not sleepy
“Stella,” I say after Julia and her father go home, “I can’t sleep.”
“Of course you can,” she says. “You are the king of sleepers.”
“Shh,” Bob says from his perch on my belly. “I’m dreaming about chili fries.”
“I’m tired,” I say, “but I’m not sleepy.”
“What are you tired of?” Stella asks.
I think for a while. It’s hard to put into words. Gorillas are not complainers. We’re dreamers, poets, philosophers, nap takers.
“I don’t know exactly.” I kick at my tire swing. “I think I may be a little tired of my domain.”
“That’s because it’s a cage,” Bob tells me.
Bob is not always tactful.
“I know,” Stella says. “It’s a very small domain.”
“And you’re a very big gorilla,” Bob adds.
“Stella?” I ask.
“Yes?”
“I noticed you were limping more than usual today. Is your leg bothering you?”
“Just a little,” Stella answers.
I sigh. Bob resettles. His ears flick. He drools a bit, but I don’t mind. I’m used to it.
“Try eating something,” Stella says. “That always makes you happy.”
I eat an old, brown carrot. It doesn’t help, but I don’t tell Stella. She needs to sleep.
“You could try remembering a good day,” Stella suggests. “That’s what I do when I can’t sleep.”
Stella remembers every moment since she was born: every scent, every sunset, every slight, every victory.
“You know I can’t remember much,” I say.
“There’s a difference,” Stella says gently, “between ‘can’t remember’ and ‘won’t remember.’”
“That’s true,” I admit. Not remembering can be difficult, but I’ve had a lot of time to work on it.
“Memories are precious,” Stella adds. “They help tell us who we are. Try remembering all your keepers. You always liked Karl, the one with the harmonica.”
Karl. Yes. I remember how he gave me a coconut when I was still a juvenile. It took me all day to open it.
I try to recall other keepers I have known—the humans who cleaned my domain and prepared my food and sometimes kept me company. There was Juan, who poured Pepsis into my waiting mouth, and Katrina, who used to poke me with a broom when I was sleeping, and Ellen, who sang “How Much Is That Monkey in the Window?” with a sad smile while she scrubbed my water bowl.
And there was Gerald, who once brought me a box of fat, sweet strawberries.
Gerald was my favorite keeper.
I haven’t had a real keeper in a long time. Mack says he doesn’t have the money to pay for an ape babysitter. These days, George cleans my cage and Mack is the one who feeds me.
When I think about all the people who have taken care of me, mostly it’s Mack I recall, day in and day out, year after year after year. Mack, who bought me and raised me and says I’m no longer cute.
As if a silverback could ever be cute.
Moonlight falls on the frozen carousel, on the silent popcorn stand, on the stall of leather belts that smell like long-gone cows.
The heavy work of Stella’s breathing sounds like the wind in trees, and I wait for sleep to find me.
the beetle
Mack gives me a new black crayon and a fresh pile of paper. It’s time to work again.
I smell the crayon, roll it in my hands, press the sharp point against my palm.
There’s nothing I love more than a new crayon.
I search my domain for something to draw. What is black?
An old banana peel would work, but I’ve eaten them all.
Not-Tag is brown. My little pool is blue. The yogurt raisin I’m saving for this afternoon is white, at least on the outside.
Something moves in the corner.
I have a visitor!
A shiny beetle has stopped by. Bugs often wander through my domain on their way to somewhere else.
“Hello, beetle,” I say.
He freezes, silent. Bugs never want to chat.
The beetle’s an attractive bug, with a body like a glossy nut. He’s black as a starless night.
That’s it! I’ll draw him.
It’s hard, making a picture of something new. I don’t get the chance that often.
But I try. I look at the beetle, who’s being kind enough not to move, then back at my paper. I draw his body, his legs, his little antennae, his sour expression.
I’m lucky. The beetle stays all day. Usually bugs don’t linger when they visit. I’m beginning to wonder if he’s feeling all right.
Bob, who’s been known to munch on bugs from time to time, offers to eat him.
I tell Bob that won’t be necessary.
I’m just finishing my last picture when Mack returns. George and Julia are with him.
Mack enters my domain and picks up a drawing. “What the heck is this?” he asks. “Beats me what Ivan thinks he’s drawing. This is a picture of nothing. A big, black nothing.”
Julia’s standing just outside my domain. “Can I see?” she asks.
Mack holds my picture up to the window. Julia tilts her head. She squeezes one eye shut. Then she opens her eye and scans my domain.
“I know!” she exclaims. “It’s a beetle! See that beetle over there by Ivan’s pool?”
“Man, I just sprayed this place for bugs.” Mack walks over to the beetle and lifts his foot.
Before Mack can stomp, the beetle skitters away, disappearing through a crack in the wall.
Mack turns back to my drawings. “So you figure this is a beetle, huh? If you say so, kid.”
