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Stroheim, Spence, Mel or Tom—those were the relatively quiet interludes, lasting for a good ten seconds at a time. But therest of the time we just walked in a forest of out-thrust penises, which was always one misplaced gaze away from going up in flames. We tiptoed gingerly through a minefield of erections.
    The tension between Cary and Kirk was a constant scream in our nerves. And every flare-up had to be followed by the long reconciliations we needed, reconciliations that increasingly ended in fresh fights that had to be reconciled. Everyone was either fighting or reconciling all the time. (We used to have some neighbors like that in Palm Springs until, thank Christ, she got some therapy and kicked him out.) Spence had had a finger broken by Cary, who had a wound in his shoulder from Kirk, who was carrying a fractured ankle after a tangle with Lon and Cary. And Mama couldn’t help because she was the flashpoint. Her sumptuously taut vaginal swelling, twice the size of her head, was a blazing beacon of division. When Mama presented for young Spence, Kirk clamped Spence’s foot between his teeth and hurled him away with a wrench that ripped off a toe. He outranked him, so fair enough, I guess.
    Around the time that Mama’s swelling was approaching its height, Cary killed a pair of colobus monkeys, and with the others occupied by the feast, Mama slipped away with us down to the stream to drink. Archie knuckled out of the trees with a greeting of quiet pant-grunts and Mama, he and Victoria groomed each other for a while; then Archie crossed the stream, shaking a branch to make us follow. Mama swung me onto her and we set off behind him: I lay straddled on her back, looking out for the many-colored bird or marmosets or turacos in the canopy. Victoria knuckled along quietly after us, holding a termite stick she’d made out of a msuba twig, and Archie led the way, impatiently shaking branches at us if we lagged behind.
    There were fig trees below us, and Mama and Victoria were tired, but when we tried to turn back, he came hoot-screaming andcharging out of the shadows, and I tumbled off Mama’s back as she went sprawling under his impact. He grabbed her by the leg and dragged her down the slope, kicking and pummeling her, then stalked back past us with his hair bristling and sat down, waiting for her to stop screaming and come to him, which she did. She had to: she had us to look after, you see. He apologized with kisses and caresses, and groomed her for a while before we set off again. This was the beginning of what National Geographic refers to as a “consortship period.” Discovery calls it “Honeymoon in the Trees”!
    Where did Archie take us? Over the hills and far away. Past the place where we’d met Alfred, through strange forests of moss-covered trees to the higher ground beside the escarpment, where the clouds clung and little groups of banded mongooses scurried around, carrying frogs in their mouths. We nested in a giant msuba beside a termite mound, and Archie kissed Mama’s wounds and groomed her and apologized for hours and mated her again and again. Next day Mama and Archie took Victoria and me termite fishing, and as a special treat Archie showed me how to make a termite-fishing stick.
    Mama hardly played with us because Archie was all over her, and if we tugged at her fur while she was being penetrated, she’d distractedly wave us off to play elsewhere. Victoria taught me how to climb, but I missed Tyrone and our tumbling games and groomings. Archie, on the other hand, was having a ball—constantly either guzzling termites, in his horrible lip-smacking way, or mating. I tried a bit of mongoose and didn’t like it. It rained all the fucking time.
    I remember, too, one evening near the end of the honeymoon, how we were surprised by the cries of a strange animal from far, far away. The distant hoots of the hostiles had died away at dusk, and then came these other cries—sudden barks, or cracks, like