Read Online Chimpanzee by Darin Bradley - Free Book Online Page B

[name]?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œHave you chosen a university yet?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDon’t.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDon’t. Particularly not this one.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDo you know anything about HVAC repair or installation?”
    â€œWhat is that?”
    â€œWhat about locksmithing?”
    â€œLike, picking locks?”
    â€œBoth of these professions earn more money than I do. Enjoy greater job security. Do you have a new car, [name]?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œDo you want one? Nice clothes? An apartment with granite counter-tops?”
    â€œSure, I guess.”
    â€œDo you know what an aircraft marshaller is, [name]? It’s the person who use neon wands to wave planes in and out of terminal gates.”
    â€œOk.”
    â€œThey’re very important, [name]. An essential service, like plumbing. It’s a good trade, but I can teach you the secrets of consciousness, being, and the existential nature of language, here at Central University. Would you like me to teach you these things, [name]?”
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œFuck you, [name]. Have a nice day.”

    I follow Zoe out of the park. A few students stop me, here and there, on the stairs. Shaking hands, saying thanks. Can I make up the first assignment?
    Up top, at street-level, I follow Zoe. It’s awkward: my artificial student-essays and notes clutched against my chest, walking single-file—at least David took the newsprint and promised to bring it back, so I wouldn’t have to carry it out of the park. There isn’t enough room on the sidewalk to walk abreast. Transients and children and people in distribution lines take up most of thepavement. Zoe seems to know every tenth person.
    Sireen sends me a text message. Finished? How’d it go?
    â€œStill back there?” Zoe says.
    Someone must have handed Zoe a cup of coffee. A cup of something. She holds it at a right angle to her chest, looking at her shoulder, which, in this context, stands in for me. Turning to look at me fully would mean colliding with something in front of her. This is how we source gaze. Only, she owns hers. Young, female, liberated. I am male, and I know enough gender theory that I have been trained to be ashamed of mine.
    In this instance, she is substituting me for the tiny hairs—soft blonde—standing on her polished scapula. Bright white in the sun. Easier and safer to see than me.
    â€œYes. Still here.”
    Coming home? Sireen texts.
    â€œGood,” Zoe says. “It’s not far.”
    Soon, I text. Chatting with some of the students.
    â€œGood,” I say.
    Love you.
    Zoe walks us across the street, between pedi-cabs and smart cars. The architecture casts parallelograms, trapezoid shadows—its faces and finials and loft-apartments. We watch police on foot patrol. There is screaming somewhere in the arts district.
    â€œSo how did you come up with this idea?” Zoe says.
    We walk abreast now.
    â€œThe assignment?”
    â€œThe class.”
    â€œI didn’t invent class, Zoe.”
    She adjusts a free-hanging dread as we make a turn. We’re off-street now, between and behind buildings. Fire escapes throw new shadows.
    â€œPeople are talking about you,” she says.
    â€œWhat do they say?”
    â€œThe new Socrates. A teacher for the people.”
    She laughs.

    Finally.
    â€œHere it is,” Zoe says.
    â€œ This is your essay?”
    â€œAmong other things.”
    I think about bedroom silence. About the house Sireen and I will buy. How I will spend my evenings quietly, un-educated. A full suppression of identity. By that time, I will have reduced myself to zero, and I won’t need beer, or sex, or drugs to do it.
    Homeownership. Peace. The fulfillment of all things, our parents tell us. Our government tells us. I think about standing with a student—a woman half my size in a sundress and sandals, five blocks deep into a