had forgotten. He’s the only monkey I’ve known to do this, which is purr. The other day I was sitting at my desk and I thought I heard one of the waiters come into the outer office as they were cleaning the main lodge before the fishermen arrive next week, but the noise stopped and I thought nothing of it until 30 seconds later I heard that familiar cry as Nicolau crawled under my desk and up my chair. I was surprised because he had remembered where to find me. It was quite a trek for him to have come from my father’s house where he sleeps, and to the main lodge into my office. He’s never done that before on his own.
He crawled into my lap and I scratched him, and after a while, he started purring. I had to laugh because it’s funny to think of a monkey purring, and he only does this when he’s sitting in my lap and no one else is around. Well I think that’s enough for now. Back to work again.