The Story of Koto

By Angel

My mother called me “monkey child”, recounting tales of me at nine months old, vaulting out of my crib like a gymnast, at two, climbing the high ladder at a bookstore and scaring all the employees, by four, climbing trees with the speed and skill of a predatory feline. She told tales of taking me to the zoo as a baby, how all the monkeys would crowd the glass to stare at me, wail and dance, seemingly recognizing one of their own offspring.

Perhaps these stories are what made me feel almost spiritually connected to monkeys. Or perhaps that was just my nature. I collected stuffed monkey toys, glass figurines, books and magazine articles. I drew pictures of them and slept with one as big as a person, a gorilla stuffed animal named “Earl”.

And as I got older, I started asking for one as a pet.

I researched different kinds of monkeys and settled on a capuchin. I learned about what they would eat, what kind of care they would need, and found a vet not too far away, who would treat them. Then, I started saving money.

I went to school and worked part-time at the mall as a surveyor. It took me two years to save up two thousand dollars, the cheapest price I had ever seen them listed at. I knew I would need at least a few hundred dollars more for food, bottles, diapers, toys, a bed, cage and the initial cost of shots and medical examination. And then I knew I would have to keep working, to save money for future vet care.

I knew what I was getting into. I was as responsible as I could possibly be, and yet… my story would still end in heartbreak.

I still love monkeys… but in a different way, a better way. And in order to stress the importance of leaving monkeys free and wild… I wanted to share my story with others. To end their suffering… and ours.

When I had two thousand, three hundred dollars, I bought a large cage at a garage sale. It was five feet tall and three feet wide with two different “floors” connected by a ramp. I filled it with toys that were safe for babies, toys of bright color and incredible softness. I slept with all the bedding for a week to imprint my scent on it. Then I took out the middle “floor” that divided the cage into two and put in clean tree limbs, three and four feet tall, ones with plenty of branches, trimming off anything that might hurt my new pet.

My parents had always said no, but by the time I had saved the money I was nineteen, and going to college. I still lived with them, but after two years of saving money, and showing incredible patience and responsibility, they could no longer say no.

I had already selected a breeder, but I was disappointed when I called her to find she no longer bred capuchins. I had to research other breeders, suddenly aware that all my information was two years out of date. I finally found a breeder, four hours away, who had a three-week old male capuchin ready for a new home, but he was five-thousand dollars.

“I can give you two.” I said, begging her. I promised her I would get the rest to her, I swore up and down that I would work day and night to pay him off, that I would do anything. She remained stoic until I told her that I had been saving for two years, that I had a vet lined up and a beautiful cage ready. Then she relented a little, and said I could have him for three thousand dollars if I signed a contract promising to pay her five-hundred dollars a month for the next four months.

Well! If that didn’t take some fancy footwork! I begged my parents for help. They gave me a hundred dollars as an early Christmas gift. I begged everyone else, swearing they would have to get me nothing for Christmas, swearing I would pay them back. At the end, all my begging got me up to two thousand, four hundred dollars. It wasn’t enough. I prayed for a solution.

In the end, I sold my computer, a practically new system that my grandmother got for me for college, knowing that if she found out she would be livid, but I had the money I needed, and to me, the trade off was well worth it.

I drove out to the breeder one cold December morning, only two weeks before Christmas, so excited I could scarcely breathe. It was snowing outside, the world was beautiful. I had a basket in the front seat filled with blankets, a few toys, and one big soft stuffed monkey for my baby to hold onto on the ride home.

The breeder, Paula, lived way out in the country in one of those rambling trailer houses that used to be mobile, but had been added onto so many times that you had to call it a house. There was a big sun porch on the side of the house and I could see cages stacked floor to ceiling there.

I knocked on the door and Paula opened it, I recognized her from her picture on the internet. She had, what I thought was a baby, swaddled in her arms, a blanket wrapped bundle, and then she said, “Meet your new baby.” She held him out to me and I took him and peeled back the blanket.

It was love at first sight! I can’t even describe the feelings that washed over me as I saw him, staring up at me, trustingly, sucking his thumb, like a human infant. He was so incredibly light, and smaller than I had realized he would be. I could have held him in the palm of one hand. He was wearing a diaper and a white t-shirt with a blue duck on the front. I actually cried.

I was giving her the money, proudly holding my new pet when Paula discussed future care with me. She said I could bring him back anytime to get his canine teeth, nails and testicles removed, all for only five-hundred dollars. And if I wanted, she could dock his tail right there for an extra twenty. I was horrified.

“Why would you want to do that?”

She told me it would make diaper changing easier, that I wouldn’t have to cut holes in them before I put them on. I thought it sounded like a terrible, cruel thing to do all to save myself the trouble of snipping a hole in the back of a diaper.

