Lucy

by Laurence Gonzales

  26

  THE TEEN VOGUE COVER STORY was called “Behind the Scenes with Lucy Lowe.” The photograph showed Lucy and Amanda wearing two different outfits from Betsey Johnson’s “beat chick” collection, their hair all done up. Inside was a vapid interview in which the magazine had made the girls sound like banana-heads, making such remarks as, “I just like to chill with my friends.”

  “Harry, I swear, I did not say ‘chill,’” Lucy said.

  “She definitely did not say ‘chill,’” Amanda said.

  “Never do I say ‘chill.’”

  “It’s true,” Jenny told Harry. “She doesn’t say ‘chill.’”

  It was August and they were on his deck overlooking the English garden. A tray on the table bore tomatoes, cheese, and olives from the farmer’s market. Unfamiliar music was coming through the French doors from the dining room, and Lucy asked Harry what it was.

  “Bobby Blue Bland. It’s rhythm and blues.”

  “Since when do you listen to R&B?” Jenny asked. “Didn’t you always play, like, Miles and Coltrane in the operating room?”

  “Yeah, mostly jazz. Nothing too chaotic. You don’t want to start rocking to the beat when you’re trying to cut. But lately I’ve been playing slow rhythm and blues in the OR. I don’t know why.”

  “You play music while you’re doing surgery?” Amanda asked.

  “Sure. Every surgeon I know plays music during an operation.”

  “You think the patients can hear it?” Lucy asked.

  “We don’t know. We don’t really know what a patient can feel during surgery, mainly because we give them propofol and it causes amnesia. In fact, the anesthesiologists call it ‘milk of amnesia’ because it’s white and makes you forget.”

  Jenny was rummaging through the clippings. “Look, Harry. Here’s Rolling Stone.”

  Harry picked it up and held it before him. “Well, look at that. My little girl made the cover of Rolling Stone. Not entirely sure I agree with their concept here.”

  It showed Lucy in torn jeans, her hair slightly spiked out, standing in a sort of rock-and-roll pose holding a banana and slouching with one arm raised to the branch of a fake tree as if she were about to climb. It had been shot in a studio.

  “Wait’ll you read it,” Amanda said. “It’s this, like, Orwellian grope through all the political and sociological and ethical issues that they could sweep out of the gutter.”

  Harry read, “‘When a scientific experiment goes wrong,’—this is from an evangelical preacher in Texas—‘the scientist destroys his undesirable materials in the most humane way possible and moves on.’ I’m telling you, Lucy, watch your six. This world is full of whackos.”

  “I have observed said whackos,” Lucy said.

  Steven Rhodes, who had introduced the Lucy Bill, was quoted as saying that while he did not favor putting Lucy in an actual zoo, he did think that a suitable facility could be found to house her in a way that would ensure both her safety and the safety of those around her. “There,” said Rhodes, “she could be studied by the appropriate scientific experts and live out her life in comfort, while benefiting humankind in the most acceptable way.” When asked about Lucy’s education, the congressman said, “I believe that the training of animals is the business of the Ringling Brothers and not of the scientific community.”

  Harry also read a quote from an evolutionary biologist at Stanford who said, “Would I like to study Lucy? Of course I would. Do I think that ought to be allowed? No, I don’t. In the most important ways, you see, Lucy is just like you and me. Would you want your teenage daughter to be studied by a bunch of scientists? So the issues here revolve around her father’s decision to bring her into the world, which most of us would agree was a very bad decision from an ethical point of view. But we must keep that ethical issue separate from the very good outcome of that bad decision. Lucy is a remarkable person. Her father did something reprehensible, but that in no way detracts from her value as a human being. I think her biggest problem is not going to come from any legitimate scientist, though. It’s going to be the religious crackpots and government zealots. If history is any guide, her worst nightmare is going to be some completely innocuous-seeming bureaucrat who can’t think and always goes by the rule book.”

  Harry said, “He’s right, you know. It was those kind of people who made the Third Reich possible.”

  27

  IN THE BRIGHT HEARING ROOM of the Senate Office Building, Lucy sat in a witness chair, watching Senator Martin Cochrain prepare to speak. Jenny was in the audience. The dark oak benches were filled, and people stood around the room, which was paneled in the same wood and hung with heavy gold curtains.

  “Good morning, everyone,” Senator Cochrain said. “Thank you for coming. Thanks especially to Lucy Lowe and her mother, Dr. Jennifer Lowe, for making the effort to travel here for this session. Also testifying today will be John P. Alonzo, a judge with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, who has ruled on many matters pertaining to civil rights; Eugene Miller, with the law firm of Abbot, White, McCardle, who is an expert in civil rights law and a professor of law at Harvard University; Professor William B. Conklin, who chairs the bioethics department at Stanford; and Dr. Judith Drosnin, who teaches and practices psychiatry at the UCLA Medical School. We welcome our witnesses and thank them for their service.”

