I watch now as Cindy pushes several buttons on her large
keyboard and immediately follows this by making specific gestures with her gloved hands. These gestures look as if they correspond to the hand movements that form the basis for American Sign Language. The words
JANE. I AM HUNGRY NOW!
instantly appear on Jaycee’s computer screen and the large LED screen affixed to the enclosure.
Jaycee reads the message on her screen and laughs. As Jaycee signs back to Cindy, she says in a firm but gentle tone, “It is not mealtime, Cindy. Please continue.” Cindy carefully watches every nuance in Jaycee’s signing.
When she is certain that Jaycee is finished, Cindy makes several additional gestures with her hands and punches a few more keys on her board. Jaycee’s screen now says
I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY DOLL NOW!
Cindy looks toward Jaycee and sees Jaycee frown. After a small hesitation, Cindy pushes two more buttons. As a result, the exclamation mark is replaced with a question mark.
Jaycee signs her answer to Cindy, this time making no effort to hide her frustration. “No Cindy. Time for work. Play later.” Cindy watches Jaycee until the last sign and then turns away from her board and drops her head to her chest in an unmistakable sulk.
Jaycee looks over to the enclosure and tries very hard to suppress a smile as she signs, “You’re being very stubborn today.”
Cindy makes a fist and twists it back and forth. The words
POTTY, POTTY, POTTY
appear on the screen.
“You just went to the potty,” Jaycee says and signs.
Jaycee’s senior research associate, Frank Wallace, a man in his late twenties, observes the interplay over Jaycee’s shoulder. “Maybe we’re putting too much pressure on her,” he whispers.
“Then give me another damn option, Frank,” Jaycee snaps. “The grant is nearly over, I’ve got Jannick questioning my methodology,
and the one presentation that could get us an extension is just days away.”
Frank takes a step backward. “All I’m saying is—”
“—I know.” Jaycee sighs. “I’m sorry. You’re on my side.”
Cindy steals a glance toward Frank and Jaycee to see if they’re noticing her unhappiness. Jaycee briefly makes eye contact with Cindy, and the chimpanzee quickly turns away again.
“Whatever the reason,” Jaycee says, “today’s pretty well shot.”
Other chimpanzees before Cindy have demonstrated an ability to communicate with humans on their own linguistic turf through gestures based on American Sign Language or symbols that represent words, called lexigrams. Washoe, Loulis, and Kanzi were the best-known examples, but there were scores of others with varying degrees of language competence. Up to this point, however, the discoveries about what these creatures could learn didn’t change the world—either for primates generally or for their human cousins. Too many remained unconvinced; the threat to the long history of invasive primate experimentation was too great. Highly educated and well-respected scientists challenged the research, and even the merit of conducting the research at all, belittling decades of language work with primates as either well-intentioned mistakes or, worse, no more than complicated “circus tricks,” the product of hidden cues, wishful interpretation, or data manipulation.
And still, the invasive primate experiments continued.
According to Jaycee, some chimpanzees who had been taught to sign a limited human vocabulary were even returned to the general captive primate population when their experiments were shut down for lack of funding or interest. The chimpanzees were then confined to small cages in cold labs where they were experimented on, operated on, and infected with diseases. These animals continued
signing to the end of their lives—words like
key, out, hurt, no, stop, end—
but their new handlers and fellow captives were not trained to understand them and so the pleas literally went unheard.
Jaycee was working to find a new way to eliminate any legitimate doubt by combining the hard work that had come before with technology so new and advanced, it was evolving daily in her lab. In the process, something else entirely had passed through all the wiring, keystrokes, and megabytes of data between tester and subject, and as a result Jaycee swore that she would never let Cindy suffer the same fate as some of those earlier unfortunate non-human souls. After I’d spent time with Cindy, I took that same oath. Thankfully, Cindy remained secure in Jaycee’s hands, and I never needed to make good on my promise.
Jaycee walks to the door of the Cube and turns off the camera. Cindy spins around at the sound and leaps into Jaycee’s arms just like a child greeting a parent after a long absence. Cindy begins stroking Jaycee’s hair.
