“Learning to Talk”  Alan Gerstle

 

It’s the 1950’s: a decade I picture in black and white.  I am six years old.  My mother takes me to the Prospect Park zoo.  We pull back a large, heavy white door and enter the monkey exhibit.  Small bands of monkeys sit listlessly in barren cages—a dead tree branch the only ornamentation.  Feces and urine spot the bare tiled floor.  I think of the movie The Snake Pit about a woman confined to a mental institution.  These monkeys must be condemned to be here because they’re crazy.  But keeping them here will only make them crazier.  It doesn’t make sense.

 

My family sends me to summer sleepaway camp in upstate New York. We’re a hodgepodge of city kids meant to enjoy a few weeks of the outdoors.  It’s run by a religious organization with headquarters in Brooklyn.  A week into our stay, the counselors arrange a cookout.  We hike up a steep hill laughing and joking and tripping up one another.  When we reach the top, the counselors assign different tasks to each of us.   I’m not chosen to help gather wood for the fire or prepare the food. Instead I am to build a step path from the bottom of the hill to the top to make it easier for everyone to climb up and down.  A counselor gives me a small pointed shovel and a hammer, and sends me on my way.  I don’t know why I’ve been given this task, but I obey.  I spend what seems like hours digging out holes in the hill and knocking planks of wood into the earth to create a crude stairway.  When I’m done, I walk up the steps to the hilltop.  The fire campfire is lit.  Food is cooking.  Everyone has started to eat.  I find a plate and a place to sit.  A couple of kids are discussing the different neighborhoods in New York.  One kid asks his newly befriended buddy: “Many spics or niggers in your neighborhood?”  The other kid responds, “Nah, the monkeys haven’t moved in yet.”  The words slam into me like the hammer I banged into the wood while I was building my steps.  This is a religious camp.  We’re supposed to be in the presence of God.  Camp ends. A caravan of busses takes us back to New York and leaves us in a large community center where our family is supposed to pick us up.  Several hundred of us loiter around.  One by one, the kids’ parents arrive and they leave.  Eventually, there’s no one but me.  I call my family to find out why they haven’t shown up.

 

“Oh,” my mother says.  Her voice is remote.  “We thought you were coming back next week.”  She tells me to take a taxi.  I hoist my duffle bag into the back seat, and get driven home by a grizzled driver while I’m cramped in the back seat.

         

It’s spring.  Alec Knight and I skip out on our seventh-grade class and take the one-hour subway ride from Brooklyn to the Bronx Zoo.  The zoo has a “Great Apes” exhibition.  I enter what I expect might be a large pavilion. Only there are cages instead of seats and a stage. Nevertheless, it’s obvious the zoo administration has invested a lot of time and money in this exhibition.  The cages are large, and are illuminated by the sun that pours in from a huge skylight.  The large display cages look well-designed.  There’s lots of illustrations and information about the display.  I read that apes are a higher form of primate than monkeys.  Alec jokes that they should have a “Not So Great Apes” exhibition as well. At times, the gorillas and chimps and gibbons gaze at us with curiosity, but mostly with indifference.  Next, we head over to the monkeys.  They are contained in a more remote part of the zoo.  They don’t have their own exhibition hall.  Instead, their cages are spread out—seemingly at random.  These smaller primates look at us in confusion.  Their eyes appear glazed with doubt. I prefer them to the apes, maybe because they present a greater challenge to understand them.

 

It’s winter.  Alec and I are riding the D train from Manhattan to where he lives on Parkside Avenue.  I have on a scratchy wool coat and mock-leather gloves.   Inside the gloves is some white synthetic fiber.  I turn the glove inside out and shove it up into my sleeve.  A pad of white fur seems to jut out from my arm.  Alec and I swing around the vertical poles of the subway car.  We are having fun making ourselves dizzy, but we also want to create a scene.  Our plan is working because everyone stares at us.  We sit down and start jabbing each other’s shoulders.  A middle-aged woman holding a Macy’s shopping bag stares at me.  She looks horrified.  She turns to her shopping companion.

 

“It looks just like a monkey’s,” she says aloud. 

 

The train pulls into the station, and Alec and I get off the train. We laugh hysterically.  I feel good that I can trick people into thinking I’m a freak. Walking toward the exit, I take off the glove, turn it right side out, and slide my fingers in the proper way.  Now I blend in with everyone else.  I climb the stairs to the streets with the rest of the Parkside Avenue crowd.  

