The One and Only Ivan

artists

Here in my domain, I do not have much to do. You can only throw so many me-balls at humans before you get bored.

A me-ball is made by rolling up dung until it’s the size of a small apple, then letting it dry. I always keep a few on hand.

For some reason, my visitors never seem to carry any.

In my domain, I have a tire swing, a baseball, a tiny plastic pool filled with dirty water, and even an old TV.

I have a stuffed toy gorilla, too. Julia, the daughter of the weary man who cleans the mall each night, gave it to me.

The gorilla has empty eyes and floppy limbs, but I sleep with it every night. I call it Not-Tag.

Tag was my twin sister’s name.

Julia is ten years old. She has hair like black glass and a wide, half-moon smile. She and I have a lot in common. We are both great apes, and we are both artists.

It was Julia who gave me my first crayon, a stubby blue one, slipped through the broken spot in my glass along with a folded piece of paper.

I knew what to do with it. I’d watched Julia draw. When I dragged the crayon across the paper, it left a trail in its wake like a slithering blue snake.

Julia’s drawings are wild with color and movement. She draws things that aren’t real: clouds that smile and cars that swim. She draws until her crayons break and her paper rips. Her pictures are like pieces of a dream.

I can’t draw dreamy pictures. I never remember my dreams, although I sometimes awaken with my fists clenched and my heart hammering.

My drawings seem pale and timid next to Julia’s. She draws the ideas in her head. I draw the things in my cage, simple items that fill my days: an apple core, a banana peel, a candy wrapper. (I often eat my subjects before I draw them.)

But even though I draw the same things over and over again, I never get bored with my art. When I’m drawing, that’s all I think about. I don’t think about where I am, about yesterday or tomorrow. I just move my crayons across the paper.

Humans don’t always seem to recognize what I’ve drawn. They squint, cock their heads, murmur. I’ll draw a banana, a perfectly lovely banana, and they’ll say, “It’s a yellow airplane!” or “It’s a duck without wings!”

That’s all right. I’m not drawing for them. I’m drawing for me.

Mack soon realized that people will pay for a picture made by a gorilla, even if they don’t know what it is. Now I draw every day. My works sell for twenty dollars apiece (twenty-five with frame) at the gift shop near my domain.

If I get tired and need a break, I eat my crayons.