“Okay, okay.” Jaycee laughs despite her worries. “Stop buttering me up. You win. Playtime.” Jaycee hands Cindy a small cloth doll with the shape and the face of a little human girl. Cindy hugs the doll to her chest.
I know that doll. I brought it to my first meeting with Cindy. Jaycee had suggested that I bring something for Cindy as an offering of friendship. I laughed at first at what I thought was Jaycee’s joke. Once it was clear that Jaycee was serious, I searched frantically around the house for something that might be appropriate. The only thing I could think of was a cloth doll David had given me on some long-past Valentine’s Day. He told me it looked like me—and it did.
Cindy loved the doll, and that act of giving for some reason
allowed me quick entry into her tiny inner circle of trusted humans. Jaycee tried to convince me that it was all about me and not the gift, but I never really believed her. That, however, was the only thing I ever doubted about Jaycee or her work.
Others, I now know, do not share my conviction. This knowledge comes too late for me. I can do nothing to uphold my oath.
B
y the time of my death, Joshua Marks had evolved from my faculty adviser, to residency adviser, to mentor, to dear friend and veterinary practice partner. Although Joshua is only twelve years my senior, his sorrow always made him appear much older.
There is a saying that I heard somewhere: “God can warm in his hands for a thousand years those who have buried a child and still they will not feel the glow of his countenance.” Whoever wrote that must have had Joshua in mind.
Within two years of the death of his five-year-old boy, Joshua and his wife were divorced amid rumors of infidelity and prescription drug abuse, Joshua had left (or was kicked out of) Cornell, and he had moved to this tiny hamlet. The practice he took over was the very first place he had worked as a teenager, cleaning out cages and feeding the animals. That’s where I had joined him.
Joshua had returned to his beginning I assume in the hope of finding some higher meaning for what had happened to his family. I’m certain that Joshua believes he has yet to find it. Instead, he
remains prepared to accept the events in his life as merely the congregation of separate circumstances with no more meaning than an entry in
TV Guide
. That is where his vision fails him. With a move a few inches to the right or the left, he could be scratching his head in wonder and, perhaps, even hope. Maybe he still will be able to do that for himself before, like me, his time runs out.
The animal hospital where we worked together is a cozy old converted farmhouse. Joshua always kept the office clean, but no matter how often he turned over the cages, the back room (and therefore the entire hospital) always had a faint odor of anesthesia, alcohol, dog feces, and cat urine. It is that familiar smell that draws me here.
The hospital is unusually crowded for a Wednesday. Four dogs on short leashes, two cats in porta-crates, and their owners wait impatiently in the reception area. The yowls and meows of animals who are anxious or in pain contrast sharply with the happy, carefree dogs and cats in the advertisements for veterinary products that adorn the walls. I don’t recognize any of the animals in the room, which is just as well.
A name plate on one of the walls by the reception desk identifies
DR. JOSHUA MARKS
and
DR. HELENA COLDEN
as the two vets of the practice. Joshua hasn’t yet taken my name down. Like my husband, he’s not good with that kind of change.
Joshua’s examination room is decorated with photos of patients and holiday cards. Two small framed photos—one of a Newfoundland and the other of a Siberian husky—occupy the spot on his desk usually reserved for family pictures, disproving the myth that all dog owners eventually begin to look like their dogs.
When I find him, Joshua is palpating the abdomen of a large mutt with the help of Eve, one of our vet techs. The dog clearly is uncomfortable and will not remain still for Joshua’s probing fingers.
But Joshua never loses his patience and tries to comfort the dog as best he can with soothing noises he has never uttered to another human being.
“How much food did they say was in the bag that Misha got into?” Joshua asks.
Eve looks at the file before answering. “It was almost full. So twenty pounds or so, I guess.”
“I think it’s moving,” Joshua notes as he continues his exam. “No bloat, but let’s do an X-ray and keep him overnight to be sure.”
The exam room door bangs open. Beth, our other full-time vet tech, carries in her arms a small whimpering mess of blood and dog fur. I know too well that wounds of this magnitude can only be caused by a car striking animal flesh and bone. The dog will soon go into shock, if it isn’t there already.
