Bongo Drums

They desperately need another drummer since the current one only knows how to play the bongos.

I grew up in the jungle. My parents clung to the hippie lifestyle when it was no longer fashionable to have extremely long hair, straggly beards, showers once a year and only when it rained, and ate vegan before vegan was a word. Grass stew, magic mushroom dessert, and river water left out overnight, so it could collect bacteria from the surrounding coconut trees. It was then left for a few hours to ferment and subsequently drunk by the adults, who were just my parents because everyone else from the colony had moved on to real jobs in places like Wall Street and insurance companies making oodles of money.

By the time my sister and I were of age to drink that vile concoction, we had escaped the jungle and made our way into the city, where we bought two one way tickets on La Bamba Airlines to nowhere. After we landed in nowhere, my sister and I went immediately to the authorities who were located in the far end of a hangar and claimed asylum. “From who?” we were asked by a tall thin balding man with a giant moustache, smoking two cigarettes at once in case he forgot he was smoking the first cigarette, or at least that’s what he told us. “The jungle,” was my answer.

 To which he replied, “in what country?” That stumped my sister and I. So, because he did not believe us, we were taken to jail where we live now. You see, we never had any schooling. We couldn’t write, we certainly couldn’t read, but we could sing and compose music.

“How come?” the warden of the La Quinta jail asked.

“Well,” I tried to explain, “my mother is a concert pianist and my father plays the church organ.” Well, you should’ve seen his face.

“In the jungle?” he asked.

“No, before my parents went bizarre and ran off with us into the jungle. My dad did try to make a church organ, but gave up only because there wasn’t a church nearby and a piano was completely out of the question.”
The warden seemed a little lost for words. Instead of engaging us in what he thought was a ridiculous conversation, he took a swig of something out a bottle which seemed to bring back memories. “Oh, is that Rainwater Delite?” I asked.

He seemed pleased that we knew what it was, because nobody around there had ever heard of it, I explained. “My parents made it, but I didn’t know they sold it.”
“Yes, I bought it on Amazon. Ever since the democratically elected government of nowhere came into power, they have outlawed it. Before, the communist government encouraged us to drink it as much as possible, because then we wouldn’t know what they were doing.”
“Do you like it?” I asked. My sister sitting by my side suddenly started crying.

“I miss mummy and daddy,” she said and then added, “can we go home?”

The warden took another swig and began to sniff. It sounded as if he was feeling sorry for us. “The problem is this. I don’t know where you came from, so I can’t send you back there. If you can remember where it is, I will do my best.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” I replied, “La Bamba Airlines flew us here.”

“Sorry, they’re defunct now. They had to burn all their records when the democratically elected government came into power, because they wanted to prosecute them for fraud. But,” he continued putting down the now empty bottle and beginning to slur his words, “the president of the airline, Chico Banana, was sentenced to life and actually is in this prison. Maybe I can ask him.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful!” we both said in unison.

“Anyway, let’s go back to what we were talking before all this happened.”

“All what happened?” I asked the warden who had turned a whiter shade of pale.

“This, this,” he replied making waves with his hands as if he were drowning. Maybe he was. A second later he said excuse me and ran off in that direction.

My sister Susie and I just sat there and wondered what our next move should be. It was then that Susie had an idea. “How about we ask the prisoners if anyone plays musical instruments and then we can form a band.”
“We could be like a band of brothers!” I was excited but Susie shook her head.

“No, not a band of brothers. But how about a jailhouse rock band.”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I shouted. Susie was brilliant. But we had to wait for the warden to return which he did the next day.

“Sorry about that,” he said grinning as best as he could, “that was intense stuff. Tell your parents they need to turn down the effects.”
“You probably got their limited edition with magic mushroom in it. They only make that every other year after they have a shower. Anyway, we have an idea.” Both Susie and I explained our idea of having a rock band. The warden, we never knew his name, was excited. “If it turns out to be that good, we can sell tickets and with that money I can go into the market and buy real food for all of you. What about a name though?” he asked in all seriousness.

It wasn’t something that was on top of our mind, but since he brought it up, we had to come up with something. “How about Procul Harum?” he suggested.

“Taken,” Susie replied and then we went silent.

“I know, I know,” I finally thought I had a brilliant idea. “How about the Howler Monkeys?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” they shouted so loudly that the rest of the prisoners, who were having their mid morning siesta after their breakfast of banana leaves, woke up with a start. The warden then called them all together and asked if any played instruments. Believe it or not, soon we had 5 prisoners who could play guitars and one who could play the bongos and Susie and I could compose the music and sing.

It all went off brilliantly. About a month or so later, there aren’t any calendars in the jail, the warden excitedly went into town where he told everyone about the rock band. The town’s people were excited and so was the democratically elected government who eagerly took part in the publicity of the rock band.

Then one minister, I believe he was the minister of financial difficulties, asked a tough question. “Where did you get the money to buy the guitars and bongos?”
“We didn’t,” I explained, “we just pretend. Those playing the guitars use their mouths to make noises that sound like guitars, while the bongo man does the same.” Sadly, he didn’t buy it. He then decided to come one night to hear us play and sing.

When the night arrived, the minister for fraudulent transactions, we found that was his real title, sat next to a beautiful woman who was his wife and they watched the show. They were actually very impressed with the sounds and gave us a standing ovation, after which the two of them interviewed us.

“I have never heard such wonderful music before. But there is just one issue,” said the minister and his beautiful wife agreed. “The drummer. You need a new drummer because this guy, Rodolfo, can only play the bongos, and they don’t go with this type of music. You need some real drums.”

Yes of course! The rest of us scratched our heads. We didn’t expect this sort of feedback because after all, it was all play acting. But the minister really thought that the drummer had to be replaced. “We will think about it,” we said and the minister and his most beautiful wife left. We then sat around chewing on banana leaves wondering how to address this problem. We didn’t see a solution, unless we got someone else. But the problem was that the rest of the prison population knew nothing about music.

As we were beginning to fall asleep one of the other prisoners came running to us. “Turn on the tv!” he shouted, “turn it on.” We did as he asked and there was an interview with the very same minster. He was being asked about his trip to La Quinta prison.

“Well,” he said looking dapper as always. “The music is brilliant. They will sell out all the venues, but they do have one problem, and that is with the drummer.”
“Oh,” said the interviewer, “what’s the problem?”
“Well,” continued the minister. “They desperately need another drummer since the current one only knows how to play the bongos.”

The interviewer was stumped. He looked into the camera and said, “if there’s anyone out there who would like to be a part of a prison band and can play the drums, please visit our TV offices as soon as possible. That’s a shame,” the interviewer turned to face the minister, “I hope our appeal will be fruitful.”
I rolled my eyes. And I thought the hippie commune was daft.