The Nesting Practices of Orangutans
and Other Primates
and Other Primates
A Novel
Chapter One
“ In the event of aggression chimpanzees have ways of reconciling their differences. They may, in some circumstances, kiss and embrace after a fight. While some chimps have been known to go into an unpredictable frenzy...”
Dr Frank Walters, Berkley “Correlations of Primate Aggression to Human Behaviour” (2002)
Disturbing Memories
The temperature plunged as the sun set over the Gulf of St Lawrence, his bentwood rocker creaked over the old and worn pine floor boards of his Port Hood home. An onshore breeze slid across the cold water invading the porch over looking the Gulf causing him a slight shiver. His body conceding to the temperature. He savored the first of the invigorating Spring weather. Not much for meditating he did absorb the cleansing and tranquil feeling of detachment and the contentment of solitude. His thoughts lulled by the rocking motion of his chair reveled in the joy of simplicity. His thoughts were interrupted by the vibration of his Blackberry. He allowed the epeleptic device to bounce across the coffee table, observing it with disdain and resentment, as the persistent noise disturbed his silence. Unwilling to pick it up, but unable to ignore the plaintive sound, he reached for his cell. Koko, his Chocolate Lab, lay contentedly at his feet jumped up as Mark broke his rocking rhythm stretching his arm across to the driftwood coffee table muttering, who the hell is calling me now?” He pressed the green button to accept the call.
“Hello Dad, It’s Sabrina calling. How are you?
There was a long pause. Mark had to muster his scattered and confused thoughts after this unexpected intrusion. Sabrina, his eldest daughter, who he had not seen in over three years, the same who after “running away” from her mom came to live with him only to leave again simply saying that it wasn’t working out, the same who never wrote and wanted no contact because it was too upsetting to her and her mom, this same daughter was now calling.
“Hello Sabrina, this is a big surprise.” Mark held his breath. He felt the familiar overwhelming sense of lassitude invade his body and a foggy shroud enveloped his mind. This was always his experience when dealing with his two daughters. His therapist had explained that it was his psyches way of protecting him from excessive bad memories and emotional trauma.
He heard Sabrina exhale a long deep breath before she plunged into her rehearsed speech. “ Dad, there has been a lot going on. I’m not even sure where to begin.”
“So why don’t you start at the beginning.” Mark wanted to reassure his daughter but with such a gap since last he spoke with or had seen Sabrina he felt skittish, his efforts tenuous.
“It’s all about mom. What else?” Sabrina said with frustration and more resolve in her voice. She’s been out of control again. I don’t know if you know or not but she’s got another new live in boy friend,” sarcastically adding, “they met on one of those true love dating sites. They chatted. They dated. They fell in ‘love.’ And before I knew it the guy was living in the house.”
Not that he really cared, but in an effort to keep his side of the conversation Mark asked, “ And how’s that working out for them?”
“You’re kidding Dad. They’re drinking buddies. A bottle of wine every evening and whatever else mom has stashed away and then the arguing starts.” She paused as she tried to control her bitterness. “Anyway, during an argument or fight whatever you want to call it, Jim, this time its a Jim, tried to catch a vase about to tip over next to where Mom was sitting. In her typical over dramatic way she recoiled into a ball on the couch as if protecting herself from an attack. It’s so pathetic and so obvious what she tried to pull off. Mom astounds with the pathetic. She use to be much better at it. It brought back memories of when you and mom were together and she tried the same shit on you.”
“Yeah, I guess I know exactly what you mean.”
“I suppose when she thought the danger was over from this so-called attack she uncurled and jumped up from her seat and lashed out at Jim. It was almost comically. She was so drunk she could hardly get the words out. I don’t think he knew what hit him when mom accused him of assault. She actually used that word.”
“Yes, Sabrina, I get it. I know the drill. What are you getting at with all of this and why are you telling me now? This doesn’t have anything to do with me any more and nor does it really surprise me either.”
“I know Dad, but just hear me out okay.”
“I’m listening.”
“ Jim literally screamed that he had not tried to hit her. I mean they were both pretty drunk so they sounded pretty ridiculous. Next mom screamed at me, trying to get me to agree with her that I had witnessed Jim trying to assault her. The whole thing was so bogus. Dad, she is so totally nuts. I tried reasoning with mom, tried to convince her that there had been no attack. She was making the whole deal up. Dad, really, he was only catching the damn vase for Christ sake. But nothing I said seemed to calm her down. Mom was totally convinced that she had been assaulted, end of story. When I tried to calm her down she became more agitated and slapped me across the face. She then accused me of being a traitor and that I really didn’t love her. It was all her usual shit! It was her own damn fault that the stupid vase tipped in the first place, she knocked the table with her chair. She was at the clumsy drunk stage in her own drinking. Mom’s such a total bitch!” Sabrina sobbed.