She gave me papers showing that he was healthy and had been vaccinated. They looked like something printed off a home computer, crude and filled with typos. It was then that I became suspicious.

I thanked her and left. I put Koto (as I named him immediately) into the basket but he started to cry when I set him down. I was shocked at how much he sounded like a human child. Unable to tolerate his mournful wails I lifted him up and placed him against my chest, he curled his tiny hands into my sweater and quieted, hanging onto me. I draped a blanket over him and drove away, heading for home.

Koto was quiet the whole way home, hanging onto my sweater front and looking around in wonder, but never making a sound. When I got home I carried him inside and showed him all around the house, saving his cage for last.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be spending much time in there.” I promised him. “You’ll never leave my side.” It was not a promise I would be able to keep.

I took him to the vet I had lined up later that day and told him my suspicions about the breeder. He said he would see to it that she was investigated, and confirmed that my health and vaccination records were fraudulent. He ran a complete exam on Koto, worried that a poor breeder would produce unhealthy animals. I knew monkeys could transfer human diseases, and that if Koto had parasites or herpes, he would need expensive treatment, and quarantine. I prayed that everything would come out okay. Miraculously, it did. Koto was healthy.

Over the next two weeks, Koto never left me. He clung to the front of my shirt or hair all the time, crying even when I took him down to feed him or change him. I only put him in clothes for photos, otherwise worrying he would be too warm. I became a pro at snipping holes in diapers and seethed at the thought of anyone torturing an animal just to avoid this two-second chore.

I bathed him often and we learned our first game. I would say, “Koto kisses!” And he would kiss me, then he would hoot and squeak, and I would kiss him. We could play this for hours.

Then it was time for me to go back to school, by then I had been contacted by the authorities and the ASPCA about Paula. She was shutdown and heavily fined, I would not be obligated to pay her any further. This was happy news for me, and yet, I wondered what would happen to all the poor monkeys who lived under her care?

I left Koto with my parents when I went to school. I called in the middle of the day to check on him and I could hear him WAILING! My mother sounded very harried and said he was inconsolable, he wouldn’t eat, and he bit them if they tried to pick him up. I rushed home as fast as I could go and I swear Koto LEAPED into my arms as soon as I walked through the door.

After that, I was the “monkey girl” again because I took Koto to school with me. I took him in a carrier on my chest at first. I was sure I would be told he couldn’t be there, but my professors never said a word, making just as much as a fuss over him as the students. Koto made me famous!

When Koto got a little bigger, he wouldn’t tolerate the carrier anymore and he sat on my shoulder through each class, “grooming” me or playing with one of his toys.

I talked to Koto all the time, he was my best friend and constant companion. I took him into stores with me on a harness sitting on my shoulder and no one ever said he couldn’t be there. Children were drawn to him like a magnet, but I was fearful Koto would bite or scratch them, and I would be sued. I was so afraid of this happening, that I only let people touch him if he went to them first.

While I did my homework each night, Koto would sit complacently nearby screwing and unscrewing the cap of a water bottle, an activity that seemed to fascinate him. He would sometimes reach out a furry little hand and filch my pen or pencil, but I don’t think he wanted to play with them, I think he just wanted me to pay attention to him instead of that boring piece of paper!

Koto slept curled up in my hair. At first I was afraid I would roll over and crush him, trying to insist he sleep in his cage, but I would always wake up with him curled in my hair, so eventually, I let him do it without protest.

Koto was always learning new tricks. He took great delight hiding beneath the fold of a towel or blanket. I would pretend I couldn’t find him and then he would hop out hooting and chirping and of course, I had to act very surprised and happy.

I was paranoid, at first, about letting him outside without being on a harness. But he was a little escape artist, finding ways outside whether I wanted him to or not, and eventually, I became used to it. He would climb around the trees in the front yard, sometimes sitting up there, still as a stone for hours, or play around on the cars in the driveway. But he always came back when he was tired of it, and soon enough, I kept my window open a bit so he could come and go as he pleased.

Koto was always very concerned when I took a shower. He would sit on the toilet, cocking his head in puzzled amazement as I willingly walked under the spray of water, and sometimes begin to shriek in terror, leaping at the door and hanging onto the towel rack as though trying to rescue me, especially if I started singing. I would open the door to let him in, but as soon as he felt the rush of water he would rocket off like a pin ball, shrieking and wailing as though I had hit him.

One day, when Koto went outside to play, and didn’t come back for several hours, I got worried. I went outside and looked all over but I didn’t see him anywhere. As night fell, I grew frantic. Koto had never been out at night before by himself. I called and called for him, but he did not come.

