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Not-Tag
One More Thing
The Seven O’clock Show
Twelve
H
Nervous
Showing Julia
More Paintings
Chest Beating
Angry
Puzzle Pieces
Finally
The Next Morning
Mad Human
Phone Call
A Star Again
The Ape Artist
Interview
The Early News
Signs on Sticks
Protesters
Check Marks
Free Ruby
New Box
Training
Poking and Prodding
No Painting
More Boxes
Goodbye
Click
An Idea
Respect
Photo
Leaving
Good Boy
Moving
Awakening
Missing
Food
Not Famous
Something in the Air
A New TV
The Family
Excited
What I See
Still There
Watching
She
Door
Wondering
Ready
Outside at Last
Oops
What It Was Like
Pretending
Nest
More TV
It
Romance
More About Romance
Grooming
Talk
The Top of the Hill
The Wall
Safe
Silverback
Glossary
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
About the Publisher
Hello
I am Ivan. I am a gorilla.
It’s not as easy as it looks.
Names
People call me the Freeway Gorilla. The Ape at Exit 8. The One and Only Ivan, Mighty Silverback.
The names are mine, but they’re not me. I am Ivan, just Ivan, only Ivan.
Humans waste words. They toss them like banana peels and leave them to rot.
Everyone knows the peels are the best part.
I suppose you think gorillas can’t understand you. Of course, you also probably think we can’t walk upright.
Try knuckle walking for an hour. You tell me: which way is more fun?
Patience
I’ve learned to understand human words over the years, but understanding human speech is not the same as understanding humans.
Humans speak too much. They chatter like chimps, crowding the world with their noise even when they have nothing to say.
It took me some time to recognise all those human sounds, to weave words into things. But I was patient.
Patient is a useful way to be when you’re an ape.
Gorillas are as patient as stones. Humans, not so much.
How I Look
I used to be a wild gorilla, and I still look the part.
I have a gorilla’s shy gaze, a gorilla’s sly smile. I wear a snowy saddle of fur, the uniform of a silverback. When the sun warms my back, I cast a gorilla’s majestic shadow.
In my size humans see a test of themselves. They hear fighting words on the wind, when all I’m thinking is how the late-day sun reminds me of a ripe nectarine.
I’m mightier than any human, four hundred pounds of pure power. My body looks made for battle. My arms, outstretched, span taller than the tallest human.
My family tree spreads wide as well. I am a great ape, and you are a great ape, and so are chimpanzees and orangutans and bonobos, all of us distant and distrustful cousins.
I know this is troubling.
I too find it hard to believe there is a connection across time and space, linking me to a race of ill-mannered clowns.
Chimps. There’s no excuse for them.
The Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade
I live in a human habitat called the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade. We are conveniently located off I-95, with shows at two, four and seven, 365 days a year.
Mack says that when he answers the trilling telephone.
