We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

The story flashes forward to 2012. With access to the internet, Rosemary spends time researching the outcomes of various notable “cross-fostered” chimps. Many of these chimps passed away at very young ages from infections and diseases. Some developed severe diarrhea due to stress, causing them to die despite not having any other conditions. One chimp may have been killed in an experiment that injected him with large amounts of insecticide after his family returned him to the lab. Another chimp, Lucy, was sent to live with chimps in the Gambia after living with a human family for many years; eventually, her bones were found and it is believed that she was killed by poachers, whom she trusted after being raised by humans. Nim Chimpsky was sold to a lab after the psychologist who chose to work with him decided that he was not learning enough sign language. The most notorious of these chimps was Washoe, who learned hundreds of sign language words. One of the graduate students that worked with Washoe spent his life ensuring that Washoe would have a happy life and peaceful death. Rosemary notes that almost all of the people who cared for these chimps, herself included, have written books about their time with chimps. She also finds that many of the individuals and families who take in chimps intend to stay with them forever. There is not much documentation of the lives of the human children raised alongside chimps, but Rosemary does find that one of these children eventually died by suicide.

The evening after Dr. Sosa’s final lecture, Rosemary is biking to meet up with Harlow at a bar. She is still feeling off and plans to get drunk enough to confide in Harlow about the horrors of chimp sex. This plan is derailed when she sees that both Reg and Madame Defarge are accompanying Harlow. Before Rosemary can speak, Harlow says that she is being careful with Madame, making it clear to Rosemary how Harlow sees her: a boring stickler. Harlow talks about the theater department’s upcoming plan to put on Macbeth with the characters’ genders reversed; she wants to push the boundaries of gender more by not cross-dressing the characters. Rosemary still wants to talk about male chimps but doesn’t want to ruin the vibe.

Men buy drinks for Madame as the bar starts to hop. Reg is upset that Harlow is flirting with other men, but she claims that she is merely creating performance art, and that the puppet is the one actually flirting. Reg tells her that men like sluts, not artists. Harlow rebuttals that the puppet is the slut, not her. A man asks Harlow to dance and she hands him Madame. Rosemary takes Madame away from him. Reg talks at Rosemary, and though she cannot actually hear him she pretends to engage. She took some drugs from Harlow earlier and they start to hit. Outside now, Rosemary lectures Reg about the mirror test and berates him for not knowing about it previously; she thinks this is probably her way of regaining a sense of expertise after Dr. Sosa’s lecture. Rosemary wonders to herself whether the existence of identical twins impacts the mirror test. Reg tells Rosemary that she talks a lot. They go back inside.

The rest of this night is a choppy blur of a memory. After Reg leaves, Harlow and Rosemary try to bike through a drive-through. When they are denied service, Harlow breaks the intercom. Later, they are in another bar and Rosemary is making out with a random guy. Alone at a train station, Rosemary allows herself to think about Fern being taken away for the first time ever. She imagines that Fern was likely drugged and woke up somewhere new, like the time that Rosemary woke up in her new bedroom. But unlike Rosemary, Fern had no one to help her. Rosemary wonders what happened to Rosemary in the cage with the older chimps, where she was suddenly lower status by virtue of her gender.

Now, Rosemary and Harlow are inside somewhere with two men. Rosemary is very high. The man that Rosemary is supposed to be paired with tells her to smile. She believes that smiling at his request would make her lower status. Reg returns, and the three men end up in some sort of macho competition. Rosemary wonders whether having sex with all the guys would make them chill out. She accidentally says this thought aloud and tries to make it better by describing Dr. Sosa’s lecture, but does not make it far because the word “bonobo” makes her laugh. Next, Rosemary is in the bathroom barfing. Reg offers her a mint, which she finds attractive. He then tells her that she gets too close to people, which turns her off. She lectures him again, saying that teaching animals to be hateful, prejudiced bullies is easy and that these behaviors are innate to humans. She cries again. Rosemary the narrator understands that empathy is also an innate emotion for humans and chimps, but at this point in the story she does not know this. Reg wants Rosemary to go home, but she does not want to. Harlow and Rosemary walk through a car wash and discuss how delightful car washes are. At the pub again, Rosemary sees her brother. She hugs him and cries. All of a sudden, the same officer that arrested her before, Arnie Haddock, tells her that he is taking her to the county jail to sober up. Harlow and Rosemary share a cell. She wonders if she actually saw her brother.

In jail, Rosemary cannot sleep. She wonders if Fern, drugged and caged, believed that she would be released come morning. There’s another woman in the cell who tells Rosemary that she looks like Charlotte. Not knowing whom she’s referring to, Rosemary thinks of Charlotte’s Web. She wonders if Fern was named after this book. Rosemary’s hands start to make the “crawling shit” sign that Fern used for spiders. In her cot, her mind runs. She thinks of chimps and an experiment in which spiders were drugged and their webs were studied. She is not sure how many of her thoughts she speaks aloud. She tries to explain to Harlow that superpowers are created through context and that Charlotte’s power is actually literacy. Harlow tells Rosemary that she is not making any sense and needs to stop talking. Rosemary is reminded of her childhood, when she was constantly told to stop talking. She wishes that Fern were there to ruin Harlow’s night of sleep.

By morning, Rosemary’s running thoughts have turned into a cohesive list of missing things: her bike, Madame Defarge, her mother’s journals, and her brother. Reg brings Rosemary and Harlow home. Still unable to sleep, Rosemary cleans and worries about Madame. Finally, she falls asleep. When she wakes up, she remembers how one night as a child, Lowell woke her up and brought her to a big, fancy backyard with a pond. He told her to be quiet, and they listened to the sounds of animals. A frog croaked. He brought crackers that they threw into the pond for the fish and turtles. The hedges were trimmed into animal shapes. It is a happy memory and thinking of it brings her joy. The fact that Lowell did not need to bring her to this place, but chose to, makes her happy. She adds one more thing to her list of missing things: Fern.

Rosemary is trying to contact Harlow to ask where Madame Defarge is. As it pours rain, Rosemary walks around Davis in search of her missing items. Bike theft is common, so she thinks that Madame was likely stolen. When Rosemary gets home, Todd informs her that Ezra came around looking for Harlow, and then a skinny, white guy had come looking her and returned a puppet. Then Harlow came back and put the puppet in Rosemary’s suitcase. Finally, a guy named Travers had come looking for Rosemary, but because she was not home, he went to dinner with Harlow at the crepe place. Rosemary cannot imagine having the conversation she needs to have with her brother with Harlow present. While changing, she sees Madame and feels oddly sad to know that the doll will be leaving her.

Rosemary writes about “theory of mind,” which states that because we cannot actually see other people’s mental states, we are constantly projecting mental states onto others based on our own experiences to succeed as social creatures. Children younger than four do not have theory of mind. An experiment in the late ‘70s showed that chimps have a degree of theory of mind; Rosemary’s father poked at this research, suggesting that chimps simply make guesses informed by previous behaviors. Later scientists rebutted this, claiming that chimps definitely have theory of mind, but chimps’ theory of mind does not include the ability to believe in things that stray from reality. Rosemary notes that it would be impossible to live in the human world without this ability. Around age six, humans start to understand “embedded states” within theory of mind. For example, a child could know that their father does not know that their mother already gave them dessert. This provides the capacity for manipulation. Most human adults can function with four levels of embedment, and smart adults can deal with up to seven layers.

This dinner with Lowell and Harlow will be a test of the theory of mind, she thinks. She and Lowell will have to guess, based on context, what information Harlow already knows. She hopes that Lowell will understand, without words, that she wants to be alone with him.

Walking into the restaurant, the situation between Lowell and Harlow immediately looks flirty; Rosemary is reminded of being excluded from Fern and Lowell’s playtime. Lowell looks old and she is sad that she did not experience his aging. When Lowell gives Rosemary a casual hug, she understands that he is signaling to Harlow that the siblings see one another often. She feels as if she does not belong with them. The kitchen was closing, so Lowell ordered Rosemary dinner before she got there. The order is almost exactly what she would have ordered for herself, which warms her heart. Rosemary does not let herself look at Lowell’s face because once she does, she will not be able to stop. Harlow tells Rosemary that her teeth are chattering, and she explains that she has been looking for Madame in the rain. Harlow explains to Lowell that she and Rosemary are new but very close friends. While explaining Rosemary’s arrest record, Harlow grabs Lowell’s hands. Both the subject matter and the physical action make Rosemary uncomfortable.

As Harlow talks, Rosemary makes sure to bring up Reg, but Harlow swiftly spins the story to make Reg seems like a bad person. As Harlow talks, she mentions Rosemary’s theory that Tarzan is a superhero, at which point Lowell holds Rosemary’s arm. Rosemary sees how Harlow’s tales are formed to make Rosemary seem like a good and fun friend, but she knows that what is under all of this is pheromones. Back at Rosemary’s apartment, Harlow uses Madame to flirt with Lowell. Rosemary is even more upset with Lowell than Harlow because he knows how long it’s been since they’ve seen one another. Rosemary sleeps in Todd’s room and has to lie when Reg calls asking where Harlow is.

In the middle of the night, Lowell wakes Rosemary to ask her to go get pie. At first, she is upset with him, but the feeling of having a sibling again assuages her. They talk about their parents. She notes that the sound the crows make sounds like baka, the Japanese word for idiot, so it sound like the crows are making fun of them. He responds that crows are very smart, with a brain-to-body ratio comparable to a chimpanzee. Rosemary begins remembering of Fern. She tells Lowell about everything that happened at Thanksgiving, except that their mother gave her the journals. She notices that he does not seem that much older than her anymore.

The siblings stay at the cafe all night. Lowell discusses animal ethics in various contexts, including criticizing researchers who use animals in experiments. He claims that these studies are generally futile and expose more about the researchers themselves than anything else. Specifically, he criticizes their father’s technique, which he believes starts with an assumption of difference rather than similarity. In the games the graduate students played with Fern and Rosemary, Lowell saw meaning that their father did not see. He says that humans need a way to test which animals are brilliant enough to see themselves when looking at somebody else. He tells Rosemary that his life is generally quiet.

Eventually, Rosemary asks her brother to tell the story of Fern’s life after their family. He tells her that he went straight to Dr. Uljevik’s office, the professor to whom Fern was given. There, he snooped around and found a remote address, which he walked to. The building was surrounded by an electric wire, so he waited until the gate opened for a car to slip in. Smelling poop, he made his way to the basement, where he saw four cages packed with chimps. Fern was in a cage with four larger, adult chimps. When Fern saw him, she started to scream and then grabbed him, pulling him up against the cage. Lowell was unsure whether Fern was upset or happy. He was afraid. She continued to grip his hand tightly and he tried to talk her down. The other chimps became agitated and eventually, one of the male chimps took Lowell’s other hand. Fern forcefully bit the other chimp and he let go. Fern used sign language to tell Lowell that she was good and wanted to go home. The male chimp started to terrorize Fern, but she was too focused on Lowell to do anything about it. Two men ran down with a cattle prod, and all of the chimps calmed down and backed away. The men yelled at Lowell. When the men saw blood on Fern, they decided to dart her. Lowell never saw Fern again after this and can still barely think about that day.