I was inconsolable that night, unable to sleep without the presence of Koto tangled in my hair. I paced and cried and prayed. Then late in the middle of the night, very softly, so quiet I could barely hear it at all, I heard the sound of his wailing.

I tore outside and strained my ears, wearing only my nightgown, shivering in the cold of an October night. No, I had not imagined it, I could still hear him. I followed the wails down the street to a neighbors’ house and there, found the two young boys who lived there trying to quiet him as they attempted to stuff him into an animal carrier. I was livid! I rushed forward and yelled at them and Koto wrapped around me, shivering and crying. The boys ran off and I pounded on the front door and told their parents what had happened. The next day they came with their sons and made them apologize. The boys had apparently lured Koto over to them with food and had tied him up in the garage, hoping to keep him. Then when he was being too loud in the garage, they decided they would put him in the pet carrier and bury it with blankets to muffle his wails. They each had quite a few bites and scratches, but the parents did not blame Koto. He was only trying to get away from his kidnappers. I shivered to think what would have happen if they had succeeded in their plan. Koto would have been suffocated.

Koto didn’t like strangers after that. He was still fine at school, because he knew everyone there, but he became mistrustful of people he had not seen, and downright aggressive toward children.

I was so mad! I couldn’t take Koto to the store anymore, the clouds of children attracted to him drove him into a frenzy, and I had no doubt he would bite them if given the chance.

Now whenever I went somewhere public, I left Koto in the car. He retaliated by chewing the seats, taking off his diaper and smearing poop around the car, and destroying anything I had left lying around.

Eventually, I had to leave him at home when I went out, aside from school.

I never completely forgave those boys, they had ruined Koto’s perfect temperament.

Aside from his hatred of children and strangers, Koto remained a perfect delight well into his “adolescence.” I had read that monkeys can grow aggressive when they reach three or four years of age, but Koto did not. He rarely bit or scratched me, and when he did, it was never severe.

When I graduated college, I moved out and took Koto with me. There were few apartments that would accept me bringing a monkey into the picture, so my search for a home took considerably longer than normal. When I did finally find a place that didn’t mind, I had to put down double the pet and security deposit and provide them with copies of his vaccination and health records.

By five years old, Koto was still the perfect pet, and had not cost me all that much in terms of vet care. But then he picked up a very… disturbing habit. Koto started masturbating. I knew monkeys were capable of it, but I had never seen him do it before, and I realized he was reaching sexual maturity. I asked my vet if having him neutered would help, but he said it wasn’t definite. Primates, like humans, copulate for enjoyment, not just reproduction. Even neutered, Koto could still very likely have sexual urges.

The only surefire way to qualm Koto’s desire to copulate would be a complete removal of a testicles. The idea made me immensely uncomfortable, and even my vet admitted, he did not like doing it. It was traumatizing for the animal, a long, painful recovery, and very expensive. But if I didn’t do something to help him, Koto could grow sexually frustrated, and then aggressive. He would also be unhappy, and that wasn’t cool with me.

I began contacting breeders around the state, asking if I could stud Koto. They all already had their own breeding pairs, and since they didn’t know Koto, didn’t want him impregnating their monkeys. A couple of them said they would let Koto mate, but they wouldn’t pay me. And, I was aware it was a temporary fix, something that my vet warned me, might only whet his sexual appetite.

Left with few options, I finally, uneasily, decided to have Koto’s testicles removed. A decision I will always regret.

Koto’s surgery was complicated by his sensitivity to the anesthesia, something they didn’t know about until they already had him under. His heart stopped beating early into the surgery and they had to bring him back, twice.

The surgery took a long time, and when it was done, I went to see him in the OR recovering cage. He was very limp and drowsy, and not at all like himself. I cried and told him I was sorry.

Koto’s recovery took a long time, and paying for his post-operative care was not easy. Once Koto’s physical wounds had healed, I assumed he would return to the gentle, loving animal I had cared for since he was three weeks old, but Koto would never be himself again. Koto might have physically recovered, but his spirit was damaged.

He became quiet and withdrawn. He bit me more often, and my wounds were more serious than they had ever been in the past. He did not want to play, his appetite failed, and he spent more and more time laying on the floor of his cage, depressed, and embittered.

He hated the vet after that, growling and showing his teeth whenever he saw him. He probably would have bit him if he could, but the vet knew how Koto felt about him, and took extra precautions to avoid self injury.

It broke my heart to see Koto so unlike himself. I kept waiting for him to “recover” but he never did, growing, with each day, more and more wild and uncontrollable. He began to groom himself to the point of bleeding, bald patches and sores breaking out over his little body. He was too thin and would eat only when I forced him to.