  The senator cleared his throat and drank some water. Then he straightened the papers from which he’d been reading and put them aside to speak extemporaneously. “We are more than a quarter century into the biotech revolution, and yet it has taken the unsanctioned act of a solitary scientist working alone in the jungle to bring this matter before a legislative body. In addition, the U.S. Patent Office has rejected attempts to patent a human-animal hybrid three times in five years, and that happens to be the first government agency to say anything at all on the subject. The reason for the rejection was clear: The Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits slavery. A human being cannot be property and therefore cannot be patented. Thus the Patent Office clearly sides with the view that Lucy—or any human-animal hybrid—is to be considered a human being, with all the rights and obligations of a human being. But with all due respect for my colleagues at the Patent Office, that is probably not the best venue for deciding weighty ethical and scientific issues like these.

  “Now, I can certainly understand how various people and groups are going to have strong feelings about the way in which Lucy came to be in our midst today. I don’t think any of us here would sanction such an experiment if it were brought to us through normal channels. But the fact is that Lucy is here. She does exist. And as I will make amply clear today, she is fully endowed with human qualities and is a delightful, intelligent girl. That notwithstanding, we can expect this issue to confront us again and again in the coming years. This, of course, raises many extremely important—and, I daresay, deep—questions. But for our purposes here during these hearings, I believe, it is our role to accomplish one thing and one thing only: To do everything in our power to afford Lucy all the protections and opportunities of our society.

  “To that end I would like to introduce our first witness, Lucy herself. I just want to make sure that everyone here sees firsthand what a remarkable young lady she is. Good morning, Lucy, and welcome.”

  “Good morning, Senator.”

  “Do you mind telling us a bit about how you spent your day so far before arriving here?”

  “Not at all. I got up about six with my mother. We’re staying at the Madison. A very cushy hotel, thank you.”

  The laughter in the room was general. The press was eating it up.

  “And while Mom was showering, I checked my e-mail and logged on to Facebook to check my messages there.”

  “You have a page on Facebook?”

  “Yes, of course. Doesn’t everyone?” More laughter. “I switched over to MSN, but my IMs were capped.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I got too many
messages.”

  “Very good. Then what did you do?”

  “When Mom was finished, I took my shower, and we got dressed and went down to the dining room for breakfast.”

  “What did you have?”

  “I had the oatmeal. They make the best oatmeal at the Madison. But it got cold, because people kept coming up to me to ask for autographs or to have their picture taken with me.”

  “How do you like being famous?”

  “Well, I don’t much like it. I didn’t ask for it.”

  “But you put a video on YouTube.”

  “We had to do that. The CDC was going to announce what they’d found anyway. I wanted the story told in my own words, not theirs.”

  “I see. Well, Lucy, it’s my intention to submit a bill to Congress declaring that you are human and that you have all the rights of any normal human. Is there anything you’d like to say for the record in support of that idea?”

  “Yes. I am human. As any legitimate scientist will tell you, a human is a type of ape. All people are closely related to the chimpanzee and pygmy chimpanzee—the bonobos, as they’re now called. A few million years ago there was a hominid called Australopithecus. Then later there was Paranthropus and Homo habilis and erectus and ergaster. Those were all new types of humanoid apes or early people. I am born of Homo sapiens and Pan paniscus, two forms of ape. So I, too, am a new type of human. And so I say: Yes, I am human, and I am ape. You are, too, as is everyone in this room. Once, perhaps one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand years ago, your kind were new to this earth. I merely happen to be newer. I’m very proud of my heritage.”

  The applause was mixed with boos as the senator banged his gavel. Gradually the commotion died down, and then Senator Steven Rhodes stood up and said, “Senator, if I may have a moment with the witness, please.”

  “Recognize the esteemed senator from Utah.”

  Rhodes stood at his place. He was a tall, robust-looking man with a shock of silver hair and bushy eyebrows. On the table before him was a package of some sort wrapped as a present. It was about a foot and a half long and ten inches high. Jenny thought that it seemed oddly out of place.

  “I’d like to begin,” Senator Rhodes said, “by thanking the witness for coming here today. And Dr. Lowe. But I do want to clarify something concerning Lucy’s testimony. I am not an ape. And my relatives are not chimpanzees.” The applause was wild and deafening as people stomped their feet and cheered. Senator Cochrain hammered his gavel, but the people continued talking and grumbling among themselves.

  “Now, Lucy, I want to ask you a personal question, and I don’t want you to take offense at it. It has an important point.”

  “All right.”

  “Have you reached puberty?”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Have you had your first period yet, Lucy?”

  “Yes.”

  Jenny felt pained as she saw Lucy flush red.

  “Thank you.” The senator turned toward the audience. “I ask this rather indelicate question because, although none of my relatives are apes, they could be if this girl begins to breed as she evidently intends to do. I have a grandson about her age. Who knows? They could meet and fall in love. She’s obviously very charming. But this is an extremely serious matter that I think should concern all of us.”

  Senator Rhodes now picked up the package and approached the witness table where Lucy sat before a microphone. Jenny watched in puzzlement, wondering what the senator had up his sleeve.

  “Just one more thing, Lucy, and then we’ll be through. Would you take that between your hands and crush it for me, please? Could you do that for me, dear?”