 

Alec and I skip out of school early to go to the Bronx Zoo. We’re avoiding Mrs. Wengraf’s class where we’re supposed to learn about the religions of the world.  The Bronx Zoo has refurbished its habitats. Now, they more closely mirror the natural ecology of their wards.  Even the lions seem to be out in the open and free to roam as they please.  Alec and I check out the situation.  We notice the moat and the metal fence that have been cleverly hidden behind a long row of hedges to safely separate the wild cats from the spectators.  When I enter the Great Apes exhibition, I notice a huge glass panel situated between the gorilla cage and the chimps. The glass towers over me like a cathedral door.  I approach and read the legend printed across the top.  It states: “The most dangerous animal in the world.”  I move closer and look into the glass, and I see my reflection.  When we leave the exhibit, we pass by the monkeys again.  Their situation hasn’t changed much.  Maybe a few extra branches.  I watch a monkey grinding its teeth while staring vacantly outside its enclosure.  It’s chewing on some lettuce. Ripped heads of lettuce litter the floor of the cage.  The way the money knaws its food reminds me of some of the old men in the senior citizen’s home I see when I visit my grandparents.  I recall the story about Samson I learned in Sunday school from the teacher who talked like he knew all the answers, but whose expression revealed contempt for us kids.   Blinded by his captors and forced to grind grain in a mill, Sampson escaped, entered the hall of the Philistines, and pushed apart the pillars of their temple. I look at the bars of the cage.  I hate the fact that the monkeys have no way to escape.  In my mind I become Superman.  I have bulging muscles and superhuman strength.  I walk up to the cage boldly and with confidence. I bend the bars enough for the monkeys to slip through.  As they scurry free, they give me a parting glance as if to thank me.   I feel great being a hero and beating the bad guys, even if it’s only in my mind.

 

I am on a bench in Central Park with my girlfriend, Frances.  I’m 17.  She’s 15.  My hand forms a curve as I stroke her silken blonde hair.  Our arms are around one another and we kiss. We have to do it this way—in public—since we both live with our families.  I sense the gazes of passersby.  They make me feel awkward, and form a barrier to our intimacy even though it’s a beautiful day in May and the warmth of the golden sun adds to the passion of our embracing bodies.  To counter their glances, I press my lips firmly against Frances’, and the whole world disappears except for ourselves and the glow of our innocent rapture.  I press my hand a bit more firmly around her head and feel her skull.  I think of bone. And even though what I am feeling is bone, I am in love, and in finding and exploring another part of her, I love her all the more.  It’s my freshman year of college.  Homework, assignments, tests, memorization: the pressures of school temporarily evaporate.

 

I am taking a graduate course in communications.  We are discussing the controversy of teaching “natural” language to chimpanzees.  The main debate is whether the apes possess the cognitive ability to associate abstract symbols with real life objects and concepts, and then communicate their needs and observations by putting those symbols together via a simple syntax.   It they have this ability, it would suggest they can produce “true” language.  The professor speculates that the experimenters have merely helped the apes associate one “thing” with another, and their responses are merely imitative and performed to please the trainers.  While the professor favors the mimetic theory, others disagree. We watch a documentary film on the subject that begins with a quote by Noam Chomsky to the effect that only humans have the capability to generate and communicate abstract thought.  The rest of the film attempts to dispute this fact by displaying the language experiments that the researchers have performed.  Despite the professor’s argument, most of the students are convinced that the chimps appear to convey meaning abstractly--that they have far more sophisticated intellectual powers than previously believed.  While the class raises claims and counterclaims to support one or the other argument, I consider how lucky the apes are.  Rather than being subjects of experiments involving research into AIDS and other diseases, they have been given star treatment.  They are celebrities and have names.  Books have even been written about them.  I think back to the chewing monkey at the zoo, seemingly befuddled by why the visitors want to observe him. They would not be good subjects for these linguistic studies.  They are too stupid to participate.  I wonder whether these same researchers have ever considered what it means to privilege apes over monkeys.

 

The world has crossed into the new millennium.  I’m packing my things in my room at the small, well-maintained Hotel Castillo in San José, the capital of Costa Rica.  I’m preparing for a trip to the Southern Coast, to Manual Antonio Park, a protected area of only about 1700 acres that is home to a wide variety of flora, over a hundred species of birds and an equal number of varieties of mammals.  But my main reason for going is to see a monkey in its natural habitat.  It’s a couple of hours before the bus is scheduled to leave.  In the modest hotel lobby, I find a large-format coffee-table book about the biodiversity of the country.  The names of the trees, animals, coral, crustaceans and fish overwhelm me.  Besides, the book is bilingual, and many of the individual species are described both by their Spanish names and their English names.  I’m getting confused in trying to remember what to call what.

