Hurt Go Happy (23 page)

Inside a locker room, they were asked to dress in white jumpsuits made of Tyvek, the same material that the addition to their house had been wrapped in before the siding went on. They pulled on black rubber boots just like the ones she'd been wearing the day she met Charlie and Sukari, and they were fitted with white hoods and plastic faceplates with headbands. They looked like astronauts and she was afraid Sukari wouldn't recognize her. But when she asked why they had to dress this way, the “Animal-Care Technician” who had joined them said that it was for protection from the chimps who spit and threw food and feces at the workers. A knot formed in Joey's stomach.
Have they turned Sukari into that kind of chimp?

They left the locker room and passed through a set of double doors marked
NO ADMITTANCE: LAB PERSONNEL ONLY
, into a fluorescently lit, windowless room lined with cages of screaming, howling, wide-eyed monkeys, some in barred cages, others in aquarium-like plastic boxes. Pairs of baby monkeys rushed to hug each other, then huddled, trembling in the far corners of their cages, staring at the procession with shattered eyes. Joey slowed like someone passing a cruel, crushing accident. She didn't want to see, yet couldn't look away. One of the babies, alone in a bare box the size of a bicycle basket, eyed them with fear and longing, then came shyly to the front and followed their progress like a mime, its pink, wrinkled palms moving along the plastic window. Joey stopped and brought a finger to touch the baby's, but the care-tech stepped forward and shook her head.

Ms. Miller grabbed Joey's arm at the same time. She was very pale. “I can't do this,” she said, swaying slightly. “I'll … I'll be with the dog.” She spun and pitched through the swinging doors.

A hurt look came to the care-tech's narrow face. “The work we do here saves lives.”

Kathy's face was white and streaked with tears as she interpreted for Joey.

The baby monkey had knotted itself into the corner of its little aquarium. When Joey glanced at it again, it began to tremble. Joey put a hand on Kathy's arm. “Are you okay to go on?”

Kathy nodded.

Though this room had recently been washed down with the black rubber fire hoses that were dripping at each end of the gray concrete room, it still reeked. Joey knew this smell—she'd smelled it on her mother and on herself. The room was saturated with an odor that no amount of Clorox could cover—the stench of fear.

Joey's mother once had a suede coat with a fox collar. She'd kept it stored, saving it, not for special occasions, of which there were none, but for emergencies, like job interviews. She hoped that if she looked as if she didn't really need work, they'd be more inclined to hire her. People with jobs to offer were like banks, she told Joey—the less you looked as if you needed the money, the more likely they were to want to loan you some.

The coat and its collar were probably long gone; she hadn't seen it in years, but she still remembered the vague mothball smell, and running to greet her mother. She remembered being lifted and hugged and burying her face in the soft cloud of fur and feeling it tickle her cheek and neck. She'd been too young to wonder about the animals that had died for the coat and its collar any more than she made the link between live chickens, cows, or pigs and what she ate.

Now, crossing this room, she imagined the fox, whose fur had made that collar, one foot clamped in a steel-jaw trap, frantically trying to gnaw its own leg off. How did they ever rid the fur of that smell of terror?

As they neared the next set of doors, Joey tried to visualize what the room where they had Sukari looked like. She needed to blunt the actual moment by imagining it in stages: cages with bars like in prison, concrete floor with drain holes, windowless cinderblock walls, dripping fire hoses, and the stench. How much worse could it be than what she'd already seen? She'd made it this far, but her breath came in short gasps. Kathy must have felt the same, because she took Joey's hand as the care-tech pushed a door open and held it for them to pass.

Entering this next room would forever remain the one moment when Joey was grateful to be deaf, though not deaf enough. The cages stood on six-inch legs and were about six feet square. The sides, tops, and bottoms were fat aluminum bars, and they were bare inside except for a narrow metal shelf for the chimp to lie on. There was a large metal box attached to each cage door for food and a stainless steel nipple for water. Each cage held a single chimpanzee. A few charged their bars, gripped them with feet and hands, and screamed and hooted. Others threw food and feces and spit at them through bared teeth. Kathy stepped closer to Joey, then maneuvered her to the center of the aisle as they followed the tech.

A few chimps ran to the bars and held out their hands with pleading looks.

