I knew we shouldn’t have given the monkey the bottle rockets. I even told my brother so, but he never did listen to me.

“It’s my monkey,” he said. “And they’re my rockets. It’s my truck! I’ll do what I want.”

Freenkus (the monkey’s name was Freenkus) didn’t get it right away. But once Dave showed him to how to put a rocket in an empty bottle and touch a punk to the wick, Freenkus caught on fast.

“Look at that aim!” Dave said, when Freenkus whanged a rocket off one of our neighbor’s cows. Dave was on his 6th Corona. That might be why starting Freenkus on his 1st seemed like such a good idea.

“He needs his own bottle,” Dave said.

I took it away after Freenkus had his first sip and drank the rest myself, but a mouthful’s a lot for a monkey who doesn’t drink.

The next rocket took Dave in the ear. It wouldn’t have hurt him so much if he hadn’t been standing in the back of the truck at the time. When he came up off the road, gravel sticking to the blood on his cheek, Freenkus dived behind me.

Smart monkey.