To Denver....
Feelings of disease.....
And a strange companion..
We surprisingly made it through the terminal and onto the plane with as little difficulty as we could have hoped for given the circumstances. One check-out operator did inquired, "This is your son Mr. Duke?". I took a second or two looking between the check-in operator and the ape then replied, "Definitely.". He raised his eyebrows, "Oh-ki-doh-ki" and that was it, we were through. It was only once we were aboard that I realized I still had my police badge from the Narcotics Conference hanging from my pocket. I handed the hostess our first class ticket, "R. Duke and son" she read aloud and was about to point us to our seats when a scream escaped from her mouth as her eyes fell up my profusely sweating face and then upon my alleged son. I had all of half a second to defuse the situation. Before she could compose her self I snarled, "I would think twice before you comment on the infirmities of my son..." I waved the police conference badge at her, "I'm sure there is no need to make a scene?" how was she supposed to know I was a doctor of journalism and not a cop. Fortunately, this poor woman who had rightly realized that I was attempting and succeeding to board a domestic flight with a monkey posing as my son, agreed with me and showed us to our seats. R. Duke and son were certainly attracting some strange looks, these were easily dismissed however with a casual question to the which ever on looker I made eye contact with, "I assume you'd like to know what makes me sweat like this?". The same hostess who had screamed at the appearance of my "son" came to take drink orders, "Rum and grapefruit juice for me and for my son..." the ape made a flatulent sound with his mouth, "A raspberry soda.". I slipped into unconsciousness as I drank my drink. The drugs had finally finished my energy off. I had a seven days worth of Las Vegas, LSD, mescaline, uppers, downers, laughers, screamers and an assortment of other things pumping through my veins coupled with chronic fatigue thanks to an extreme lack of sleep, comatose was the eventual expectation.
There was a sudden and loud disturbance in my blank peace of mind, reality came swimming back like a record being played backwards. Confusion rained down, movement, noise, where's the ape? He was no longer seated next to me, nor were the larger majority of the people in the first class section of the air craft, we had arrived in Denver. The fear and loathing set in, where is the god damn ape?! I had a sudden epiphany, the ape had cost nearly twice the original price because he was housebroken. As the occupants of the flight streamed for the door, I ambled in the direction of the toilet and sure enough there he was, defecating in the hand basin.
I let him finish and then led him out of the aircraft and into the terminal. I was now coming dangerously close to losing my grip on reality. I had barely slept for a week and had abused most of the stimulating substances currently known to human beings. Plus, I was now coming to realize that I had purchased an ape with no foresight into what I was going to do with him. I thought that now what be as good a time as the next to cut my losses and get the hell out of dodge, time to loose the ape. The god, gods or somebody/thing helpful must have been listening because the ape choose this precise moment to take off. He lumbered directly for a man of portly stature who was simultaneously consuming a donut and a banana. There was no time to wait around and witness the chaos, I straightened up and limped for the door. Five paces from the exit I was halted by a cop, "Hey there, buddy." you know its all going rapidly down hill when a cop mistakes you for somebody called Buddy. I turned to face my sins, "You were at the narcotics conference in Vegas!" he pointed at the badge dangling from my pocket, "I just saw a friend who got off a flight back from there. He told me there was some junky with an ape sitting in the first class section.". My thoughts suddenly strayed to the .343 magnum my attorney had abandoned me with. I decided I would have enough time to whip the gun out of my bag and drop this pig before he knew what hit him and then? Well hell, I thought, I'll go out with a bang; and this cop will have paid the price. "You weren't on that flight were you?" he asked. "Yes." is all I could manage. To my relief he started asking how funny it must have been to witness such a thing when he has distracted by a heavy commotion behind us, the ape had collided with the large, feeding human. "Christ almighty!" the cop yelled and bolted for the ape, un-holstering his pistol. A wave of calm washed over me, as the walls of calmness that hold the Airports together came crashing down around my monkey. Naturally, I about faced and walked out into the world, without a second glance.