by Laura Zigman
I recalled a few choice aspects of our relationship (his washboard stomach, his bad-love-poetry E-mails, his impeccable taste in cheesy vacation souvenirs).
Which made me cry.
Which made me mad.
Which propelled me into the shower, and then to make coffee, and then to sit at the kitchen table smoking cigarettes until I realized that nothing would become of me unless I got dressed and dragged my ass to work.
Little did I know that when I opened the science section of the newspaper at my desk an hour later, I would find the nugget, the germ, the essence of what would become my obsession over the next year: a reference to the mating preferences of bulls buried in an article on human male behavior.
I stared at the article.
My heart pounded.
My breath became shallow.
I started to sweat like Richard Nixon.
I read the article twice, clipped it, stapled it together, then read it again—this time with a yellow highlighter.
The Coolidge Effect was the technical name for it—it—the need to provide bulls with multiple cows for mating.
Multiple cows for mating.
I took my reading glasses off, then stood up and checked my watch: forty-five minutes before the production meeting with Diane. I call-forwarded my phone and ran down the hallway to our reference library, small but well stocked, where all PBS staff could do preliminary research on news stories, show topics, and guests.
The Coolidge Effect.
The Coolidge Effect.
I stared at the shelves trying to figure out which books to pull out. I opened the C volume of the encyclopedia and checked under Cattle.
History of the U.S. Cattle Industry.
Cattle Raising.
Domestication.
Breeding Techniques.
See Animal Husbandry.
I scanned the shelves.
A volume missing.
No books on agriculture.
Or farming.
Or animals.
I took a step back and ran my eyes over each section of the shelves—history; politics; psychology; literature; sociology. Finally something caught my eye: The Great Sex Divide (Glenn Wilson, 1989). I lunged for it. As soon as I saw the Coolidge Effect listed in the index, I knew victory was close at hand.
The … effect is seen … strikingly in farm animals such as sheep and cattle. Rams and bulls are unmistakably resistant to repeating sex with the same female (Beamer, Bermant and Clegg, 1969). Thus for breeding purposes it is unnecessary for a farmer to have more than one male to service all his sheep and cows. A single bull can be relied upon to do the rounds of all the available cows, and a single ram will eventually service all the sheep in his domain.
Unmistakably resistant to repeating sex with the same female.
I read on:
Male animals do not choose their mates randomly: they identify and reject those that they have already had sex with. In the case of rams and bulls it is notoriously difficult to fool them that a female is unfamiliar. Attempts to disguise an old partner by covering her face and body or masking her vaginal odors with other smells are usually unsuccessful. Somehow she is identified as “already serviced” and the male moves on to less familiar females.
Already serviced.
New Cow→Old Cow.
I stared at the book.
I smiled.
Then I faxed Joan and told her to meet me at Aphrodite for lunch in two hours.
“So, Dr. Goodall. What’s the meaning of this cryptic fax?” Joan said, pulling it out of her bag:
New-Cow theory sheds much-needed light on narcissistic behavior in the male species. Stop. Dr. Goodall, disciple of Freud, Leakey, Fossey, and Jung and founder of the Institute for the Study and Prevention of Male Behavior, will present research findings at emergency Aphrodite lunch symposium. Stop. Nota bene: No cameras, please. Stop.
Once Joan had finished scanning it, Dr. Goodall checked the hair in her nonexistent bun. “Yes, you see, my rather busy schedule of research at the Institute and lectures at various conferences around the world about male behavior have, I’m sorry to say, prevented me from transcribing my rather illegible findings into formal papers, and I’m afraid it would do science a great disservice were the press to review my data prematurely—”
Joan lit a Marlboro and looked at her watch. “Come on, Jane. Tell Dr. Goodall to make it snappy.”
I pushed the menus aside and leaned forward. “Remember the time I saw that graffiti on the subway?”
“ ‘Baby I loves the toilet you sit on?’ ”
“No, no, no. ‘I’s tired of fucking the same woman every night.’ Remember how we thought there might actually be something to that? Like maybe it was some kind of window into their—”
“Schizophrenic behavior?”
“Well, it is,” I said, taking out the newspaper. “The New-Cow theory—‘I’s tired of fucking the same woman every night’—same thing.”
I spread the article out on the table and watched Joan read it. Then I showed her The Great Sex Divide.
“You see, we were Old Cow,” I said, pointing at the book. “We were ‘already serviced.’ And they wanted to move on to ‘less familiar females.’ ”
Joan shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s too simple. And besides, that applies to animals.”
“So?”
“So … you can’t extrapolate that the same is true in humans.”
“Why not?”
We looked at each other. “Why can’t we extrapolate that?” I asked, as much of myself as of Joan.
She thought a minute. “Because. Because humans are more complex. There are a thousand things that affect what happens between them. This Coolidge Effect or the New-Cow theory is too simple, too one-dimensional. It’s much more complicated than that.”