“These are our Special K addicts,” the care-tech said, dodging the outstretched hands. Kathy interpreted, and must have asked what that meant, because the tech added, “They're addicted to Ketamine, the tranquilizer we use.”

Midway down the row of cages, they came to a lab technician drawing blood from a chimp who was pressed against the back wall by the door of its own cage. As if they were a tour group, their tech stopped. “This is a new kind of cage called a ‘squeeze-back,' which means,” she explained, “we no longer have to do a knock-down”—she stopped to puzzle how to define this for them—“you know, tranquilize the subjects for routine exams. Though, as you can see, some of the chimps that are tested daily are addicted to the tranquilizer and really miss it.” She smiled.

As Kathy's trembling hands repeated this for Joey, the tech was hit in the shoulder with a blob of what looked like soggy brown cereal. She absently spread the slime down her arm with a gloved hand. “They fill their cheeks with water and their Jumbo Biscuits and spit that at us, too.” She shrugged.

Joey felt as if she'd lost all sensation; a numbness moved from her head to her feet and she thought she might faint. She bit down as hard as she could stand on her bottom lip, so that she'd have a physical pain to focus on. She moved forward, concentrating on one foot, then the other. When the tech stopped again, Joey stared straight ahead. Kathy touched her arm. She turned and saw that the cages were numbered. They were standing in front of CF1029. Joey blinked to focus. The chimp was crammed into the corner of its cage, beneath its metal sleeping shelf. She could see only its legs. The same number was tattooed on one of its thighs.

The tech had a list attached to a clipboard with a plastic sheet for protection. It reminded Joey of the Etch A Sketch that Smiley had given her all those years ago. The tech wiped it with her arm, then ran a finger down the numbers and across the line. “This is the one.”

Joey's knees were weak and offered no resistance as she sank to the floor. The chimp sat in the corner, staring blankly and rocking.

“Sukari?” Joey whispered.

There was no response, and for a moment Joey thought that either it wasn't Sukari or she couldn't be heard through the face shield and over the screams of the other chimps. She was turning to ask the technician if she was sure when she saw the chimp's fingers moving.

Joey reached up slowly and took off the face shield and her hood. “Sukari, it's me. Joey.”

Sukari stopped rocking and drew her legs in tight. She glanced at Joey just as the care-tech squatted down to watch.

Sukari screamed and jammed herself deeper into the corner, signing, NO HURT. HUG. HUG.

“Get away,” Joey cried, and shoved the tech, who tipped over and landed on her butt.

“We're very good to these animals,” she snapped.

Kathy suddenly ripped her hood off. Her face was scarlet and she gasped for air. She turned to the tech. “That chimp signed, ‘No hurt. Hug. Hug.'”

“I always wondered what that meant,” the tech said.

Kathy managed to interpret this for Joey, then added, SORRY ME, and fled toward the doors past the outstretched hands of the addicted and through a rain of spit, food, and feces.

Between the smell and the grief, Joey thought she was going to throw up. She gagged, then swallowed again and again, trying to get control.

When the tech touched her shoulder, Joey screamed, “Get away from us.”

The woman backed away.

Joey sat on the floor.

“Sukari,” she whispered, over and over. “It's Joey.”

Sukari's frightened eyes shifted from the tech to her. Joey signed, I-SEE-YOU.

Sukari stared at Joey for a full minute, as if she expected her friend's face to wisp away. But in her lap her hands moved, repeating, J-Y HERE? J-Y HERE?

“Yes, honey. I'm here.”

HELP ME, PLEASE.

“Oh God,” Joey cried. “Get her out of there. Get her out.” She grabbed the bars and jerked on them.

“Not safe,” the tech said in large, exaggerated words behind her faceplate. “Knock-down first.”

“Get her out,” Joey shrieked and grabbed the tech's arm.

The woman, with trembling hands, unlocked the door, swung it open, and leapt backward as if she'd freed a monster.

NO HURT, Sukari signed, still pressed to the back of the cage. GOOD GIRL ME. HUG. HUG.

Joey sobbed. NO HURT. COME HUG. She offered Sukari the back of her hand.

Walking across the barred cage floor was hard and Sukari came out unsteadily on all fours. At the opening, she stopped and sat on her haunches. TURTLE HERE? she asked.

