sybren raze the man who's given us three monkey sculptures was in the park again yesterday. we couldn't see his face. he was too far away for that. we knew him by the way he moved. he left something in front of a bench and scurried away. a fourth monkey. a three-pound cyan cipher with its legs crossed. one hand resting on the right knee. the other on the left hip. head tilted to the side. a face that dared me to guess at what was in the animal's mind. we found the man hiding behind a tree, making sure we saw what he'd left for us. i thought he would make a run for it, but he didn't. he came out of his hiding place and laughed. he said when he saw we were in the park he ran home to grab the monkey. he came back, watched us from a distance, waited for the right moment, and then he made his move. i told him the monkeys he'd given us all had names. "wonderful," he said. my dad asked him if these were leftover things from the antique store he used to own. "oh no," he said. "i've always collected monkeys. but i'm seventy-one years old. it's time to start letting things go." when he was about to leave, i drew him back. there was a question i wanted to ask. "what's your name? we're john and johnny. john squared." "people call me two different things," he said. "well ... they call me a *lot* of different things. but there are two main ones. they either call me sybren, which is my first name, or they call me harry. because sybren's a hard name to remember. old people call me harry. new people call me sybren." we're new people. we'll call him sybren. it doesn't sound like a sigh. it sounds like the sea. it means "victorious bear". a man he knew came over with a white poodle. the dog ran in circles, chasing its own tail and loving every second of it. sybren said a hundred and forty trick-or-treaters came to his house on halloween. he gave away every basket of candy he made and served up twenty shots of southern_comfort. "for the parents who were cold and miserable," he said. "something to warm them up." the second time he was about to leave, he was the one who doubled back. "i'm not great with names," he said. "it usually takes me a while. but this i think i'll be able to remember. j and j." "thank you for all the gifts you've given us," i said. "we want to give you something back." "not necessary. i'm just happy they're with someone who appreciates them." then his smile dug a little deeper into his face. "you know, i've got more. when are you here next?" 211105 ... raze there's a tree just before the parking lot on the right side of the path. a squirrel we called skeeter used to live in that tree until the city_workers cut it down. i watched one of those grinning assholes hold up his cell phone so he could film the fifty-year-old elm falling over. "that's why you call the a team," he said. as if he'd just done something. there was nothing wrong with the tree. it was healthy. it was alive. they murdered it. we watched it die. we don't see skeeter anymore. every time i see the stump of what used to be his tree, i think of an amputated limb. only it's the whole body that's missing. and all that's left to mark the place where it stood is something dead that'll go on dying for another ten years, until it rots away to nothing. trees die the same way we do. even after they're gone they keep holding on, letting new things grow in the wreckage of what they were. of all places, this is where sybren chose to leave his fifth gift. our third time around the park, we saw something that looked like a huge orange leaf sitting on that tree stump. it wasn't a leaf. it was a sculpture of an orangutan. our new simian friend was made in thailand. his chin rests on his folded hands. his feet are curled into fists. the detail in his face is incredible. no matter how you hold him, you'll never get him to look at you. his eyes are always somewhere else. they're black. they've seen everything. and they shine. sybren was too quick for us to catch him this time. i raised a yellow mitten and waved. he saw me. he stopped and waved back. then he was gone. 211117 ... raze i saw something on the ground in front of a different bench. i thought it was food. chocolate, maybe. it was another gift. a chain of four monkeys sitting next to one another. from the back you can see the way their flanks are fused together. just like conjoined twins. three of them follow the "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" template, but they're all smiling. playful. they don't fear what they can't understand. the fourth monkey isn't covering his eyes, or his ears, or his mouth. his hands are interlaced between his knees. he's staring straight ahead, amazed by everything he sees. this one is a wood carving. small, but solid and heavy in the hand. and there's something in the varnish that makes it more than brown. something that makes these monkeys seem to glow when you see them in the right light. they aren't really brown at all. they're red. the park was full of high_school students enjoying a windy but warm day that had no business showing up nine days before christmas. sybren had to plan it just right so his gift wouldn't be intercepted. when our eyes found him, he was so far away i couldn't see his face. i couldn't tell if he saw us, or if he walked on without looking back, knowing in his bones that we would find what he left for us. 211217 ... raze he came striding down the path with something hidden under his coat. it was a sculpture of three black monkeys. they