Дуглас Престон - Jennie

When I heard about the horrible incident with Sandy, I flew down to Florida. Dr. and Mrs. Archibald were also flying down. Mrs. Archibald had been unspeakably abusive to me on the telephone. I can’t even repeat the things she said. I will never forgive her.

Sandy had threatened Dr. Gabriel and forced his way into Jennie’s cage. It was just what I said would happen. Jennie had to be sedated, for everyone’s safety, and then Sandy became violent and abusive and Dr. Gabriel had to call the police. I must say it is to George Gabriel’s credit that he did not press charges.

At Dr. Gabriel’s insistence they took Sandy to the hospital instead of the county jail. He should have gone to jail. It was criminal what he did. That happened in the morning, and I arrived in the late afternoon and met Dr. Gabriel in his office. He was shaken up. This was — let me see here — on May 17, 1974. He was worried about what was going to happen when the Archibalds arrived.

We had a signed agreement over the care and responsibility for Jennie. We had legal ownership of Jennie — technically, of course. Sandy had been trespassing on Tahachee grounds. Dr. Gabriel, as far as I could see, had acted properly. It was just as we had warned over and over again. We told them exactly what would happen if Jennie had any contact with the Archibald family. We were absolutely right. It was all their fault but we got blamed for everything.

What was alleged in that magazine, that we refused to relinquish Jennie, is a bald lie. It is a libelous statement and if I’d had the money I’d have taken them to court. They never once asked us for Jennie back.

Anyway, nobody had been hurt. Jennie was sedated in her cage, sleeping peacefully. Sandy wasn’t hurt either. All in all, I pointed out to Dr. Gabriel, we’d been fortunate. He shook his head and said that he’d been searching his mind trying to see where things got out of hand.

Late that evening the Archibalds finally called from the hospital. I talked with Dr. Archibald, who was calm and collected. He apologized for what had happened. He said they would like to come by the center in the morning to discuss the situation. He hinted that he might be coming alone, and I hoped that would be the case, since Mrs. Archibald was clearly mentally unbalanced at this point. I agreed and we set up an appointment for ten o’clock that morning.

The next morning... The next morning... Did you read the Esquire article? Well, you can forget everything they said. Not a word of it is true. I wrote a reply but they never published it.

You know, you worry me. I really don’t know what you’re after. I’m just warning you that I’m not going to be the fall guy yet again for what happened to Jennie. If it was anybody’s fault, it was Sandy’s fault. Sandy did it. We told them again and again what would happen if they visited Jennie.

Where was I? We were supposed to have a meeting at ten o’clock that morning. But then... Excuse me, on second thought I would rather just... finish. That’s right, end the interview. I’ve said all I wish to say. Don’t misunderstand me: I have nothing to hide. I’ve said all I want to say, that’s all. You must have ten hours of me on that tape. And you haven’t even read all the papers I gave you. Don’t think that I’m going to spoon-feed you everything. Go find out the rest of the story from someone else. Ask Harold to fill you in on the details. He’s the one who wants this damned book. Turn that goddamn tape recorder off. I mean it. Now.

Yeah, I remember that chimp. Jesus. What, you writing a book? You get paid for something like that? How much? I heard about a magazine article once about that. I was there, and nobody else was. But nobody ever asked me anything. They didn’t call me. I never told my story to nobody. Right? I mean, they didn’t pay for shit at Tahachee, and then they laid me off after two years on the job. I never made a dime out of that job. And those chimps were dangerous as hell. Especially that one.

So what do you want to know?

My name is Joseph Finney, and I used to be a caregiver at the Tahachee Center for Primate Rehabilitation. Is that the kind of thing you want? That’s what they called us, caregivers. That was my job title.

My address is... Okay, no address. I don’t know when it was, when they brought that chimp down. I can’t remember its name. We had a hell of a time trying to get it inside the cage. See, I’d been working over Boca Grande, cleaning swimming pools. But the guy who ran the business was a real joker. He was ripping off the customers, you know. Like most of them only came down a few months out of the year, so he’d bill them for all kinds of summer work he never did. So he got caught, and I was out of a job.

I saw this ad. Taking care of animals. Experience helpful. What the hell, I thought. See, I grew up in the Bronx, and I used to shovel monkey shit at the zoo. [Laughs.] I always liked animals, you know, dogs and cats. I like ’em. I had a snake when I was a kid. So I went in there, got the job. Mostly the night shift. Ten to six. This was before I got married. They had a bunch of guys for the two day shifts, but at night there was only me. I didn’t have to do much, just go around, check the place out, you know, punch a few clocks. It was all chimps. And they slept at night, most of the time, so it was pretty quiet. I worked there about a year when they brought that chimp in.

Look, I wasn’t one of those guys who sleeps on the job. Or drinks. Even with a piece-of-shit job like this, I do my best. And nobody ever said otherwise. When I was laid off, it was a budget cut or something. I got my unemployment, then I went to work for Marine Magic. Over on Long Boat Key.

When they brought down that chimp, they put it in one of the cages. It was really nuts. I mean, those other chimps’d bite you in a minute, but this one wanted to kill you. You didn’t want to get close to its cage, or it’d reach out and try to tear off your frigging arm. No kidding. I didn’t have to feed them, that was the day crew, but I saw sometimes those guys would have to toss the food in, like, from a distance. I mean, that chimp was always there. Waiting to kill you. Jesus.

It screamed all the time. Especially when people came by. On my rounds, see, I had to punch a clock in the barn. That’s where they kept the cages. I’d try to sneak in, keep the light off. But see, I had to turn this little key in the clock, and when it heard the click it always started screaming bloody murder. Rattling the cage. You’d hear this Wham! Wham! and it’d be hitting something in there. Jesus. I was scared out of my mind it’d get out and tear me to pieces. Hey, it did get out once. Sat in a tree for two days, screaming its head off. That was one crazy animal. I don’t know what they were doing with it there, or what was wrong with it. Probably got messed up in some experiment.

Gabriel? Yeah, well, he was kind of a jerk. I hardly saw him. He didn’t know who I was. He didn’t make an effort. Like on some jobs, the top guy makes an effort. He didn’t. He wasn’t my boss, though. My boss was a guy called Oscar. Oscar was okay, and most of the time he wasn’t around. Like I said, I was the only guy worked the graveyard. There was another scientist that was there a lot. Blond woman, a real looker. Not too friendly.

Lemme see. I guess they had that chimp for about two, three weeks. Maybe a month. So I come to work, ten o’clock, and there’s a big deal going on. Someone broke into the chimp’s cage. Some kid. I don’t know how he did it, I mean he must’ve had guts. By the time I got there, he was gone, and they’d knocked out the chimp. It was in the cage, sleeping. No problem. I’m doing my rounds, like usual. Then, like around three o’clock, I was heading for the barn. I heard this chimp scream. That wasn’t anything unusual. But when I got inside, I heard this other noise. Like a flopping sound. So I turn on the light. And there’s this chimp, like, flopping on the floor of the cage. You know, twitching. I thought it was from the drugs, being knocked out. Coming to, you know? But then I see this blood. Like there’s a trail of blood, and this chimp’s crawling, leaving this trail across the cage. And it started making this sound, like snoring.