“Not unless I get an invitation from someone. Until I hear otherwise, I’m here on an informal basis, too.”
“You could have fooled me!”
* * *
This time fled had left the door unlocked for me. I remember feeling, as I turned the knob, that she must have at least a tiny appreciation of human courtesy. That notion went directly to hell when I stepped inside and found her ‘surprise’ waiting for me. Fled had brought a visitor. I shouted involuntarily, “Jesus Christ!”
“Nah. His name is ‘okeemon’. Accent on the ‘o.’ He’s a bonobo.”
I started to repeat, “A bonobo?” but caught myself in time and swallowed, instead. “Uh—hello, Okeemon.”
“They’re also called pygmy chimpanzees, or hippie chimps—they tend to settle their disputes through sex, rather than violence. Not very human of them, is it?” I was wondering whether I should offer a handshake, but of course fled intercepted this. “Just come closer so he can see and smell you better.”
I hesitated.
“C’mon, gino, trust me. He won’t bite you. Not unless I ask him to, anyway.”
Reluctantly I took a little step toward him.
“C’mon, c’mon.”
I stepped closer. The bonobo’s eyes swept slowly over my vulnerable body, and his nostrils twitched a bit. I tried to remember whether I’d ever seen one of these creatures in a zoo. In any case, I had never been this close to one, or any other zoo animal for that matter. I began to sweat. But before I could make a sound, he reached out and grabbed me firmly by the cojones. I finally managed to squeak, “What’s— What’s he doing here?”
Okeemon released his grip and stepped back. I started to breathe again. Fled, for her part, grinned broadly. “I thought you might want to talk to him.”
“He talks?”
“Not in English, doc. Nor any of your other human languages. I’ll translate for you.”
“Uh—what should I talk to him about?”
Fled gave me what could only be interpreted, in any language, as a look of disgust. “You’re a human being, doc. Can’t you think of anything you want to know about him and all the others of his species?”
“Oh. Yes, I see what you mean. All right, Okeemon. Uh, do you want to sit down?”
After mumbling something unintelligible to him, fled immediately answered, “No.” Evidently she was saving me (and him) some time by reading his answers directly from his head.
I, however, needed to sit, and I dropped into the desk chair. “Where are you from, Okeemon?”
After a couple more guttural noises: “The forest.” Fled elaborated, “The Congolese rain forest.”
“Do you have a family?” Fled rolled her eyes. I rephrased the question. “How many children do you have?”
“Twelve.” Okeemon’s eyes showed an undeniable sadness.
“Are they all living in—uh—the forest with you?”
“No. Some of them are dead, and others have been taken away.”
“Where have they been taken?”
Fled scrunched up her brow again. “Mostly to zoos and labs and restaurants,” she replied drily. Apparently she was answering that one for herself. “Go ahead—ask him about his life in the forest.”
I decided to cooperate; I just wanted to get the interview over with. “What is life in the forest like for you?”
“It is beautiful. I take deep breaths all the time.” Fled added, “That means he is very happy living there.” She mumbled something else to Okeemon, and then said, for him, “Until the humans come.”
“What do the humans do?”
“They end us. They take our children.”
“I see…. Interesting….” It was hard to concentrate under the circumstances. “Fled, I really don’t know what you’re expecting me to ask him.”
“All right, my slow-witted friend, I’ll save you the trouble of trying to think. Okeemon is literally your nearest relative. Genetically, I mean. Take a good look at him. You’re not likely to get this close to a bonobo again in your lifetime. Or anyone else’s lifetime. There are only about 5,000 of them left in the wild. You’re looking at a being with 99% of the same DNA strands as you yourself have. Even by your own chauvinistic reckoning, he has the intelligence of a five-year-old human child. You’re looking at yourself! Or the way you could have been—should have been—had you not, through an evolutionary accident, evolved into a monster. Look at him!”
I looked. Okeemon gazed back at me. When our eyes met, I could tell, or thought I could tell, that he was thinking the same thing I was: we’re not so different really. Not in any important way.
Fled interrupted our silence. “Why in the WORLD would you want to kill him?”
“I don’t want to kill him!”
She stared at me coldly. “Does the word ‘naïve’ mean anything to you, doctor b? Get serious—you regularly go to war and kill eachother! And everyone else is fair game, too.” She spat on the floor. “One thing I’ve learned about homo sapiens, doc. You’re all responsible for the actions of the few. You all choose the leaders who decide the policies of your governments. You all interact in whatever ways are the most beneficial financially to yourselves and to others who are already rich. You could do something about the killing of your nearest relatives on EARTH. In fact, you could stop it if you wanted to. You just have to give a fuck.”
I stared at her. “Goddamn it, fled, I give a fuck!”
“Really, gino? When was the last time you put pressure on your congressman or your president, or anyone else, to do something to stop the bushmeat trade?”
“The— Oh, you mean the bonobo— All right! I haven’t done that. The fact is, I didn’t know about it. Not specifically, anyway.”
“Not many humans do. Or want to. You’re all too busy with more ‘important’ things. Like what’s on the boob tube tonight.”
“Okay, okay! I’ll write to my congressman! Happy?”
“I’ve got a better idea: start electing congressmen who give a fuck!”
“And that’s why you brought Okeemon in today? To help you lobby for the next election?”
“Not entirely. You could call it a sociology lesson.”
“What about our session? We were going to continue the hypnosis—”
“We’ll do that on Wednesday.”
“Will Okeemon be here then?”
“I doubt it. He doesn’t like cities much, for some reason. He tells me the vibes are all wrong. Too bad you can’t feel them.”
“So you’re taking him home?”
“Any minute now. You want to go with us? See why he loves the forest so much?”
“Uh—maybe next time….”
She murmured something to her guest, who briefly bared his teeth, which looked formidable. He stepped toward me. I flinched. He reached out again, and I thought he was going to give my genitalia another squeeze. Instead, he felt my face, my shirt, checked my hair for insects. I could smell him. It was a not an altogether unpleasant aroma.
“Go ahead,” fled coached. “He wants you to get to know him, too.”
Cautiously I laid a hand on his shoulder. His hair felt rough. I moved it down to his shoulder blades. He bent over.
“Go on—he wants you to scratch his back. This may be your only chance to do that!”
He inched closer. I thought: no more mushrooms—ever—for me! But I complied. He seemed to enjoy it, twitching a muscle here and there, though he made no sound at all. Just relaxed, with his head down.
Fled said something to him and he ambled back to where she was standing. She wrapped her own hairy arm around his shoulders. “See you later, doc,” she chirped. Before I could respond, she pulled a tiny mirror from somewhere and stepped toward the window with Okeemon. In another moment they were gone.