Shakespeare's Poetry

This is the story about my friend Danny. We graduated together from college and were best friends during the wildest time of our lives. But as time went by, we lost touch with each other. While I found satisfaction in my job and started a family, Danny didn’t slow down much after college. He kept on partying in the weekends and lost more than one job because he didn’t stop to party until Tuesday. It didn’t help that he started all his weekends on Thursday evening either.

He made new friends to go out with when I moved to the city to be closer to my job and – at that time – my girlfriend. A few years later I got married and we had one last wild adventure together during my stag party. We lost touch with each other again after that. I was surprised when he contacted me a couple of years later and asked me if I could help him move into the city.

He had found a small apartment a few blocks from where I lived and was finally starting to realize that there was more to life than just partying and having fun. But he had wasted a lot of years and opportunities since he left college and needed to start again from scratch. So he wanted to do the same thing as I did years ago. He searched and found a job in the city.

He had found an affordable apartment that wasn’t too far from his workplace, but he never told me where he actually worked.

While we were moving all of his stuff into the apartment, I saw one the strangest things I’ve ever seen in my life. We were trying to fit his couch through the front door of the apartment, when suddenly my eye caught a glimpse of a chimpanzee that was sitting behind a desk in the apartment. He just sat there as he seemed to be staring at a computer screen in front of him.

I remember I just stood there in the doorway to his living room trying to find an explanation for the presence of a chimp in Danny’s apartment when Danny patted me on my shoulder.

“Is that a real monkey?” I asked.

“Yes.” Danny replied. He didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it either. “He kind of came with the apartment.” He continued. “Apparently I have pet monkey now.”

I nodded. It could explain how Danny was able to afford a place like this. Not many people would be crazy enough to keep a chimpanzee as a pet, but Danny was definitely one of those people.

“I just need to keep him happy by supplying him enough bananas. Isn’t that so David?” That last part was addressed to the chimp.

The chimp turned his head around and growled as he showed his teeth. He put up his right arm and gave us the middle finger.

“You named him after me?” I asked with slight resentment.

Danny shook his head. “I’m just fooling around with him. I don’t know what his name is. But I can tell from his reaction that he doesn’t like yours.”

“Good.” I replied.  

“What’s he doing at that desk?” I asked as the chimp turned his attention back to whatever was in front of him.

“I think he’s writing poetry or something. He might be the next Shakespeare.”

The chimp suddenly screamed and threw his arms in the air. He nodded a couple of times and seemed to be smiling.

“I think he likes that name” Danny said with a big smile on his face.

“Did you just say that this chimp is capable of writing poetry?” I asked with disbelief.

“He printed a few pages yesterday, but it was mostly profanity. So I don’t think he’s very good at it. But what can you expect from a chimpanzee?”

With that said Danny walked out the door and went back to moving his stuff into the apartment.  

During the first weeks after Danny had moved into his apartment, we mostly hung out at my place or at a nearby bar. He claimed that he hadn’t finished unboxing yet. Maybe he was embarrassed about his rather basic living conditions (we hadn’t moved a lot of furniture into the apartment) or maybe the monkey didn’t like him having visitors over. Whenever I brought up the chimp he tried to steer away from the subject as quickly as possible. After a while I stopped asking about him. I knew Danny well enough to know that he wouldn’t tell me anything if he didn’t want to talk about it.

A couple of months had passed when Danny finally invited me over to his place. He sounded very excited on the phone and wanted me to come over to have a look at his new interior. The next day went to his apartment and entered what could only be described as the ultimate man cave. All the old furniture was gone and the whole apartment looked like a crossover between a bar and an arcade hall. There was a huge television installed in the living room, connected to one of the best surround systems available. He had replaced his old, rickety dining table with a top end pool table. The walls in the apartment were decorated with neon signs, just like in bars. In the back of the room the chimp was still sitting at his old desk. He played around with a banana while he was staring at the laptop screen in front of him.

I tried to get a little bit closer so I could read some of his work, but Danny pulled me back in the living room.

“He doesn’t like it when other people look at his screen while he’s working. Just wait until he prints something.”

“Is he still writing poetry?”

“I don’t know.” Danny replied. “But I do know that I can still beat you at pool. Are you up for a game?”

