Salome

by John Lee

Back in the late 1970s I was at drama school in London, and about a mile away from my school was The Regent’s Park Zoo, which is generally referred to as London Zoo. London Zoo was the world’s first scientific zoon, dating back to 1828, and it occupies a large part of Regent’s Park. For 20 pounds you could buy an annual season ticket, and bring along a guest so, being the frugal type I am, I took advantage of what was a rather good deal and went to the park often. It was a great place to take dates, of course, because of that free guest ticket.

The other advantage, of course, was that I didn’t have to take in the whole zoo every time I went along. The zoo is huge, and it was easy to spend an entire day there but having the season ticket meant I could nip in for a couple of hours, and just focus on my favorite animals.

I had several favorites, of course. The elephants were always fun, taking their daily baths and trumpeting around their paddocks and playing in the mud. I loved the sloths, too, with their comical faces and movements and being the ultra-serious drama student I was at the time, I’d study their behaviors and take them back to improv class. I did that with all the animals, in fact.

But it was the apes I enjoyed the most, and it was the apes I’d spend the most of my time. There was one mischievous chimpanzee who had a trick of enticing a large crowd by running back and forth at the back of his cage, then when the crowd was large enough – and close enough to the cage – he’d run straight at them, grab the bars up high then pee all over everyone. I think he did that about half a dozen times a day, much to the amusement of the staff. Many of the animals had distinct characters, I realized as I visited over the couple of years or so I was a member.

The orangutangs were much gentler, and would play with their straw, and make little works of art with their poop piles, and I remember there were a couple of babies that would amuse everyone by putting just about anything and everything on their heads. They seemed to understand what was cute and funny, and made sure to get attention. The orangutangs were probably the most photogenic of the lot.

I always felt sorry for the apes, though. But it was the gorillas I got to know best. Around that time there were a couple of young adults called Salome and Kumba, who weren’t fully grown at the time I was visiting. The big silverback, Guy, had been a main feature at London Zoo for years and had just died. So, they were new to the place, and had become popular fairly quickly. There were some younger silverbacks that were larger, like the one who ran at the glass the time I put my back to him. He seemed quite annoyed that I didn’t think he was worthy of looking at, and it quite surprised me when he ran over and thumped the glass, glaring at me with utter contempt for my audacity at ignoring him.

What I observed about the human visitors, though, is what got me thinking about the gorillas. Day in and day out, the poor gorillas were getting the same reactions from the public. Hour after hour, day after day, month after month, they’d be subjected to small children doing ape impressions, banging their chests like King Kong, and making that hoop hoop hoop sound that I don’t think I’ve ever heard a gorilla do, but that for some reason everyone thinks they do. And jumping around with one arm tucked under, and the other above their head, each kid thinking he’s been the most original, funniest person ever to stand in front of the poor creatures, who’d all have the same bored look on their faces having seen the same antics over and over again.

So I decided to take another tack. I got the idea to cup my hands and, instead of looking at the gorillas, look at what was in my cupped palms. There was nothing there, of course. Just an empty handful of nothing, as it were, but I’d stand just a little in front of the glass or cage, and hold my spot there for at least 10 minutes, never once looking at the gorillas, until I’d aroused their interest. Sure enough, one by one the gorillas would come over, and wonder what on Earth the human found more interesting than them. I’d be nonchalant, but after a while they’d get keen to know what was going on. And of course, once one came over, all the rest followed.

That became my party trick for a while, amusing the gorillas and getting their attention – and sometimes some of the human crowd – until one cold morning when I found myself on my own and nobody else around. There weren’t even any keepers around, perhaps because it was so bitterly cold that day, so I leaned in and put my fingers through the bars of the cage where Salome, the young female gorilla, was sitting. And sure enough, she leaned forward and slid the fingers of her left hand through, until about an inch of three fingers poked through the wire, where we could touch each other’s fingers. 

The long, black digits were like thick tire rubber, with heavy joints and particularly stubby segments. Gorillas’ palms are about twice the length of human palms, but the fingers themselves are quite pointy, though stubby, like old man’s fingers, with ladies’ fingers at just the tip. We touched fingertips and hers felt like something between silk and fine leather, even though the skin itself was so thick and course, but with fine fingerprints and quite delicate nails, considering they’d never seen a nail file. We just touched index and middle fingers, quite momentarily, because it was a hard stretch across a railing and then through the fence itself.

I leaned back and smiled. She seemed genuinely grateful for the exchange. It was cold, and my nose was running, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out a paper handkerchief, then put it to my nose and, with both hands, blew my nose. Salome looked on, then to my surprise she reached again, beckoning for the handkerchief. I had a couple of spares, so I took another look around to see if anyone was watching, then handed a clean one to her, which she greedily took, then placed on her face, and proceeded to blow her nose with it. She did it entirely one handed; the other hand on her head, which she was shaking from side to side, making a scrunched-up face, with her eyes closed tight. 

Of course, this got all the other gorillas going and they wanted their turn. Soon I was handing out paper handkerchiefs to about half a dozen gorillas that were in the cage. By now, it’d created something of a commotion, since everyone had their hands on their heads and white pieces of paper to their noses and in no time a keeper came over and gave me a ticking off.

“What do you think you’re doing? You can’t give things to the animals. They could choke on that paper.” Of course, it was nonsense. They were having the time of their lives. But I stuck around a bit longer, taking these wonderfully intelligent animals in, and feeling so sorry for their hideously boring time at the zoo. From then on I decided it was my job to go to the zoo and give something back to them, if only to just stay there with them and offer them something more than the obligatory two minutes that everyone else did.

A few minutes after telling me off, the keeper came back round with a tour group. He was telling them the usual stuff about what they eat and drink, how long they’d been there, where they were from, etc. And one of the group asked how they moved them when they needed to. The keeper explained that since they were so dangerous, they’d shoot them with a tranquillizer dart before entering the cage, so that they were docile. 

And it got me thinking. I realize that the keepers do it to the gorillas not because they’ll attack and overpower them, but because they could. And in an instant, I understood that’s exactly what we as humans do to other humans. We disarm and disempower those we see as a threat, not because we will attack, but because they can. So many of us spend our lives terrified of what others might do, instead of finding out the true nature of the subject we’re most scared of. These poor gorillas were being punished not for what they’d done, but for what human beings fear they might. And we isolate ourselves from powerful animals and powerful people, simply to stay in control. 

But the whole phenomenon of being watched became of great interest to me as a result of the exchange with the gorillas that day. As an actor I was used to audiences, and crowds of people watching me. Why do people watch others, after all? A few years later, I got the opportunity to get up close to some royals, when I was presented to Prince Charles and Princess Diana, and what I found fascinating was that they, too, were so much like those gorillas that day. It dawned on me that celebrities get exactly the same reactions from the public all the time. The same curtsies, the same bows, the same grins, the same fawning, the same excitement gasps of recognition. Surely, they must get as bored with that same, day in, day out attention as the gorillas?

We give so much of our power to celebrities. We fawn over people who are just human beings like us. We elevate them to a kind of superhuman status that makes no sense, if you really study the phenomenon closely. We set an artificial barrier between other human beings based on our preconceptions as to what they are. 

But really…they’re just like us.