Pan Satyrus

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"You shouldn't a done it, Pan," Ape said. "That Network Company ain't gonna love you. First you knock out their top spieler, and then you tear the lid off their camera outfit. It ain't nice."

"I don't like being called Mem," Pan said simply. He set down the judge he was carrying, and asked, "Can you walk now, Mr. Justice?"

"Yes. I think so. I. this is contempt of court, sir."

"Just call me Pan. Oh, Dr. Bedoian." The doctor hurried forward. "Yes, Pan?" "See if the judge needs your services." "No, no, I'm quite all right," the judge said. "These are my chambers here. The actual ceremony is going to take place in the courtroom, of course, but I thought we could get the preliminaries over with. If you'll just have a seat, Mr. Pan."

"It's Mr. Satyrus. But just call me Pan, and I'll sit on this filing case here."

The judge sidled into his ample, high-backed swivel chair, a replica of the one out on his bench.

"Age, seven and a half; that makes your birthdate, yes. Name of parents?"

"My mother was Caged Pan Satyrus, my father was Wild Pan Satyrus."

The judge looked at him. "Now, really."

Pan Satyrus reached down and plucked one of the brass pulls off the filing case, and tossed it in a corner.

I'd hardly know you, Pan," Dr. Bedoian said, "You used to be so gentle."

"I got — what is it, Happy?"

Happy said, "He got kicked around too long and too hard. I mean — he used to have kind of a low opinion of people—"

"A contempt," Pan said. "I used to have contempt for people. Not for you three, and not for a few keepers and attendants I had. But I find I'm developing a real hatred—"

"Gentlemen, please," Judge Manton said.

"Do not call me a gentleman! I'm a chimpanzee."

"Chimpanzee and gentlemen, there's a large crowd waiting in my courtroom. A large and distinguished crowd. Now, Mr. Satyrus, the purpose of this proceeding is to make you a legal human being. Because of your tender age, Mr. William Dunham is your guardian. And where is he, by the way?"

"We left him in the limousine," Pan Satyrus said. "He was broadcasting a lot of nonsense about me, and then it got to be patronizing nonsense, and I pushed my fingers into his solar plexus, and he went to sleep. Right, doctor?"

"He's not seriously injured, judge," Dr. Bedoian said.

"But he has to be here," the judge said. "He has to sign the papers making him your guardian."

"I don't want a guardian," Pan said.

"But you're only seven and a half."

"Make me twenty-one," Pan said. "You're a judge; if you can make me a legal human being, make me legally of age, too."

"I can see you have never studied law. There is absolutely no precedent for that!"

"And there is for making a chimpanzee into a legal human?"

"If I were, under duress, to declare you twenty-one — please lay down that filing case — the appellate court would overrule me at once."

"In the meantime, I would be drawing ten thousand a week," Pan said. "And then, if the decision went against me, they couldn't sue to recover it, because a seven-year-old person is not responsible."

"You have studied law," Judge Manton said.

"Let me state it more briefly than a lawyer would: make out the right papers, sign and seal them, and you get to go out in your robes and pose before the television cameras. With me and with a very pretty — I guess — actress. Don't do what I tell you, and you get throttled and perhaps killed by an irresponsible chimpanzee who has not yet reached his eighth year. Simple?"

"This is worse than what La Guardia did to Tammany," the judge said. But he picked up a pen and began writing. From time to time he grunted. When he was finished, he said, "My clerk has to put the seal on these."

"All right," Pan said. "Ring for him."

The judge pressed a button. The clerk came in, a middle-aged wardheeler, and went out again and brought his seal in, and pressed the papers between the leaves of the seal. The doctor and Happy witnessed the papers, and they were handed over to Pan Satyrus.

He shuffled them around a while after reading them, but he was wearing no pockets. He handed them to Ape to keep for him.

"Welcome to the human race," Ape said.

Pan gave him what might have been a smile.

"Fair enough, Judge," he said. "Go out and get on your bench, and I'm sure your clerk here will show us where we enter,".

The judge went out. "Want a tranquilizer, Pan?" Dr. Bedoian asked.

"You're very thoughtful, Aram," Pan said. "We missed you down in Florida. Later on, I'll tell you about my career as a gigolo. I made over ten dollars."

"And now you're going to make ten thousand every week. Why?"

Pan twitched a luminous eye from Ape to Happy and then he winked at Dr. Bedoian. "I have retrogressed," he said.

"Devoluted."

Pan shrugged.

The clerk was holding a door for them. They went through it, and were in the courtroom, alongside the bench. A tense, whispering voice came at them: "This is Iggie Napoli, good people, and there in your screen is the great Pan Satyrus, as he likes to be called, about to join us in the human race! A great moment for him, I don't know whether it's greater than when he flew around the world, but maybe I'll get a chance to ask him.

"The two naval men behind him are his great good friends Chief Bates and Radioman Bronstein, and the civilian is his personal physician, Dr. Aram Bedoian, and see, they are lining up in front of the judge's bench, and the judge — I'll let you hear him."

"Pan Satyrus, raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear allegiance to the United States of America? And to no other country?

"Then I pronounce you a citizen."

"There, folks, it's all over, and the judge is leaving the bench, so court's dismissed, and there is Jane Beth, who got the nod from the Network this morning to be the leading lady in Pan Satyrus' television show and she's introducing herself."

"Pan, darling, I'm Jane Beth."

"I have seen you on television.

"Oh, you darling for saying that. I'm going to play your owner in a darling new show that the Network has prepared for us, 'Beauty and the Beast'."

"That's darling, Miss Beth, and may I ask you a question?"

"Yes, dear, anything, anything at all."

"Do women have fur under their dresses, or are they all bare like their faces?"

"Oh-I-well-"

"No hair at all on their bodies?"

"This is Iggie Napoli and I'm turning you over now to Bill Dunham, whose show this is. I've just been filling in. Take it, Bill."

"Bill Dunham coming at you, friends. I'll fill in. Judge Manton's coming back into the courtroom without his robe and—'Somebody stop that ape, he's pulling my dress off!'—a little interference there, friends, we have to expect it on these remote broadcasts, but we'll get straightened out. Judge, you wanta hold up this paper for a closeup of you and—"