Your stuffed monkey lived in the hot trunk of my car for years before I lit it on fire.
Of course I tried to get rid of it before that. I even brought it to that spot underneath the Lost Boys bridge in Santa Cruz where we used to kiss.
In an act of newfound bravery to move on, I threw it down the cliffside into the mucky river—but moving on is harder than we think, sometimes. I lost a shoe in the seaweed retrieving the thing.
It’s tough enough losing your dignity, but it’s tougher losing your dignity and a shoe. Picture this: a sopping-wet grown man carrying a stuffed monkey past a little girl and her mom, and the little girl goes, “Mommy, why is that homeless man missing a shoe?”
I thought about not telling you all that, by the way, but it’s only the beginning of this rags-to-riches story that ends with that monkey in a pile of ash on the ground of a music video set.
When one door closes, another opens as they say.
That was the case, too, when you slept with my best friend—I gained a new one, you see, one that wrote me a beautiful album.