Buddy

  To John LaViolette, Michael Seigel, and Elisabeth Seldes, amiable compadres in the perfidious land to the West

  CHAPTER 1

  A long time ago, in the 1930s, you might have seen many amazing things, for it was an amazing time.

  There were people who would sit at the tops of flagpoles for weeks at a time—some would sing songs, some would dance, others would balance on their heads for as long as they could, just so they would be noticed.

  There were people who were so poor they had no money for food, so they would dance in contests. They would do funny dances called the “Lindy Hop” or the “jitterbug” for days and days without stopping. The point of the contest wasn’t to see who could dance the best but who could dance the longest, and whoever won would get money for food. There was even a couple who danced all the way across the country from New York to Los Angeles!

  There were men and women who walked on the wings of flying airplanes and played tennis. There were people who shot themselves out of cannons. And a famous writer and his wife used to play in a fountain wearing only their pajamas.

  The sky was filled with airships called dirigibles, great balloons with propellers, the largest machines ever to fly.

  There were people who lost everything they had, so they roamed the open road, desperate for a friend, a meal, or a place to call home.

  There were movies like King Kong and The Wizard of Oz, and the biggest film star in the world was a little girl named Shirley Temple.

  It was a time when men wore hats, and women gloves, when gangsters had tommy guns, and rich ladies drank champagne from their slippers. And the music on the radio was as sweet and happy as any ever heard.

  It was a glorious, sad, and amazing time.

  And if you happened to be walking down the street in New York City in the 1930s, you might have seen one of the most amazing things of all—a beautiful woman with a very well-dressed, full-grown gorilla sporting a red carnation in the lapel of his jacket. The lady’s name? Gertie Lintz. And the gorilla’s name was Buddy.

  But how does a gorilla come all the way from Africa to be on the streets of New York, wearing a suit and a tie and a red flower in his lapel? Well, here’s the story.

  CHAPTER 2

  Buddy was the youngest gorilla in the jungle. His father was a leader. His mother was powerful and kind. They roamed the jungle freely and unafraid. As they foraged for food, Buddy’s mother would hold him close and feed him while his father stood guard. There were many dangers in the jungle, and Buddy was just beginning to learn. If he fell into a lake or pond, he’d drown, since gorillas cannot swim. If he wandered too far, he’d be easy prey for leopards or panthers—or men. Buddy had not yet seen a man. He knew nothing of their world. He knew only the verdant shade and lazy comforts of his home, and the safety of his parents’ arms.

  But one night there were torches and gunfire in the dark. Buddy and his parents huddled in the shadows. The men came closer and closer. His father charged, but shots rang out, and he fell to the ground. His mother let out a furious scream. Buddy clutched her tightly around the neck as she hurtled through the line of men, tossing them aside like rag dolls. As she ran across a shallow stream, shots rang out again. She crashed to the watery ground. Pinned beneath her, Buddy could not move. He could barely breathe as water from the stream washed over him. He could see the men as they came closer. Then everything went black, and Buddy would not wake up again for a long, long time.

  Mrs. Gertrude Lintz was an amazing woman.

  Born in England, she sailed to America on an ocean liner when she was only a little girl.

  Young Gertie had ten brothers and sisters. On their journey they had confused America with Africa when looking at the maps in the captain’s atlas. They thought America would be filled with lions and elephants and gorillas. They were disappointed when they found only cows and horses and chickens in the barn on their new farm.

  Gertie’s father had been a great opera singer, but his voice had grown weak, and he could no longer sing a whole opera—only an aria or two. Her mother was a fine pianist, but the family had fallen on hard times. When they inherited a farm in America it was decided that the family would try life in a whole new country.

  Gertie sometimes missed her home in England, but she grew to love her life on the farm. She spent all her spare time with the animals. Sometimes in the late afternoon, when all the chores were done, her father would sing a bit of opera while her mother played the piano. Gertie would sit on the lawn with her animals and listen to the music. None of her animals were caged. She couldn’t bear to lock them up. So they played around her as the music drifted through the rarefied air of those grand and gentle days.

  But when Gertie was twelve, her mother died of typhoid fever. Her father fell into despair and could no longer care for the children. Gertie and her ten brothers and sisters were split up and sent away to different farms.

  The farmers in her new home were stern and cheerless. There was no music or pets. Gertie felt trapped.

  So one day Gertie ran away to the forest.

  Joe Mendi

  Finding food and shelter as best she could, she lived like a wild thing for as long as she could. And in that time she came to understand animals as few people ever do.

  She decided that when she grew up she would never again live in a house without animals.

  And true to her word, when Gertie grew up, her house was full of animals.

  She had four chimpanzees: two girls and two boys. The boys were named Joe Mendi and Captain Jiggs. The girls were named Skippy and Maggie Klein. She had a leopard named Boo and a Komodo dragon named Lawrence, who usually hid under the couch in the living room. There were a number of magnificent dogs, including her favorite, a little dachshund named Lancelot, who wore glasses.

  Lancelot

  There were horses, a whole pavilion of birds, including a talking parrot named Charlie, hundreds of tropical fish, and countless exotic butterflies that flickered around the vast estate. But there was one animal Gertie did not have that she had always wanted: a gorilla.

  CHAPTER 3

  Dick and Beulah

  A baby gorilla!” Gertie whispered excitedly as she rushed to her car.

  “Where are you going?” asked her husband, Dr. Bill Lintz, who was setting up the croquet set on the lawn.

  “To the Philadelphia Zoo to get a gorilla!” she shouted as she drove away.

  “Did she say to ‘get a gorilla’ or ‘get some vanilla’?” Bill asked Dick, the animal trainer.

  “I think it was ‘gorilla,’ ” he replied.

  “I know she said ‘gorilla’ !” grumbled Beulah the house-keeper.

  “Gorilla! Gorilla! Gorilla!” chimed in Charlie the parrot.

  “Oh, well, then,” muttered Bill as he went back to his wickets, “you should set another place at the table, Beulah. I guess a gorilla will be coming to dinner.”

  But by the time Gertie got home that evening, dinner was finished and everyone had gone to bed.

  Carefully she carried Buddy into the downstairs den. He was wrapped in a towel and was sleeping in a small open crate. His breathing was hoarse and ragged.

  She sat by the fireplace and tried to feed Buddy with a baby’s bottle. “Please take it, Buddy,” she said gently. “You’ve got to eat.”

  She began to hum a song her mother used to play on the piano. Her voice was soft and lovely and carried through the house like a sigh. Then one by one the chimps wandered in.

  They were dressed in their pajamas. Joe Mendi held his red blanket close.

  Soon Lancelot the dog walked in with Charlie the parrot on his back. Then came Dr. Lintz and Dick the trainer and Beulah. They gathered around Gertie and the tiny gorilla.

  Joe handed him his red blanket. The other chimps
tucked it around him and stroked his head. Skippy held his hand.

  Buddy looked up at this strange group. He clutched the red blanket with one hand and began to take milk from the bottle.

  “Good boy,” Gertie whispered. “Welcome to your new home, Buddy.” And she kissed him on the forehead.

  And for the first time since he’d left the jungle, Buddy did not feel sad or lonely or afraid. He felt almost at home.

  CHAPTER 4

  Weeks passed, and every day Buddy became stronger and stronger. But the task of caring for him had left Gertie very tired. One day Buddy hugged her tightly around the neck and would not let go. No matter what anyone tried, no one could make him let go. So Gertie ate breakfast with Buddy around her neck. When she went shopping, Buddy went along and wouldn’t let go. Not even for animal crackers. Gertie ate lunch with Buddy around her neck. Dinner was the same. When she slept that night, he never let go, even in his sleep.

  The next morning Gertie tried to take a bath, and Buddy finally let go. As she turned on the water, he screamed and struggled to get away. Gertie tried to calm him, but he cried so long and loud that everyone in the house came to see what was wrong. Luckily Joe Mendi had brought Buddy’s red blanket, and as soon as Gertie wrapped him in it he quieted.

  “Poor thing,” she said. “He’s afraid of the water.”

  “Well, at least you can get some rest,” said Bill.

  “For now,” said Beulah.

  “Red blanket! Red blanket!” trilled Charlie.

  “Red blanket, indeed!” said Gertie.

  And from then on, whenever she needed help with Buddy, she’d bring out his red blanket and he’d calm down.

  “You’re such a mystery,” Gertie said to Buddy as she rocked him to sleep that night. “My lovely little mystery.”

  Buddy ate so much that Gertie and Bill bought him his own refrigerator. He loved bananas, grapes, and strawberry pie. For breakfast he could eat a whole box of cereal, doughnuts by the dozen, entire loaves of bread, and gallons of apple juice and still be hungry.

  The Lintzes were used to serving vast amounts of all kinds of foods to their animals. Insects, fungi, or Italian food—the animals ate it all.

  “If it crawls, grows, flies, or wiggles, I’ve cooked it or served it,” grumbled Beulah. But Buddy was her favorite. “At least he doesn’t eat anything weird,” she said.

  Buddy became everyone’s favorite. He was happy, curious, and lively. “He’s like the sweetest little kid you’ve ever seen,” said Bill one day. But Buddy did not stay little for long. In a few months he’d outgrown the chimps. In a year he was the size of a ten-year-old boy. By the time he was three he was bigger than a man.

  “Well, at least he can wear my hand-me-downs,” said Dr. Lintz, whose waistline spoke of one who found great joy and contentment at the dinner table.

  But Buddy soon outgrew even the doctor’s suits! Now Gertie would have to have his clothes made-to-order.

  Dick drove them all into New York City one sunny October day. They went straight to Bergdorf Goodman, the finest store in town.

  Otto, the doorman at Bergdorf, was used to seeing Mrs. Lintz with her chimps, but his jaw dropped when he saw Buddy.

  “What ya been feeding this one, Mrs. Lintz, that he would get so big?” he asked.

  “He’s not a chimp, Otto,” she replied calmly. “He’s a gorilla. His name is Buddy.”

  “With a buddy like that I guess you don’t have any enemies!” Otto laughed as he held open the door.

  People in every department of the store were a little unnerved by the sight of a full-grown gorilla picking out hats and being fitted for Sunday suits and play clothes. Gertie herself was nervous about Buddy. She kept his red blanket at the ready in case he got excited.

  “Shouldn’t he be on a leash or something?” quavered the salesman at the tie counter.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” replied Gertie. “Just give me all your red neckties, and he’ll be fine.” Buddy beat his chest joyfully.

  The salesman quickly obliged, and Gertie bought every red tie in the store. She even bought Buddy a red carnation for the lapel of his new overcoat.

  As they were leaving, Buddy saw a mannequin wearing a beautiful red coat and hat in the ladies’ department. He picked up the mannequin and began to carry it out.

  “Well, I guess I’ve been needing a new outfit,” said Gertie. “How about I wear it instead of the dummy?” she asked Buddy.

  So out of the store they walked: Gertie with her new red coat and hat; the chimps and Dick with all the red neckties; and Buddy, of course, wearing the biggest, brightest necktie in the store. By now newspaper photographers were following them, taking pictures of everything they did.

  They went on a buggy ride through Central Park and had tea at the Plaza Hotel. Then they went to the movies at Radio City Music Hall, the biggest movie theater in the world.

  Buddy and the chimps sat quietly through the cartoons and the newsreel. But when the Tarzan movie came on they went wild. Finally, as Tarzan battled an alligator in the jungle river, Buddy stood up and let out a jungle roar that nearly had the theater in a panic.

  “I’m very sorry,” said Gertie to the theater manager as he asked them to leave. “He’s very sensitive about water. I should have thought of that.”

  The theater manager agreed but gave them each a lollipop as they left. Buddy’s was especially large, and it was of course red.

