Half Brother (22 page)

I saw Hugh talking with David, and jealousy surged through
my veins. So it
was
Hugh she liked. Hugh was my rival. In a fight, male chimps went first for the toes. They’d bite them off. That immobilized their opponent. Then they’d go for the fingers, so he couldn’t grab and hold. Then they’d go for the face, to maim, to bloody the eyes so he couldn’t see. And last, they’d go for the scrotum to castrate him—so he’d bleed to death. That, I’d read, was what chimps did to each other in a life-or-death fight.

It scared me even thinking like this, and I didn’t want to be here any more, so I left the hall fast, found a pay phone, and called for Mom to pick me up.

Zan knew right away I was sad.

Saturday morning when I went into his bedroom to get him dressed, he looked at me really intently. Maybe it was my face. I’d been up a lot of the night crying, and probably looked crappy. Or maybe it was my hoarse voice. He kept coming up to me and stroking me and signing
sorry.
He thought he’d done something wrong.

Zan good,
I signed to him.

He looked at me. I don’t know what he thought of that: Zan good? He knew food was good and ginger ale was good and tickling was
good,
but I’m not sure we’d used good in any other way yet.

Could he understand that people could be good too? He gazed deep into my eyes, like he could see all of me. It was
such a kind look, it started me crying again, and Zan frowned and put his face closer to mine and touched my tears and tasted them and seemed very surprised.
Come hug,
he signed.
Tickle hug.

And after we’d had a good long hug and tickle, he pulled away from me and signed
hide now.

He covered his face with his hand, peeking, which was his way of asking for hide-and-seek. He was trying to cheer me up. I shook my head and signed
no
a few times. He brought me over some of his favourite dolls and put them in my lap. Then he sat down on top of me and patted me a lot.

He knew how I felt.

Sometimes brothers didn’t need to say anything.

School was torture. If I’d been more confident, I could’ve carried on with the dominant male routine and been unapologetic.

Sure I called her a bitch. Big deal—she deserved it.

But I couldn’t do it. The moment I arrived at school on Monday, I just felt like a cockroach. I felt like I should be scuttling around into corners and under desks so nobody would step on me. Whenever Jennifer came into my peripheral vision, I looked away.

Wednesday after school, David and I were in the changing rooms after cross-country practice. We were the first back from the run, so were alone. David took a plastic bag from his locker and passed it to me. He seemed uncomfortable, even a bit sorry for me.

“This is from Jen.”

I opened up the bag and saw the ABBA album I’d given her for her birthday.

“She loved that album, man,” said David.

I chuckled bitterly. “What did she say about me?” I’d always been too afraid to ask, but there was nothing to lose any more. “Not just now, but in general, you know, over the last year.”

David shrugged.

“She must’ve said
something.’’

“She thought you were a nice guy, fun to hang out with. Stuff like that.”

“A
fun
guy,” I said. “Wow, that’s exciting. We made out, you know!”

He said nothing.

“Did you tell her about the logbook?” I demanded.

“That big book with her name on it?”

“Yeah, that one.”

He grimaced. “Sort of.”

“What’d she say?” I asked.

“Jane said it was creepy.”

“You told
Jane
too?” I said in horror.

“She’s always over at our house!” David said. “She’s like an evil stepsister. I just told Jen you had this book where you wrote stuff about her. It looked like a pretty thick book, man. I mean,
Project Jennifer?
It looked like you were running an experiment on her.”

“It wasn’t an
experiment,”
I muttered angrily, but the words stung.
Had
I been treating it like an experiment? Was she my little chimp, just like she’d said at the dance?

“Thanks a lot for wrecking everything,” I said. “Thanks a million.”

“What’d I wreck?” he said, sounding annoyed for the first time.

“I thought me and your sister, you know …
had
something.”

“It’s not like you were going out,” he said.

“Yeah, because she can’t till she’s sixteen!”

“I don’t think she would’ve wanted to anyway,” he said.

I stared at him hard. “Really?”

“She said you weren’t a good kisser.”

I pretended to get something out of my locker, so he wouldn’t see my burning face. “Like she would know,” I said. “Like she’s been kissed a million times.”

“She said you guys had no chemistry.”

