Apes. Not Monkeys.

Summerville, South Carolina is home to a semi-clandestine sanctuary, The International Primate Protection League (http://www.ippl.org/)

To you and me, they're monkeys. But since gibbons don't have tails, technically they're apes. Regardless, they swing effortlessly from thick ropes never once missing.

It's not open to the public. Fortunately, we know someone that knows someone. On more than one occasion, we've walked the whoop-whoop grounds beneath the tunneled cages. Every gibbon on the property has been rescued for one reason or another and supported by donations from around the world.

They are paired in large cages, male and female. Some are charming, others not so much. These seemingly diminutive furballs are cute enough to cuddle with incisors long enough to eat your face. They'll reach through the bars and, on certain occasions, we can touch their soft pads.

Their gaze is intelligent. Reminds me we're not the only ones that think.

We're just more likely to get ourselves in a mess doing it.

Inside the Needle

I never planned on writing another novel. It's tedious, lonesome, and exhausting. Besides, I didn't have one to write. If you force it, add frustrating anger to the list.

A few years ago, I wrote a science fiction trilogy, The Socket Greeny Saga. It didn't make me famous or rich, but that wasn't the point. It was a character and a story that was inside my skull. Once they got out, I was tapped. There was nothing left to write.

Until the Needle appeared.



It started with a character, Danny Boy. Then another one, later to be named Reed. What was going to happen and what they were to discover unfolded rapidly. Two days later, I had outlined 25 chapters, beginning to end.

Most of my writing occurs in my head, unfolding on its own. I just need to make space. My wife and kids tell me I get the 1000-mile stare. And then I'm lost on the keyboard for hours at a time, but I remember something Stephen King once said: the writer's desk shouldn't be in the center of the room. That's for family. For life.



But now I've a story. It might take two months or a year to complete, but there's no hurry. It won't pay the bills, but it'll look something like this:

Inside the Needle

by Tony Bertauski

2,977

I don't remember where I was when JFK was assassinated. My mother was still in high school. I wasn't even the proverbial gleam at that point.

But I remember where I was ten years ago.



I took my daughter to a new playground. She was three. Bob and Tom had just announced on the radio that a plane had hit one of the towers. I imagined a small plane, a private one, that got off course, maybe the pilot had a heart attack.  I watched my daughter run across the wood chips with a sinking feeling. That instinctual feeling the pulls coldly when the phone rings late at night. That feeling when you can't find your kid in the toy store.

When I got to work, everyone was gathered around a TV. Together, we watched the second tower collapse. A desperate sensation of loss opened inside me. I didn't know anyone that lived in New York. I didn't know any of the people that perished in that moment of live TV. Still, I wanted to cry.

2,977 people died.

Our ignorance can feel so bottomless.

Student Observations: The Street Inside

He was big man. Intimidating to look at, but the nicest guy you'll meet.

He was taking classes part-time because he had a family and worked his ass off in between. He was often late, but always called. Always put in the extra time because he wanted to know this stuff. When his grades were lousy, he never complained. He asked what he did wrong. How he could do better.

He was about year into our program when he and a few evening students were still in lab. I told them about the time a stranger called my wife and told her he'd kill her if he found out who she was.



Big man's eyes widened. "I'd *69 that mutherfucker and be on his porch in five minutes."

The reaction, it was genuine. It was for real. I never knew that was in him. For a moment, it was right there in front of us. Probably something he didn't want us to see, but the story triggered something. Then he put it back inside.

"All this," he said, gesturing to the warm, gentle smile we were accustomed to, "it didn't always used to be this way."

He grew up in a bad part of Charleston. Knocked around the streets, gangbanged his way through the early years. For the first time, I noticed the small scars on his face. He talked a bit about it, but not bragging.

"Nothing scares me, man," he said, not boasting. Just stating a fact. Then got back to the business at hand.

It was behind him.

Questions To Never Ask. Ever.

Never ask a woman if she's pregnant. Never, ever, ever.

I have followed that rule like a religion. As far as I'm concerned, I don't see anything unless she says I do. I've had students come in with their girlfriend/wife that looked seconds away from giving birth. I said nothing.



Here's one I didn't see coming.

Ms. K is a client. I show up at her house on time. An older woman answers the door, says my client isn't here, she's running late. She'll be here shortly. I notice she looks like my client and, in the interest of making small talk, I say the following:

"You must be Ms. K's mother, you look nothing alike!" Hahahaha.

She says no. She's known my client so long they're starting to look alike. Haha.

All right. Okay. Seems a little weird that she's hanging around the house watching TV while Ms. K isn't here. But okay. Listen, she's a good friend. Maybe she's house-sitting. Maybe she's taking care of an invalid cat. Maybe she's living there...

Ooooooooooooooooooooooohhhh.

New rule: Never ask someone if they're the mother. Or partner.

Never, ever, ever.

35 Summers

Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar item. You see when you're young, you're a kid, you got time, you got nothing but time. Throw away a couple of years here, a couple years there... it doesn't matter. You know. The older you get you say, "Jesus, how much I got? I got thirty-five summers left."

Think about it. Thirty-five summers.

Benny from Rumblefish (1983)

The Poem Man

He was in Barnes and Noble. An old man, white hair. Old blue eyes that looked more grey than blue.

He would hold up a book when people passed. "Would you like to read my book of poems. It's about me and my daughter."

His tone was frail. Hopeful.



People rarely made eye-contact. Sometimes they'd politely nod, smile, say no thank you. Sometimes they'd actually stop, feign interest. But most of the time they walked on by. And the old man would wait patiently at the table filled with his poem books.

I was a few isles over, watching. Each time he held up the book, I was crushed. Won't someone buy his book? But still, I just watched. And when it came time to leave, I took the long way around.