were clutching a pedestal that held a spiked candle. he handed it to me and said, "i don't know if you'll want to light it. i'm not sure if it's a good candle or a bad candle." he laughed. he has the best laugh. so light and full of wonder. we asked him how his christmas was. "it was wonderful," he said. "it was even better for my friends, because everyone went home with chocolate." he shared the gift basket we gave him with the people he loves. because of course he would. he said the best part of our gift was the gold sleigh that kept everything together. now that it was empty, he was planning on making it the centerpiece of a christmas display next year. he already had it mapped out in his mind. he even knew which one of his stuffed bears he wanted to sit in the sleigh. he asked me how the bookends he gave me were working out. i told him they were perfect. he remembered our names. and he helped us solve a mystery. "when there are four monkeys," he said, "you know what the fourth one means? it's see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, *do* no evil." i think we need to add a fifth monkey to the configuration to represent sybren: "do the most good you can." 211229 ... raze he dropped another gift in the middle of the path: two identical mugs braided with 24 karat gold. on one side, a monkey plucks an azalea from a blue and white porcelain vase while a yellow butterfly soars above his head. on the opposite side, the monkey sits, smiling, with a lily in his hand. a turtle looks at him, incredulous. there's a note in one of the mugs, bent into the shape of half a tube. in handwriting as expressive as sybren's face, it reads: "j + j, for your morning coffee or tea. happy_new_year." 220121 ... raze i was wrong. the mugs aren't identical after all. on the second one, the flowers are different colours, the monkey's facial expressions are a little more expansive, and his tail seems to become a part of the vase. (of course he wouldn't give us two of the same thing. he's far too thoughtful for that.) 220123 ... raze the latest monkey is a ceramic delftware sculpture. it stands upright and wears a long, flowing robe. its smile is creased from overuse. it looks like a benevolent clergyman. when i tap a fingernail against its back and raise the hollow base to my ear, it sounds like a muted bell. we told sybren we loved the coffee mugs. "i love them too," he said. then he corrected himself. "well, i used to." and it hit me again that these aren't things he saw in a store that he thought we might like. these are all *his* things. they're pieces of his life. and he's giving them to us. he talked again about running out of time and needing to let go. this is a man almost twice my age who could outrun me without breaking a sweat. if he didn't want to be seen, he could have been gone before i knew he was in the park. he radiates life. but he keeps talking about the end. "we'll get you back," my dad said. "no!" sybren said. "i'll get you again!" i know he will. 220306 ... raze there was something or some very small someone sitting on a bench. people leave their coats and gloves and purses and backpacks all over the place all the time. this didn't look like any of those things. i stopped to get a better look. it was another bookend. a baboon with sideburns, hair gold, skin milk-white, crouched atop a thick brown book. one hand snatching at the bottom corner of the front cover. the other lost in the maze of his mane. everything but his stomach tattooed with a tapestry of green leaves and orange flowers. a starling perched on a vine in the center of his back. his whole body a work of art. on the bottom of the book, four japanese characters, with an english translation beneath them: "not for food purpose. for decorative use only." (so i would know not to eat a mixture of clay and earthen elements that would shatter my teeth if i tried.) sybren was gone before i could thank him. 220314 ... raze he sat down on a bench. it looked like he was polishing something. we got closer. he wasn't polishing anything. he was setting a candle on top of the largest and most ornate pricket i'd ever seen up close. "there's gorilla glue on the bottom of that candle," he said. "but it hasn't taken yet. if that sticks to anything, you're screwed." he laughed. a brass pedestal flowered into a sheath of leaves that held six wood-carved monkeys. their heads supported a crown framed by two more of their kin — a pair of distracted cherubs hanging from thin coils of wire. "i call it the tower of monkey babel," sybren said. my dad asked him if he had an extra vase at home. "i have so much shit it's not even funny," sybren said. "don't get me any vases!" "we're not getting you a vase," my dad said. "but we're going to get you. "no. i don't want anything. all i want is this. big smiles. that's it." before he left, he said, "enjoy the day. it's beautiful." he was right. it was. so is he. 220321 ... raze his latest gift wore a gold vest and matching beret. an urchin from a lost time. he sat with his legs interlaced and balanced a large brown bowl on his knees. there was something like quiet menace engraved in his face. a challenge to fill the basin with something worthy. "i've got a few cuties coming," sybren said. he still has more. by the time this is all over, we're going to have more monkeys in our house than the average rainforest. 