Frank Lehner: Mrs. Nussbaum’s Monkey

I don’t know why Mrs. Nussbaum had a monkey, but she did. She lived in a one-story white brick house with a mammoth picture window with a drape rarely drawn. That open space was a magnet for all who passed to gawk, and there, they saw in the dining room the silver cage and the longtail monkey, Jessers, who was like Mr. Longo’s Dachshund and the Hoffmans’ bunnies. Jessers, after the morning sun pushed south over the roofs, would be on the porch between two painted rocking chairs—the rails of his confines almost invisible—face the street, cheep, and reach out looking for a hand.

Jessers had a thin head, a long nose like Jimmy Durante, and light green eyes with blackish circles. He was the size of a football. He looked like a little monkey person, like everyone else, and was a little something one way or the other. Jessers was mostly grumpy, and for all the want to have Jessers as a chum, he’d claw the hand who dared touch his leathery fingers, and the little gentlemen bit me once too often. But we tried.

Jessers was also a sneaky fellow, and Mrs. Nussbaum’s eye not so watchful. So, it was not unusual for Jessers to be up the telephone pole or sitting on the roof of a car or monkey walking down Augusta Street, maybe to head to the five-hundred block to pinch some eggs from the Minskers’ chickens or cut through the backyards to Edith Street and O’Connors’ fountain and the flock of goldfish they kept. Jessers was decidedly less grumpy when he was out and about, and for the most part, Jessers hung out while we played and talked kid stuff until, somehow, he went home to his cage and the lure of imported fruit, kind of the way we all went home when the streetlights came on. If something was missing, a toy or a tool, the first thing you did was head up to Nussbaums’ to see if the thieving Jessers had pinched what was missing. Jessers was still there when I left for college. This is background. 

• • •

I guess this was an evening when Jessers couldn’t sleep or was rambunctious, or Mrs. Nussbaum had one too many highballs. I slept in the third-floor attic, but our house was paper-thin, and I could hear talking. No one was ever up this late in our house. But I heard talk and cheep. So, I headed downstairs, tippy-toe quiet, desperate not to have a stair squeak, to the kitchen in my pajamas and bare feet. There’s my father in his chair, a two-tone ‘50s Formica, chrome-legged table, and Jessers on the back of the chair facing the stove. Pops has laid out a little spread of Velveeta cheese, sweet pickles, and Saltines. He’s opened a stubby bottle of pilsner and poured Jessers a little piece. Pops never said much, but there he was in his T-shirt and loose boxers telling Jessers about the Easter Tuesday night he lost his mother and taking the streetcar to go to work because there was nothing to do until the next day, and the plant owner only gave two days off for deaths.

I recognized the voice, and it was like that voice that told me stories of playing ball, or how to thread a worm on a hook, or how to hold a soldering iron at the angle just to kiss the flux and let the metal hug the wire. I sat on the bottom step, out of sight, and listened. Jessers breathed and cawed and growled rumbles from his tiny heart. Jessers liked the cheese. This same combination, sans the beer for me, Dad and I ate after coming home from the Saturday night hockey games and sitting down to watch Chiller Theater and the monsters and sci-fi flicks of life run amok in some way or other. Where man and beast rarely found table and conversation. 

Maybe I missed Jessers’ story of transit from Zanzibar or New Guinea and his Ma roiling in despair, her little monkey gone, and her spirit flattened. I’m not sure who teared up first, but I dare peek around the threshold, and Jessers is holding Dad’s first two fingers and thumb. Jesser’s eyes are wet, and Dad’s left hand is wiping an eye. Two men alone, together, and safe before the lights come on and all that’s expected with that. I have loved Jessers from that moment until now. Dad gave Jessers a scratch on the head and a nod. Jessers monkeyed up Dad’s arm and out the window. “Come on, Frankie. That’s enough for the night. Time for bed.” His hand on my crewcut head. The plate empty.

Copyright 2025 Frank Lehner. From Mrs. Nussbaum’s Monkey by Frank Lehner (Bottom Dog Press, 2025.).

Frank Lehner is a poet, award-winning book designer, folk artist, and playwright out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His poetry has appeared in diverse periodicals, and his plays have been staged in Pittsburgh and New York City.