Pan Satyrus

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The walks in the Bronx Zoo — the New York Zoological Park, to be formal — are wide enough to take a car, or even a truck. On ordinary days pickups go slowly among the strolling visitors, emptying trash cans, carrying food to the animal houses, servicing small maintenance jobs.

But this was no ordinary day. Now a procession of civic limousines rolled along towards the Primate House, each one flying a tiny American flag on one front fender, a flag of the great City of New York on the other.

In the second car, flanked by Ape and Dr. Bedoian, Pan Satyrus rode, staring moodily at the back of Happy Bronstein's neck.

As they had left the court, the driver had held himself stiff, his elbows squared. Even a man could read apprehension in his shoulders; Pan could smell it in his sweat.

But Pan Satyrus had reached forward and patted the chauffeur's shoulder with delicate caution. "Don't be afraid," he said. "Happy, next to you, can tell you; I won't hurt you."

"Yeah, that's right."

"Yes, sir."

"No," Pan said. "You mean that thing with the girl back there, that actress? She wanted to show off. She was showing off. She was being so sweet and patronizing to me I nearly vomited half-digested bananas in her face. So I helped her. Now she was shown off past all her shining dreams: the first actress to appear before a television camera in nothing but her stockings. That is all she had on under her dress."

"I had to stay with the car," the driver said.

"Too bad, my friend. I don't suppose they'll be re-running that shot on the Late Late Show. But don't be afraid of me. Haven't you ever wanted to tear a girl's dress off?"

"Sure."

"What men want to do, chimpanzees do."

The driver relaxed, and they had made the rest of the trip in silence. Crowds had lined the street all the way; but Pan had contented himself with an occasional wave of his long hand. Several women had thrown kisses at him, and one of them had slipped through the lines of guarding policemen and clung to the open car window. But the cops had removed her with her dress intact.

It was not until they had come into the guarded ways of the Zoo that anyone spoke again, and then it was Dr. Bedoian. "You've changed, Pan. I don't think being famous has done it, but something has."

"You have taken care of a great many chimps, Aram."

"I liked you better than any patient I ever had."

Pan Satyrus started. "That hurt, a little," he said, and then he looked down at his hands, neatly folded between his legs, crossed tailor-fashion. He looked out the window. "When I was very, very little, there was a vet who used to take me out to play under those trees," he said. "When the park was closed."

"You aren't going to answer my question."

"Yes. Yes, Aram, I am. But I'm not sure. I retrogressed, devoluted. I am not fully a chimp. But maybe I should have gone around and around the world for the full twenty-four hours. Then 1 would be completely man. Or for forty-eight hours and been a general or a television actor. They can be completely content, I think, with position, whether it means anything or not."

There are exceptions," Dr. Bedoian said.

I do talk too much, don't I? It was compulsion, at first. But did you notice, I never said a word all the way up here? Maybe my compulsion has worn off. Maybe I am going to be all pongida again."

Ape moved uneasily from his seat on the left side of the limousine. "Lay off, doc. You're makin' Pan unhappy."

"1 am a general practitioner. An internist, I suppose, though I've set a few bones in my time. This is a job for the psychiatrists, the boys who make their living making the patient do the work for himself. I think it's a hard way of making a living."

"Beautifully put, doctor," Pan said.

"Even I got that, doc," Ape seconded.

The driver turned to Happy. "I carried a lot of guys in this heap, sailor, but never none that talked like that back there."

"Stick around," Happy said.

"I gotta. The hack's checked out to me."

"I lack insight, doctor?" Pan asked.

"Let's put it this way: take a quick check of yourself, or somebody is very likely going to have to shoot you. Ape or legal man."

"That I got," the driver said.

"All right," Pan said. "But supposing I can't do anything about it?"

Dr. Bedoian made a derisive noise. "I suppose you had an attendant or a night watchman who was reading books on psychopathology? You're a psychotic, or psychopathic. personality? Don't hand me that, Pan."

Pan Satyrus stared out the window. "The Lion House," he said. "I used to make up fantasies about them. We could hear them at night, and smell them, and I would tell myself I was going to kill a tiger or a lion when I grew up… By the time I was eighteen months old, I knew better. We're nearly to the Primate House."

"Home, sweet home," Dr. Bedoian said. "You didn't answer my question."

"Oh, no," Pan said, "I am not crazy. But I am a chimpanzee. And at my age, we become unmanageable. Remember?"

Ape Bates said, "Aw—" in a low growl. The driver's back stiffened, and he speeded up rill he was right on the bumper of the lead car.

Dr. Bedoian raised his voice for the first time. "You are not a chimp!"

Pan Satyrus curled his long lip. The lead car had pulled out of line, and stopped, facing the Primate House. Their driver pulled in alongside. A little knot of grave-looking men was waiting in front of the house.

"What am I?" Pan asked. "A man?"

Ape and Happy got out of the car, stood at attention, as became man-o'-war's men.

Pan moved to get out, but Dr. Bedoian put a hand on Pan's powerful forearm. "You are my friend," he said. His voice was soft, but conclusive.

Pan turned towards him. His curious eyes — the "whites" darker than the iris — glowed. He said, "Thanks, Aram. Try and get me out of this. But if you can't, and they shoot me — don't take it too hard. Let me do my own suffering. I am a chimpanzee, Pan Satyrus, and it is impossible for us to remain happy in captivity, once youth is past."

Then he hopped out of the car, catching Happy and Ape's hands and swinging clownishly forward to meet the directors and staff of the New York Zoological Society.