“But maybe it isn’t,” I said, thinking out loud. “Maybe we just assume it’s more complicated than that with men when in reality it’s something as incredibly obvious as this.”
Joan didn’t blink. “You really think so?”
“I don’t know. It’s just something I’ve been wondering about lately.”
In about eleven different notebooks.
“What?” she asked. “Cows and bulls?”
“No.” I lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly. “About what the answer is. About why men flip-flop from passion to panic until they finally disappear.” I thought about the notebooks and the clippings I’d collected. I thought about Evelyn the cat. And for a moment I was tempted to mention them, to tell Joan more of what I’d been reading and finding. But I didn’t. It was too soon—my thoughts were too jumbled, too unformed, the data still too raw.
“Well,” Joan said finally. “It certainly would explain Jason.”
“And Ray,” I said.
We looked at each other, then said the same thing:
“And Eddie.”
The weekend after I discovered the Coolidge Effect, I was voracious for information.
Indiscriminate.
Wacko.
I spent the better part of Saturday morning at the Chelsea Barnes & Noble superstore with a store map, winding my way from section to section—Natural History to Psychology to Sociology to Anthropology—picking up books and checking their tables of contents. When something seemed interesting, I took out a special little notebook I’d picked up at Duane Reade on my way to the bookstore—a portable secret spy notebook—and wrote it down:
• When Mormon crickets mate, male lifts female off ground to see how much she weighs. The heavier the better: more eggs.
• Praying mantis: female devours male’s head during sex.
• Banana slugs: actually hermaphrodites. While mating, males chew each other’s penises off.
• Eighty percent of all men who die during the act of sex do so while being unfaithful.
• Basketball superstar Dennis Rodman’s father has twenty-seven children. Father’s first name: Philander.
•
Only three percent of mammals pair-bond.
• Ancient Olympic games champion wrestler Milo: after competition reportedly ate entire cow.
• First flight by cow in airplane: February 18, 1930.
Careening around the corner from Aviation, I ran straight into David.
“Hey,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I smiled nervously. “What are you doing here?”
“Cruising.” He rolled his eyes at the lack of cruise material. “Actually I’m looking for a book on fashion in the forties. Research for an upcoming shoe shoot.”
I tightened my grip on my mini-notebook and then put both hands behind my back, as if I were stretching. David stared at me.
“What? You look like you’ve been caught in the act.” He looked me up and down, then opened my coat by the lapels. “Jane? Have you been shoplifting again?”
I laughed as David’s hand made its way down my back to where my hands were. I felt him stop at the notebook. He pulled the hand holding it forward. “Aha,” he said. “What’s this?”
I flipped my hair from one side to the other and played with my earring. “Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing. It’s a notebook.”
I tried to pull it toward me, but David had a firm grip. I was getting nervous. “Give it,” I said.
He stared at me. “Give it?” he mimicked. “How old are you?”
I giggled but pulled hard again on the notebook. “Come on,” I repeated. “Give it.”
He pulled the notebook out of my hand in one clean tug and held it over my head where I couldn’t reach it. Then he grinned as he lowered it slowly and opened to the first page.
• Female hamsters produce sex pheromone in their vaginal fluid: aphrodisin. If smeared onto haunches of male hamster, other males will mount and attempt to mate with him.
• Old taxonomic name for chimpanzee was P. satyrus: refers to myth of apes as “lustful satyrs.”
• Sperm count in a husband’s ejaculate increases when wife is away—overcompensates for her opportunities to be unfaithful.
“What is this?”
I shrugged as if I’d just behaved like a twelve-year-old for no reason. “They’re just notes.”
“I can see that,” David said. He flipped the page.
• Dysthymia: chronic sadness.
• Men’s brains generally larger than women’s. Women use more of their brains than men when they feel sad.
• “Mounting behavior in male rhesus monkeys has been induced by electrical stimulation of the lateral hypothalamus and the dorsomedial nucleus of the hypothalamus, leading to coital sequences and ejaculation.”
He closed the notebook. “Notes for what?”
I rifled through my bag, pretending to look for something. “For a show. For a guest for a show.”
“Bullshit,” he said. “Notes for what?”
I bit my thumbnail. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Why wouldn’t I understand?” David said. “I understand everything.”
I looked at his face and nodded. “Yes. You do.” Then I took him by the arm and led him toward the café. “Let’s get some coffee.”
“I think it’s great,” David said after I’d told him about the notebooks.
And the clippings.
And the budding case files.
And Eddie and Evelyn the cat and the Coolidge Effect.
“Really?”
“Really.” He stirred his coffee. “Let me know what you find out. I could certainly use the information.”
“You could?”
“Sure. I mean, it’s worse with gay men because you have both of them acting out. At least in straight relationships there’s only one man and a woman to diffuse him. I think the reason why so many gay relationships don’t work is because there’s no woman there to absorb and dilute male narcissism.”
“So you don’t think I’m insane?”
