Simon Rich - Spoiled Brats - Stories

I sighed. Fitzbaum and I have an excellent relationship. But sometimes he can be unreasonable.

“Earth Day,” I explained. “Hello. Earth Day.”

“No understand,” he replied.

I threw up my hands in exasperation. It’s not my fault he only taught me fifty signs.

“Give,” he said, pointing at the bottle. “Give.”

I looked around and saw that a crowd had formed. There were dignitaries, reporters, and — most troubling of all — a man holding a dart gun. I stamped my feet in frustration. Everyone was overreacting.

I was trying to sign something to that effect when I lost hold of my champagne bottle. It shattered on the ground. I jumped onto a table to avoid the flying glass shards and collided with a large ice sculpture of a globe. I don’t remember much after that. Just the sound of shouting, the smell of grass, and a sharp little pain in my thigh.

I woke up in a cage.

At first I thought that I was alone. But as my vision adjusted, I became aware of a shadowy figure in the corner. It was another chimpanzee — old, obese, and out of breath. The hair on his back was thinning and the skin underneath was covered in dark red splotches. His face was dotted with insects, but he made no attempt to swat the bugs away. He just sat there in silence as they crawled up his nose and into his sunken eyes.

I walked across the cage and cautiously thrust out my paw.

“Hello,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

“Me Charley,” he said through labored breaths. “Charley the Chimp.”

I assumed that he was joking. Charley the Chimp was famous — an international movie star. His “Chimp Champion” videos had grossed millions in the 1980s. Fitzbaum had shown me all his hits during a study on primate self-recognition.

“You can’t be Charley the Chimp,” I said. “That’s impossible.”

The old ape shrugged.

“Fine,” he said. “Me prove it.”

He reached for an apple, paused to catch his breath, and then tossed it through the bars of our cage. I watched in shock as it sailed across the facility and landed neatly in a distant wastebasket.

“Oh my God!” I said. “You’re really him!”

He nodded tiredly.

“Charley… me… Charley.”

He was clearly on something. Tranquilizers, probably. I sat down beside him and groomed his splotchy back.

“I’ve seen all of your movies,” I told him. “ Slam Dunk Charley, Touchdown Charley, Strikeout Charley. I even saw the lacrosse one.”

He winced. “Bounce Shot Charley.”

“Yeah!”

“ Bounce Shot Charley not so good,” he admitted. “We run out of sports… movie not same level as others.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought it had its moments.”

He smiled proudly.

“Sprinkler gag was okay,” he conceded. “So, what you in for?”

I laughed.

“Oh, just a little episode at the White House. But I’m not here permanently.”

He shook his head. “Everyone here permanently.”

“Not me,” I said. “My trainer’s probably en route as we speak. We’ve been a duo for five years. We’re like family.”

Charley leaned in close. I could feel his hot breath on my face.

“Trainer not like family,” he said. “Only family like family.”

He looked off into the distance.

“I used to have trainer,” he said. “We like brothers. He take me People’s Choice. He take me Golden Globes. We wear matching suits — mine just like his, but smaller. Then one day, on set of Karate Chop Charley, I get confused and make one mistake during filming. Me here ever since.”

“That’s so unfair,” I said. “What happened? Did you forget your part or something?”

“I rip testicles off actor. Throw across road.”

“Oh.”

Charley sighed.

“I not even get to finish movie. If you watch video close, they use backup chimp in tournament scene.” He shook his head bitterly. “He never got kick right. Movie suffer for it.”

I nodded sympathetically. This poor chimp had devoted his life to entertaining humans, and they’d thrown him away just like a broken toy. Could that really happen to me? I was starting to despair when Professor Fitzbaum walked into the room.

“Hello!” I signed. “Hello!”

I didn’t want to make Charley jealous, but I couldn’t resist a few celebratory hoots. My friend had come to get me, just like I knew he would.

“Thank you,” I signed, raising my left paw to my lips. “Thank you. Hello. Love.”

Professor Fitzbaum’s hands remained rigidly by his sides. I wondered if he could see me in the shadows.

“Love!” I signed again. “Hello. Me chimpanzee. Good.”

Fitzbaum took a step closer, and I winced. He wasn’t alone. Behind him was the man with the dart gun.

“No,” I signed passionately. “Stop. Please. Friends.”

“I’m sorry,” Fitzbaum said. “But my facilities can’t accommodate a full-grown chimpanzee.”

Charley laid his meaty palm on my shoulder. I felt a scalding tear roll down my face.

“Don’t worry,” Fitzbaum said. “You don’t have to stay here.”

He grinned at me.

“I’m taking you home!”

I let out a scream as the man with the dart took aim.

“Guess it didn’t work out, huh?” my father said after our obligatory hug. “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He looked the same, only slightly heavier and with a few more gray streaks on his back.

“It’s okay,” my mother told me. “I’ve already talked to Uncle Mike, and there’s a position for you at the shit pile.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

She passed me a handful of grubs, and I felt my stomach turning. I didn’t remember them being so unappetizing.

“What’s the matter?” my father said, his mouth already full of hairy bugs. “Not fancy enough for you?”

“Jeez, Dad. I just got back. Please…”

My parents gasped and it took me a moment to figure out why. I’d been signing unconsciously as I spoke.

“What the hell are you doing?” my father asked.

“It’s sign language,” I explained. “It’s actually not so hard. Look, I’ll show you.”

I tried to teach them “thank you,” the easiest sign I knew, just a touch of the left paw to the lips.

“You follow any of that?” my father asked my mother.

“No,” she said.

My father laughed.

“I can’t believe you spent five years on that nonsense,” he said. “What a waste.”

“It wasn’t a waste,” I said defiantly. “I got to do all sorts of amazing things — things you wouldn’t believe.”

He folded his flabby arms across his chest.

“Like what?”

“I got to go to the White House.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s where the president of the United States lives.”

“You met the president?” my mother asked.

“Well… no,” I admitted. “But I met his First Lady.”

My father snorted.

“That’s not the same thing.”

“You know,” my mother said, “your father once met a celebrity. Honey, tell him about the time you talked to you-know-who.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, waving his paws around.

“Please!”

“Oh, all right. So one time, I’m in my tree, and Jane—”

“He means Jane Goodall—”

A whirring noise sounded in the clearing below. I looked down and sighed. Fitzbaum was already searching for my replacement. His truck was loaded with various testing apparatuses. I recognized a large plastic box from the day we’d met. It was a simple pattern-recognition test. You climbed inside and watched as three colored orbs lit up. If you hit the corresponding levers in the correct order, you won a banana. I could still remember how Fitzbaum had beamed when I solved it on my very first try.