Authors: Ginny Rorby
Every afternoon, after classes, she walked to the park where she'd seen the geese that first day. She sat in the same swing each time, walked it forward, then let her own weight drag her backward over and over until she had created trenches in the sand with her heels. Joey tried not to think about Sukari's circumstances, but her imagination ran unchecked: a small cage, someone spraying her in the face with Raid, or giving her toxic shots. As hard as she tried to escape those thoughts by focusing on what she would say to Mr. McCully when he returned her call, she couldn't. The only plan she'd come up with was to use her college funds to buy Sukari back. But even if that worked, where could she go with a half-grown chimpanzee? The more she thought about it, the more hopeless she believed it was. By the weekend, she felt herself giving up and growing toward trying to accept Sukari's death.
In history class on the following Tuesday, an aide from the office came to tell her there was a call for her.
With trembling fingers, she typed, “Joey Willis here, GA.”
“Joey, this is Mr. McCully. My secretary said you called. There was also a call from Lynn telling me about Sukari. GA.”
“I've been trying to figure out a way to get her back and was hoping maybe we could use the money Charlie left me for college to buy her back. GA.”
“I think we can do better than that. Can you come into San Francisco this Saturday? GA.”
“Yes, sir. GA.”
“Shall I send a car for you? GA.”
Joey wanted to say yes, but a car showing up for her would generate questions and require permission from her mother. “I can take a bus. GA.”
“I have another appointment at noon, so can we meet for breakfast at the Hyatt on Union Square? GA.”
Joey had never been to a fancy restaurant. “What should I wear? GA.”
“Your very best jeans and your thinking cap.”
Thinking cap?
On Friday afternoon, Joey told Michelle that she was going home for the weekend to babysit for Luke. Without a clue where she would spend Saturday night, Joey caught the 6:30
A.M.
bus to San Francisco.
Though Joey had seen the San Francisco skyline many times from the Oakland side of the bay on her trips home, the size of it up close was beyond imagination. She came out of the dark, low-ceilinged terminal into a sleeping giant of a city where the early morning sun made the windows of skyscrapers glow like hot coals. There was little traffic and fewer people. Even the homeless still slept in doorways and alcoves.
Joey leaned against the outside wall of the terminal and stared at the city. When she'd come through the station, all the ticket windows had been closed and she had no idea how to find her way to the Hyatt. She went back inside to check the walls for a map or to ask someone for directions.
A homeless man in a wheelchair was setting up his begging station at one of the entrances. He'd placed an open guitar case on the floor, but she saw no guitar. He glanced at Joey, but his shaggy beard covered his mouth. She smiled shyly and walked on.
Inside, in a dark corner beneath a staircase, an old man sat surrounded by newspapers and magazines. He watched her come across the marble floor through veiled, angry-looking eyes. Just as she stopped, he suddenly glanced to his right. Joey looked where he looked. The rackety metal Gray Line tour window was just going up. By the time Joey reached it, another person, who had materialized from nowhere, had gotten there ahead of her.
When she stepped to the window, the clerk smiled at her.
Joey returned her smile and was comforted. “I'm deaf,” she said. “Could you show me how to get to the Hyatt on Union Square?”
“Oh, I'm so sorry. Sure.” The woman shuffled some papers, found a red pen, then reached through the window and took a map from the display rack that she'd just placed there. She outlined the little blue Gray Line triangular logo, which was inside a shaded square labeled
TRANSBAY TERMINAL.
Joey smiled. Most people were awfully nice.
She added a “you are here” arrow. Next, she studied the map herself, located Union Square, then drew a rectangle in the blank area on its north side and cross-hatched it with red lines.
Hyatt,
she wrote and drew another arrow. She showed Joey, who smiled, said thank you, and reached for it. Four people were in line behind her.
“No, wait.” The woman opened a drawer and found a green pen. Carefully, so as not to cover the names of the streets, she traced the route Joey should take.
Is this clear?
she wrote along the margin.
“Very clear,” Joey said. “Thank you.”
