I'm Dennis Mastin. I've been a primate keeper since 1994, and I take care of a troop of western lowland gorillas. They know me better than some of my relatives do. I started writing these notes in May 1997 because my wife said I talked about gorillas too much at dinner. She was right. I still do.

Older notes: January to June 1999 | 1998 | 1997

Sunday, September 26, 1999

Rain all day, the first real rain in a while. The gorillas stayed inside in the morning, and in the afternoon Kiki went out anyway and sat on the hill in it, soaked, looking pleased with herself. Gorillas aren't supposed to like rain. Kiki didn't read that part.

Lulu has found her spot. It's on top of the little hill at the back of the yard, under the biggest of the new trees, with her back against the trunk. From there she can see the whole yard and the whole crowd at the glass. She sits there most of the afternoon, chewing on a stick, watching the people watch her, exactly like she did at the window in the old building for twenty-five years. Paula says she just needed to find a window outside.

Nuru is fifteen months old and runs now, on all fours, in circles, for no reason. She climbs Jelani like he's furniture. He lets her. Kylie is ten weeks old and does not run, but smiled at me Thursday, a real one, not gas. Jill says I'm not allowed to compare them anymore. I do it anyway, quietly.

Five years ago I came here with a biology degree and a lot of nervousness about animals that could pull my arm off and choose not to. I've learned more from four gorillas than from four years of school. Mostly I've learned to watch. If you watch long enough, you see everything: who's sick, who's sad, who's in love, who's in charge, who's about to have a baby, who's getting old. You see who's being patient with whom.

Bruno taught me that. I miss him every day. I see a little of him in the way Jelani sits in the doorway at night, with his back to the wall, looking out, making sure everybody's in.

Thanks for reading these. I'll keep writing as long as there's something to say. With gorillas, there usually is.

Sunday, September 19, 1999

The new exhibit opened yesterday.

Ribbon cutting at ten. The mayor, the zoo director, the people who gave the money, a high school band. Mr. Kucera made a speech and thanked the keepers by name, which he didn't have to do, and Paula looked at her shoes. By noon the line went all the way back to the sea lions.

The gorillas did what gorillas do with a big crowd on a sunny afternoon. They ate their lunch on the grass and then took a nap. Jelani lay on his back on the hill with one arm over his eyes. Thousands of people came to see the new gorilla exhibit and mostly saw a gorilla sleeping. Nobody seemed to mind. One little boy stood at the glass for twenty minutes, perfectly still, and when his mother finally pulled him away, he said, "He breathes just like Grandpa." He does, too.

At the entrance there's a bronze plaque. The zoo put it up without telling us. It says BRUNO, and the years, and "He lived here thirty-four years and was loved by everyone who knew him." Paula and I stood in front of it before the gates opened and didn't say anything. Then she said, "He'd have hated the band."

Jill brought Kylie in the afternoon, in the front carrier. She slept through everything, including the band.

Tuesday, September 14, 1999

Kylie will be two months old tomorrow. She sleeps in stretches of about three hours, and so do we. Jill and I take turns. I take the four o'clock feeding with a bottle of what Jill pumped, and I sit in the rocker in the yellow room in the dark and feed her and talk to her the way I talk to Jelani when I'm cleaning. I tell her about the troop. She doesn't understand it either. She listens the same way.

I've watched a lot of mothers now. Asha holds Nuru close for a year and then lets her go a little at a time, a few feet, then a few more, always watching. I see Jill do it already, in small ways. Leaving Kylie on the blanket to go to the kitchen, and looking back from the doorway. Same thing, exactly.

Members' preview tonight, for people who gave money to the new exhibit. Grand opening Saturday. The keepers are all a little crazy this week. Paula has re-swept the keeper area three times.

Tuesday, September 7, 1999

Today they stood on grass.

The zoo was closed to the public for the morning. Just keepers, the vet, the curator, and a few people from the office who heard and came over. At nine o'clock Paula pulled the lever and the door to the yard slid open.

Kiki went first, of course. Right out the door, ten steps onto the grass, and then she stopped, looked down, sat down, and rolled over on her back with her arms and legs in the air. Then she got up and did it again.

Jelani went next, walking slow, chest out, all the way up to the top of the hill, where he stood up and beat his chest at the sky. Then he sat down and pulled up a handful of grass and ate it.

