Welcome to America, Monkey Business: Part 1

In the autumn of 2008, my friend Jimmy (names have been changed to protect the guilty) stopped by my home — which was a warehouse at the time, where I lived and booked shows at an underground style music venue — to pose a singular question: “Do you want to take a road trip to Las Vegas?”

My reply came easy and without deliberation, “Yes.” At the time, I didn’t know why Jimmy wanted to go to Las Vegas, and didn’t ask about the purpose of the trip.

I was flat broke, as the funds from the shows we put on went half to the touring bands and half to the house, and so I had nothing to contribute other than my charm and wit. Although the car that would ferry us across the country — a 1984 Volvo 240 Wagon, a real tank — used to be in my name, after it was gifted to me by a different friend, Andy, and after not having enough money to keep it running, I had passed it on to Jimmy — small towns do work this way.

Jimmy and I left that night, without any further preparations, at 10PM, to set off in a southwesterly direction, from the Great Lakes Region to Las Vegas. Hyped on the prospect of the adventure, the first leg of the trip was accomplished with a feeling of condensed time — as if only moments passed over hundreds of miles — and brought us through the mound country of the Mississippi River, into Iowa, and we rolled into Des Moines by the morning.

Neither of us had fatigued by this point, although we did take turns at the wheel while the other relaxed in the navigator’s chair with atlas in hand to chart the Volvo onward to the next city — mind, Map Quest was available, as were iPhones, with the latter being out of reach due to our temporarily embarrassing poverty. And so onward we traveled towards Omaha.

It wasn’t long before we stopped for gas and and at the station found a hitchhiker, weary-eyed with a sun-bleached frond of hair, a wendigo dipped in black and stinking of sulfur and road dust. I waved him over and asked him where he was headed, and he answered in pock-marked English, “The Bosnian Embassy in Denver.”

I hadn’t known any Bosnians up until that point, which intrigued me enough to take him aboard, and as my funds were shorter than my ambition, I told the drifter that he could get in if he tried to spange for some gas — which was the principle strategy that Jimmy and I had determined would get us across country. This involved bringing a red jerrycan up to a friendly face refueling their vehicle and asking if they had any to spare. There’s no glamor or pride in this sort of begging, but it didn’t violate any moral code that I’m aware of, and it worked a charm, as we’d end up with a full tank within 10 to 20 minutes. The drifter did try his hand at this, but failed and I called off his efforts to allow him to save face.

I was the first to get behind the wheel after picking up the Bosnian, who sat next to me while Jimmy relented to the Sandman and caught some ZZZ’s in the back seat — leaving me alone to get acquainted with our new companion. It couldn’t have been more than ten or twenty miles before I realized what we had picked up at that gas station.

“So you’re from Bosnia, what’s it like there?”

“Yes, I come after war to America. Jerry Springer show, porno movie. Welcome to America, monkey business. Now I go to Bosnian Embassy in Denver, they will fix it, send me back Bosnia. I make it there!”

Ever intrigued by schizos, cranks, weirdos, and those marching to the beat of another drum, I knew I’d landed a whale — but not a white one, as this nut had been colored by a roasting sun and scarred by uncountable battles in this meaningless world; a terrifyingly sublime thing, not unlike Captain Ahab’s nemesis.

“Welcome to America, monkey business,” the Bosniak repeated. “Jerry Springer show. Porno movies. I go to Bosnian Embassy in Denver now.”

And so he repeated these lines, over and over that first hour of driving with him seated next to me. As I started seeing signs for Omaha on the I-80, I woke Jimmy so that he could prepare for navigation to the next major waypoint. Although my motivation was to also get him up to speed on our new friend, who hadn’t stopped with his routine. Jimmy caught on quick and egged the Bosnian on, as I had done not much more than an hour before, when I still had hope in the affair.

I broke through the Iowa border into Nebraska — and traffic thickened, as it must have been the early stage of rush hour when Omaha came into sight. Jimmy pointed out the exchange that would take us to Lincoln, and as I signaled left to merge, the Bosnian jolted from his seat into mine, and grabbed hold of the steering wheel.

“Monkey business, porno movie!” he shouted.

A mini-van swerved to avoid a collision, and I’m thankful that driver was attentive, as he would have been the worse off in the crash — you must know that Volvos, especially in this era, were built as the safest cars on planet Earth, with this particular model being a fine specimen of the kind. Jimmy reached forward from the back seat and pulled the now crazed drifter back into his seat, holding him down so that he didn’t spring up again. Shaken but not panicked, I pulled off the next exit and found a gas station — although we didn’t quite need to refuel, I had another plan in mind.

After I parked, I told the Bosnian that he could try his hand at spanging again. He resisted at first, staying firmly seated, defiantly so — even after attempts by Jimmy to pull him out of that passenger chair, but the drifter did relent, finally exiting the Volvo and walking off to a middle-aged blonde woman, cornfed in the best possible ways, who stood there filling her tank, unaware of the curse we’d sent her way. Once he opened his mouth and turned away from us, I started the Volvo and drove off to get back onto I-80 W, leaving the hitchhiker and his monkey business behind for the next chump — who could be roped into taking him to the Bosnian Embassy in Denver.

Seventeen years later, I’ve only just now looked up if there is a Bosnian Embassy in Denver, and it turns out there is not.

I don’t know if he made it to the Mile High City — or found whatever it was he thought waited for him there — but Jimmy and I did, which will be the concern of Part 2.