by Ginny Rorby
“Now, Joey. They have all sorts of humane guidelines for those places.”
“What do you know about them?” Joey cried. “How humane can they be to take an animal, any animal, but especially Sukari, who’s known one kind of life, and shut her in a cage and poison her? What guidelines do they have for that, Mom? What could they possibly do to make that okay?”
“You’re shouting.” Ruth arched her scarred eyebrow and shook a finger at her. “Don’t use that tone of voice with me.”
“Tone? I’m not allowed to be angry?”
“I did what I thought was best. We couldn’t take her. I thought she’d have a good home with Lynn.”
“But when she didn’t have a good home, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just thought it would hurt you. I mean, what could we do? They should have put her to sleep.”
“She’s still a baby, not an old sick dog.”
“Joey, you’re not being fair to me.”
“Fair to you? Being fair to you is not at the top of my list right now, Mom.”
“Why did he leave the responsibility for her up to you, anyway? A child.”
“He didn’t plan to die as soon as he did.”
“Well, still.”
“Sukari trusted me, don’t you see? That’s the really bad part. She only had me to count on.”
Her mother’s head snapped back as if Joey had struck her. She turned to put Luke’s glass in the sink, but missed. It shattered against the edge of the counter, slicing her finger. Blood dripped onto the floor, unnoticed by her mother. “You’re twisting this around and making it about me and your father.”
“You’re the one doing the twisting. This isn’t about what you did or didn’t do for me. It’s about…” Joey stopped, realizing that she did believe it was the same, and recognized that the anger she harbored had just been ripped from somewhere deep inside and now lay raw and exposed between them.
Joey stared at the bloody puddle growing at her mother’s feet. “You’re bleeding.”
Ruth looked down, then back at Joey in surprise, as if the blood were from the wound Joey had just then inflicted. She reached blindly for the dishtowel and wrapped it around her hand. “You’ve never forgiven me, have you?” Tears welled.
“Forgiven what?” Luke asked. He was sitting on the counter watching the TV in the corner by the cookbooks.
“Turn that off and go upstairs,” Ruth said.
“A dirty, smelly man followed me today.”
“Go!” Her mother pointed toward the stairs.
“I ran to get away from him but he found me again. He thought it was funny that I was afraid of him in broad daylight on a busy street. I could smell him and he could smell me.”
Ruth’s face filled with concern. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”
Joey shook her head. “But you know something. I’m afraid of most men. Not Ray or Charlie, though I was at first. Strange men.”
“You need to be. There are crazies out there.”
“I know I should be afraid on some level, but not the way I am. There’s caution and then there’s this … this terror.” She punched her own stomach. “Today, I felt that terror.”
Ruth squeezed her eyes shut. “Did anyone help you?”
“No one noticed at first.” Joey looked straight at her mother. “He was so disgusting that I thought he might be Daddy.”
Ruth, with her towel-wrapped hand raised, gnawed her bottom lip but said nothing.
Joey walked over and pulled some paper towels from the roll by the sink. “When I was running from him, I thought he was really tall, you know, a big man. But when I stood up and faced him, he was little and kind of shriveled, like somebody real old, except he wasn’t.” She squatted down and dabbed at her mother’s blood. “Some people stopped and he ran away.” She looked up. “But I had already won.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d quit running.”
A look came to her mother’s eyes. Joey had seen the same look in the eyes of the homeless men in San Francisco, sitting like rocks in a stream, their backs to a wall, still breathing but finished with living. “I wish I knew what that felt like,” Ruth said.
No lights were on in the living room and the only light on in the kitchen was the one over the stove. Joey and her mother were standing by the sink with their arms around each other when the high beams of Ray’s truck came down the driveway, exposing the room as if a flash had gone off.
Ruth wiped her eyes and turned away from the glare. Luke barreled down the stairs and out the front door to meet him. Joey waved before he doused the headlights.
