Mass Transit

I heft my way up the sticky rubber steps of the No. 47 downtown bus, pay the fare and turn down the aisle.

There’s a chimpanzee in the middle seats, the orange plastic ones that face the aisle. He’s wearing a charcoal Loro Piana three-button suit, ice-blue French-collared shirt, corn silk-colored tie with flecks of tiny fleur-de-lis patterns in azure.

He’s gnawing on what looks like a large thigh bone. Slick, bloody pieces of connective tissue and lumpy yellowed fat hang from it.

The only open seat is directly across from the chimp. On approach, I notice he’s gone gray in the muzzle and the fur directly under his ears.

I sit, avert my gaze, and end up in intense study of the men’s underwear ad above the opposite window.

Until he starts to use his teeth to scrape gristle off the bone’s ball joint. It is efficient. It is creepy.

I turn to stare. It’s just…instinctive.

“What?” he huffs, and slaps the bone onto a wad of greasy brown paper optimized to cover a beautiful, butterscotch-colored goatskin attaché. “Everyone knows chimpanzees are omnivorous.”

I roll my eyes and meet the heated, angry gaze of my fellow passengers.