Looking out over the auditorium, he saw a lot of people. Jason was playing guitar with the church music team, something he’d wanted to do ever since he joined the church.

Jason first started attending at his mother’s suggestion. She went to this church with her new husband Gary, who seemed like a decent guy. Gary worked as a manager at a local factory making fruit leathers, and earned a good income, even if he was a bland, boring guy. Jason had tried talking to him, but the conversation always died because the guy had nothing to say.

One of the first Sundays Jason attended his mom’s church, the preacher asked for volunteers to be ushers, so Jason stepped up and volunteered. As an usher, he found himself coming into the church early every Sunday morning with snow on the ground and walking down the steps into the basement, which was unheated and therefore freezing. Jason and his fellow usher then hauled the bulky, heavy band and sound equipment up the narrow concrete staircase, and he often wound up scraping his knuckles on the rough walls.

After that was done, Jason and his partner started hauling Sunday school supplies, which were packed into large plastic bins, up the narrow stairs and onto a cart. When the cart was full, they rolled it over to the freight elevator. Once the elevator reached the second floor, they unloaded the plastic bins at the classrooms. One Sunday morning the freight elevator was out of service, and they had to haul the plastic bins up the stairs themselves.

During the service, Jason and his partner passed the plates and took the collection, which they counted in a separate room and inventoried.

Jason really liked the music at the church, and since he played guitar, he thought he could join the music team. He was no Jimi Hendrix, but Jason had a talent for songwriting. He made a demo tape and handed it to the music leader, a guy named Stan who was in his forties, but who dressed as though he were much younger. Stan must have paid fifty dollars to have his hair styled in a very hip, rock star cut. Jason received no feedback from Stan other than, “You must like the Beatles,” because one of the songs had a 60s vibe. Okay, the musicians were good, and maybe Jason wasn’t at their level, but he thought there had to be some room for him to play, especially because he was willing to work his ass off to learn a song and play it well. And he could write catchy songs.

Then one Sunday Jason heard some young guy play and sing his own original composition on the piano, which just sucked. Maybe there was a nicer, more spiritual way to say it, but the song was slow, tedious, and had no catchy melody or lyrics. Jason could do, and had done, better than that as a songwriter.

So now Jason found himself on stage. He’d attended practice, and had asked for chords or a tape, but he got nothing. Stan told Jason to follow along as the band went through the songs, and he did the best he could, looking at what the other guys were playing and trying to guess the chords.

When it was time to play on Sunday, Jason didn’t feel ready. Stan was at the front of the stage like Jumping Jack Flash, looking young and trendy in his new haircut and high-top sneakers. Then Jason noticed that his guitar playing wasn’t coming through on the sound system, and he had a sinking realization that the whole notion of him playing was just a sop to make him happy, like everyone on the football field letting the kid with Down’s Syndrome score a touchdown. When Jason realized Stan thought he wasn’t good enough to play, and the band had humored him like he was too stupid to figure it out, he felt sick to his stomach.

After his sham performance, when Jason took a seat in the congregation beside his mom and her husband, and the preacher began his sermon, Jason thought about his work lugging boxes early in the morning, which was a thankless task. The guys who got recognized in the church were always the pastor, the bigshots in the church like the dentist who contributed lots of money, and the flashy music leader. Reflecting on his menial role passing the plate, Jason realized that he was little more than a monkey with a tin cup, and as long as he attended this church he was going to be an obscure nobody. In the meantime, his job teaching was stressful, and he desperately wanted to achieve something in his life, but being a monkey with a cup or a drudge in a cargo cult wasn’t going to get him anywhere. Jason decided he was done.

When the service was over, Jason got up and followed his mom and her husband to the foyer. His mom looked at him with concern, and he could see her age at the corner of her eyes, as well as in the paleness of her face. “I thought you played very well today, even though I had a hard time hearing you.”

Gary stood at her side and murmured some kind of faint agreement.

Jason thought what a farce his playing was and wished he could disappear.

His mom then turned to the subject that really seemed to be on her mind. “Jason, don’t fall for any of your grandfather’s crazy schemes. You know the stock market is a big gamble. I’d hate to see you lose everything.”

Gary remained standing beside Jason’s mother, looking as dull as a man rolled out of clay.

“You know, mom, I wouldn’t have anything to lose if it weren’t for Gramps. I was deep in debt, and still have a lot of debt to go, but I finally have financial discipline and a plan.”

Jason saw the truth of what his grandfather had told him and thought how easy it was to give financial advice if you could just marry someone to pay your bills and bide your time until you could trade up to someone richer. Sorry if it sounded harsh, but what had his mom ever achieved or earned on her own, without a man working his butt off to provide her with everything? And how did that qualify her to give financial advice?

“Your home is your best investment,” she told him, standing in the very nice outfit she’d purchased at Macy’s with Gary’s money.

Jason reflected on his grandfather’s statement that most Americans are house poor, meaning all their money is sunk into their houses, but they have nothing in the bank. He figured it was no use trying to explain it to his mother.

“Well, mom, for the first time, I actually have money in the bank, plus an emergency fund, and it feels good.” He hugged her. “Honestly, I thought the old guy was crazy at first, so I’ve carefully weighed everything he’s said. I’m not about to do anything reckless.”

“Well, that’s good,” His mom said, smiling widely, and she did have an endearing smile.

“I’ll see you,” Jason said and waved good-bye.

“Love you,” his mom said, and Gary waved silently.

