"Well, it's like this," the counterman said. But he had no chance to
finish. There was an animal shriek of pain from the other side of the
building. The polar bears lifted their heads. Putting his unfinished
drink on the counter, Mr. Kemper went toward the sound.
* * * * *
In the high cage that housed the chimpanzees, at the corner of the
wing, a chimp swung violently on a trapeze, scolding at another on the
cage floor. Kemper saw that the one on the trapeze was a female, the
other a bigger, older male. The male, his face grotesque with anger,
climbed the bars and got as close as he could to the trapeze. He hung
there, grabbing at the female as she swung past just out of reach.
There were only a few people near the cage, but most of them were
smiling. One of them, a gangling, tall man, ran about pointing a camera
first at the female, then the male. A lean woman, possibly his wife,
stood close to him. She put her hand on his arm. When Kemper saw her
eyes he moved behind the others and went toward her and the man with
the camera, taking a position a little to their right.
"Do it again, Al," the lank woman said. "Make them mad again." Al
was sweating. He laughed, looked at the people around him, then
pushed black hair from his forehead and handed her the camera. "Okay,
okay," he said. "You get the shots now and don't goof it." He moved
disjointedly, like a puppet, as close to the cage as he could, directly
beneath the periphery of the trapeze's swinging arc.
He started to jiggle, then jumped up and down, making faces at the
female. "Chee, chee!" he called. He danced, capering loosely, flapping
long arms against his thighs. "Haaah, haaah, haaah," he yelled.
"Haaah! Aargh!"
Angered, the female chattered at him. When the trapeze swung to the top
of its arc she leaped and caught the cage bars, then dropped down them
until she was only a few feet above the capering man. She screeched
at him, pounding one hand against a bar, and the spectators laughed.
On the opposite side of the cage the male chimp dropped to the floor
and scuttled toward her. Stopping beneath her, he lifted his arms and
growled low in his throat. She turned, snarling, and began to climb
bars. With a last wild screech at the shouting, dancing man outside
the cage she jumped, just as the male's fingers brushed her foot. Far
over his head she went, then thumped to the floor. He dropped, and ran
after her. She was climbing toward the trapeze again when he caught
her. He sidled in, cuffing at her, then they grappled. A scream split
the air as his teeth sank into her shoulder. Added now to the smells of
popcorn, sweat and cotton candy was the smell of blood.
There was quiet in the cage and out of it as the female backed away
from the hunched male. Unmolested, she climbed the bars slowly and
swung to the trapeze, where she sat with one hand held to her bleeding
shoulder. On the floor of the cage the male lifted both arms to her.
The spectators breathed again. "Did you get it?" said Al. "Did you?
What a shot! Terrific, but terrific!"
"I got it, Al, I got it!" his wife said, eyes shining.
Mr. Kemper grinned at Al and shook his head admiringly. "Say, that was
quite a performance." Still breathing hard, Al shoved his hair out of
his eyes and returned the grin.
"Oh, Al's great," his wife said. "You ought to see him sometime at a
party."