The One and Only Ivan

“I shouldn’t have made that promise, Bob. I just wanted—” I point to Stella’s domain, and for a moment, it seems like I’ve forgotten how to breathe. “I wanted to make Stella happy, I guess. But I can’t save Ruby. I can’t even save myself.”

I flop onto my back. The cement is always cold, but tonight it hurts.

Bob leaps onto my belly. “You are the One and Only Ivan,” he says. “Mighty Silverback.”

He licks my chin, and he’s not even checking for leftovers.

“Say it,” Bob commands.

I look away.

“Say it, Ivan.”

I don’t answer, so Bob licks my nose until I can’t stand it any longer.

“I am the One and Only Ivan,” I mutter.

“And don’t you ever forget it,” he says.

When I gaze at the food-court skylight, the moon Stella loved is shrouded in clouds.

once upon a time

All night, Ruby moans and sniffles. I pace my domain. I don’t want to fall asleep, in case she needs something.

“Ivan,” Bob says gently, “get some sleep. Please. For your sake. And for mine.”

Bob can’t sleep unless he is on my stomach.

I hear a stirring. “Ivan?” Ruby calls.

I rush to my window. “Ruby? Are you all right?”

“I miss Aunt Stella,” Ruby sobs. “And I miss my mom and my sisters and my aunts and my cousins, too.”

“I know,” I say, because it’s all I can think of.

Ruby sniffles. “I can’t sleep. Do you know any stories the way Aunt Stella did?”

“Not really,” I admit. “Stories were Stella’s specialty.”

“Tell me a story about when you were little,” Ruby pleads. She puts her trunk between the bars. “Please, Ivan?”

I scratch the back of my head. “I don’t remember things, Ruby,” I admit.

“It’s true,” Bob says, trying to be helpful. “Ivan has a terrible memory. He’s the opposite of an elephant.”

Ruby lets out a long, shivery breath. “Oh, well. That’s okay. Night, Ivan. And Bob.”

I listen to Ruby’s soft sobs for long, horrible minutes.

Then I hear myself saying, “Once upon a time there was a gorilla named Ivan.”

And, slowly and deliberately, I try to remember.

the grunt

I was born in a place humans call central Africa, in a dense rain forest so beautiful, no crayons could ever do it justice.

Gorillas don’t name their newborns right away, the way humans do. We get to know our babies first. We wait to see hints of what might yet be.

When they saw how much she loved to chase me around the forest, my parents decided on my twin sister’s name: Tag.

Oh, how I loved to play tag with my sister! She was nimble, but when I got too close, she would leap onto my unsuspecting father. Then I would join her and we would bounce on that tolerant belly until he gave us the Grunt, the rooting-pig sound that meant Enough!

That game never got old.

Although my father might have disagreed.

mud

It didn’t take long for my parents to find my name. All day long, every day, I made pictures. I drew on rocks and bark and my poor mother’s back.

I used the sap from leaves. I used the juice from fruit. But mostly I used mud.

And that is what they called me: Mud.

To a human, Mud might not sound like much. But to me, it was everything.

protector

My family, which humans call a troop, was just like any other gorilla family. There were ten of us—my father, the silverback; my mother and three other adult females; a juvenile male called a blackback; and two other young gorillas. Tag and I were the babies of the group.

We squabbled now and then, as families will. But my father knew how to keep us in line with a simple scowl. And for the most part, we were happy to do what we were meant to do: to feed and forage and nap and play.

My father was a master at leading us to the ripest fruit for our morning feast and the finest branches for our night nests. He was everything a silverback is meant to be: a guide, a teacher, a protector.

And nobody could chest beat like my father.

a perfect life

Gorilla babies and elephant babies and human babies are not so different, except that a gorilla gets to spend the day riding on his mother’s back, like a cowboy on a horse. It’s a pretty great system, from the baby’s point of view.

Slowly, carefully, a young gorilla begins to venture farther and farther away from the safety of his mother’s arms. He learns the skills he will need as an adult. How to make a nest of branches (weave them tightly or they will fall apart in the middle of the night). How to beat your chest (cup your palms to amplify the sound). How to go vining from tree to tree (don’t let go). How to be kind, be strong, be loyal.

Growing up gorilla is just like any other kind of growing up. You make mistakes. You play. You learn. You do it all over again.

It was, for a while, a perfect life.

the end

One day, a still day when the hot air hummed, the humans came.

vine

After they captured my sister and me, they put us in a cramped, dark crate that smelled of urine and fear.

Somehow I knew that in order to live, I had to let my old life die. But my sister could not let go of our home. It held her like a vine, stretching across the miles, comforting, strangling.