“I didn’t say that. I just think it’s interesting. And I also think that whatever helps you get over Ray—whatever makes you feel better—you should do.”
Newly anointed monkey scientist not deemed insane. Encouraged by colleague to proceed with research.
“So this science stuff is helping?”
I considered the question. “I guess so. It makes me feel like there are answers, reasons, a bigger picture. When Ray dumped me, all I wanted to know was why. Why, why, why. And he never answered me. He never told me why he did what he did. And I almost think that’s worse than the act itself—the not knowing. It’s like random violence: All you want to know is what the victim did to bring on the attack so you can prevent it the next time. Was the person in a shitty neighborhood alone late at night? Was the person wearing a big diamond necklace in a shitty neighborhood alone late at night?”
David nodded. “I know what you mean,” he said. “But you have to be careful not to replace one obsession with another. Sometimes there aren’t answers. Sometimes things just happen. They just are.”
“Maybe. But I feel like I’m on to something. Like there’s something out there that explains it. If I can just find it, if I can just figure it out, I’ll be able to get past this. I’ll be able to heal straight.”
“Well, that’s good, then.”
We were quiet for a few minutes before I took out my little notebook and leaned across the table like I had a big secret to tell him.
“Did you know that the greater dwarf lemur leaves fecal scent marks that are sixteen inches long?” I stared at him with my eyes open wide. “Like a big squeeze of toothpaste!”
David looked down at his scone and pushed it away. “Extra whitening or tartar control?”
THE BIRTH OF DR. MARIE GOODALL
The Gombe Stream Research Centre grew from small beginnings to become one of the most dynamic field stations for the study of animal behavior in the world.… Life at the research centre was busy. In addition to the main business of observing the animals and collecting data, there were weekly seminars at which we discussed research findings and planned ever better ways of collating the information from the various studies. There was a spirit of cooperation among the students, a willingness to share data, that was, I think, quite unusual.
—Jane Goodall, Through a Window
Joan called the next day, on Sunday, to see if I was free in the afternoon to get together. Ben had been out of town all weekend, she said, and she was feeling restless. But after a few more minutes on the phone it sounded like there was more to it than that.
“I’ve been thinking about our conversation the other day. Your New-Cow theory,” she said when I pressed her. “And let’s just say I’m ready to consider it now.”
I asked her why she had changed her mind, but she wouldn’t answer. “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. But if you come over, I’ll make pancakes.”
Oh-oh.
She always made us pancakes when she was depressed.
I told her I’d be there in half an hour.
“Bring some maple syrup,” she said before we hung up. “And bring your file.”
Joan was still in her pajamas when I came to her door. Her big white terry cloth hotel robe with the royal-blue Ritz-Carlton insignia (a “souvenir” from an annoyingly long business trip, she’d once confessed) was open, and the belt dragged along the floor. We sat down on the couch and both lit cigarettes before she started to talk.
“Ben’s cheating on me.” She took a long drag off her cigarette, touched her tongue to her top teeth, then pursed her lips and blew. “He’s been away since Wednesday. Said he had to go to London to try to steal an editor away from British Vogue.”
I stared at her. “So?”
“So. I went in to the office yesterday to catch up on some work. And while I was there, I went into his office to leave him a memo about a few story ideas we had discussed before his trip. And there, on his desk, was this.” She held out a small leather-bound booklet. “Can’t go to London without your passport.”
She shrugged. “No.”
“Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it was an old passport?”
“No. I checked.” She shook her head. “This isn’t the first time,” she said softly. “There have been others. This is just the first time his lie has been so transcontinental.”
“Others?” The only other one Joan had told me about was some freelance writer around a year and a half ago, but none since. And she wasn’t even certain she was right. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She sighed and pulled her legs up under her on the couch. “It’s completely humiliating, his philandering. I’m sure everyone at the office knows about our relationship, even though we’ve never ‘outed’ ourselves and it’s supposed to be a secret. And I’m sure everyone knows about him and these other women. I mean, you’re supposed to leave someone when they do shit like this, right?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not necessarily.”
“It’s just hard.” She reached into her robe pocket for a Kleenex, and I watched as her eyes filled up with tears. “I love him.” She blew her nose. “How do you explain that without feeling totally pathetic?”
“I can understand that,” I said. And I did. It was the same reason why no matter how much I hated Ray, I still loved him.
“You can? Because I’m not so sure I do.” She ran her hands through her hair, thinking. “It’s what I said the other day. We’re not animals. We’re supposed to have control over our instincts, not act on them just because we feel them. I mean, I’m just as bad. Cheating on him with Jason.”
I went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water and came back with it and two glasses. “Do you know who it is?”
“This one? I don’t know. Kind of. Who cares? Some new assistant in advertising. It doesn’t matter since they’re all the same. They’re all new. And they’re all not me.”
I didn’t know what to tell Joan to make her feel better. Somehow all the white lies and explanations best friends tell best friends at moments like that seemed hackneyed, useless, false. I felt suddenly like there needed to be another language for comfort: