little bit of information that they did not, and to share this information with only one other being. Haywood was my confidant—together, like two conspirators plotting a coup in some smoky back room, we exercised the dark subversive power of a secret language.
IX
M y love for Lydia widened and deepened even and ever more. In the months that followed my arrival at the University of Chicago’s Behavioral Biology Laboratory, the campus, which had been as deserted as a ghost town in the languid summer heat, one day abruptly exploded with bustling human activity. All summer long it had been silence, silence, then suddenly the hallways of my building were teeming during the day with energetic young humans. Their footsteps stampeded in the halls at regular intervals; their presence was a collective roar, their squeaking and scuffling shoes, their conversations, their laughter. Now whenever Lydia took me outside to roam the campus greenery and admire the foliage, the autumnally decadent weather was just beginning to singe the leaves with edges of yellow, and I saw these hale young humans everywhere: I saw them lolling in the grass, their shoes off with their socks wadded in the hollows of their shoes and the toes of their bare feet mingling with the blades of grass and their heels callused and stained yellow and green; I saw them lying on towels sunbathing; I saw their fingers noodling the strings of acoustic guitars; I saw them expertly throwing and catching bright discs—as well as balls of various sizes and colors—that glided gracefully through theair from one pair of hands to another; I saw them reading books, sipping beverages, smoking cigarettes; I saw some of them kissing or touching one another in amorous ways. So much life!
Some of them took great interest in me. When they saw Lydia and I strolling hand in hand across the campus, they would approach us and try to speak to me, and want to touch me. Sometimes Lydia let them, if I seemed receptive.
Lydia even took me to one of her classes. That fall Lydia was teaching a section of Introduction to Cognitive Psychology. One afternoon she put on my collar and clipped my leash to it and carried me across the main quad from the lab on the third floor of the Erman Biology Center to the classroom where she taught in Wieboldt Hall. Lydia Littlemore held a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and a master’s in anthropology—she worked alongside the behavioral biologists while teaching as an assistant adjunct professor in the psychology department. She had only recently received her Ph.D., her curriculum vitae was still thin, and she was many years away from the hope of tenure. The soft scientists considered her to be harder than they, while the hard scientists considered her too soft. She was always struggling to convince the soft ones that she had a flexible heart and the hard ones that she possessed a mind of sufficiently implacable skepticism.
Lydia wrapped me in a blanket for my journey across campus, and cradled me in her arms, my legs curled around her sides with my toes hooked together and my arms around her neck. The clusters of students standing around conversing looked up and smiled and gawked at me. The weather was still warm but getting chillier. Fat gray pigeons hopped stupidly among the yellow leaves that now littered the ground, and in the trees periodic bursts of throaty
awaw
ing came from beaks of dirty black crows. We entered a building much older than the one I was ordinarily kept in. The wind we made in the hallways rustled leaflets and fliers and posters tackedto corkboards or taped to the walls. We entered a small classroom through a heavy brown door that whispered and clunked shut behind us. The students were sitting in their seats, talking. Conversation subsided as Lydia walked to the front of the room and set me down on the surface of the desk. Let’s say there were twenty-five students in the room. Lydia began to speak. Some of the students began
IX
M y love for Lydia widened and deepened even and ever more. In the months that followed my arrival at the University of Chicago’s Behavioral Biology Laboratory, the campus, which had been as deserted as a ghost town in the languid summer heat, one day abruptly exploded with bustling human activity. All summer long it had been silence, silence, then suddenly the hallways of my building were teeming during the day with energetic young humans. Their footsteps stampeded in the halls at regular intervals; their presence was a collective roar, their squeaking and scuffling shoes, their conversations, their laughter. Now whenever Lydia took me outside to roam the campus greenery and admire the foliage, the autumnally decadent weather was just beginning to singe the leaves with edges of yellow, and I saw these hale young humans everywhere: I saw them lolling in the grass, their shoes off with their socks wadded in the hollows of their shoes and the toes of their bare feet mingling with the blades of grass and their heels callused and stained yellow and green; I saw them lying on towels sunbathing; I saw their fingers noodling the strings of acoustic guitars; I saw them expertly throwing and catching bright discs—as well as balls of various sizes and colors—that glided gracefully through theair from one pair of hands to another; I saw them reading books, sipping beverages, smoking cigarettes; I saw some of them kissing or touching one another in amorous ways. So much life!
Some of them took great interest in me. When they saw Lydia and I strolling hand in hand across the campus, they would approach us and try to speak to me, and want to touch me. Sometimes Lydia let them, if I seemed receptive.
Lydia even took me to one of her classes. That fall Lydia was teaching a section of Introduction to Cognitive Psychology. One afternoon she put on my collar and clipped my leash to it and carried me across the main quad from the lab on the third floor of the Erman Biology Center to the classroom where she taught in Wieboldt Hall. Lydia Littlemore held a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and a master’s in anthropology—she worked alongside the behavioral biologists while teaching as an assistant adjunct professor in the psychology department. She had only recently received her Ph.D., her curriculum vitae was still thin, and she was many years away from the hope of tenure. The soft scientists considered her to be harder than they, while the hard scientists considered her too soft. She was always struggling to convince the soft ones that she had a flexible heart and the hard ones that she possessed a mind of sufficiently implacable skepticism.
Lydia wrapped me in a blanket for my journey across campus, and cradled me in her arms, my legs curled around her sides with my toes hooked together and my arms around her neck. The clusters of students standing around conversing looked up and smiled and gawked at me. The weather was still warm but getting chillier. Fat gray pigeons hopped stupidly among the yellow leaves that now littered the ground, and in the trees periodic bursts of throaty
awaw
ing came from beaks of dirty black crows. We entered a building much older than the one I was ordinarily kept in. The wind we made in the hallways rustled leaflets and fliers and posters tackedto corkboards or taped to the walls. We entered a small classroom through a heavy brown door that whispered and clunked shut behind us. The students were sitting in their seats, talking. Conversation subsided as Lydia walked to the front of the room and set me down on the surface of the desk. Let’s say there were twenty-five students in the room. Lydia began to speak. Some of the students began
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