The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore - Benjamin Hale [110]
Rita gradually galumphed into the room to collect our dishes. Mr. Lawrence thanked her, and she refreshed our beverages. Hilarious Larry tilted back in his chair and began picking at his false teeth. Larry lazily radiated the air of a comfortably entitled patriarch. Clever Hands stared out the window at the sparkling pockets of mountain snow in the near distance. For her part, Hilarious Lily gazed absently, not out the window like Clever, but into a knot of nothingness floating somewhere above my left shoulder—thinking, presumably, of God.
“We acquired Larry and Lily together from the circus not long after we bought this ranch and started the foundation,” said Mrs. Lawrence. “They’ve been with us for ten years. We consider them family. We bought Clever a few years later.” Clever’s interest in the conversation perked up slightly at the sound of his name. “And Clever of course you know, if only by reputation. He’s modest. He doesn’t even realize how famous he once was.”
Clever shrugged humbly and smiled, then resumed his staring out the window. It was clear that although he couldn’t talk, Clever essentially understood human conversation. His was a silence not of any cunning, or fear, but of listening.
“After he was retired from the language acquisition experiments,” Mrs. Lawrence continued, “he was passed from one place to another until he eventually wound up at a wildlife sanctuary in Texas, where he was the only chimp. A social animal—alone. It was as if he had been imprisoned in solitary confinement, and never told what crime he was charged with. He went insane from loneliness and boredom. His hair was falling out. We bought him four years ago and brought him here to the ranch. He’s been so much happier since he’s been given back his freedom and has Larry and Lily to play with.”
As his wife spoke Dudley Lawrence was tilting back in his chair, rocking it with his foot, and twiddling the ends of his mustache. I looked from Mr. Lawrence to Larry and back again, and gathered at once where my fellow enculturated chimp had picked up his mannerisms. Larry behaved much like an oldest and beloved son, imitating his father. Then Mr. Lawrence wrapped his hands together behind his shiny bald head and began to move his elbows symmetrically in and out, like the wings of a butterfly, and soon thereafter Larry—probably subconsciously—copied these postures and motions as well.
I heard from somewhere nearby an unnerving clicking noise. I looked in the direction from whence I perceived the noise: what I had heard was the sound of a dog’s toenails clicking on the wooden floors, a sound that heralded the approach of the dog that made it. It was a medium-sized and intensely furry black and gray dog, with sweet wet black marbles for eyes and a blue bandana knotted around its neck like a bandit’s.
“Hey, Sukie,” Mr. Lawrence affectionately intoned upon the entrance of the dog. He decanted the angle of his chair until each of its four legs was again in contact with the floor. The dog clicked its way across the floor and rested its furry head on Mr. Lawrence’s knee.
I was startled at the sight of this animal. I had never before been in such close contact with a dog—at least not in an interior space. I had seen them in parks in Chicago before, but always at a distance, for ordinarily creatures of the canine ilk were distrustful of me and tended to keep their distance. Not this dog, though. Apparently this dog was accustomed to cohabiting not only with humans but also with enculturated chimps, and thus was not put off by my unusual appearance. Noticing me sitting not far away from its master, this dog soon lifted its servile and loving head from the cushion of Mr. Lawrence’s leg, and came clicking and panting directly up to me. I recoiled, not from disgust as much as confusion and alarm. Lydia sensed my discomfort.
“Is he friendly?” asked Lydia.
“She’s perfectly friendly,” Mr. Lawrence said. “She loves to play with chimps.”
Lydia reached out to the dog and stroked the thick