Pan Satyrus

CHAPTER TWELVE

This is Bill Dunham, my friends, and in a minute I'm going to have to turn the microphone over to my friend and colleague, Iggie Napoli— you there, Iggie? — and become a participant in these great stirring events.

I'm sorry we didn't get a better picture of the parade from City Hall to here at the Court House, but I've never seen so much ticker tape and waste-paper in my life. You know, that's a fact, they call it a ticker-tape parade, but the people in the offices here in downtown Manhattan don't just drop ticker tape — they empty their wastebaskets, and until you've been conked by an old typewriter ribbon dropped from thirty stories, you don't know what TV coverage is, friends.

At least since the ballpoint pen, we don't get bombarded with nearly as many empty ink bottles as we used to.

Now we're approaching the court, and I can see Judge Manton out on the white marble steps to greet us. Our other camera will show you that, there it is, and now back to us and Pan Satyrus here on the seat beside me. How does it feel to be about to become a legal human being?

Well, if you don't feel like talking, Pan, how about a smile for the camera? No. I guess this is a pretty solemn moment, for old Pan. That's his name, you know, he does not like to be called Mem, skipper of the Mem-sahib.

This is Iggie Napoli, good people, on the steps of the Court House, and the man you see in between us and the approaching motorcade is Judge Paul Manton, who is going to grant Pan Satyrus his legal humanship.

We were cut off from inside the limousine, but that was to be expected, the engineers tell me that working down in these man-made canyons of steel and concrete — ferro-concrete they say in England — the video waves get mighty tricky. Audio, too, I guess, because it sounded like the voice of Bill Dunham, my old friend and colleague, faded out on us. And that's a voice we've all grown to know and love in the many, many years Bill Dunham has been coming to us over the air waves. I don't know how long Bill has been talking to the American people, but I wouldn't be surprised if he'd carried his microphone to Grant at Richmond."

Standing in front of me is Judge Paul Manton, of the sovereign state of New York, the man who is going to grant old Mem his legal humanity. That right, Judge? I got the right language there?

"I think just plain citizenship would cover it, Mr. Napoli. The mayor has already made Mem an honorary citizen of New York, but this is the legal process that confirms it. Of course, you understand, his age makes it advisable that—"

Excuse me, Judge. The limousine is here, and Patrolman Hugh Callahan, oldest active patrolman on the New York Police Force, New York's finest, is about to open the door.

That is Master Chief Bates of the U.S. Navy getting out and smiling — and looking into our camera. And that is Radioman First Class Michael Bronstein right behind him. Now comes old Mem, the pilot of the Mem-sahib.

Radio Control here in Network City. Our remote unit at the Court House seems to be cut off, and while they get back on the air, let me fill you in on a little of the background of this great ape who is about to become a great American. Great ape is right, for Mem is a chimpanzee who…