A Little Monkey Business

I was friends with Trayvon’s* mother. She was one of the best friends that I ever had. No one understood me the way she did. She and I shared the stories of our lives. I trusted her with some of the more painful chapters of my life and she did the same with me. We found common ground, and healing together. I felt loved and accepted by her.

Everyone loved Georgia* and grieved her untimely death due to breast cancer. Her mother’s heart implored me and others to look out for her son Trayvon after she was gone. She was very concerned that Trayvon’s lifestyle would lead him towards a diagnosis of diabetes. Many in her family were afflicted with this ailment.

It was her dying wish that I help encourage him to stay healthy. It was because of this that I got to know Trayvon better over the years. Trayvon had inherited many of his mother’s good qualities. He is sunny and sociable. A real people person. He loves his friends deeply and always goes the extra mile for them, just as his mother had. He has a heart of gold!

Then there is that other side of him. Just like his mother Georgia, Trayvon is street smart. But, sometimes just like his mother, that street smart crosses the line into street life. Trayvon has been working from home since the virus hit New York. He works for a large medical facility in New York City. Recently, he learned that he would be required to go back to the in-person work environment this fall. 

He is not happy about this news at all. I wasn’t sure why though. So, on a recent telephone call I explored that question with him. He told me that he really liked working from home. He felt that working from home had not hindered or compromised his ability to perform his job one bit. Was he saving money? Of course he was.Taking the subway from the Bronx to midtown Manhattan and paying for those high priced Manhattan lunches are a killer. Plus, it had been awesome not having to see his boss everyday who, he has a long-standing feud with.

But, this Westchester Christian Housewife had to delve a little bit further. Trayvon, I asked, do you feel safe from the virus and the crime as you contemplate a return to work? Having moonlighted over the years as a club bouncer, he quickly took umbrage at my suggestion that he might not be able to handle himself in the current lawlessness that has overtaken the city.

Further, I wanted to expose the deep spiritual underpinnings of the current dilemmas now gripping the planet. Just where was Trayvon spiritually, physically and emotionally after a year of virus management? Where are we? 

As I probed to get a deeper understanding of just what Trayvon’s current mindset was, I discovered A Little Monkey Business going on. Trayvon let me know that he was fully vaccinated and had just come back from a trip to Virginia. He had sadly lost a friend to the Wuhan virus and had commuted by plane to attend his funeral.

Feeling heady after getting his jab, even got him to thinking that he wanted to catch that huge post-pandemic box office hit, A Quite Place Part 2 in theaters now. Hey Trayvon, said I, are you ready to return  to a movie theater to catch that flick or would you prefer to wait for it to be available for at-home viewing? No, Trayvon said, I think that I am ready to go out to a theater.

Well, why aren’t you ready to go back to the office then? Rather than answer my question he told me that he had made an appointment with a therapist. He is planning to tell the doctor that he is depressed because of all that has happened and that he is not yet ready to go back to work. Well, are you depressed Trayvon? Trayvon was not interested in answering any of my questions directly but, rather disposed to beating around the bush.

He just keep repeating that, he didn’t want to go back to work. Do you think that you can convince the therapist that you are not mentally able to go back to work Trayvon? I don’t know but I will try, was his reply. I wondered if Trayvon was playing with fire. Mightn’t there be some unintended consequences to his actions? What if he gets fired from his job? What if the doctor wants to put him on psychiatric medicine? What if he gets labeled mentally unstable? What if the Bible is true when it tells us not to lie?

He seemed to think that the end justifies the means. Meaning that because he liked working from home if he could do A Little Monkey Businesses to make that happen then it was worth it. I learned that if the hustle lasted six months or a year, it would be worth it to him. Maybe, it could last even longer, and that would be even better. 

But, what about the truth? When faced with a difficult situation, Pontius Pilate the Roman official who held Jesus’s earthly existence in his hands, questioned the meaning of truth. It was during his tenure as the Roman prelate of Judaea that he was asked to decide the fate of Jesus as he went on trial for sedition. He wanted a political solution that would placate the Jewish leaders and not upset the administration in Rome. 

When Jesus indicated that He had come to testify to the truth. Pilate was not interested in it. He was only interested in what would work for him. He showed himself to be morally relativistic. In this way of thinking a person can just shift their beliefs to suit the situation. The Trayvon that I know has a high level of moral integrity. 

I have seen him serve until it hurt him. I know that he has always worked hard for a living, often working two jobs in order to make ends meet. But, every once in a while, it seems like something else takes over. It might be that he is in and out of Christianity. Here one minute and gone the next. 

His mother Georgia was a church going Baptist. His sister is a born again Christian. Trayvon has mixed feelings. He was off when his born again sister treated him badly. He was on when he recently dated a believer. Maybe his ethics reflect that. Whatever the reason may be I found myself in a ticklish situation when he spoke to me about trying to manufacture an excuse to circumvent going back to his office. 

* the names are changed to protect identities.