“Sorry Dr. J,” Beth says in her usual unflappable calm despite the blood dripping onto her scrubs. “This one just came in. Police found him by Wingate Road. Compound leg fracture. No tags.”
The receptionist buzzes Joshua on the office intercom. “Dr. J, your two thirty and your three o’clock are both waiting. And your three fifteen just walked in. What should I tell them?”
Joshua rubs his head in frustration and then barks at Beth. “I’m already half an hour behind on my appointments. See if Helena can take the emergency. Tell her…” I almost blurt out that Beth should bring the dog to my office with a suture kit and a saline bag, but then I remember.
Beth and Eve gape at Joshua. From the looks on their faces, he realizes his error. “I’m so sorry,” he says. In exhaustion, embarrassment, or both, Joshua covers his face with his hand. “Eve, can you please take Misha for his X-ray? Beth, just give me a second and then I’ll see the fracture.”
Beth backs out of the office with the dog in her arms and Eve follows with Misha. Once they’re gone and Joshua believes he is alone, he grabs a handful of pencils from a jar on the desk and, one at a time, slowly begins to snap them in half.
The only other animal hospital that services our area is about as far removed from our type of practice as you can get. Dr. Thorton’s Animal Medical Center occupies a large, modern glass-and-metal structure off Route 100, right smack in the most affluent area of the community. Thorton runs a twenty-four-hour operation with four full-time vets and a large support staff of technicians and helpers. He even has his own lab and lab techs on premises. This means Thorton has a great deal of overhead and he freely passes these costs on to consumers—whether they can afford it or not.
Over the years that we worked together, I saw Joshua spend hour after hour on a particularly difficult case, researching each option, calling experts from the Animal Medical Hospital in Manhattan and humbly asking them for advice, all for the price of the same office visit—if even that. He would send blood or urine out to the lab for testing only when necessary and only at cost. At the end of all this work, Joshua would present his conclusions and recommendations to the nervous clients with the type of compassion and understanding that only comes from having been on the receiving end of unfortunate news.
This approach is not part of the Thorton economic model. For the same type of case, Thorton instead runs a battery of expensive diagnostic tests irrespective of the animal’s symptoms. Since he owns his own lab, the markup on even the most mundane blood test is huge and goes directly into his pocket.
At the end, after all the tests have been exhausted, Thorton reaches a conclusion predicated largely on the process of elimination (what he would call in his most pompous tone, and with a sheath of test results in his hand, “the differential diagnosis”). He then communicates his conclusion to the waiting family while checking his watch frequently.
Thorton is not a bad vet—I imagine that he often reaches the right medical conclusion—just not a particularly nice person. He turns away clients who blanch at his estimates (50 percent due at the time of service) or question the necessity of a costly liver scan for a dog with normal liver enzymes. I know this about Thorton because these clients invariably ended up at my door and then stayed long after.
I think the thing that bothered me most about Thorton was that he always left the families to their grief before the tears came. Joshua never did that and, more often than not, added his own. I’d like to think that my own clients believe Joshua trained me well at least in this respect.
Sally Hanson is one of Thorton’s techs. I dealt with Sally only infrequently over the years, but I saw her around town. Once you meet Sally, it’s hard to forget her. She is one of the few African Americans in our “community,” and at the age of thirty-six, with high cheekbones, dark copper skin, and a tall, slim build, she looks like she got off at the wrong train station for some Ann Taylor photo shoot and just never left.
I don’t know how or why Sally decided to work for Thorton, I just know that she did. I try not to judge, lest I be required to justify my own conduct to whoever controls access to points beyond. Circumstances and context can often explain a great deal.
I can’t think of any reason why I should be able to see Sally now,
but here she is before me, running into the operating room to give Thorton a surgical clamp.
“Finally!” Thorton, short, fat, and bald with sausage-like fingers and glasses much too large for his head, shouts at her. Between them on the OR table is a large golden retriever with a silver muzzle who has been opened up for some type of thoracic surgery. I’m guessing the surgery isn’t going well.