ugly american.

The Monkey Temple, Jaipur.

We grab a rickshaw.

80 rupees, Indian price.

I tell the driver we aren’t stupid, but

we pay anyway.

We round a corner and are dropped off

at the foot of the hill where the temple stands.

Vendors selling peanuts and sticks for the monkeys.

Peanuts to feed the animals, sticks to hit them.

We buy the peanuts.

We climb up the cobbled-stone road,

who knows how long it’s been there.

The stones are slick and worn,

and they lead us past onlookers stationed on their porches,

a herd of cattle, goats, and the terrifyingly humanistic

primates.

We reach the temple, pay our respects to Surya, the sun god.

He’s not a monkey, there isn’t even a relationship between him and

the creatures, other than they litter his temple.

The child at the inner sanctum wants money for a blessing,

tells me to get my man, he’ll pay.

I tell him it’s okay, I don’t need a blessing

now.

Me and  my man stand at the edge of the temple and

overlook the hazy world of  India below us.

We head back down the slick stone road.

Four teenage boys follow after us,

hooting, holding their hands out,

1 rupee! 1 rupee!

I walk faster, trying to ignore them.

You have to ignore some beggars, otherwise

you’ll never get out of India.

The boys point and laugh, mocking us

in another language, but

we can still understand.

I feign laughter too.

They keep harassing, I can’t ignore that.

Collin is ahead of me, I can’t catch up, too afraid

to lose my footing on the traction-less road.

They grab, I swing around

to scare them, holding my fist toward them.

They laugh harder, after wiping surprised fear off

their faces.

I throw my leftover peanuts at them and yell

at them to go away.

I run down the last few feet of the hillside road, and

the boys fall to the ground behind me,

picking the discarded peanuts off the ground,

stuffing their faces with that little nourishment.

I feel worse.

Collin grabs my hand, and we walk away

from my embarrassment.

We throw Collin’s last peanuts at some goats, but

my embarrassment follows closer still.

They pick up those peanuts too, nervously breaking the shells away from the sustenance.

They mock us further, still following us.

Ugly Americans.

They finally went their way, but

I was too fuming to go ours. So

we walked and kicked up the dust on the road,

me leaving a path of anger and regret.

Two Jain women walk past us, leaving

a temple complex with their brooms in hand,

dressed all in white.

The brooms they hold clear their path before them,

as to not bring harm to the paths of others.

My heart isn’t as quick with temper, so we grab two bottles of thumbs up, and

sit.

Hunched over, sipping away

my temper, my embarrassment.

Two young teenage boys watch us,

sitting on their bicycle that’s parked behind me.

Photo! Photo!

I smile at them, then, no, don’t—they’ll only ask for money,

But I take the snap anyway.

I smile and show them their smiling faces that fill my lcd screen, then

they smile and ride off.

With them the path ahead of me, if only a portion of it, was swept clean.