“No, honey. Turtle's not here.”

Joey lifted her out and struggled to her feet, hugging her thin, weakened friend as tightly as she dared. She started for the door, then stopped and went back to face the care-tech. “Genetically, chimps are over 98 percent human; that's more human than you people are.”

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

With her arms and legs wrapped tightly around her, Sukari buried her face against Joey's neck as she was carried past the other chimps, through the doors, past the cages of baby monkeys, then down the long corridor to the lobby. Clarke's door was ajar, but Joey could not see if he watched them. In the lobby, Joey covered Sukari's eyes as they rushed past the dog, whose tail thumped the floor.

In the parking lot, dust devils, gritty little tornadoes of sand, swirled around, picking up bits of trash. Joey covered Sukari's eyes again to keep out the blowing sand and ran with her to the van as if, with safety so close, they might be snatched back. Kathy opened the van door and Ms. Miller started the engine. The moment Joey and Sukari were safely inside, Ms. Miller gave it the gas.

Though she was sure she must have taken a breath at some point on the seven-mile drive back, Joey felt as if she had held it until the security guard in the jeep dropped off at the front gate and the military guard waved them through. At that point, she hugged Sukari and laughed out loud. Kathy congratulated her; Ms. Miller gave her a wink in the rearview mirror, then they fell silent, as if ashamed of their joy when they'd left such misfortune behind.

Joey had noticed that a road driven in one direction may look entirely different on the ride back. The road out of Alamogordo was an exception. It looked the same going as it had coming. Nothing redeemed the place.

Ms. Miller, who had driven at an alarming rate from Albuquerque to Alamogordo, drifted just under the speed limit. Kathy stared out the passenger window, lost in thought, with her chin on her fist. Joey sat in the backseat, holding Sukari tenderly, like a soap bubble caught on a fingertip. Sukari snuggled into her lap with an arm around Joey's waist, but her amber eyes stayed glued to Joey's face and her fingers continued to brush her lips, her eyelashes, the tip of her nose, as if Joey were a mirage that in Sukari's mind still threatened to dissolve.

At some point, Joey dozed off with her cheek against the top of Sukari's head, but was startled awake when Sukari plucked her sleeve. MAKE DIRTY ME.

Kathy, who had turned when Joey's foot kicked the back of her seat, interpreted Sukari's rubbery signs for Ms. Miller, though Joey had to translate “make dirty” as “use the toilet” for them both.

They were in Las Cruces, about to get on Interstate 10 headed south to El Paso, where she and Sukari would catch the America West all-night flight to Miami. There were three gas stations vying for business at the on-ramp, but all of them were the new convenience-store types with bathrooms on the inside. Ms. Miller passed them and drove until she found an old-style station with a bathroom they could pull right up to, out of sight of the office and the pumps. While Joey sneaked Sukari into the ladies' room, Kathy bought them all Cokes and bags of oily, salted peanuts.

Sukari began to relax after that, as if using a real toilet and washing her hands afterward let her trust that being free was not just in her imagination. Once back in the van, she ate her peanuts, drank her Coke, then began to ask questions. WHERE MY BABY? By which Joey guessed she must mean Lynn's daughter, Katie. WHERE HIDEY? WHERE DR. L? WHERE TURTLE? A question that, after nearly two years, continued to worry Joey. Sukari never forgot anyone she loved; could she forgive being deserted by them all?

In response to each question, Joey signed, HOME, the one answer that felt most honest.

GO HOME?

NEW HOME.

J-Y GO?

YES. YOU-ME GO NEW HOME.

Kathy watched in amazement, repeating the conversation for Ms. Miller.

TURTLE NEW HOME?

NO.

WHERE TURTLE?

Joey had packed presents for Sukari and decided to break off the interrogation by shifting her attention. WANT GIFT YOU?

RAISIN?

“Maybe.” Joey pretended to hunt through her backpack in vain.

Sukari pushed her face into the search, signing, WANT RAISIN.

Joey handed her a small package, which she'd wrapped and tied up with a bow.

Sukari tore the ribbon with her teeth, then ripped the paper. Inside was a see-through plastic cosmetics bag with a tube of Sukari's favorite-color lipstick, a mirror, a hairbrush, and a comb. She turned it over and over in her hands, touching the items through the plastic.