Asha carried Nuru out on her back, and walked around the whole yard, along the edge, checking everything. Then she sat down and took Nuru off her back and put her on the grass, and Nuru grabbed it with both fists and pulled it up and stuffed it in her mouth, and Asha let her.

Lulu wouldn't go out. She sat at the door, right on the threshold, for forty minutes, looking. She's thirty-three. She's lived on concrete and tile since she was a baby. I don't think she knew what it was. Nobody pushed her. Then, finally, she put out one hand and touched the grass, and pulled it back. And touched it again. And then she walked out, a few steps, and sat down, and picked a clover, and looked at it, and ate it.

Paula was crying. So was I. So was Dr. Frederick. Mr. Kucera blew his nose and said it was allergies.

I wrote last fall that I'd have liked Bruno to walk on grass. He didn't get to. But I thought of him the whole morning, and I think everybody else did too.

Wednesday, August 25, 1999

We moved the troop into the new building last week, one at a time, through a chute from the back of the old building. It went well. Kiki walked right in. Jelani needed a trail of grapes. Lulu took most of a day.

The new building is like nothing they've ever had. The dayroom has skylights, so there's real daylight, and a floor of deep mulch instead of tile, and climbing structures made to look like trees, and ropes, and a waterfall in the corner that they all ignore. The night dens have more room, and the keeper area has windows, and a kitchen bigger than mine at home. For me, the best part is the drains. You'd have to work in the old building to understand.

The first night, Lulu built her nest in the corner of her new den the same way she's built it every night for thirty years. Some things don't need to change.

We're keeping them inside the new building for a couple of weeks to settle before they go out in the yard. The old Ape House is empty now. I walked through it today. It's very small, when it's empty.

Tuesday, August 10, 1999

The whole troop has been together, all day, every day, for a week now. All five. No trouble.

Asha decided. That's what it came down to. For ten days she kept herself between Jelani and the baby. Then last Tuesday she sat down near him, not right next to him, and let Nuru wander. Nuru went straight to him, the way she used to go to Bruno, and grabbed his foot. Jelani looked down at her. He looked at Asha. Then he looked away, out the window, like he hadn't noticed, and let her hang on. Then he got up and moved, very carefully, so he wouldn't step on her.

Paula said, "Well, there it is." I went into the keeper kitchen and stood at the sink for a while.

Wednesday, July 28, 1999

Back at work since Monday, on about four hours of sleep a night. Paula says I look like Bruno at the end of a long Saturday. She means it nicely.

While I was out, they started the last introduction: Jelani with Asha and Nuru, in the same room. It went the way we expected. Asha stood between him and the baby every second. When he came too close, she screamed at him, a high sharp noise, and slapped the floor, and he backed off. He's young and he's polite and he isn't stupid. Since then they've been in the same room four days, at opposite ends. Lulu sits in the middle. I think that's on purpose.

It isn't done. We're watching every minute. It's what we do.

Sunday, July 18, 1999

Our daughter was born Thursday morning, July 15, at 3:20 a.m. Kylie. Seven pounds, nine ounces, and long. Jill was amazing. I was useless and then not useless, and the nurses were patient with me. Mother and baby are fine. That's the main thing.

When they handed her to me she was wrapped in a white blanket with stripes on it, and she opened her eyes and looked at me, hard, the way Nuru looked at me through the mesh the first week, and I thought, well, there's somebody new, and I'd better learn everything about her.

We came home yesterday. Paula sent a card with a gorilla on the front. Inside, she wrote: "Now you'll find out what night watch really is."

I'm off till the 26th. Darren and Paula have the troop. They call me every day anyway.

Tuesday, July 6, 1999

Jelani and Lulu met last week, no mesh between them. I was worried about this one, because she's old and he's big and loud. I shouldn't have been. He came toward her fast, showing off, and she didn't move. She looked at him. That's all. Just looked, for maybe five seconds. And he stopped, and sat down, and pretended to be interested in a piece of celery. Since then he gives her room. Everybody gives Lulu room.

Fourth of July weekend was crowded and hot. I carried a pager the whole time. Jill's due any day now. Every time the thing went off I about had a heart attack, and every time it was work.