 

Although my map shows the trip is only about a hundred miles, the bus schedule states the ride will take about four hours.  As the bus leaves the city, I understand why.  The entire way consists of narrow winding roads, intermittent rain and fog, and on-going road repairs for which the bus must stop while workers move machinery out of the way so that we can pass.

 

As I skim through my guidebook, I hear two women speaking English on the other side of the narrow aisle.  I strike up a conversation with a British woman.  She says she has been away from civilization for a month, staying in cheap hotels—taking in the flora and fauna of Central America.  She asks me if I know of any international news of significance.  I tell her a mosque has been blown up in Iraq; a respected religious leader was killed along with scores of worshippers.

 

“That’s impossible. They don’t blow up mosques,” she says indignantly. 

 

I don’t want to argue the point.  I return to my guidebook and read information about my destination.  Frommer’s travel guide says that there is a problem with the most common monkey in the park, the white-faced capuchin.  People enjoy feeding them, and the monkeys have become something of a nuisance, intruding into areas other than their natural habitation among the trees of the rain forest.  The guide states they can often be seen strolling along the beach and right up to the hotels, eagerly feeding on the food that the guests throw them.  My hopes of communing with them in their natural habitat suffers a set back.

 

When the bus gets to Quepos, the first town before the park, the driver begins to stop often, letting people off every several hundred meters or so.  I ask the driver to let me off by the hotel where I’ve reserved a room: La Colina.  About five kilometers past Quepos, he squeezes the brakes and we stop.  He announces, “La Colina.”  I collect my bag, step off the bus, and walk between palm trees toward the hotel’s open air patio that serves as its check-in counter.  I see a couple of iguanas amble across the pathway up the tree-lined hill that leads to the rooms. 

 

As a nervous bespectacled attendant looks up my reservation, I see a small sign posted by the counter: “Seven Reasons Not to Feed the Monkeys.”  Among these, it states, monkeys are susceptible to bacteria from human hands; feeding them fruits exposed to pesticides can upset their digestive systems; easy access to food creates a dependency that weakens their natural ability to fend for themselves in the wild.  Other dangers included are that it makes them vulnerable to attacks by dogs and exposure to oncoming cars.

 

The attendant hands me my key and I walk off in search of my room. I soon understand why the hotel is called La Colina—“The Hill.”  The hotel is located on a steep rise.  The rooms have been constructed motel-style, four across, each bank of rooms on a different elevation.  I must climb fairly high up to find mine.  But when I do, and enter, I realize it’s the best room in the complex.  I’m on the highest level, and I have a small balcony that looks out on the sea.  I’ve been rewarded for traveling in the off-season.  The hotel is half empty.  Later, the clerk tells me that during the tourist season, one must reserve a room six months in advance.  I, on the other hand, called two days before from San José to book my lodgings. It’s about 6:30.  I’ve arrived just in time to watch a magnificent magenta sunset over the ocean.

 

It’s morning.  Like every morning on this trip, I do my isometric and stretching routine.  I’m in the middle of exercising when I surf the cable TV.   I stop when I find the  BBC news station.  I watch the world news for a while, then switch channels, and locate a Jerry Seinfeld re-run. As I complete my workout, a baby iguana scurries across the floor.

 

I get dressed for hiking; long pants, thick-soled boots; insect repellent, and two cameras strapped firmly to my sweatshirt.  I open my bag, take out two bottles of guayaba juice and gulp them down.   It’s nine a.m. and it’s already hot.  I sit down for a quick breakfast at the hotel’s outdoor café.  It’s just me and a couple at another table.  I can’t make out the language they’re speaking.  But at one point, I hear the word “shortcut.”  I ask them where they are from.  They tell me they’re Dutch.  I mention I heard them use the word “shortcut” and ask them if there’s a comparable word in their language.  They tell me not exactly, so the Dutch have adopted the English word into their vocabulary.

 

I climb down the hill to get to the road for the town bus that will take me to the park entrance. On my way past the check-in area, the young clerk is being harassed: he’s talking on the phone to a guest who is complaining about ants in her room; meanwhile, a disgruntled women leans against the desk and explains sternly in Spanish that someone must do something about the arañas, the spiders, in her quarters.  He reluctantly nods that he will do something about the situation, and she walks indignantly up the trail to her room.  His worrisome look seems out of place in this paradise. 

 

“Geez,” he says.  “This is the tropics!  What do these people expect?” 

 

I shrug and sympathize, but truly, I can’t be bothered.  I don’t want to waste one precious minute.