* * *
The next morning, Ruth began calling the list of places that might take Sukari. She started with the Wildlife WayStation in California, then Primarily Primates in San Antonio, the place closest to where Sukari was being held.
When her mother hung up, she was changed. She’d made the first two calls as if she expected this to work out with little effort, but there was something about the way she poked the next name on the list and started to dial.
Joey stopped her. “What did they say?”
“That none of the places they know of has any room. Joey”—she gnawed her lip—“there are nineteen hundred chimps in labs and hundreds more in circuses, and movie chimps too old to be cute anymore. They called them ‘surplus chimps,’ as if they were out-of-date canned goods. There are just too many in need of someplace to go.”
“Maybe you were right all along.” Joey sank into the plush cushions of the sofa and put her head in her hands.
Ruth came across the room, sat down, and put her arms around Joey. Joey felt her lips moving and her warm breath against her hair. She looked up. “What were you saying?”
“Just that you’ll always know you tried your best.”
Through the blur of her tears, Joey’s gaze focused on the stark white scar that split her mother’s left eyebrow into two halves. Was there a moment like this when her mother was a girl, a moment when she chose to give in rather than fight? It would be easier to give up, and the next time it would be easier still. How many times had her mother conceded before it became her habit? How many times can you throw up your hands in defeat, before adopting “I can’t” as your song? “Not me,” Joey said, shook her mother off, and stood up. “I haven’t tried my best. Not yet. And neither have you.”
“Well, what do you think we can do with nearly two thousand chimps needing to be rescued?”
“I don’t care how many there are. We have only one and we have to find her a place. I’m not giving up after two tries. It’s easier if you make the calls, but I’ll find someone with a TTY and do it myself if I have to.”
Her mother’s face filled with pity. “Honey, there’s no…”
“Start with the man in Washington who has Washoe.” Joey took her hand and dragged her from the sofa to the phone.
Ruth shook her head, sadly, but ran her finger down the list to Roger Fouts at Central Washington University. She got his wife, Debbie, who didn’t know of any openings but referred her to Shirley McGreal, head of the International Primate Protection League. Shirley recommended the Jane Goodall Institute.
And so it went. Joey kept an eye on Luke while her mother called and called until everyone was recommending places she’d already talked to. She hung up finally and sat massaging her ear.
Joey took the stool across the counter from her.
“There’s nothing. Not one place.”
“There’s got to be.”
“I’ve tried everyone on the list and four more that were recommended by the ones I called. There’s no one left. They don’t have cages for any more than they’ve got. They did add her to their wait-lists. Beyond that, I don’t know what else to do.”
Joey got up and began to pace the kitchen. “Did you tell them how special she is? That she uses sign language?”
“‘Special’ means nothing. There is no space. The last place told me to give up, that
even if I found a place with room for her, they wouldn’t take her because she can’t go in with other chimps. None of them could afford an enclosure just for her. And that doesn’t address the funding needed to feed the ones they have.”
“Funding?”
“They all operate on donations, so none of them have much money.”
“Call them all back.”
“What?”
“Call ’em back, Mom. Sukari is the only one who comes with money.”
“What do you mean?”
“Charlie made me her guardian and set up a trust fund for her. She’s got lots of money and I’m the boss of it.”
All the years that Ruth continued to wait tables at the Old Dock Café had taught Joey how much her mother believed in the protective power of money. She picked up the receiver and handed it to her mother, then crossed her fingers and held them behind her back as her mother began to dial.
The first three facilities couldn’t take her because they had no place to keep her isolated from other chimps for the time it would take to build a new enclosure. Then Ruth called the Center for Great Ape Conservation in Miami, Florida.
Her mother had been sitting with the phone clamped between her ear and shoulder, tired and exasperated-looking. She sat up suddenly and covered the mouthpiece. “We may have something,” she said to Joey.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” her mother said into the receiver.
Joey’s heart sank.
