The isle of Manisfree

The trees are alive. The men up there are swinging, and diving, colliding and ‘whooping.’ Yes, the sounds they make are ‘whoop.’ Their essence is their sound, and the trees rock and crack, making more sounds. The trees are alive. God, where is that congo drum beat coming from? Where is that slow deep thing pounding away at my cochlea? God, where is it? I am in the trees.

I am in the trees swaying and swinging with the beasts, like so many others who come to Macondo to “do.” An easy down payment of $900.00 gets you this cool tanned boar-like experience. The experience attacks the soul like an animal. The California man, I am, comes to the jungle, plays with the monkeys, flings the dung, and owns the forest with my throat. The California veins I own pump adrenaline and dopamine through my brain during hours of this ecstatic exclaim. My civilized soul is brutally murdered, and I feel.

The culture made me an infirm, but in the trees I convalesce. I follow the tribal warriors, and they hit me, and teach me, and I believe they love me. And although we don’t share the same language, we share money. I share money, and we swing. All day, all night. Vines slap our faces as the ground rushes by and the air takes us safely through the growth.

And I go home to Wifey, my dear, and she cannot understand why I throw the plates, and she cannot understand why I pop my kids’ birthday balloon. But she must understand my howl, my Whitman YAWP, the transcendent oral lunge. She must understand and I must feel.

And the papers are served and my lunch is not. And the lawyers sneer and the children pout. But I rejoice because I return. Yates, I’ll leave you now as I return to the isle of Manisfree. I'll leave you not as I board my white watercraft, not as I order another glass on the boat, not while the people smile and dance, but as the ship crashes onto shore and I revoke my citizenship, accepting my kingship.

And then I’m there, and the tribal leader just barks and stares. Then one blow follows another across my face and he is primal. The skin on his arm stretches and shines, while he reaches back to strike again my visage. The sight is beautiful just as the trees, but bloody, broken, I am unwelcome here, dying on my knees. But I’ll stay hunched until my final breath, because the city slays men more cruelly than these god-like monkey men.