I looked at him, stunned. “She actually told you that?”

“Well, not me,” said David. “But I overheard her talking to Jane.”

“No chemistry, huh?”

He winced and shook his head. “Sorry, man.”

“I thought we did.
I
did, anyway—for her, I mean.”

David pulled his dress shirt back on. “She likes Hugh.”

It was like getting punched in the stomach. I sat down on the bench and fussed with my shoes.

“They’ve known each other, like, forever,” David said, as if this somehow made it easier for me. “She was pretty torn up when he started going out with Kelly. I think she was trying to make him jealous. And then, when they broke up … you know.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

I felt dazed by how pointless it all was—all the work and observation and thinking. The lists and the daydreams and the plans. None of it mattered. I could be in a magazine and on TV. I could be funny and give her compliments and presents. I’d tried to do it right. Scientifically. But it didn’t matter.

Because of chemistry. Was that what really made it work, even between people? I knew animals used chemistry. They worked on hormones and smells and tastes. That’s how they decided who to mate with. And I guessed humans were just the same. No matter how hard I tried, without the right chemistry, I was screwed.

“She’s a pain, anyway,” said David. “Honestly, it’s for the best. Cheer up, Tarzan. Hey, Jane likes you, big time.”

November: it was dark when I woke up for school and dark when I came home. It was always cloudy. The sun, when you could see it, was a dingy forty-watt bulb.

At school, I tried to make myself scarce. I started bringing a bag lunch so I wouldn’t have to eat in the dining hall. Just the idea of walking in was horrible; I imagined everyone turning to look at me. I ate in one of the empty classrooms. David and I didn’t talk as much any more. He wasn’t mean to me, but he didn’t seek me out, and I avoided him too. Seeing him just made me think of Jennifer and the whole humiliating business. Cross-country season ended, and I tried to work hard on my school work. That would please Dad, at least.

Towards the end of the month, one Wednesday after school,
I took the bus to the university. I had a project on Japan, post-World War II, and our school library was pretty lousy. Dad had said he’d help me take out some books at the university.

I got to the campus early, and as I approached the psych department I saw a single guy standing outside the entrance with a sandwich board sign that said:

A
RE
H
UMANS
H
UMANE
?

He was handing out leaflets to whoever would take one. Not many would. He looked a bit like Peter, only whacked out. I took one of his leaflets as I passed him on the steps, and stuffed it into my pocket. I wondered if he was there because of Zan.

Dad’s office was on the second floor, and as I approached I saw his door was closed. Through the tall skinny window, I noticed Dr. Godwin. Dad was sitting behind his desk, and Dr. Godwin was standing in front of it, talking. Dad nodded. I couldn’t hear what Dr. Godwin was saying, but there was something about Dad’s expression, the way his body was arranged, which made me think Dr. Godwin was giving him a hard time.

I suddenly felt sorry for Dad, which wasn’t a feeling I had very often. I didn’t want to keep watching—and I didn’t want Dr. Godwin to see me either. Jennifer had probably told him about the dance, and he’d hate my guts now.

I turned around and headed back to the stairwell, planning to go downstairs and buy a chocolate bar from the vending machine. Maybe it would fall on me and crush me and end my misery.

On the stairs I ran into Shira Mavjee in a lab coat. She
worked with Zan twice a week, and she was always very nice and patient with him, even when he was in a bullying mood.

“Hi, Ben,” she said with a smile. “Here to see your dad? Isn’t he in his office?”

“Yeah, but he’s still busy.”

“You want to see some rats?” she asked. “They’re pretty cute.” I shrugged. “Sure.”

“C’mon.” She led me down to the basement labs. Other white-coated students and professors walked up and down the long hall. It smelled unpleasantly of chemicals.

“Did you see that guy outside the building?” I asked her.

“He’s been here a couple days.”

“Do you think he saw the learning chair on TV?”

“Doubt it. He’s always demonstrating about something. Last week it was clear-cutting trees. I think he did nukes too.”

I felt a bit better. Maybe it wasn’t about Zan at all. Shira led me into a big room with rows of rat cages along one wall.

“What are you doing with them?” I asked.

“It’s a cognitive response experiment,” she said. “It’s one of your dad’s, actually.”