Joey was nearly to the entrance when the woman caught up and tapped her shoulder. She'd scrawled,
Let me get you a cab,
on an envelope. She tried to hand Joey five dollars.
“Is it that far?”
5 or 6 blocks.
Joey gently pushed the money away. “No, thank you. I can walk and I'm hours early.”
Joey slung her backpack over one shoulder but by the time she got to the first corner, she decided that wearing it was safer. There still weren't many people out: one jogger, a couple of people walking dogs, and a few homeless men.
She had quarters in her pocket left over from the bus fare. The first homeless man she passed had a sign that read,
HOMELESS VET, PLEASE HELP IF U CAN.
She put a quarter on his blanket. He didn't look up. She understood why. So far, nothing had wiped from her memory the looks people had given them during those weeks before the restaurant hired her mother. Joey also remembered that it was the other homeless who had kept them fed.
On the sidewalk outside Macy's, across the park from the Hyatt, Joey gave her last two quarters to a man who was breaking the sausage and cheese part of a McMuffin into bite-size pieces for his red-sweater-wearing cat while he ate the bread.
She found the Plaza Restaurant on the first floor of the Hyatt but decided to wait outside when she saw a uniformed man watching her. She got the creepy feeling that if she went inside and sat down, the Hyatt man would ask her to leave.
Outside on the steps, she examined a fountain created from a jumble of raised copper-plated scenes of San Francisco landmarks. She settled on the top step near the one of the Golden Gate Bridge to watch for Mr. McCully.
It wasn't long before she saw him bound up the steps, but he went straight into the restaurant and was looking for her when she touched his arm.
HELLO. He shook her hand. SORRY LATE. NICE SEE-YOU AGAIN.
THANK YOU. NICE MEET-YOU AGAIN.
The dining room looked full, but the hostess led them through the maze of tables to one by the window overlooking Union Square. There was a Reserved sign on it, which she removed as Mr. McCully pulled Joey's chair out for her. The hostess took Joey's napkin from the table, snapped it open, and let it float to cover her knees. “Enjoy your breakfast,” she said, handing her a leather-bound menu. From the window Joey could see the red-sweatered cat curled and asleep beside his friend.
“Are you wearing your hearing aids?” Mr. McCully asked.
They were in her pocket. She shook her head. “They don't work in crowded places. They amplify all the sounds so I only end up hearing racket.”
Mr. McCully patted her hand. “How well do you read lips?”
“Depends. Some people's are easier than others. But if I catch a few words, I can sometimes guess the rest.”
Mr. McCully took a long yellow pad and a pen from his briefcase.
I don't sign all that well, so we'll make do with reading and writing instead of signs and lip-reading, if that's okay with you.
Joey nodded.
“Do you want to eat first?”
“Is there hope for Sukari?”
“Yes.”
“I'd rather know that first.”
GOOD.
I have something for you to read.
From his briefcase he took a fat, maroon leather notebook.
ESTATE PLANNING PORTFOLIO
was embossed in gold letters across its middle. He opened it to a page he'd marked with a yellow Post-it, opened the rings, and took out a few pages.
THE LAST WILL OF DR. CHARLES WILLIAM MCKINLEY MANSELL
was the title of the first page.
Mr. McCully laid the will between them, then wrote,
Your mother told Lynn that Charlie signed something to you just before he died.
“She's yours,” Joey said, signing, SHE YOURS, for him to see.
He meant just that.
Mr. McCully opened the will, flipped a few pages, pointed to the third paragraph, and turned the document for Joey to read.
All decisions concerning issues of care, maintenance, housing and well-being for the aforementioned chimpanzee, Sukari, will be decided by and at the sole discretion of her guardian, Joanne Elizabeth Willis, aka Joey.
An odd taste rose in Joey's throat. Bile. She knew it from the many times she'd thrown up as a child. She reached for her water glass and drank in great, long gulps.
“She was mine. All along, she was mine? Why didn't anybody tell me?” Tears of anger welled in her eyes.