220325 ... raze by the time we knew he'd been close enough to see where we were, he was already gone. we saw his car driving away before we got to what he'd left for us. on the ground, in front of the side entrance we always treat as the front of the park, there were three small monkeys. one with its hands covering its eyes. one with its hands over its ears. one with its hands on its mouth. see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. again. i thought they were metal figurines with chipped faces and distended bellies. later in the day i saw what i thought were tufts of hair were really bits of braided cotton. they're candles. the monkey with its eyes closed has a cowlick. the deaf one has a side part. the one without a voice has a wick that's bent forward. to light these up and watch their bodies lose their shape would be a sin. 220404 ... raze he walked toward us, hiding his face with one hand and carrying something in the other. he was laughing. it was another cluster of monkeys determined to commit no evil acts. these three looked like the stars of a sitcom that never got picked up after the pilot episode. the monkey who was covering his eyes had his free hand on the right shoulder of the one who refused to speak. he was grimacing and baring his teeth, as if his fried just said something that was funny for all the wrong reasons. the one with his hands on his ears propped himself up on his elbows and smiled. "those last ones were just a joke," sybren said. "the candles. they were starting to chip a bit. now, the *next* one i'm just dropping off. because it's this fuckin' big." he showed us with his hands. "that one's fun. but it's gonna be a drive-by. it's sort of like a monkey ninja." he shifted his body into something resembling third ballet position. "that's you," i said. "you're a monkey ninja." "see you next thursday, probably?" "maybe not," my dad said. we both finished the sentence together: "because you're too fast!" 220409 ... raze ("friend", not "fried". jesus, fingers. what the hell is your problem today?) 220409 ... raze there was a man standing alone on a hill. he was making these exaggerated coughing sounds. trying to get the attention of his unleashed dog, we figured. when the fake coughing didn't work, he started whistling. when that didn't do it either, he walked our way. it was sybren. "it's you!" i said. "we had no idea." most of the time he doesn't want us to know he's there. "how many idiots do you think there are in this park?" he asked us. "about seven hundred," my dad said. "you're not an idiot," i said. "you're one of the good ones." he handed me a monkey made of dark metal. he was so heavy i almost dropped him. he was holding an umbrella to shield his face from the sun. one leg was curled up around his waist. the other leg hung down at an odd angle. i tapped the outer canopy of the umbrella. it rang out like a gong. "this is a nice one," sybren said. "i enjoyed him. but you're gonna wanna sit him on the edge of something. look at the way his ass is." he was right. this guy needed a ledge. i handed the monkey to my dad so he could feel how heavy he was. "oh, you pervert," sybren said. "you just grabbed him right by the ass." i laughed so hard my body sank into a squat. "happy_easter," sybren said. "and the next time you hear me hooting or whistling or making a fool out of myself, make sure you turn around!" 220417 ... raze two identical candleholders sat beside each other on a bench. they looked like they were getting a little tired of waiting to be found. each one was wedged inside an empty kleenex box. a white plastic bag kept everything together, with the edges pulled back so we could see what was inside. the monkeys had red hair and scruffy beards. they wore pink and blue vests decorated with flowers. they looked just like peter. what are the chances of that? 220517 ... raze on a different bench, there was a monkey like the last two, only this one was twice as large. the colour scheme was the same. everything else was different. there was no candle. the pensive primate sat on a pink and blue ottoman with his legs crossed. one foot on top of the other. he read a book of crooked vertical lines. it looked like he was wearing a hair net. instead of a beard, he had a film of orange hair covering his upper lip. it made me think of cesar romero's moustache hiding behind pancake makeup when he was playing the joker on the "batman" tv series. we talked to sybren through the gate. "that guy goes between the other two," he told us. "that's how i arranged them. i mean, at least i think it's a guy. you can look between his legs if you want to be sure." "really, you can stop now," my dad said, smiling. "oh, i'm getting low," sybren said. "there's just a few more coming now." i told him how much the last two monkeys looked like peter. i told him we met in the second grade. we passed notes back and forth saying "i_hate you" before we knew a thing about each other. the next day, we were best friends. "isn't it wonderful when that happens?" sybren said. "it was the same thing with one of my grade school friends. he scribbled all over my papers the day we met. and after that, we were friends for life." he crossed his fingers and corrected himself. "well, for the rest of my life, anyway. he passed some years back." "now," he said, "with the next one you're getting, it turns out there was a common problem where the tail would always crack. so when you get it, you might think it's defective. but it's just a cracked tail. they've all got one." "i have that problem too," i said. 220523 what's it to you? who go blather from