A Beautiful Truth (22 page)

Dusty watched Looee rest his chin on the dark blue cardboard. He watched him pick it up and bite it and sway back and forth on his feet. Looee screamed and wanted to throw the cardboard out of the cage and he smashed it for ten minutes against the grid but he couldn’t get the cardboard out of his space.

Dusty was afraid and impressed and he later wanted to push a small piece of old chow through the cagewall to Looee but he ate it.

Bill gave Dusty a drinking straw. Dusty played with it for many hours and wanted to give it to Looee. He pushed it partway through the grid.

Looee sat in the far corner of his cage and saw the white straw moving. He ignored it. He looked at nothing and scratched his chest and was the embodiment of arrogance.

More of the straw poked through until it fell on the floor of his cage. He reached for the straw and sucked on it and remembered the taste of Coke and looking up to Walt.

He sat back in the corner of his cage and stared at the dogperson who had given him the straw. He stared for longer than he ever had and fell asleep staring.

He awoke and found the straw and almost dropped it through the floor of his cage, not understanding that if it fell it would be lost forever.

Dusty saw Looee holding the straw.

He moved towards their shared wall making noises of deference and greeting. Looee made those noises himself whenever he wanted someone to be his friend and recognized them in the dogperson.

Looee played with the straw on his belly and nibbled on it. He moved closer to the shared gridiron and the dogperson held out his hand. Looee pushed the straw back through the grid and Dusty took it and panted. He put it across his top lip and saw Looee bobbing his head. Looee thought it was hilarious to see an animal doing tricks and his bobbing turned to a manic joy which Dusty was proud to see.

Looee wanted the straw back. He banged the cage with the back of his hand and gestured for it. He hated the way the dogpeople never spoke to him. Dusty sent it back and Looee stared at it. He
sent it back to Dusty and touched his lip so he would do that trick again and Dusty made Looee laugh.

Dusty turned his back to Looee and pressed it against the grid. He wanted Looee to groom him and he tapped his shoulder. The grid was too narrow for them to get their fingers through.

They had periods of not being tested or moved or knocked down.

PCP was no longer used to anaesthetize them because people were getting high on it and its use in laboratories was abolished. The chimpanzees were now universally anaesthetized with ketamine.

Bill gave Dusty a rubber eraser which he gnawed on and smelled and when he felt the rubber he masturbated.

Looee couldn’t find the straw in his cage and couldn’t see it in the dogperson’s. It had fallen through the floor of his cage and was lying on the plastic dropsheet two feet below. Looee pressed his face against the metal floor and tried to figure out how he could reach down to the straw. He called to the dogperson and called to the straw.

He no longer willingly entered the transfer boxes. The cages in Congo were squeezecages—a rear grid was pushed forward until Looee was forced into the box that met the gate in front.

He nonetheless went through times when he sought to befriend the labworkers just as Dusty did with him. They were the ones he had most in common with. They wore clothes, could talk, had power over the dogpeople. He held up pieces of monkey chow when they passed as a gesture of friendship.

And now he flies at them and can’t be liquid enough. He will eat their bloated stomachs.

He goes from one extreme to the other, is how the enrichment coordinator on CID puts it. Makes friends sometimes, and sometimes lashes out.

Bill had a sense that Looee liked people more than chimps and heard he had been raised in a family home. Bill left a Sears catalogue in his cage while Looee was involved in a procedure and when Looee returned he ejaculated on it.

Living rooms.

Hedge trimmers.

Bras.

The catalogue was removed at next cleaning.

Two hundred feet away on the Reproductive Wing they were reminiscing about what everyone called the first wild birth. In the field station, a chimp named Mama had given birth, without help, to a girl.

This place. This cup of sound.

Mr. Ghoul used to sit with Podo and watch the World’s leaves and muscles enliven. Birds and insects and electric piccolos heeming in summer heat.

Fifi complaining to Magda about Bootie’s constant noise.

Jonathan whimpering and manoeuvring for Fifi’s generous squeeze.

Thunder, and they all worked together after a storm to make a ladder of fallen branches. They rested the ladder against the electric tree and they could reach those leaves they never reached before, and they celebrated all as one.