As if he'd guessed this would be her response, he'd already written,
Your mother didn't want us to tell you about this part of the will. Charlie also left a trust fund for Sukari, but unfortunately, the way it's set up, you are her sole guardian and the money to take care of her is funded at your discretion. No one's been able to access it to help Sukari.
“My mother knew about this?”
She must have raised her voice, because Mr. McCully glanced around, patted her hand, then quickly wrote,
She knows Charlie left Sukari's fate in your hands. I don't think she knows about the trust fund. She never saw the will or wanted to discuss it.
“Did I have the right to decide what happened to her?”
“Yes.”
“Have I always had that right, even though I'm young?”
“Yes.”
“Why did Lynn let the zoo have her? And why did she let the zoo give her away? I don't understand this.”
Mr. McCully reached across and took her hand in both of his. People had turned and were looking at them. The hostess started across the room but Mr. McCully waved her off.
Joey realized she was crying only when he handed her his handkerchief. She wiped her eyes. “Can we get her back?”
“Yes,” he said.
Joey stared at his lips. Had he really said yes?
YES, he signed, then scrawled another sentence and handed it to her:
I have already filed an injunction to stop any further testing on her and a copy of the will has been sent to the Clarke Foundation's attorneys.
When Joey looked up, he took the pad and wrote,
The hitch is we have no one willing to house her.
“What do you mean?” she asked before she realized that she already knew the answer. If the zoo wouldn't keep her and Lynn couldn't and her mother wouldn't, where else was left? She didn't bother to read his answer. “Can we pay some place to keep her for a while?”
Possibly. Lynn thought of that but it costs thousands a year to feed and care for a chimpanzee. She didn't have that kind of money. As long as Lynn thought Sukari was okay in the zoo, she abided by your mother's wishes. But now ⦠well, the situation has changed.
“Can we try again?”
I called some zoos. Not one wanted another chimpanzee. They are overwhelmed by the numbers needing a place to go. They keep the ones they have on birth control.
Joey remembered something Lynn had said about rehab places. At the time, it had had another association for her: Her father had been sent to one for alcoholics. He'd walked out after two days. “Lynn mentioned calling rehab places. What are they?”
They are permanent homes for animals nobody wants. Circus animals. Movie animals. Air Force chimps. Research facility survivors. Lynn tried them all, I think. No room there either.
“Do you know why I'm deaf?”
The question seemed to catch him off guard. “No. No, I don't.”
“My father beat me.” She'd never said the words out loud before and was surprised at how easily they came. “If my mother had left him the first time he hit her, I wouldn't be deaf.”
Slowly, thoughtfully, Mr. McCully wrote,
It can be almost as dangerous to leave an abuser as it is to stay. It requires a lot of courage to make a run for it.
“Well, she's definitely not brave. And she never cared much for Sukari, but she knew that I did, Mr. McCully. She knows I love her. I think she owed it to me not to let this happen.”
After breakfast, Mr. McCully told Joey he had a few minutes before he had to leave for his next meeting and asked if she'd like to see the city from the roof of the Hyatt.
The elevator opened onto a large room on the thirty-sixth floor. There was a bar, a dance floor, tables and chairs, and a bank of windows, from knee-high to the ceiling, with a spectacular view. Perhaps, on any other day, she would have appreciated him taking the time to bring her here. But right now, she didn't have the heart to enjoy the view of cable cars, like miniatures, creeping up and down Powell Street, the colorful, curly gates of Chinatown, and the bay dotted with little white sailboats. She nodded politely and tried to smile when he pointed out Alcatraz on its barren rock, the fire-hose, nozzle-shaped Coit Tower, and the pointy-topped TransAmerica Building, writing their names for her in the condensation on the windows.
I have to go,
he wrote.
I'm happy to give you a ride back to the station, but I have one more thing for you and I thought perhaps you'd like some time alone.
What else?
she thought. She did want to be alone, she was sure of that. “I'd like to stay, if it's okay.”
Mr. McCully squeezed her shoulder and nodded, then took an envelope from his inside coat pocket. “This is for you.” It was addressed to her in Charlie's shaky handwriting and dated September 29th, a little over a month after Sukari's and Joey's birthday party.