 

I walk out to the road for the local bus. One soon slogs up the hill toward where I’m standing, and I hail it.  I pay the equivalent of thirty-five cents and begin the bumpy ride to the park entrance.  On the bus, there are three or four local guys who are off to sell their wares at the beach by the park entrance.  They look, talk, and dress like California beach boys, only they’re speaking in Spanish and their hair and skin are darker than West Coast blonde.  They are chatting in a laid back sort of way, not expecting to do much business.  Tourist season doesn’t start for two months.  One of them gets off at a hotel about a kilometer before the park entrance.  It boasts a large sign in English: “More monkeys than people--guaranteed.” 

 

I get off near the park entrance.  There’s a stretch of beach to cross to get to it.   I recall from my reading on the bus that the park allows a maximum of 600 visitors at any one time, and often it reaches its quota by 10:00 a.m.  It’s about 10:30, but today there are more vendors than tourists.  Local residents are offering everything from conches to beach towels, but I don’t see any buyers.  Two people on horseback ride by in the shallows by the beach.  The horses slosh though shin-high sea water.  Between the shoreline and the entrance to the park is about 200 meters of knee-deep water.  I pay a quarter for a guy to row me across to the entrance.  When I get to the other side, I pay the entry fee at the small kiosk. I recall the guidebook stating that it’s wise to buy a map here because they’re helpful in negotiating the small but complex series of trails that crisscross the park. I ask for a map but the female attendant shrugs and says she doesn’t have any.   

 

At first I amble along the perimeter of the park: thick trees and brush to my left.  To my right, behind some mangrove trees, is a ten meter stretch of sand leading to the sea.  I can’t move more than a few meters without hearing rustling in the thick foliage.  When I look, I occasionally manage to see glimpses of wing, but more often just a trembling branch of palm or almond tree on which some creature had been reposing.

 

Iguanas laze in the sun.  I walk out onto the first beach in the park, playa espadilla sur.  Some scattered visitors are taking in some rays.  I observe the aquamarine water, and the small tree-covered islets sticking up from the sea, where birds jauntily fly just above the treetops.  Maybe 30 meters in front of me, a pelican stands stodgily at the edge of the water, and further off to my right, above the hilltops, a condor glides effortlessly. But no monkeys.  This is ironic since I clearly recall the words in the guidebook:  “Don’t be surprised to see bands of monkeys at the first beach, taking advantage of food tossed by the visitors.” I don’t, and the thing is I don’t really want to. 

 

I walk deeper into the park and enter the narrow paths. On either side of me there are taller tropical trees, many of them Cecropias with large palm shaped leaves and ringed trunks—part of the primary rainforest—that reach up 40 meters.  The canopy  bends inward like cathedral walls.  After several kilometers of slow, steady pacing, I see a sign that says Punta cathedral. I recall the guidebook stating that from this elevation point, the highest in the park, one can see spectacular views of the sea.  I begin to climb the long winding mountainous path.  I’ve done so much walking in the past few days, the trek is relatively easy. I reach the summit, and look out onto the Pacific Ocean, dotted with rocky islets.  The guidebook is right. It is breathtaking.  But my travels have already taken me to spectacular places, and I’ve often had my breath taken away by natural beauty.  Besides, I’m not really here for that, so I decide to descend.  As I begin my downward journey,  I recall an encounter I had in New York City one time.  I had met a French actress who had just returned from out West, where among other places, she had visited the Grand Canyon.  I remembered asking her how was it.  She brazenly dismissed my question and answered, “Ah, it was just a big hole.” 

 

I reach sea level and continue on my way.  A few hikers are about.  A couple of park rangers lounge around and chat. This is definitely an easy work day for them. The scarcity of people makes me think again of those “bands of monkeys”: “more monkeys than people.  I walk deeper into the park, and the density of life—seen or unseen—is evident via sound, texture, movement, and color.  A couple more kilometers.  I see a woman with graying hair sitting on a bench.  She’s knocking the sand out of her sneakers.  It is the Englishwoman from the bus. 

 

“Well, there,” she says.  “All alone, are you?” 

 

“Yes.”

 

“See any wildlife?”

 

“Iguanas, birds, that’s about it.”

 

“Oh, we saw about a dozen monkeys yesterday right by my hotel. We were having breakfast and the manager told us to rush to the beach and there they were. A whole bunch of them. They like to travel in groups, you know.” 

 

She pauses and waits for me to respond.  I just nod.

 

She continues, “Just a matter of luck.”  She seems to be relishing hers.

 

“Guess so,” I say.  I’m about to continue, but she starts in again.

 

“Excuse me.  But where do I find the way out?”

 

“The sign back about 100 meters.  The one that says salida.  It points to the exit.” 

 

“I know salida means exit,” she says.

