Then, one balmly evening in July, Johnny became aware of activity in the central court, which he could see through the arcade from the feline house to the restaurant. A couple of keepers were shepherding four chimpanzees. Presently a couple of sea lions slithered around from the gate in the fence around their pool. And then came a couple of slinking shapes: the two coyotes. Johnny could hear a murmur of talk, human and animal. Johnny called over one of the keepers.
The man explained: "Sure, the boss tells us to let 'em out in the evenings so they can get together for a couple of hours. We got a big wire fence around the whole grounds, so they can't get away."
"Why can't we get out, too?" asked Johnny.
"I dunno. We ain't got no orders to let you out."
At the next opportunity, Johnny took the zoo director, Pound, to task for discriminating against the bears.
Pound said: "Your friend, Ewing, warned us against letting you and McGinty get near each other."
Johnny protested: "So what? McGinty's ze one who's started trou-bre each time. So why should we be punished?"
"We-el," said Pound, "I'll speak to Malone about it."
But Malone was not much help. He kept saying: "I don't know. I can't make up my mind about it. If I could only be sure that there wouldn't be any quarrels—"
"Kobuk wirr keep ze bears in order, I guarantee."
Malone went off, muttering about the harshness of a fate that forced him to make decisions. Eventually he returned, announcing that McGinty had said he'd be glad to have the bears join the circle. The elephants were about due to be added, and Malone got them to promise to keep order.
Johnny was surprised but not convinced by McGinty's cordiality. He was sure that it would take very little to start the chimp off on another tantrum. So he and his bears were rather silent spectators at the evening meetings. The other animals told of their experiences, and asked each other innumerable questions about scenes in their pasts which at the time they had lacked the intelligence to understand.
McGinty suggested that they call themselves "the Emancipated."
"Hey, Johnny!" hissed McGinty.
Johnny's keen ear caught the inflections of secrecy and suppressed excitement."Huh?" he said suspiciously.
"How would you like to do some real exploring this evening?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, how about our taking a little trip around the park, all by ourselves?"
"You mean to sneak out?"
"Sure."
"What's ze idea? Ewing wirr take you for a drive anywhere you want, when he has time."
"Oh, to hell with Ewing! Aren't you sick of having men lead you around like an unemancipated puppy dog?"
"Werr," said Johnny. Come to think of it, he was a good deal more restricted in his movements than he had been at the St. Croix Biological Station. That these limitations hadn't galled particularly was due to the fact that you could immobilize Johnny almost indefinitely by giving him a big enough pile of books to read. But still— "No, I sink not. It wourd cause too much troubre if we were caught."
"Oh, come on!"There's a place over that way, I hear"—McGinty waved west—"where men meet all night long to denounce things. It'll be fun."
Johnny's curiosity was stirred. The relationships of human beings to their rulers fascinated him, but his information on the subject was entirely secondhand from books. This might be an opportunity to get next to the actual workings of these relationships. "How would you get out?"
McGinty snickered in the twilight."I stole a set of keys. I won't tell you how. But we'd be back before anybody missed us."
"Werr—" Johnny's prudence struggled valiantly with his curiosity, -but as usual his curiosity won."Aw right."
Then the keepers came to lock them into their cages.
When it was quite dark, and Johnny's fellow bears were all asleep, Johnny heard a grunt from in front of his cage, and then the click of the lock. He went out. McGinty, shivering with excitement, unlocked the gate in the big wire fence, and the two set out for Columbus Circle. They avoided the paths and the few people still at large in Central Park.
When they reached Columbus Circle, they could see the black masses of people attending the meetings, sure enough. But the meetings were south of the statue of Christobal Colon in the center of the Circle; Johnny and McGinty couldn't get close enough to hear what was going on without coming out in the open.
Johnny, peering nearsightedly over the low stone wall that bounds the Park, voiced his disappointment.
McGinty's excitement reached a fever pitch."Say, Johnny, let's go on over, anyway."
"What?"Exclaimed Johnny."You know zere wourd be a riot as soon as we appeared."
"To hell with that. What's life without an occasional riot? Scared to take a chance?"
"Yes," admitted Johnny."And you'd better be, too."
"Phooey. You've been obeying men so long you think anything they say is right. I'm going, anyway." And before Johnny could protest any more, McGinty was over the wall and on his way to the crowds.
Speeches were being made by representatives of five minor political parties. The Salvation Army was going full blast next to the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, and an elderly Englishman was delivering a highly inaccurate lecture on astronomy. The nearest speaker represented the Left Opposition of the Right Wing of the recently purged Left Deviationists of the Communist Party. He was a young man with a small blond beard. If the beard was an attempt to look like Karl Marx, the young man— who answered to the name of Pfusch —had a long way to go.
McGinty trotted up to Pfusch's crowd. Naturally his presence attracted attention, and in almost no time the Circle's one cop came over. He saw McGinty, blew his whistle, and fumbled for his pistol.
"What's the matter?" asked McGinty.
"Gluk," said the cop, staring at him pop-eyed.
"I said, what's the matter?"
"Oh," said the cop."You're one of these here talking animals, huh?
Thought I was hearing things foist. Whatcha doing here?"
"Just sightseeing," said McGinty.
"Oh, just sightseeing, huh? Well, you don't do no more 'just sightseeing. ' "
"I'm not hurting anybody," said McGinty."Please, can't I just listen?"
The cop thought. Getting the chimpanzee back to wherever he belonged would present a problem."Well, you stay where I can keep an eye on you, and no monkey business."
McGinty looked insulted."I am not a monkey. I'm an ape."
"It's all the same to me. Any monkey business, and I'll run you in."
Comrade Pfusch was at a hopeless disadvantage as long as McGinty was competing for the attention of his audience. They began crowding around McGinty, asking questions like: "Say, buddy, how does it feel to be an ape?"
McGinty called up to Pfusch: "Go on, I'm listening."
Pfusch tried: "These people, who call themselves Marxists, are intellectually bankrupt, as I explained. A real Marxist organization welcomes constructive criticism.... Say, officer, can'tcha take that ape away? He's busting up my meeting."
"Huh?" said the cop, feeling suddenly more friendly toward McGinty."Why should I? He ain't doing nothing."
"I demand that you take him away. I got a right to free speech, haven't I?"
"Go ahead and speech. I ain't stopping you."
"See, comrades? That shows you how much your so-called constitutional guarantees are worth. Well, as I was saying, where were these people in 1959? Recommending revolution at a time when a dialectical analysis showed that a revolutionary situation did not exist. Treachery to the working class, obviously. Then ih 1964, when these traitors, these lackeys of the bourgeoisie— Say, officer, you gotta take the monk away."