How I wish I could attribute my arrival in New York to noble motives—the Muse, for instance, calling me to a life of creativity. My inner savior, propelling me toward a lifetime commitment to the urban poor. But no, I came for one reason: to find a husband.
I’d been living in San Francisco. There are some straight, Jewish men in San Francisco, and I dated all three of them. There was the programmer who took me on our first date to a club—a sex club. The drummer, who confessed he’d never invited me over because he was sleeping in the park until his roommate “chilled out.” The architect, who canceled a date so he could attend a session with his past-lives guru. Lovely men … different priorities. Truth was, I was not a California gal. I’d left my Massachusetts hometown to find myself, and here I was, same east-coast shnook, just sporting do-rags instead of Dockers. Sitting at a drag show one night, I watched my work colleague lip-synching on stage, and it hit me: he’s got mile-long legs and a closetful of lamé, and he’s looking for a husband. I didn’t stand a chance.
It was time to try New York City on for size. My mother grew up among the delis and sturgeon shops of the Upper West Side, her mother in the Lower East Side’s Russian Jewish community; I had Apple in the blood. Rabbis, financiers, pretzel-vendors … somewhere in this jubilee of a city, my man was waiting. I just had to find him. I hit the road, tie-dye and tarot cards flying from my car windows as I headed east.
Once landed, I secured an apartment, a job and an online dating account. Ah, “online dating.” Have you dipped your toe into this Charybdis of poor grammar and purple prose? Despite my parameters—no smoking/drugs, local, LTR—I got messages from men who didn’t read carefully or, possibly, at all. I was propositioned by a teenager in Wisconsin. For a brief, heady period, I found myself corresponding with “married man ISO naked friend.” Managing my inbox began to consume me. To paraphrase the great Young MC, I was ready to hang myself with a celibate rope.
So when Avner emailed, my heart beat faster. His message was subtly flirtatious. Impeccably spelled. Funny. He referred to Maimonides, Madhur Jaffrey, and “Nixon in China.” He was a history teacher. And his photo: delicious. Could this be The One? We made a date.
It was divine. He was divine. He did not mention crystals or pescatarianism. He spoke of former girlfriends with respect while conveying, reassuringly, that he never wanted to see them again. He loved dogs, knew a wimble from a woodborer, and was reading a history of chess just because. By the end of my first beer, we’d moved in together. By our second bottle of wine, I was considering our married name: hyphenated, or should I take his? Sipping my postprandial cocktail, I envisioned our children. They’d have his eyes, I hoped—so blue!
Dinner over, we headed toward Central Park West, savoring the summer evening. I tottered, cocooned in a vinous haze, clutching the arm of my future fiancé.
And then, trouble. We approached a woman sitting on a park bench and holding a diapered baby in her lap. But as we got closer, even I, in my stupor, could tell the creature was not a baby. The tail, for one thing, snaking from the diaper and flicking like a live wire. And the eyes: two black holes peering out from beneath the lintel of a tiny, Neanderthal brow. We stopped.
“Whassat?” I demanded.
“This is Molly,” the woman said primly.
“Come,” urged Avner.
“Wait! Tha’s not a baby,” I continued confidently. “Tha’s a…”
“Monkey,” the woman filled in.
“Oh, cute!” Molly was a mangy, repulsive creature, clad in her shabby diaper, but I saw only her charms.
Avner recoiled.
Before I could make a move, Molly leapt off the woman’s lap and wrapped herself around my shin. Avner hissed and took another step backward. Our first fight! Years later, we’d look back and laugh.
Molly shimmied up my leg like Mowgli scampering up a palm tree. She skittered up my torso to my shoulder and examined my earring. Then she hopped on my head, dug her fingers into my hair, and started grooming me. I was pleased. In my inebriation, I thought it would look fetching, me standing in a flirty summer dress with a monkey on my head.
“You’re looking for nits, aren’t you, pumpkin,” the woman cooed.
Nits. Oh, dear. How many critters, I wondered, was the potentially verminous Molly depositing in my hair follicles? Worse, how many was she retrieving? City apartments housed mites, bedbugs and lord knows what other horrors. I started to sweat. Surely this was too much information for a first date. I didn’t dare meet Avner’s eye.
But Avner had disappeared into the night. “Hol’ on!” I called. I disentangled Molly and handed her back. I headed off, but moments later tiny hands grasped my shin. I hobbled back, Molly clasped around my ankle like a convict’s iron. The woman bent and peeled Molly off my leg.
“Bad girl,” she crooned. She eyed me with approval. “She likes you!” I was flattered. I was also concerned that Molly’s affection for me was growing at an inversely proportionate rate to Avner’s. I stumbled down Central Park West, Molly jumping between benches behind me like a bolt of electricity. The last I saw, she was sitting on a bench like a tiny swami in a loincloth, chewing her fingers and contemplating my retreat.
“Monkey!” I babbled, when I reached Avner. “Can you b’lieve it?” Avner walked me to my door and backed stiffly down the steps, taking care not to touch me. I let myself in, still chattering. “Monkey! Monkey!” And then, I am ashamed to say, I opened the window, leaned out, and bellowed down the dark street: “Avner! No monkey business?” He waved weakly and disappeared around the corner. I passed out.
A few days later, I emailed an apology and update: according to Simon & Schuster’s Encyclopedia of Animals, Molly belonged to phylum chordata, class mammalia, order primate, suborder haplorhini, family cebidae, species saimiri sciureus: Molly, Squirrel Monkey. “Highly active and lively,” these miniscule monkeys gather in bands of twelve to thirty or more. They populate forests from Colombia to the Amazon Basin, where they feed on insects, seeds and birds. Gangs of monkeys have been known to execute coordinated raids on fruit plantations. I pictured Molly atop the bus stop shelter at Broadway and 103rd, casing out the corner fruit store and calculating the distance to the apple bin. How she’d navigated Colombia to Columbia, I don’t know.
Avner emailed back, thanking me and regretting to say he’d be busy for the foreseeable future. I never saw Molly again, either. Mirtsishem, she’s surviving. It’s a jungle out there.
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