When Rosie disappeared, Mr. Ghoul sat with Podo, quiet, and the vitreous layer of sadness in Podo’s eyes went soft again over time.

Sit with him.

Most of the good sounds have gone.

Dave is in that building, but he doesn’t come close anymore.

Mr. Ghoul used to crack nuts for Podo and felt Dave saying good job.

Dave and Podo are watching.

They should sit with him.

When the children pester and the women don’t notice me.

Sit here.

I’ll look into your mouth for you.

I want to show you something.

Podo was the World.

He was a rich population of virtue and mistakes, and neighbours kind and cruel.

There is open space where there used to be thousands of him.

A weak blue sky and yellow dust.

They watch Mr. Ghoul sit through days. He lies by the greybald tree and tries to feel Podo from the ground.

My friend.

Jonathan gets hard and spits triumph and confusion into Magda’s anaesthesis. He flicks grass at her when he’s finished.

What do you do when you get what you want.

Jonathan steps testily out each day and tries to make the others aware of his enormity, and what looks like power feels like fear. He looks over his shoulder and thinks Podo might be waiting in the grove. He circumscribes his movements and pulls back others who wander.

Burke tastes lapsy-dulchy pictures of Podo’s demise, black fermented berries in the mouth.

He backhands Bootie.

Mr. Ghoul walks straight from his bedroom to the greybald tree, limping. He picks away grass like he is plucking the ground of its youth and his own black hair falls out over days. He moves in slow circles before he sits and he sleeps and drools on the piebald ground, and ticks make a home of him.

There is no unity. No one touches except Mama and the new one.

Mr. Ghoul lies on his back and sleeps. He dreams of plastic trees and windows. Podo wears a ponytail and tells Mr. Ghoul to put it in a sentence.

Jonathan sees Fifi moving towards the shady grove and he goes to her and pushes her away from it. She does not understand.

Burke sees that Jonathan is afraid of the shady grove. He walks towards it and Jonathan gets restless, and Burke sits still and thinks. They sit near each other, and with hair half-raised Jonathan invites him closer. Burke grooms Jonathan.

He moves around in front of Jonathan, who is looking away and trying to be majestic. He begins to trust Burke.

Jonathan doesn’t like the way Mr. Ghoul limps in circles. It reminds him of Podo. Jonathan moves away and turns his back. Burke stands up and moves to Mama and the new one, and scares them.

When he turns he sees that Jonathan too is bloning and gigantic and Burke makes himself large again and they square off. Both are standing on two legs and Jonathan, the taller, rushes at Burke, brings his arm above Burke’s goon and bluffs over him.

Burke is chastened. He makes noises of apology and wounded pride, touches Jonathan’s mouth, and they groom.

They groom for an unusually long time. Jonathan is proud and anxious and tries to see pictures of what might happen. He wants Burke’s respect. Each is busy with the other’s schemes.

Mama, Fifi and the new one sit at a distance from the men. They wonder what scenes are being woven by those hands. Fifi goes to Magda feeling that if anyone can join the men for comfort it is Magda. They greet and Magda understands Fifi’s curiosity. They slowly approach Burke and Jonathan.

Burke does not want women around. As if by prearrangement he and Jonathan swell and bark simultaneously. They fling their arms and chase the women away and renew their strengthening contract.

Stay here lest I hate you.

There is more space without Podo, and more space can feel like more confinement.

Jonathan and Burke see Mr. Ghoul in the company of Mama and the young girl.

Fifi and Bootie join the others and play with the new one. As they move they feel they must look towards Jonathan and Burke.

The men see the group gathering as they groom.

Burke begins to display. Jonathan stands and the two of them grow and Burke begins to blacken a path away from Jonathan but connected to him. Burke picks up a fallen branch and pounds the ground with it. Jonathan sways and runs to a tree and drums its trunk with his feet.

This is the new order. They are not displaying to intimidate each other.

Fifi hugs Mama.

Jonathan is older and knows what to look for when someone tries to take whatever is his. He watches Mama and Fifi, everyone trying to settle after the noise. He does not trust Mr. Ghoul. He wants him away from Mama and away from the greybald tree and memories of Podo. He looks over his shoulder where he thinks Podo might still be. He feels the fingers of Burke and gains confidence.