“Oh, that’s a beetle for sure,” Julia says, smiling at me. “I know a beetle when I see one.”
It’s nice, I think, having a fellow artist around.
change
Stella is the first to notice the change, but soon we all feel it.
A new animal is coming to the Big Top Mall.
How do we know this? Because we listen, we watch, and most of all, we sniff the air.
Humans always smell odd when change is in the air.
Like rotten meat, with a hint of papaya.
guessing
Bob fears our new neighbor will be a giant cat with slitted eyes and a coiled tail. But Stella says a truck will arrive this afternoon carrying a baby elephant.
“How do you know?” I ask. I sample the air, but all I smell is caramel corn.
I love caramel corn.
“I can hear her,” Stella says. “She’s crying for her mother.”
I listen. I hear the cars charging past. I hear the snore of the sun bears in their wire domain.
But I don’t hear any elephants.
“You’re just hoping,” I say.
Stella closes her eyes. “No,” she says softly, “not hoping. Not at all.”
jambo
My TV is off, so while we wait for the new neighbor, I ask Stella to tell us a story.
Stella rubs her right front foot against the wall. Her foot is swollen again, an ugly deep red.
“If you’re not feeling well, Stella,” I say, “you could take a nap and tell us a story later.”
“I’m fine,” she says, and she carefully shifts her weight.
“Tell us the Jambo story,” I say. It’s a favorite of mine, but I don’t think Bob has ever heard it.
Because she remembers everything, Stella knows many stories. I like colorful tales with black beginnings and stormy middles and cloudless blue-sky endings. But any story will do.
I’m not in a position to be picky.
“Once upon a time,” Stella begins, “there was a human boy. He was visiting a gorilla family at a place called a zoo.”
“What’s a zoo?” Bob asks. He’s a street-smart dog, but there’s much he hasn’t seen.
“A good zoo,” Stella says, “is a large domain. A wild cage. A safe place to be. It has room to roam
and humans who don’t hurt.” She pauses, considering her words. “A good zoo is how humans make amends.”
Stella moves a bit, groaning softly. “The boy stood on a wall,” she continues, “watching, pointing, but he lost his balance and fell into the wild cage.”
“Humans are clumsy,” I interrupt. “If only they would knuckle walk, they wouldn’t topple so often.”
Stella nods. “A good point, Ivan. In any case, the boy lay in a motionless heap, while the humans gasped and cried. The silverback, whose name was Jambo, examined the boy, as was his duty, while his troop watched from a safe distance.
“Jambo stroked the child gently. He smelled the boy’s pain, and then he stood watch.
“When the boy awoke, his humans cried out, ‘Stay still! Don’t move!’ because they were certain—humans are always certain about things—that Jambo would crush the boy’s life from him.
“The boy moaned. The crowd waited, hushed, expecting the worst.
“Jambo led his troop away.
“Men came down on ropes and whisked the child to waiting arms.”
“Was the boy all right?” Bob asks.
“He wasn’t hurt,” Stella says, “although I wouldn’t be surprised if his parents hugged him many times that night, in between their scoldings.”
Bob, who has been chewing his tail, pauses, tilting his head. “Is that a true story?”
“I always tell the truth,” Stella replies. “Although I sometimes confuse the facts.”
lucky
I’ve heard the Jambo story many times. Stella says that humans found it odd that the huge silverback didn’t kill the boy.
Why, I wonder, was that so surprising? The boy was young, scared, alone.
He was, after all, just another great ape.
Bob nudges me with his cold nose. “Ivan,” he says, “why aren’t you and Stella in a zoo?”
I look at Stella. She looks at me. She smiles sadly with her eyes, just a little, the way only elephants can do.
“Just lucky, I guess,” she says.
arrival
The new neighbor arrives after the four-o’clock show.
When the truck comes lumbering toward the parking lot, Bob scampers over to inform us.
Bob always knows what’s happening. He’s a useful friend to have, especially when you can’t leave your domain.
With a groan, Mack lifts the sliding metal door near the food court, the place where deliveries are made.
A big white truck is backing up to the door, belching smoke. When the driver opens the truck, I know that Stella is right.
A baby elephant is inside. I see her trunk, poking out from the blackness.
I’m glad for Stella. But when I glance at her, I see she is not glad at all.
“Stand back, everyone!” Mack yells. “We’ve got a new arrival. This is Ruby, folks. Six hundred pounds of fun to save our sorry butts. This gal is gonna sell us some tickets.”
Mack and two men climb into the black cave of the truck. We hear noise, scuffling, a word Mack uses when he’s angry.
Ruby makes a noise too, like one of the little trumpets they sell at the gift store.
“Move,” Mack says, but still there is no Ruby. “Move,” he says again. “We haven’t got all day.”
Inside her domain, Stella paces as much as she’s able: two steps one way, two steps the other. She slaps her trunk against rusty metal bars. She grumbles.
