Benjamin Hale: The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore

It was unclear as of yet whether Mr. Finch would be found competent to stand trial. If found incompetent, or found competent and convicted but found not guilty by reasons of insanity, Mr. Finch would probably be indeterminately committed to a psychiatric facility.

The missing chimpanzee had still not been found.

Then I drew open the curtains. It was a bright day outside. I showered, as I had not done in three days, and put on fresh clothes. I tried to get Céleste to take a shower, but she was afraid of the shower and would not go in. I dressed Céleste as well, again in my droopy-sleeved green hooded sweatshirt for maximum possible inconspicuousness, and I put on my coat and my hat. I took my mute friend by the hand, and picked up my suitcase in my free hand. We left the hotel room without looking back. It was the late morning. I guided her down the hallway, into the mirror-paneled elevator, pressed the button that took us down to the hotel lobby. The hood of her sweatshirt pulled low over her face to hide her apeness and the brim of my hat pulled low over my face to hide mine, I holding her hand, Céleste and I walked out of the elevator and through the high-ceilinged and spacious lobby of the Palmer House Hilton, all gilded decorations and Corinthian columns, glass and brass, golden-veined expanses of marble, painted plaster and potted ferns. We passed by the clerks at the front desk without a word or a backward glance. We let a descending escalator carry us to the ground floor, where we passed through the revolving glass doors. We walked past a doorman in a cap and gloves and a brilliant bottle-green coat with shiny gold buttons, who smiled and waved good-bye to us (we did not smile or wave back), and onto the street. I held Céleste’s hand in mine all the way.

With her long purple hand hot and sweaty in mine, we walked two blocks down Monroe and turned right on Clark, then walked north, holding hands and weaving in and out of the pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk for nearly two miles, a journey that took well over an hour. We stopped at a corner newsstand, where, still holding Céleste’s hand, I put down my suitcase, rooted through the pockets of my coat and dredged up the absolute last of my remaining money. I was able to scrape up enough wadded small bills and loose change to purchase a pack of Lucky Strikes. I put them in my pocket, picked up my suitcase, tugged on Céleste’s hand, and we kept walking. She followed as I guided us all the way up to Lincoln Park. We walked into the emerald-green rolls of Lincoln Park from the south entrance, waddled along the winding pedestrian footpath past joggers clad tightly in shiny spandex outfits, past little dogs tugging on their leashes, past a baseball diamond, an equestrian statue, and a big duck pond, where geese and swans drifted through green water neon with algae, and then we entered the Lincoln Park Zoo.

We walked past the great cats, the giraffes, the Bactrian camels, the rhinos, the kangaroos and the zebras, until we came to the Primate House. We arrived at the Primate House from the south entrance, which overlooked the outdoor part of the chimp exhibit: colloquially known as Monkey Island. We looked over the concrete ledge that gazed across the water-filled ditch between the human observation area and the chimp habitat. It was a fairly warm day for March, and some of the chimps — some of our family — were playing outside, including my father, Rotpeter. I set down my suitcase and let go momentarily of Céleste’s hand. I reached into the pocket of my coat and took out the pack of cigarettes. I unwound the band of cellophane from the top, cracked it open and removed the foil lining of the pack. I backed up, wound back my arm, took aim, and threw it over the wall. It sailed over the moat and landed successfully on the grassy shores of Monkey Island. The chimps immediately all scrambled over to it to investigate. One of the babies picked it up in idle curiosity. I watched Rotpeter lumber over and rudely snatch it from the child’s hands. His personality had not changed one bit. He was still as brutish, as violent, as selfish and unenlightened as when I had left him. His face brightened at once with a look of surprise and rapture as he realized what it was. I watched him sniff them, relishing the smell of tobacco he had long, long been deprived of. He bolted off at once to dig up his old cigarette lighter from the cache where it had sat unneeded for years.

Then I took Céleste’s hand again, and I led her inside the Primate House. I let go of her hand. I put down my suitcase. I embraced her. I hugged her tightly to my chest, and I kissed her forehead and her silent face. The hood of her sweatshirt flopped back behind her head, revealing her apeness. I picked up my suitcase and waved good-bye to her. Céleste went to the window. She was confused. She pressed her long purple hands flat against the glass and looked through the window at the chimp habitat. Our family stood gathered around her on the other side of the glass wall. My father, Rotpeter, already had a lit cigarette between his lips. All of them were hopping up and down, screaming, pant-hooting, ripping up fistfuls of straw and planting chips from the floor and throwing it in the air, bashing on the glass with their palms, displaying like mad — all of them probably wondering how in the world Céleste had come to be on the wrong side of the glass. Céleste pressed her hands to the glass and looked inside. She was happy to see them. She wanted to be with them. She wanted to be on the other side of the glass.

I left the Primate House. With my hat on my head and my suitcase in my hand, I slowly waddled away from it all. I made my way past the zebras, the kangaroos, the rhinos, the Bactrian camels, the giraffes, and the great cats, and out of the zoo. I walked out of the Lincoln Park Zoo for the last time in my life. I walked along the pedestrian footpath that encircled the park, past joggers clad tightly in shiny spandex outfits, past little dogs tugging on their leashes, past a baseball diamond, an equestrian statue and a big duck pond, where geese and swans drifted through the green water neon with algae. I said good-bye to the sky above my head. I said good-bye to Chicago. I said good-bye to my freedom to move at will through human society.

I saw what I wanted to see: I saw a mounted policeman reining his horse along the edge of the park. The giant sweaty brown animal clopped along at a leisurely pace. The policeman on the horse wore a dark blue coat, black riding boots in the stirrups, aviator sunglasses, and a sky-blue helmet with a visor. He seemed bored. He was watching the ducks in the pond. I waved to him and approached. The policeman snapped out of his duck-watching reverie as I came near. He tugged on the reins of his giant land-beast — like a hill of muscle — and clopped slowly toward me. We met on the pedestrian footpath, by the duck pond.

The policeman looked down at me, and I looked up at him. His horse snorted. The policeman raised his eyebrows and tipped up his sunglasses with a gloved finger to get a better look at this strange and tiny figure on the ground in front of him.

“Hello?” said the policeman. “Can I help you?”

I removed my hat.

“My name is Bruno Littlemore,” I said. “Bruno I was given, Littlemore I gave myself. I have committed a murder, and I have come forward to confess.”

The policeman peered down at me from on top of his horse with a look that suggested he was still searching for the owner of the voice that had spoken, still wondering if this small creature standing in the park with a suitcase and a hat could really be the owner of that voice. He took off his sunglasses, and blinked at me perplexedly in the late-twentieth-century Chicago sunlight.

The relevant parts of my tale are all told. It is a pleasing accident that this last chapter happens to be the fiftieth, the only other chapter in this volume except for the first (and, less elegantly, the fifth and tenth) to receive the honor of being headed with a bold and simple single capital letter. I began this narrative, as is natural, with an I : standing for the ego, the fount of the first-person voice. And I end it with an L . Does that L stand for light? For Lydia? For her given, and my self-given, surname? For locksmiths? For the commuter rail system of my home city? L is for laughter. L is for literature. L is for love. L is for life. L is for language.