“Yes, sure, that would be fine.” Ruth gave Joey a thumbs-up. “A few weeks?” Her mother’s expression was quizzical.
“I don’t know how long it will take me to get her out,” Joey whispered.
“You get her out?” she said, then into the phone: “Sorry, Pam, I was talking to my daughter. We don’t know exactly how long it will take,” she said, cutting Joey a look. “I’m very sorry for your loss, but we’d nearly given up hope. Yes. Yes. As soon as I know something. Thank you.” She hung up. “One of her orangutans is dying of cancer. Sukari will have his cage all to herself.”
“Oh, Mom, that’s wonderful.” Joey hugged her quickly, then handed her the receiver again. “Call Mr. McCully and tell him, will you?”
“First tell me what you meant about you getting her?”
“I don’t know,” Joey answered. “It just slipped out; I hadn’t thought about it until I said it, but I want to go get her. It has to be me.”
“That’s impossible.”
“So was finding a place for Sukari.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The call from Pam Rowland that her orangutan had died came the day after Thanksgiving. Joey was in the yard helping her stepfather mulch her mother’s sickly-looking flower garden when Ray tapped her shoulder. Her mother stood in the door, her face giving nothing away, yet Joey’s heart began to pound. She was as certain that the call had come as if she’d answered the phone herself. She hugged a surprised-looking Ray and ran to her mother. The message was “whenever you’re ready.”
The argument about how soon lasted all weekend. Joey wanted to go right away. Her mother said that if she insisted on going herself, she had to wait until the Christmas holidays, when Ray could get off work and go with her. She wasn’t traveling to New Mexico and Florida by herself. That was final.
“I don’t want her to have to stay there another month.”
“You told me Mr. McCully got an injunction to stop the testing, so she’s not being hurt. Another few weeks one way or the other won’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Look, Joey, it will take some time to make all the travel plans and get tickets. By the time I get that done for you, you’ll only have to wait another week or two. You won’t miss school, Ray will be off work…”
Joey put her hands behind her back and crossed her fingers. “Okay,” she said. She didn’t know how she’d do it, but she wasn’t going to leave Sukari there a minute longer than she had to, certainly not another month.
At school on Monday, she used the relay operator to call Mr. McCully. He was out, so she left the message with his secretary: “Could he do something to help me move Sukari right away?”
The next morning at breakfast, an aide found her in the cafeteria to tell her she had a call.
“Joey, Mr. McCully here. Everything is set. You’ll be met in Albuquerque by an associate of mine and an interpreter. Would you rather fly or take the train? GA.”
“A train would be easier. GA.”
“And more comfortable. Hang on.” No words came across the screen for a moment or two, then they started again: “My secretary says there’s a ten P.M. train out of Emeryville. It arrives at noon the next day in Albuquerque. A courier will deliver the tickets and some expense money. They won’t let Sukari travel by train, which is just as well. Once you’ve got her, you’ll want to get her to her new home quickly. I’ll book a flight to Miami out of either Albuquerque or El Paso, depending on the schedules. Do you want the other tickets in your mother’s name? GA.”
Joey’s heart leapt. Should she say yes so he’d think her mother was going? She hesitated; then, without knowing what she was about to say, she typed in a half-truth: “No, sir. She can’t get off work and has no one to leave Luke with. Nobody’s going with me.” She held her breath then typed, “GA.”
“Are you comfortable going alone? GA.”
“Yes, sir. I travel alone all the time, nearly every weekend. GA.”
“I’d love to be there myself, but I have a trial starting Monday. Call me if you need anything and good luck, my friend. GA.”
Joey stood staring at the blank screen wondering, Now what? until she realized the secretary was looking at her. ANOTHER CALL? she asked.
NO, THANKS. Joey started for the door, stopped, and turned. CHANGE MIND, PLEASE. NEED CALL MOTHER.
