Welcome to Bevo’s Fake Nuts, our weekly column on the Texas Longhorns.
Sorry, guys. We aren’t going to talk about Iowa State much this week. We can’t talk about Iowa State much this week. We’re already running a column twice its normal length. Bigger things are happening right now than the race for fourth place in the Big 12. (Shoutout, though, to Moro Ojomo, who told the press yesterday he hopes God knows how hard the Horns are playing. I think He knows, sir.)
Our story begins…I’m not sure where this story begins. An emotional support monkey allegedly bit a child. That monkey belongs to the girlfriend of Texas’s special teams coach, Jeff Banks. That girlfriend has been on the Jerry Springer Show, because that girlfriend used to (?) be an exotic dancer who went by the name “Pole Assassin.” The monkey, Gia, has appeared on stage with Pole Assassin.
As you may be noticing, the context adds a lot to the monkey-bites-child story here. A monkey bit a child in Austin? Not the biggest news. That monkey belongs to the girlfriend of a Texas assistant football coach? News. That girlfriend is named Pole Assassin? The most captivating story this town has seen in…man, I don’t know. I’m not sure what compares.
Often, when stories like these break, we’re left with a lot of questions and few clear answers. The rumor mill does its thing. Speculation becomes narrative. And yes, sure, there’s some of that happening here. But for the most part, we seem to know what happened, because Pole Assassin, before she deactivated her Twitter account, told us. Over the course of a couple hours last night, we got pretty much the entirety of Pole Assassin’s side of the story. I compiled screenshots of her comments here, so if you’re looking, they’re there, but the Sparknotes are:
- On Sunday, Pole Assassin set up a haunted house/maze for trick-or-treaters and their families on the side of her house. Entrants were, according to Pole Assassin (look I’m sorry I don’t know her real name), instructed to walk to the gate in the back, turn around, and walk back.
- One child, an 11/12 year-old boy (obviously), reportedly went through the gate in the back. He reportedly walked past the pool. He reportedly opened a gate that said “DO NOT ENTER! Emotional Support No Touching.” He allegedly stuck his hand in Gia’s cage. Gia bit him.
- Pole Assassin, again, said she had no knowledge of this on Sunday. She only found out on Monday, when she received a call from a doctor saying he’d treated the child for a monkey bite. For those wondering, Gia was reportedly vaccinated against whatever emotional support monkeys are supposed to be vaccinated against (Pole Assassin said she’s familiar with all the laws surrounding emotional support animals, and follows them). Importantly, Pole Assassin said last night that she’d heard nothing from the parents of the child.
Is every detail Pole Assassin shared true? I don’t know. This is our understanding of the story, but it’s early, the story is still potentially ongoing (we’ll see if the parents do anything), etc. etc. Lot of caveats here. Still, the fact we have one of the main characters seemingly confirming that her pet monkey bit a child and both confirming details of the story and filling in gaps makes us fairly confident in at least our baseline understanding of what happened. A monkey bit a child at the home of a Texas assistant football coach whose girlfriend, who professionally went by the name Pole Assassin, owned said monkey.
There are three storylines here, as far as I can discern.
The first is what happens to the kid. Is the kid ok? If the kid really did pass through a gate he wasn’t supposed to pass through, did he learn his lesson? Is the kid still a Texas fan? Was the kid a Texas fan in the first place? Will the kid be more of a Texas fan now? How does the kid feel about monkeys, speaking generally, and how does that compare to how he felt about monkeys on Sunday morning?
The second is what happens to the monkey. Is Gia going to get in any legal trouble for this? Was the story true as it was told by Pole Assassin, and if so or if not, how is legal responsibility divided between Gia/Pole Assassin/bitten child/bitten child’s parents, and what does that mean for the monkey’s life and liberty? Will Pole Assassin’s relationship with Coach survive this incident? If it doesn’t, how will Gia’s life be changed?
The third is the fun part, and that’s what happens to the University of Texas. Not any more directly involved than employing the person upon whose property the incident occurred, how involved will the Longhorns choose to be? If Banks really does turn out or would have turned out to be a target for Washington State’s head coaching job, as at least one pundit recently suggested, what impact does this event have? Does Wazzu want to avoid association with Gia? Does Wazzu want to create some association with Gia? If Banks leaves Texas, does that hurt Texas’s special teams unit next season? If Banks stays at Texas, does that help the Horns? Are we going to look back on this in ten years as an event that changed the course of college football in America, or was this just one of the stranger Halloweens in our lifetimes?
Hopefully, the child and Gia are both ok. Hopefully, everything resolves peaceably. But hopefully, we get Steve Sarkisian having to talk about this all week, and Texas players having to talk about this all week, and beat reporters swinging in months from now with updates in the Gia vs. Trespassing Haunted House-Goer saga.
These are the things you want to be stories when you’re 4-4.