“Oh, Jason.” Steve, Jason’s mentor in sleight of hand magic and a stand-up comedian as well, approached him. “I told them to turn you up on the sound system today. I could hardly hear you.”

Jason was too embarrassed to tell Steve that was their plan, to humor him by making Jason think that he was really playing with the music team, like he was the slow kid with ‘R’ and ‘L’ painted on his shoes, riding the short bus to church. He was done with this bullshit.

* * *

Jason led the inebriated Maureen to the first floor of the rectory, where Sister Mildred waited at the window, anxiously looking out. Her hands shot up to her plump cheeks and she jumped in her excitement. The nun dashed to the door and threw it open, then ran across the sidewalk to her niece, whom she helped carry into her own room.

The two of them lay a semi-conscious Maureen onto the bed, and Jason turned away when the nun buttoned up the young lady’s blouse. “Are you alright, dearie?” she asked, slipping off her niece’s shoes, but Maureen could only mumble a reply as she tossed and rolled over on the bed.

“Good thing I got there when I did,” Jason said, shaking his head. “She was in a nest of vipers, and too drunk to have any idea what was going on.”

“God bless ya, Father Jason,” the nun said, but her eyes were focused on her niece, whose ginger hair she brushed gently with her chubby hand.

“God bless her,” Jason replied. “I hope she can shake herself free of whatever’s troubling her. Things could have ended really badly. She can’t afford to do something crazy like that again. Good night, sister.”

Jason quietly left the room and closed the door behind him. He climbed the stairs to his room, deep in thought.

When he reached the second-floor terrace outside his room, he looked at the flowerpots on the shelves along the wall. He spotted one small flowerpot, but wondered why there was no plant in it, and why it was empty. Looking closely, he saw that it was an upside-down fez. Picking up the fez, he turned and stooped over to hand it to the capuchin monkey, who put it back on his head.

“Got a dime?” the monkey asked, holding out his tin cup.

“Remember, I gave you a dime for ghost mode, which is free,” Jason reminded him. “So you owe me one.”

“You look like you’re thinking,” the monkey said, “and that worries me.”

“You know, in the time since I’ve met her, I haven’t let Maureen know how I feel about her,” Jason began. “She says she’d like to get intimate with me, but I’m a priest, so once I tell her how I feel about her, and that I’m not a priest, then there’s no reason why we can’t be together.”

“Whoo-hoo-hoo!” the monkey shouted while banging his tin cup on the concrete floor repeatedly and slapping his head with his tiny hand. After throwing his cup into the wall, he scrambled across the floor, pulling himself forward with his knuckles, followed by springing with his feet while hooting.

“Yaaa-waa-haaa!’ he shrieked, and took a flying leap at the heavy bag, kicking with both feet and slapping the canvas with his hands repeatedly, then bit it as he fell. He immediately scampered up the wall to the shelves of flower pots, continuing his cackling whoop and knocking the flowerpots onto the floor, where they broke and spilled dirt over the concrete. The monkey seized the last flowerpot and threw it through the window, watching it sail and pop when it broke on the sidewalk two stories below. He hung from the shelves and swung, until he yanked both shelves out of the wall. Dropping to the floor, he squatted and groaned.

Jason was shocked to realize that the monkey was taking a dump on the floor! No sooner had the monkey finished evacuating his bowels than he scooped up his poo and flung it through the hole in the window with a whooping shriek. He paced the floor with hopping steps, swinging his arms up and down in wild circles. “Whoo-hoo-hoo-ah-ah-ah!”

The capuchin took several big breaths and started to reach for the fez on the floor, but stopped. “Let me wash off my hands.”

The monkey calmly walked to Jason’s room and jumped up to the doorknob, which he twisted open as he dropped down. Jason watched the monkey stroll into his room and heard the water running in the bathroom sink.

The monkey returned to the terrace and picked up his tiny red hat.

“Wow, you went total ape shit there,” Jason said in disbelief at the spectacle he’d witnessed and the damage done.

“Monkey, dammit, monkey!” the capuchin cursed. “How many times do I have to tell you?”

“Relax,” Jason shot back, “it’s a figure of speech. If I say you went bat shit crazy, it doesn’t mean that I think you’re a bat.”

“You might as well be a priest and take a vow of celibacy,” the monkey said while throwing his hand upward in disgust. “You’re so hopeless when it comes to women. I’m going to have you talk to the grandmaster.”

“What about the terrace here? Look at it!” Jason pointed to the wreckage, while avoiding the dirty spot on the floor where the monkey crapped.

“Rewind,” the monkey said softly.

Jason stared dumbfounded as the pot on the sidewalk reassembled itself, and the dirt and the plant jammed themselves into it. The pot sailed backward through the window, landing on one of the shelves, which leaped up from the floor and refastened themselves to the wall, after screws jumped from the concrete and spun like corkscrews into the plaster. Glass flew up from the sidewalk outside and gathered at the broken window like a jigsaw puzzle being solved by an invisible hand. The dent in the tin cup popped out as it shot over the floor and landed in the monkey’s palm, while the stain on the floor and the odor of feces disappeared.

“What about your crap on the lawn?” Jason asked, but still couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed.

“I’ll leave it there,” the monkey replied. “Anybody who sees it will just think it was a Chihuahua.”

“He’s in your room.” The capuchin adjusted his fez, and in an instant, he was gone.

Jason wondered, “Who in the hell is in my room?”