“Stella,” I ask, “did you hear the baby?”
Stella mutters something under her breath, a word she uses when she’s angry.
“Relax, Stella,” I say. “It will be okay.”
“Ivan,” Stella says, “it will never, ever be okay,” and I know enough to stop talking.
stella helps
The men are still yelling. Some of the yelling is at each other, but most of it is at Ruby.
We hear scrambling, pounding, shifting. The side of the truck shudders.
“I’m starting to like this elephant,” Bob whispers.
“I’m getting the big one,” Mack says. “Maybe she can coax the stupid brat out of the truck.”
Mack opens Stella’s door. “Come on, girl,” he urges. He unties the rope attached to the floor bolt.
Stella pushes past Mack, nearly knocking him over. She rushes as best she can, limping heavily, toward the open back door of the truck. She catches her swollen foot on the edge of the ramp and winces. Blood trickles down.
Halfway up the ramp she pauses. The noise in the truck stops. Ruby falls silent.
Slowly Stella makes her way up the rest of the ramp. It groans under her weight, and I can tell how much she is hurting by the awkward way she moves.
At the top of the incline she stops. She pokes her trunk into the emptiness.
We wait.
The tiny gray trunk appears again. Shyly it reaches out, tasting the air. Stella curls her own trunk around the baby’s. They make soft rumbling sounds.
We wait some more. A hush falls over the entire Big Top Mall.
Thud. Thud. Step, step, pause. Step, step, pause.
And there she is, so small she can fit underneath Stella with room to spare. Her skin sags, and she sways unsteadily as she makes her way down the ramp.
“Not the greatest specimen,” Mack says, “but I got her cheap from this bankrupt circus out west. They had her shipped over from Africa. Only had her a month before they went bust.” He gestures toward Ruby. “Thing is, people love babies. Baby elephants, baby gorillas, heck, give me a baby alligator and I could make a killing.”
Stella ushers Ruby toward her domain. Mack and the two men follow. At Stella’s door, Ruby hesitates.
Mack gives Ruby a shove, but she doesn’t budge. “Doggone it, get a clue, Ruby,” he mutters, but Ruby isn’t moving, and neither is Stella.
Mack grabs a broom. He raises it. Instantly, Stella steps in front of Ruby to shield her.
“Get in the cage, both of you!” Mack shouts.
Stella stares at Mack, considering. Gently but firmly, using her trunk, she nudges Ruby into her domain. Only then does Stella enter. Mack slams the door shut with a clang.
I see two trunks entwined. I hear Stella whispering.
“Poor kid,” says Bob. “Welcome to the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, Home of the One and Only Ivan.”
old news
When Julia comes, she sits by Stella’s domain and watches the new baby. She barely talks to me.
Stella doesn’t talk to me either. She is too busy nuzzling Ruby.
She is cute, little Ruby, with her ears flapping like palm leaves, but I am handsome and strong.
Bob trots a circle around my belly before settling down in just the right spot. “Give it up, Ivan,” he says. “You’re old news.”
Julia gets out a piece of paper and a pencil. I can see that she is drawing Ruby.
I move to the corner of my domain to pout. Bob grumbles. He doesn’t like it when I disrupt his naps.
“Homework,” Julia’s father scolds. Julia sighs and puts her drawing aside.
I grunt, and Julia glances in my direction. “Poor old Ivan,” she says. “I’ve been ignoring you, haven’t I?”
I grunt again, a dignified, indifferent grunt.
Julia thinks for a moment, then smiles. She walks over to my domain, to the spot in the corner where the glass is broken. She slides papers through. She rolls a pencil across my cement floor.
“You can draw the baby elephant too,” Julia says.
I bite the pencil in half with my magnificent teeth. Then I eat some paper.
tricks
Even after Julia and her father leave, I try to keep sulking. But it’s no use.
Gorillas are not, by nature, pouters.
“Stella?” I call. “It’s a full moon. Did you see?”
Sometimes, when we are lucky, we catch a glimpse of the moon through the skylight in the food court.
“I did,” Stella says. She is whispering, and I realize that Ruby mu
st be asleep.
“Is Ruby all right?” I ask.
“She’s too thin, Ivan,” Stella says. “Poor baby. She was in that truck for days. Mack bought her from a circus, the same way he bought me, but she hadn’t been there long. She was born in the wild, like us.”
“Will she be okay?” I ask.
Stella doesn’t answer my question. “The circus trainers chained her to the floor, Ivan. All four feet. Twenty-three hours a day.”
I puzzle over why this would be a good idea. I always try to give humans the benefit of the doubt.
“Why would they do that?” I finally ask.
“To break her spirit,” Stella says. “So she could learn to balance on a pedestal. So she could stand on her hind legs. So a dog could jump on her back while she walked in mindless circles.”
I hear her tired voice and think of all the tricks Stella has learned.