  “Sure.”

  Jenny could not sort out what was happening quite yet. Why would he give her a present and ask her to crush it? Then all at once she had the answer. She was up on her feet, shouting, “Lucy, no!”

  But Lucy had been too fast. The deed was done. Almost too quickly to see, Lucy had simply put one hand on either side of the package and pushed. Senator Rhodes now lifted the package and tore away the wrapping to reveal a steel toolbox as mangled as if it had been a Coke can. He held it up for all to see, turning this way and that in the lights with a satisfied smile. The television cameras caught it all.

  “This is a standard Craftsman toolbox made of steel. I know that apes can do things like this. But do any of you humans think that you could wreak this kind of destruction?” Jenny saw Lucy glance at her apologetically, as she, too, realized how she’d been tricked. “Lucy may be very clever and charming,” the senator went on. “There is a long history of clever and charming and indeed very talented trained animals. But they are not human. She is not human. As you may have noticed in the news a few days ago, she was stripped of her state wrestling title because of the superhuman strength she possesses specifically as a result of the fact that she is not human. And in making your decisions about the bill that my respected colleague proposes here today and the one that I have put forth, I just want to make sure that you all know what you’re dealing with here. No further questions.”

  The room broke into spontaneous applause, punctuated by boos and hisses once more, and Senator Cochrain again banged his gavel for order. “Thank you, Senator, for that poignant demonstration. I think Lucy should have a chance to respond. Is there anything else you’d like to say to those who might argue that you do not deserve all the rights of a human but perhaps should be protected instead under the Animal Welfare Act or maybe even studied by scientists?”

  Lucy answered without hesitation. “Yes, there is. I would say this:

  The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

  Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

  It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

  ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

  The throned monarch better than his crown …

  Jenny held back tears as Lucy finished. “And if you put all of the bonobos in all the world into a room for all the ages of history. And if you gave them all the training you could give. They would still never quote Shakespeare to you. I can. I will. I do.”

  28

  LUCY AND JENNY returned from Washington the next day, arriving from the airport in a hired car at midday. The first heavy drops of rain had begun to fall. As Lucy stepped from the car and smelled the air she felt her heart quicken. The air was full of electricity. A few reporters were waiting, but Jenny turned on them, teeth bared like old Lucretia, and barked, “No!” They looked at her quizzically for a moment. Then she shouted, “Bad dog!” And they retreated, glancing back at her as if she were mad.

  “Nobody’s afraid of tough anymore,” Jenny told Lucy. “But everybody’s afraid of crazy.”

  The driver wheeled the luggage up the sidewalk. Amanda opened the front door and hugged Lucy.

  “I’m sorry. I screwed up.”

  “No, you didn’t. That bastard tricked you, Luce. Anyway, you got the last word, and you were bitchin’. The guy’s a pinhead. Harry called. He told me to tell you he watched you on TV and that you were—his words—‘preposterously superb.’ He said the Merchant of Venice was, quote, ‘insanely great.’”

  “It just came out.”

  Jenny put her arm around the girls and ushered them inside.

  The windows were open and the electric air was billowing the curtains. Lucy looked outside and saw that the wind was lifting the skirts of the trees and whipping leaves into eddies and whirlpools. The big drops hit the window glass like stones. The northwestern sky lit up, and there came a deep rumbling that rolled over the neighborhood in successive waves.

  Amanda had made a pasta salad for lunch, but Lucy felt unable to eat. Her heart was pounding, and she couldn’t seem to sit still.

  “What’s the matter, Luce? You’re not getting sick again, are you? Please don’t be sick.”

  “I just feel weird. I think it’s just the stress. You know. Cars and jets
and hotels and people.” But she felt as if she were coming unglued. And she didn’t really want to say what she thought it was.

  By nightfall the storms were general throughout the area, and Lucy was too agitated to concentrate on anything. She knew that she had to control this thing, especially now, with all the attention. She tried reading but kept going over the same passage again and again. As deep night folded over the house from the east, she was enclosed in a sense of dread at what was coming, dread and thrill, as she felt one part of her personality slipping away to be replaced by another. She found herself down in the garage with the big door open, nervously rocking from foot to foot, watching the torrential rain descend in great cascading sheets. Thunder and lightning exploded together right over her head. She could taste the copper in her mouth and smell the ozone. She heard Jenny and Amanda calling from upstairs but could not respond. At last she heard their footsteps hurrying down the stairs, and Lucy thought, Oh, maybe they can save me. Maybe they can stop this. If only Lucy could explain to them what was happening to her, then maybe they could tell her what to do.

  Lucy turned to see them enter the garage, looks of concern on their faces. She tried to speak. But at that moment another crash of thunder and lightning exploded overhead, and when Lucy opened her mouth, only a furious panting and hooting noise came from deep within her chest.

  Amanda screamed and clamped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide.

  “Lucy, what is it?” Jenny asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Lucy opened her mouth to explain, but only a shriek came out.

  Amanda screamed again. “What is it? What’s going on? Lucy, you’re scaring me.”