I knew he was dodging the question, but I let it go and grabbed a cue.

“Bring it on.” I replied.

During the game Danny didn’t brag much about his new-found wealth, but I knew that he didn’t had a lot of money when he moved into this place. Every time I brought up the subject, he tried to dodge it and claimed that he had been working hard and that it was finally paying off. I kept pressuring him a little on giving me some more information about his workplace, claiming that I could also use the money for some long-due renovations.

Danny grinned as he made a failed attempt to pocket the 8 ball.

“I knew that you would be too smart to pull this off.”

“Just be honest.” I replied. “Are you dealing drugs or something?” The 8 ball was perfectly lined up to finish off the game on my next turn.

Danny laughed out loud.

“No, I’m not dealing drugs! You know I don’t that stuff anymore.”

“So what’s the story?” I took the shot and the 8-ball disappeared in the corner pocket as intended.

Danny pointed with his cue towards the chimp as he retrieved the balls and setup the table for a re-match.

“One day I got home and I found Shakespeare behind my laptop.” Danny casted an angry look at the chimpanzee.

“I tried to get him off, but that crazy monkey threatened to throw his feces at me.”

I completely missed the opening shot.

“I haven’t used my laptop since that incident. And I’m not touching that keyboard again until I’ve replaced it. But when I checked my bank account a few days later, I discovered that someone had transferred 3000 dollars to my account.”

He potted two balls and just missed a third ball.

“Since then, I’ve been receiving multiple transactions a week. And you want to know what’s even stranger about all those transactions?”

“No” I replied while I failed another attempt.

“The first transaction had Coriolanus as it’s description. The second had Hamlet and the third had Macbeth as payment description.”

“Aren’t that all plays by Shakespeare?”

“That’s correct. I think the monkey has found a way to earn money with his profane banana poetry.”

“But why would he transfer all that money to your account?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he feels guilty about ruining my laptop? Or maybe he just wants me to keep buying him bananas?”

“Something doesn’t seem right to me.” I replied with concern.

“Hey man, who cares? I’m living a dream! The party never stops when a man has this much money. And talking about a party: do you want to relive some good old memories and go out tonight? It seems your luck at the pool table is running low, maybe you should try your luck somewhere else tonight?”

I sighed as I realized the second game was a total loss for me. I made a foul on the 8-ball and called it a night.

“You’re right. It’s getting late and I should go home. I think I’ll try my luck over there.” I said with a fake smile.

Danny shrugged his shoulders.

“Do like I do and don’t worry about it too much. If you’re ever in need of money, we’ll see if we can transfer some of Shakespeare’s royalties over to your account.”

I said goodbye to Danny and took one last look at his apartment.

I didn’t know it then, but it would be my first and last time I visited his apartment. I didn’t hear from him again for several weeks, but I wasn’t alarmed as it had happened before. I assumed he had gone back to his old habits and was out partying all night long.

A couple months had passed by when I received a phone call from an unknown number. It was Danny and he sounded hung over at first. He almost whispered and his voice sounded fragile. He immediately apologized and made a few failed attempts to turn words into a coherent sentence.

I asked him if he was on drugs, but he only started to cry.

“No.” he finally mumbled. “I’m in jail.”

And so my story about Danny comes to an end.

The FBI had arrested Danny two days after my visit. They were chasing down leads to a computer hacker who had hacked several bank accounts all over America. The traces had led them to Danny’s apartment. Danny claimed he didn’t know anything about the hacks. But he couldn’t provide the investigators with a valid explanation for the mysterious bank transfers to his account. Nobody believed his story about Shakespeare, the chimpanzee.

A judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison for multiple violations under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

In total more than 3 million dollars was stolen by the hacker. The investigators were only able to recover about fifty thousand dollars that was transferred to Danny’s account.

During his last phone call from prison Danny asked me what I thought of his story.

“I don’t know.” I answered truthfully. I didn’t recall seeing any of Shakespeare’s poetry. The fact that a chimp would be able to hack a bank account seemed a little absurd to me. But did that mean that Danny hacked into those bank accounts?

“Well, you were always smarter than me.” He answered as he hung up the phone.

I never heard from Danny again.