Then one day, I was trying to force him to eat something and he lashed out at me. He grabbed my hand and bit down HARD on the skin between my thumb and forefinger. I cried out and he darted off down the hall like a shot. I stared at my hand in disbelief, the skin hanging off and blood pouring all over the floor. The pain was incredible.

I wrapped my hand in a towel, cussing and crying. I had never felt such pain and I knew I needed medical treatment. But I also knew they might take Koto away, might kill him. And I couldn’t stand that.

I doctored my hand myself, washing it all the time, and using gauze, tape and butterfly strips to put my skin back together. I was afraid of Koto, but I was trying not to be. I tried to treat him the same, tried to play with him and encourage him to eat, but I was always on the defensive, ready to jerk away from him. I also stopped being dominant, cowering away from him, giving him commands in a weak, frightened voice. Koto began trying to exert dominance on me, sensing my weakness, smelling my fear. He would growl and hit at me, or scratch me If he didn’t get his way.

I loved Koto. But I was afraid of him, and it wasn’t going to get better. On top of that, my hand was infected, it felt numb and lifeless where he had bit me, and the skin was a strange color, white and dying. I had to go to the doctor.

I lied to them when I got there. I told them I had cut myself with a knife by accident. I could tell they didn’t believe me, but they couldn’t force me to tell them the truth. My hand was infected, and badly. It took weeks of antibiotics and doctor’s appointments, twenty stitches and countless cleanings before it was healed. But like Koto, my spirit was damaged.

I could no longer love Koto as I once had. Our relationship was reduced to one of fear and violence. If I got too close I received a switch scratch or bite, nothing like what he had done to my hand, but enough to make me remember it.

I considered the unthinkable. I considered having his canine teeth removed, his claws amputated. But I knew I could not do that to him. It was my meddling with him in the first place that had spoiled his temper.

I had tormented and deformed him, for what I thought, was his own good. But it had caused irreparable damage, and now, we would never be the same.

The end came one gloomy day in fall. He was almost six years old. I came into the living room and found him smearing poop from his diaper on the couch. I yelled at him and he turned on me like a wild animal, how could I have forgotten that, that is what he was all along? I was blessed to have this bit of wild nature on my side for so long. But nature is unpredictable, and dangerous. And as much as I loved Koto… so was he. He was a wild thing, a creature ruled by millions of years of instinct. A creature that should have been free, but instead was made a captive, a plaything of humanity, a servant of mankind.

All of this went through my head in the seconds before he was on me, biting and clawing and screaming. I was stunned, I wanted to beat him off of me but I couldn’t hit him. I tried to restrain him and felt his teeth sinking into my arms, his claws ripping at my shoulders. Then he darted off, like a cork out of a champagne bottle and exploded out the window.

I went to the hospital, I told them I had been attacked by a dog. They sewed up my arms, doctored my shoulders, telling me I would need rabies shots if they couldn’t find the dog. It took fifty-two stitches to close all my wounds. I was at the hospital overnight on IV antibiotics. I got a tetanus shot and a medical bill for three thousand dollars. I cried. The same amount of money I had paid for Koto.

When I got home, Koto was in his cage, grooming himself bloody. He went into a frenzy when I came into the room and I knew he would attack me again so I shut the cage door. He went even more berserk, having never been caged before.

All night he wailed and shrieked, growling and hissing. I sat in the corner of my room and cried.

The next day I called my mother. Although Koto had never bonded to her as he had to me, he had always been friendly and lovable with her. She was afraid to try and calm him, but I knew there was no one else I could count on. As soon as she came in Koto calmed down. I left the room and listened through the door as she whispered to him. She was shocked and angered to see me so battered, but she knew how important Koto was to me.

Eventually I cracked the door and peeked inside. My mother was holding Koto and he was holding onto her as though her were a baby again. My mother took him home with her.

He has been there for two years now. Whenever I go to visit him he growls at me through the bars of his cage. I talk to him sometimes for long hours, reading to him and offering treats. Sometimes, when he seems calm enough, I let him out and we play peek-a-boo or kiss-kiss, but it’s not the same, and it will never be the same as it was. Eventually I do something that rubs him the wrong way and he bites me and runs away. I know he can never be in my home again.

My parents take good care of him, but they do not try to forge a bond with him, knowing it would only lead to heartache.

My poor Koto…

You should be free,
Swinging through the trees,
And laughing in the breeze,
Unfettered like a child,
Beautiful and wild.

The best part of you has died,
And I dare not question why,
For if there is someone to blame,
I would whisper my own name.

~ For Koto ~

Since I have written this, Koto has died, called home by the Father. I am comforted knowing, that where he is now, there is no pain or sorrow. There is the embrace of his true mother, the children he never had, and the freedom… of the wild.