He stands again, twice his normal size, and he makes a run at Mr. Ghoul. He runs over him.

Mr. Ghoul did not expect to be hit and he rolls on the ground feeling weak.

He sits alone by a different tree and his mouth tastes like a penny.

Melons and bundles are thrown from the roof and they land among fists and teeth. All of them grab and scratch and look over their shoulders and there is guilt and confusion in taking.

Normally they would gather around the heavy bundles and savour their leaves in groups. Burke drags a bundle and drowns it near the blue wall. Mama and Fifi scream and so does Jonathan. They go to the pokol-fear and stare at the soaking sticks and Jonathan runs at Burke.

He cowers at Jonathan’s approach and remembers later that Fifi and Mama screamed at him. He grooms Jonathan and he attacks the women when Jonathan isn’t looking.

Jonathan pins Fifi and the afternoon widens like an artificial smile.

Mr. Ghoul shakes in his legs and shoulders when he walks and doesn’t know where to sit. Jonathan hates the way the women go to him, and the way he is walking like Podo. He runs at him and Mr. Ghoul is scared.

The new one goes to Mr. Ghoul and sits with him. She grooms him with a taste for play and her sweet bright face brings colour to his sight. He tickles her sides and she laughs. She wriggles on her back and he prevails above her, avuncular, a storied old tree in an otherwise empty field.

On the periphery Burke is bluffing and clearing a path towards them, sweeping stones and twigs away with a long swinging arm as he puts his weight on the other. Mr. Ghoul tries to keep a playful face and not be intimidated, but when he sees Burke’s approach he shows his teeth in fear and the new one sees Burke fly above her, an airplane into a tower.

Burke bites Mr. Ghoul’s neck and holds him to the ground face down. He jumps up and down on Mr. Ghoul’s back and Fifi and Mama hug and cry as they see their old friend screaming.

Jonathan and Burke focus on Mr. Ghoul to avoid fighting with each other. They don’t let him rest or think. They corner him and beat him, they set him up as a common enemy and are stronger and closer for it.

Mr. Ghoul is better than this. His memories are bigger than these days.

Burke waits near the hole, and when Mr. Ghoul comes out of the tunnels in the morning Burke runs at him from the side. Every morning, before he steps out to the World, he has to think of Burke.

Bootie and the new one play like Burke. The new one goes into the hole to the tunnels and jumps back out, and Bootie runs at her. He bluffs and stomps and tries to be scary and the new one wants to try but Bootie doesn’t let her. Bootie is Burke.

They rumble. It’s funny. Bootie hurts her.

Fifi and Mama watch them with concern and Magda is nowhere to be found.

Burke sees Fifi, Mama and the young ones gathered and he runs at them.

Mama tries to bite him, and he grabs her by the wrist.

He wants to pull off Mama’s arm and beat her with it.

He swings her by the wrist and throws her.

No one can find a scream that makes a difference.

From above they note that Ghoul walks with a limp as if his right foot has been injured.

He remembers Podo and walks like Podo in the view of Jonathan, and Jonathan cannot stand it. Mr. Ghoul limps to Fifi and Jonathan runs at him.

Mr. Ghoul crouches and tries to protect himself and hopes the hitting will stop.

Later, when Burke is asleep, Mr. Ghoul walks low to Jonathan and offers a salaam. If Jonathan would meet his gaze he would see pictures of the past.

These trees were smaller once.

Was Mr. Ghoul not one of the first to see all this.

He will not bow to impudent Burke.

He doesn’t leave his bedroom for three mornings. There is no longer food inside.

Burke runs him down when he emerges. He stands over Mr. Ghoul and chases him and the older man stumbles and the ground insults his face.

He is hungry but can’t eat and he sucks on his cheek and drinks the red salt.

He sits on his own. Jonathan will not let him sit with the women.

A sociogram is prepared after six months. It is clear from the graphic that Mr. Ghoul is completely isolated—the only association with others of more than ten percent is with the juveniles.

Two researchers study the sociogram and conversation drifts to family and how much it can mean sometimes just to get a phone call.

The new one ranges far from Mama now. She is broader and thinks more and more about what is beyond the wall. She goes away with Bootie to the shady grove. She wants to sit with Mr. Ghoul but Burke chases her away.