“It’s okay Sabrina, you’re okay”, Mark tried to comfort his daughter, even though he wasn’t up to speed on what was really going on, and had no idea where the conversation was heading or really why she had even bothered to call about all of this. The fact that his daughter had even called was a complete surprise and totally out of character. The phone call and all this new craziness was disturbing. He had lived through all that same craziness with Sabrina’s mom and had no need to hear any more. Mark felt detached from his daughter and her life because he had been pushed to the periphery of events with the exception of rare occasions when she wanted something from him. Sabrina was a master of playing one parent of against the other, when one didn’t produce what she wanted at the time she would switch to the other and than back again as the whim dictated. She had nothing to give, like her mom she was a taker and a user. They were light years distant from one another and Mark was leery of anything she might now have to say.
“Dad, I’m sorry I ruined your life!” Mark gripped his cell tighter. “I’m sorry Mom made me lie on the stand and that I helped send you to jail.” Sabrina sobbed and made a snorting noise as she blew her nose into a tissue. She sounded like a wounded animal in its death throes. She continued blubbering, “After this incident with Jim and mom at the house along with her stupid accusations, lies and manipulations all my court memories with you came flooding back to me. I even downloaded some of the court transcripts and read them over a thousand times. What Mom said and what she had me say just didn’t make sense. Its all lies and bullshit! Dad I am so sorry! I was so young then. I didn’t know what I was doing and I know now that mom used me to set you up and that’s how you ended up in jail all that time.”
Mark sat in a numbed silence thinking. He had many conflicting feelings, solace mixed with an instantaneous acid reflux based on his gut feelings of distrust for anything his daughter had to say. What did she really want? What was her angle? Naturally, he had always wanted this confession and candor from his daughter. He had always dreamed of justice, if not in the courts at least with his daughter. It was a vindication.
He was never sure how such a thing would ever come to be. He wanted acknowledgement that he wasn’t the sordid person that his ex-wife and daughters had made him out to be with their pernicious stories over the years. He recoiled from their constant and vehement character assassination, at one time closer to the events vigilant and fearful that people would find out about his criminal record. A record that was unfounded.
Still silent he began to cry, his chest heaved with one level of the burden lifted. Sabrina sensed her father’s crying, prompting her to hyperventilate as her sobs escalated and mingled with those of her father’s. Father and daughter, flotsam and jetsam, swaying with the tides, rising and ebbing with emotion. They stayed that way for minutes until Sabrina broke the silence. “I just wish things weren’t so crazy and complicated but please believe me, I do love you Dad.” The mendacity of her words created a viseral reaction resonated with a hollow empitness, clenching, twisting his senses that rocked him into a heighted awareness. Be careful!
The years of betrayal left a hollowness that echoed in the connecting pathways of their relationship. In the past they were lost in the complictated intracies of the relational maze. He attempted one pathway inevitable to be blocked, hurt and confused. In a father’s determination he retreated in order to attempt another in road hoping he made a right choice, but it was foreordained that his choices were always stymied with criticism and ridicule by Joanne his Ex. He had begun to understand that at the end of each path was a bottomless black pit, never to be manouvered, never to be traversed.
Mark pondered, was trust usually taken for granted between father and child? The trust had been chiseled away by deceit, manipulations, and a deep greed for control. Long ago he had come to an understanding of the main rule of the maze, “Take care of the queen, or pay the consequences.” What’s really changed? I’ve been down this road before.
“Listen, Sabrina its very late and I’m tired can we pick this up later. I appreciate the call, but in truth I can’t help you with your mother. All of that is over.” He firmly pressed the red button on the cell to disconnect the connection.
Koko raised his head and stared, as if in concern for his master’s emotional state and then plucked his head down with a great exhaltatation of air as if the effort was far too great an under taking. Rocking to sooth his soul and calm himselve Mark was fixated in his thoughts. He couldn’t even escape to his isolated home on the Gulf. He was still reminded of the betrayals that started right back at ground zero in Borneo where Joanne who had resolutely followed him, or stocked him is more to the point, as he did his early primate research in Borneo, as a young and very naive antropologist, to the mad thesis writing period at the University of Toronto and on and on to the present, that fucking narcissistic bitch just wouldn’t let go until she had destoyed both him and the kids.
Thunder sounded over the Gulf. Koko buried his head under Mark’s legs letting out a little whine. “It will be okay old boy, gently panting the Lab’s head, we’ll weather this shit too.”
