Marlon's chimpanzee

A true story from my childhood

One of my best friends growing up in South Africa, a boy named Marlon, had a chimpanzee for a pet. His name as Oak, and he had full access to the entire house and backyard—he was very well trained.

I remember one day I went to his house straight from school, I must have been 6 years old, and there were some workers at the house renovating one of the rooms. Marlon and I were playing video games in the living room, and after the workers had left we went to go play with Oak.

Marlon called his name and one of the workers I remember seeing came into the room holding a banana. Marlon threw a tennis ball to him and he caught it with the same hand holding the banana and they began playing catch.

I asked Marlon where Oak was and he said ‘here, silly’. But I knew it was one of the workers from before. So I told Marlon that he was playing with man, not Oak, and Marlon started to cry because he didn’t believe me and thought I was being mean.

I went to find Marlon’s mother and she was outside speaking to the workers who were all in their truck ready to drive away. I saw Oak sitting in the truck holding a bag of tools and I shouted to Marlon’s mother that Oak was inside the truck! They started driving away and his mother looked confused and said she saw Oak inside the house.

We went in and the worker was lying his head on Marlon’s lap while he played a video game. She pointed and said Oak’s napping. I told her Oak was in the truck and that’s one of the workers, not Oak! So I threw a shoe at the worker and he woke up and mumbled something and Marlon’s mom screamed. She called Marlon’s dad to come home from work and when he got home he took the worker outside and sent him away in a taxi.