Stranger in a Strange Land

When first he saw a zoo, Mike was much upset; Jill was forced to order him to wait and grok, as he had been about to free the animals. He, conceded presently that most of them could not live where he proposed to turn them loose — a zoo was a nest, of a sort. He followed this with hours of withdrawal, after which he never again threatened to remove bars and glass and grills. He explained to Jill that bars were to keep people out more than to keep animals in, which he had failed to grok at first. After that Mike never missed a zoo wherever they went.

But today even the misanthropy of camels could not shake Mike's moodiness. Nor did monkeys and apes cheer him up. They stood in front of a cage containing a family of capuchins, watching them eat, sleep, court, nurse, groom, and swarm aimlessly around, while Jill tossed them peanuts.

She tossed one to a monk; before he could eat it a larger male not only stole his peanut but gave him a beating. The little fellow made no attempt to pursue his tormentor; he pounded his knucks against the floor and chattered helpless rage. Mike watched solemnly.

Suddenly the mistreated monkey rushed across the cage, picked a monkey still smaller, bowled it over and gave it a dubbing worse than the one he had suffered. The third monk crawled away, whimpering. The other monkeys paid no attention.

Mike threw back his head and laughed — and went on laughing, uncontrollably. He gasped for breath, started to tremble and sink to the floor, still laughing.

«Stop it, Mike!»

He did cease folding up but his guffaws went on. An attendant hurried over. «Lady, do you need help?»

«Can you call us a cab? Ground, air, anything — I've got to get him out of here.» She added, «He's not well.»

«Ambulance? Looks like he's having a fit.»

«Anything!» A few minutes later she led Mike into a piloted air cab. She gave their address, then said urgently «Mike, listen to me! Quiet down.»

He became somewhat quiet but continued to chuckle, laugh aloud, chuckle again, while she wiped his eyes, all the minutes it took to get home. She got him inside, got his clothes off, made him lie down. «All right, dear. Withdraw if you need to.»

«I'm all right. At last I'm all right.»

«I hope so.» She sighed. «You scared me, Mike.»

«I'm sorry, Little Brother. I was scared, too, the first time I heard laughing.»

«Mike, what happened?»

«Jill … I grok people!»

«Huh?»(«????»)

(«I speak rightly, Little Brother. I grok.»)«I grok people now, Jill … Little Brother … precious darling … little imp with lively legs and lovely lewd lascivious lecherous licentious libido … beautiful bumps and pert posterior … soft voice and gentle hands. My baby darling.»

«Why, Michael!»

«Oh, I knew the words; I simply didn't know when or why say them … nor why you wanted me to. I love you, sweetheart — I grok “love” now, too.»

«You always have. And I love you … you smooth ape. My darling.»

«“Ape”, yes. Come here, she ape, put your head on my shoulder and tell me a joke.»

«Just tell you a joke?»

«Well, nothing more than snuggling. Tell me a joke I've never heard and see if I laugh at the right place. I will, I'm sure of it — and I'll tell you why it's funny.Jill… I grok people!»

«But how, darling? Can you tell me? Does it need Martian? Or mind-talk?»

«No, that's the point. I grok people. I am people… so now I can say it in people talk. I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts … because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting.»

Jill looked puzzled. «Maybe I'm the one who isn't people. I don't understand.»

«Ah, but you are people, little she ape. You grok it so automatically that you don't have to think about it. Because you grew up with people. But I didn't. I've been like a puppy raised apart from dogs — who couldn't be like his masters and had never learned how to be a dog. So I had to be taught. Brother Mahmoud taught me, Jubal taught me, lots of people taught me … and you taught me most of all. Today I got my diploma — and I laughed. That poor little monk.»

«Which one, dear? I thought that big one was just mean … and the one I flipped the peanut to turned out to be just as mean. There certainly wasn't anything funny.»

«Jill, Jill my darling! Too much Martian has rubbed off on you. Of course it wasn't funny; it was tragic. That's why I had to laugh. I looked at a cageful of monkeys and suddenly I saw all the mean and cruel and utterly unexplainable things I've seen and heard and read about in the time I've been with my own people — and suddenly it hurt so much I found myself laughing.»

«But — Mike dear, laughing is what you do when something is nice … not when it's horrid.»

«Is it? Think back to Las Vegas — When you girls came out on stage, did people laugh?»

«Well … no.»