the grate of my cage, and the fetid flap of carpet I was sitting on began to smell worse. I stuck my tongue out to catch the thin needles of rain. I became wet. A moment later I felt myself being hoisted up again and taken inside the building. The heavy door sighed shut behind us and the atmosphere immediately became clean and quiet and dry, though the halls were noisy with the echoes of pounding raindrops. Lydia carried me through a labyrinthine network of bright hallways. Her wet sneakers scrunch-scrunch-scrunched on the floors. She stopped before two metal doors in which I saw our fuzzy reflection, and it scrolled open onto a tiny metal room. We got in and she put me on the floor, pushed a button, and the doors closed. Then a bizarre swooping sensation in my interior organs.
Bing
, the doors opened, she lifted my cage again and took me down another passageway, scrunch-scrunch-scrunch, until we arrived at another door, with a series of symbols printed across a smoked-glass window,which I would much later learn spelled: 308 BEHAVIORAL BIOLOGY LABORATORY . In we went. Lydia knelt on the floor and unlatched my cage, and as the door opened I tumbled out. She picked me up. She smiled, she kissed my head. Lydia was drenched, trinkets of water dappling her face, her blond hair dark, sopping, and flaccid.
We were inside a clean, bright, spacious room, furnished with several islands of long rectangular tables, on which sat computers and other kinds of lab equipment. The room was made of four whitewashed walls, two of which featured whiteboards all scrawled over with shapes and symbols in red, green, and black marker, and two of which featured wide tall windows that could not be opened. The echoes of rain crackling and drumming on the roof warbled around in the big room, and waves of water chased each other down the sides of the windows, warping the view of what lay outside the building, which involved an expanse of green grass and several trees. One of the long tables was pushed against a wall, and on it sat a large cage fashioned from thin metal bars. The floor was of shiny salmon-pink vinyl tile. A big blue squishy mat lay in one corner of the room, on which was scattered a collection of brightly colored toys. Voices conversed; wet sneakers scrunched and squeaked; white fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and cast rectangular reflections on the shiny floor; human bodies moved around in the space. I realized that I had been in this room before.
There were other humans in the room. They crowded around to have a look at me. Lydia introduced me to a man whom I recognized from the day of the peaches. She took my rubbery little hand and held it out to him for a mock handshake, and the man gently smothered it in the hot flesh of his own fat hand and smiled.
“Bruno,” said Lydia, “this is Norm. I believe you two have met each other before. Norm is the director of the Behavioral Biology Lab. Norm is a very smart man.”
“Hello, Bruno,” said Norm, as he relinquished my hand to me.“It’s an extraordinary pleasure to meet you. Do you remember me from our peaches experiment?”
I proffered him no reply.
“You showed us that day that you are a very interesting little guy, Bruno. You just might be a very important chimp.”
He smiled at Lydia and she smiled brightly back. I saw something in this exchange of faces between them that I did not like. Lydia took off her glasses and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
This man was Dr. Norman Plumlee. Remember that name. He was taller than Lydia but not by much, and I think he was in his late forties at the time. His face was porcine and buttery, the top of his head shiny and bald. Curly salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than pepper, wrapped around the back and sides of his head and curled over the ears into a kempt and understated beard that traced the edges of his jaw and encircled his mouth and looked like a crust of burnt toast. Unstylish glasses clamped the sides of his
Bing
, the doors opened, she lifted my cage again and took me down another passageway, scrunch-scrunch-scrunch, until we arrived at another door, with a series of symbols printed across a smoked-glass window,which I would much later learn spelled: 308 BEHAVIORAL BIOLOGY LABORATORY . In we went. Lydia knelt on the floor and unlatched my cage, and as the door opened I tumbled out. She picked me up. She smiled, she kissed my head. Lydia was drenched, trinkets of water dappling her face, her blond hair dark, sopping, and flaccid.
We were inside a clean, bright, spacious room, furnished with several islands of long rectangular tables, on which sat computers and other kinds of lab equipment. The room was made of four whitewashed walls, two of which featured whiteboards all scrawled over with shapes and symbols in red, green, and black marker, and two of which featured wide tall windows that could not be opened. The echoes of rain crackling and drumming on the roof warbled around in the big room, and waves of water chased each other down the sides of the windows, warping the view of what lay outside the building, which involved an expanse of green grass and several trees. One of the long tables was pushed against a wall, and on it sat a large cage fashioned from thin metal bars. The floor was of shiny salmon-pink vinyl tile. A big blue squishy mat lay in one corner of the room, on which was scattered a collection of brightly colored toys. Voices conversed; wet sneakers scrunched and squeaked; white fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and cast rectangular reflections on the shiny floor; human bodies moved around in the space. I realized that I had been in this room before.
There were other humans in the room. They crowded around to have a look at me. Lydia introduced me to a man whom I recognized from the day of the peaches. She took my rubbery little hand and held it out to him for a mock handshake, and the man gently smothered it in the hot flesh of his own fat hand and smiled.
“Bruno,” said Lydia, “this is Norm. I believe you two have met each other before. Norm is the director of the Behavioral Biology Lab. Norm is a very smart man.”
“Hello, Bruno,” said Norm, as he relinquished my hand to me.“It’s an extraordinary pleasure to meet you. Do you remember me from our peaches experiment?”
I proffered him no reply.
“You showed us that day that you are a very interesting little guy, Bruno. You just might be a very important chimp.”
He smiled at Lydia and she smiled brightly back. I saw something in this exchange of faces between them that I did not like. Lydia took off her glasses and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
This man was Dr. Norman Plumlee. Remember that name. He was taller than Lydia but not by much, and I think he was in his late forties at the time. His face was porcine and buttery, the top of his head shiny and bald. Curly salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than pepper, wrapped around the back and sides of his head and curled over the ears into a kempt and understated beard that traced the edges of his jaw and encircled his mouth and looked like a crust of burnt toast. Unstylish glasses clamped the sides of his
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