“Really?” I said, surprised. Dad had never talked about this.

Looking deeper into the lab, I caught a glimpse of Ryan Cross, Dad’s star grad student, leaning over some kind of big glass case with a stopwatch. He operated a series of lights, and watched what was happening inside.

“Ryan’s timing the trials,” said Shira.

I wasn’t happy to see Ryan, after the way he’d treated Zan, and he didn’t look too happy to see me either. He didn’t even say hello.

“I didn’t know Dad was working with rats again,” I said.

“Project Zan isn’t the only show in town,” said Ryan. “And if I was a betting man, I’d say these rats are going to be more important to science than your chimp.”

I wished Zan had taken his whole finger off, maybe his hand too.

Ryan looked at Shira. “He shouldn’t be down here.”

“What’s the big deal?” she said.

“It’s a university lab, not a daycare,” said Ryan.

Shira frowned and shook her head at him. “He’s just going to look at the rats, Ryan.”

Ryan gave a hollow laugh. “Just make sure he doesn’t let them all out. By the way, 23-D isn’t going to pull through.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“One of the rats,” said Shira. “It didn’t respond well to the meds.”

Ryan had a needle in his hand and was going over to one of the cages.

“What are you doing to it?” I asked. “Euthanizing it.” “Killing it?”

“It suffers less. For its own good.”

Hard to imagine the rat would agree with that.

“They sometimes have seizures because of the drugs,” Shira explained, “and then strokes and then they’re paralyzed, like this one. It can’t feed itself.”

After injecting the rat Ryan reached in and grabbed it by the tail and put it in a blue plastic bag, knotted it, and chucked it into a bin.

“It just goes in there?” I said dully.

“Well, normally there’s a memorial service and hymns,” said Ryan, “but we’re a little pressed for time.”

Even Shira laughed. I didn’t want to look at the rats any more. I didn’t want to see them all in their little cages, row after row.

“My dad’s probably waiting for me.”

“See you later,” said Shira.

I headed back upstairs, and in the corridor passed Dr. Godwin. He looked at me and gave a curt nod and said, “Ben,” but there was no warmth in his voice. He knew. He hated me.

Dad was waiting for me in his office.

“Is that guy outside the building here because of Zan?” I asked.

“He mentions him in his leaflet,” Dad said. “But he’s a campus crackpot. He’ll move on to something else in a couple days. Nukes, or free love, or polygamy. The SPCA wrote us a letter, though. They want to visit our house to make sure Zan’s being treated humanely.”

“He is, though,” I said.

Dad shrugged. “It’s just a nuisance, nothing more. Now, you wanted to get some books out of the library, right?”

“I didn’t know you had a rat experiment going,” I said.

I guess I’d always assumed that even if Dad didn’t spend much time personally with Zan, he was still totally devoted to him, or to the
project
at least. I didn’t like thinking Zan had to share his attention with rats.

“Rats are very interesting animals,” Dad said. “We can learn a lot from them.”

Greg Jaworski came back from Berkeley in early December. He spent lots of time at our house, observing Zan with Mom and the students. And he spent even more time down at the university with Dad, watching the latest video footage. There were hundreds of hours of it.

Whenever Dad got home from work, he seemed even quieter than usual. I wondered if maybe he wasn’t getting along with Jaworksi, or maybe Godwin was angry with him for the bad publicity over the
60 Minutes
piece. But when I’d ask Mom if anything was wrong, she just said Dad was preoccupied with the project, and that he and Greg had a lot of material to collate and prepare for the big grant deadline in early January.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling Dad was worried, and I didn’t really understand it. Zan was still learning two new words a week. He’d even made his first three-word phrase a couple of days ago:
drink more water.
The vocabulary wall chart in our kitchen was getting pretty impressive. There was no way we could get turned down for the grant again. We had so much more data, plus this hotshot American scientist working with us now. When he went back home after three weeks, he didn’t take two suitcases of videotapes with him this time.

I was glad when my classes ended for the holidays. My report card arrived a couple of days before Christmas, and my marks had improved. I wasn’t getting As or anything, but mostly Bs and some Cs. Dad barely seemed to care. He glanced distractedly at the report card and said, “Good, Ben.”