  By the time Dick had driven them home they were exhausted. The chimps had all fallen asleep. Buddy was snoring loudly in the backseat, his lollipop still clutched tightly in his giant hand. There were red neckties everywhere.

  Bill walked up to the car and looked in the window.

  “We had a red-letter day,” Gertie whispered to him.

  “Looks more like a red-necktie day,” he said, smiling.

  “You know where a four-hundred-pound gorilla sleeps?” asked Gertie.

  “Anywhere he wants?” answered Bill.

  “I’ll get the tent and the sleeping bags,” said Dick.

  That night they camped out on the lawn, under a striped canopy tent they’d set up next to the car. There were overstuffed pillows everywhere and thick comforters covered in velvet. Lancelot slept on Beulah’s lap and barked in his sleep, and Charlie sat perched on Dick’s head. Bill snored contentedly between Lawrence the dragon and Boo the leopard. The chimps and Buddy stayed in the car, asleep and unaware. Only Gertie was awake. She listened quietly to her father’s old opera records on the Victrola.

  Buddy stirred and looked out at her. He got out of the car and lumbered over sleepily. Gertie wrapped him in his red blanket. He fell back to sleep, his head in her lap.

  Gertie felt as free and happy as she had when she was a girl in the forest, surrounded by her animals.

  But deep inside she was still a little worried. Buddy was so big now. What if one day something upset him so much that even his red blanket or a red tie or a lollipop wouldn’t calm him down?

  CHAPTER 5

  Madcap Monkeys Make Manhattan Movie Matinee,” read one headline in the newspaper the next morning.

  “Simian Shoppers Show Snappy Fashion Sense” and “Gorilla Gadabout Gallivants with Gal Named Gertie” were on the front pages of the papers, along with pictures of Buddy and Gertie.

  The phone had not stopped ringing. People from all over the world had seen the stories and were anxious to see more of Gertie, Buddy, and the chimps.

  “What’s next, Hollywood?’’ asked Bill as they ate breakfast.

  “No,” replied Gertie, passing the bananas and earthworms to Buddy. “We’ve had an even better offer.”

  Nobody paid much attention. The chimps ate their cereal mixed with Jell-O. Beulah served up scrambled eggs and coconuts to Lawrence. The leopard lapped at his spaghetti and ice cream.

  “We’ve been asked to have an exhibit at the World’s Fair in Chicago!” Gertie announced. Everyone grew quiet.

  The World’s Fair was the place w
here nations from across the globe showed what was best about the past, the present, and the future. Millions of people would come. Newspapers, magazines, radio, and the newsreels would all tell stories about the amazing wonders on display. For that summer of 1933, the hopes, wishes, and dreams of the whole world would be focused on the fair.

  Gertie looked at Bill imploringly.

  “Well, we’ve got to go!” said Bill excitedly.

  “We’re gonna be famous now!” said Beulah.

  “Ditto!” said Dick.

  “Do you think Buddy will like it? Do you think he’ll be okay?” asked Gertie.

  “Gertie, ol’ girl,” Bill said to her. “Buddy loved New York, and New York loved him. I imagine the same will go for Chicago, and the world!”

  “Chicago! Chicago! Chicago!” Charlie chirped and flew over to Gertie’s shoulder.

  “All right!” laughed Gertie. “Chicago it is.”

  So it was decided. They would go to the World’s Fair.

  The months leading up to the fair were a blur. Gertie had a million things to do. She told Bill what color to paint the Ape Pavilion, the place where they would live and perform at the fair. She told Beulah just how much food they might need. She worked out the chimps’ routines with Dick and planned every little detail of their journey: what clothes to pack for the chimps, the special train car that would take them to Chicago—and how many extra red blankets they might need for Buddy.

  “You’ve got to use cages,” Bill told Gertie. “We can’t risk them getting loose at the fair.”

  Gertie begrudgingly agreed. She’d sworn never to cage her animals, but if one of the chimps or Boo or, worst of all, Buddy got loose, there was no telling what terrible things might happen.