 

Whatever.  I nod again, and start walking.  I go another kilometer.  I stop before one of the more famous plants in the region—the manzanillo tree with fruits that resemble apples.  I stay clear of it, recalling that the fruit can be deadly to eat.  Even touching it can cause severe skin eruptions.  I think back to the book I’d been reading in my hotel.  They call this tree the “tree of death” in Puerto Rico.  It’s a little reminder to me that although I’m in a government protected and regulated park, nature isn’t necessarily benign.

 

I continue.  The canopy is getting thicker, less sunlight reaches the forest floor. It’s more difficult to see. Besides that, it’s getting cloudy.  I find a narrow trail that announces in Spanish, “For the safety of visitors, do not enter this path after 3:15 p.m.”  I look at my watch.  It’s 2:30.  I start up the trail, wondering why 3:15 is the cut off time. 

 

Now I feel truly isolated.  Just me, the path, the rainforest. Every sound seems crisp.  Every swatch of color stands out vividly.  I stop to regard a patch of pavoncillo—flowers with long, bright red tendrils that sprout from the leaves. In a moment of insight (or is it the lifting of a cloud of stupidity), I realize why the flowers are named after the pavon or peacock. However, now I begin to feel a sense of urgency,  thinking of that 3:15 deadline.  I continue onward. Where’s my monkey?  A couple of hundred meters ahead, I see the trunk of a tree lying across the path.  I decide that will be my turnaround point.

 

I reach the fallen trunk, and am tempted to go on but decide there isn’t much point.  Sure, this place is exotic, mysterious, beautiful.  But I know beyond the trunk will be pretty much of the same, so I turn back.  I stop to take some more photos, but my camera lens is all fogged up.  I do my best to clean it with the end of my shirt.  But all I’m doing is smudging the lens.

 

Then I hear a sound like a girl crying, another variation of the many birdsongs I’ve encountered.  I look for it, but don’t see anything.  I’m not surprised.  It’s been nearly impossible to locate any source of sound in the thick concentration of vegetation.  I walk a few meters, and hear the cry again.  I see some rustling leaves in a tree branch.  I look for the bird, but to no avail. I do see, however, a white-faced monkey. It’s only about twenty-five feet from me, hugging the branch of a tree the way a jockey might hold close against a horse.  Greedily, I look around for others.  But he is alone and his solitariness confounds me.  No group, no band, clan, or troop.  It’s just him and me.  He stares at me.  I stare back, and am in awe. My vision is telescoped.  All I see is his face.  And although I’d like to know what he’s thinking, I admit to myself I can’t.

 

Then I hear a sound like a girl crying, another variation of the many birdsongs I’ve encountered.  I look for it, but don’t see anything.  I’m not surprised.  It’s been nearly impossible to locate any source of sound in the thick concentration of vegetation.  I walk a few meters, and hear the cry again.  I see some rustling leaves in a tree branch.  I look for the bird, but to no avail. I do see, however, a white-faced monkey. It’s only about twenty-five feet from me, hugging the branch of a tree the way a jockey might hold close against a horse.  Greedily, I look around for others.  But he is alone and his solitariness confounds me.  No group, no band, clan, or troop.  It’s just him and me.  He stares at me.  I stare back, and am in awe. My vision is telescoped.  All I see is his face.  And although I’d like to know what he’s thinking, demonstrate my skill at deciphering his expression, I can’t.

 

However, a feeling of gratitude arises, but not thankfulness, rather a beholdeness to him for allowing me to be in his presence and in his domain.  My head feels as though it will swell, not in size but in understanding.  This moment of seeing a monkey in the wild—one I’ve obsessed about--has arrived.  My mind is crisscrossed with a thousand inchoate thoughts, but just one comes to the foreground. 

 

“What was the point of this quest?”

 

I have no answer that could be expressed in language.  But rather I felt the answer.   Something else was present. A third thing:  something that created the two of us, but in turn was created by us; the oneness of self and environment.  In Buddhism this is referred to as Esho Funi.  But I’ve never been comfortable with odd sounding spiritual terms from unfamiliar languages. I need a simple English word, something familiar.  I recalled the words of Carl Sagan, not noted for his obeisance to religiosity who remarked that all of us—plant, mineral, animal: we were literally “starstuff.” Over eons, everything that exists has been uncoiled from stars.

 

“Starstuff.”

 

That was enough language for me.  And then even that word left me.  There was no need for words.  My world had changed forever.  The bars had been lifted.

         

Alan Gerstle is a university teacher, writer, and editor, and conducts Writing As Healing and Creative Writing workshops in the Philadelphia area.  You may contact him at alanjohn1@earthlink.net