Joey told Ruth that Michelle’s mother wanted her to babysit over the weekend. If her mother didn’t check, which she’d never done, Joey wouldn’t be expected home until the weekend after next. It took her another day to think what to tell Michelle and the office that would give her the school week off. She had the answer by morning—donated by one of her nightmares.
She awoke, as she often did, with the sheets knotted in her fists. Her mother’s screams rang in her ears as clearly as they had when she could hear. It was Joey’s sixth birthday and the cake her mother had baked lay smashed on the floor, beneath a circle of chocolate icing on the wall.
That afternoon, Joey, who could not remember lying more than once or twice in her life, told Michelle, and then the school counselor, that she was going home for a few days to help her mother with her brother’s fifth-birthday party. Her mother, she told them, had fallen on the stairs and dislocated her shoulder. With crossed fingers jammed into the pockets of her jacket to ease her guilt, she told an elaborate story of how her mother had tripped on the stairs but stopped her fall by catching the banister. Doctors said the injury to her shoulder had saved her from breaking her neck. Joey guessed the school might send a get-well card, but not until Monday, and it would take a couple of days to get there. Michelle’s mother might call, but she’d be too scattered to think about it until Monday when the household settled down after a hectic weekend. By that time Joey would be in Miami with Sukari.
Early Friday morning, she caught a bus to Emeryville. Once on board the train, the attendant came by to check tickets. Joey had only glanced at them herself to make sure that there were train tickets to Albuquerque and plane tickets from El Paso to Miami. She settled into her seat on the train thinking she would read and sleep and wake up tomorrow in Albuquerque. The attendant, as usual, wrote the destination code on a card and fitted it into a slot on the overhead luggage rack. Joey sat in the window seat. She could see the cards of the people across the aisle, but not her own. They were getting off in BFD, wherever that was.
Joey hadn’t slept for days, first worrying about whether she’d get caught before she got away and then about the condition she’d find Sukari in. She for
ced herself to stay awake through the Fresno stop because she wanted to see if it had changed since she’d last seen Sukari.
In Fresno, she stared out the window, comforted by the trees that were taller and bare of leaves. As they pulled out, she wondered why she felt better. What comfort were trees in winter? Just before she drifted off to sleep, she remembered how grateful she’d been that the people who now owned Charlie’s house had changed the way it looked. She needed the world to change, even a little. It should not go on without noticing that important people were missing.
A man in overalls carrying a vacuum cleaner shook her. “What are you doing here?”
Joey blinked and sat up, rubbing her eyes. “What?” She looked around. The train was stopped and empty.
An attendant rushed up and snatched the destination card from above her seat and showed it to her. It read “BFD.” “The bus left hours ago.”
“What bus? I’m going to Albuquerque.”
“Yes, but you have to…” The attendant pulled Joey’s suitcase from the overhead rack, so Joey missed the rest of what she said.
Joey patted her coat pockets, searching for her hearing aids. She hadn’t missed them and now realized they were still on her dresser. “I’m deaf.”
The woman paled. “You can’t hear?”
Joey shook her head.
“Oh, man.”
As it turned out, this train ended its run in Bakersfield, California. She was to have gotten off and taken a connecting bus to Los Angeles to catch the Southwest Chief from there to Albuquerque. The station manager and a conductor came running when the attendant radioed them. Both men’s lips were thin and compressed, impossible to read, but they were clearly mad at her.
“I have to be on that train,” Joey said, trying desperately not to cry. “It’s very important.”
The station manager said something, then took her by the arm and rushed her off the train, roughly, as if she’d stowed away. They took her into the station and made her sit, as if she were a child, or not too bright. She felt she deserved their anger. If she’d only looked at her tickets, she’d have seen that there was a bus coupon there. Maybe her mother was right not to want her traveling so far alone. If she couldn’t be trusted to remember her hearing aids when she was going clear across country by herself, she probably wasn’t responsible enough to make the trip. Joey got up and went to the office door. The station manager was talking on the phone. “I’m sorry that I missed the bus,” she said, “but you have to get me on that train.”