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    I Was a Man and Then a Dog and Am Now a Gorilla: A Love Story
    I Was a Man and Then a Dog and Am Now a Gorilla: A Love Story
    I Was a Man and Then a Dog and Am Now a Gorilla: A Love Story
    Ebook89 pages1 hour

    I Was a Man and Then a Dog and Am Now a Gorilla: A Love Story

    By Paul H. Briger

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    Narrated by a gorilla, this is the life of Bernie Simon.For fifty-five years, his mother made him a veritable Eunuch, to provide her with companionship and care in old age. Upon her death, he makes up for lost time. However, after gaining an ample measure of sexual fulfillment, he opts for true love, but must kill to obtain that love.

    Bernie sacrifices his life for the life of another creature, which earns himreincarnation as a dog instead of a lowly mosquite. In his new body, he is known as Felix-a pathetic dachshund. Again, love is in the air, but this time, poor Felix of a broken heart. Bernies soul is transferred to yet another body: that of a literate gorilla.

    As a gorilla, Bernie becomes a celebrated author. Through his acquaintance with an elderly woman, he realizes that he had true love before in a past incarnationprior to becoming Bernie Simon. He becomes hopeful that in a future life, love will find him, surround him, and last a lifetime or maybe several, whether as a human being or otherwise.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchway Publishing
    Release dateJun 27, 2014
    ISBN9781480808201
    I Was a Man and Then a Dog and Am Now a Gorilla: A Love Story
    Author

    Paul H. Briger

    Paul Briger has been a corporate lawyer in New York City, an antique dealer, a furniture manufacturer in Mexico, an historian, and now a new voice in fiction and non-fiction. Paul wrote the text of “BRIGER + BRIGER, COMFORTABLE & JOYOUS HOMES,” published by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. in 2007. He currently lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with his wife and one of their six children.

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      Book preview

      I Was a Man and Then a Dog and Am Now a Gorilla - Paul H. Briger

      Copyright © 2014 Paul H. Briger.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      Archway Publishing books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

      Archway Publishing

      1663 Liberty Drive

      Bloomington, IN 47403

      www.archwaypublishing.com

      1-(888)-242-5904

      Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

      ISBN: 978-1-4808-0819-5 (sc)

      ISBN: 978-1-4808-0820-1 (e)

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2014910009

      Archway Publishing rev. date: 06/25/2014

      This work is dedicated with boundless love to my wife, Cristin L. Briger, who has put up with my silences and my answers of what during my daily writing efforts.

      Cover design and photograph by Cristin L. Briger.

      I want to thank my good friend Sandy Gilbert for her countless reads of my novella’s drafts and overall encouragement of my writing efforts.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Bernie Simon: A Composite Man

      Felix: A Dismal Dog’s Life

      A Literate Gorilla’s Life

      Epiphany

      Introduction

      I WAS A MAN NAMED BERNIE SIMON, AND THEN A DOG called Felix, and now I am a nameless gorilla only with a number 20196 like Jean Valjean. I am, however, a very literate and sophisticated gorilla, and have always believed that my persona had to be derived from someone other than a numb nut like Bernie Simon, my human predecessor in existence. Even Bernie Simon, at least toward the end of his life, had a sense of having been a cultivated human being before being Bernie Simon, but was never able on his own to scope out that earlier life. A dear friend of mine believed unequivocally that she knew who Bernie Simon had been, but neither my own memories nor the shared memories of Bernie Simon, which I carry, have been adequate to confirm that identity.

      I hope that I am on my way to returning to live as a human after my gorilla hood. I do believe that I earned my way to being a gorilla, as opposed to a mosquito, after the lives of Bernie Simon and the dog Felix, that name being a misnomer if ever there was one for so woebegone a creature. Perhaps, if I am fortunate to be once again a human being, I won’t care so much about gaining memories of earlier existences. But for the moment, I am reasonably content to be a gorilla of wide repute who can write on a computer or text on an iPad, even if I can’t speak any tongue that humans can understand other than those versed in the limited vocabulary of gorilla grunts and roars.

      Briefly, to set the record straight as to what’s going on here, I was born into captivity at the Central Park Zoo in New York City, which is an appropriate venue for this present life of mine. As a young gorilla, I was singled out for my manual dexterity; I knew instinctively how to overcome most of the limitations resulting from my lack of opposable thumbs. As a consequence, I was supplied from my early youth with many human childhood toys and gadgets that increased rapidly in complexity as I aged. My keepers paid close and often irritating attention to my use of them, as I seemed to know instinctively how to play with such stuff in the manner of a human child, without their tutelage.

      When I was twelve months old, I was set in front of a keyboard for the first time and began to write complete sentences in grammatical English, with some embarrassing typographical errors resulting from my yet stubborn gorilla fingers. You can imagine the shock and delight on the part of the keepers who were monitoring me. For some time, however, they kept the knowledge of my literary skills within the confines of the Central Park Zoo organization, just in case zoologists associated with other, larger zoos were playing an elaborate trick to make chumps of the Central Park Zoo hierarchy; our zoo was referred to scathingly as a trivial animal sideshow for privileged New York children by zoologists at more significant zoos and, especially, by our moneyed neighbor, the Bronx Zoo. But after some months, it became clear to all the staff at the Central Park Zoo that I was truly functioning on my own, without some electronic system guiding my writing skills operated by pranksters elsewhere.

      But enough of me for the moment; I want to write initially about the man and then the dog I was before exploring the gorilla stage of my amalgamated life. This is a defensive tactic in case, for any reason, I might lose my talent or my human memories, always a possibility in this crazy, reincarnated world in which I exist. Moreover, other than being literate and having all of the advantages enjoyed by a gorilla in my position, I remain very much a caged beast without the same breadth of opportunities in life available even to a man such as Bernie Simon; the limitations that were applicable during my existence as the dog Felix, my dear readers, were even more tedious.

      Bernie Simon: A Composite Man

      AS I HAVE SAID, WHEN I WAS LAST A MAN, I WAS BERNIE Simon, who was born in Queens, New York in 1954. My mother was Tamara Simon and my father was Herb Simon. I was their only child. I know very little of my father who died when I was five years old. I remember only that he had very large, hairy hands, a deeply resonating voice, and that he shouted a lot. About what he shouted, I can’t remember. My mother never told me much about my father, except that to say frequently that he wasn’t a good provider and had died of a stroke. She said that my father left her with nothing to take care of her and me, and that she did as best she could for us, adding always God willing. Her only skill was sewing, and she became a seamstress after becoming a widow. She worked in our apartment house, taking clothes from neighborhood tailors and dry cleaning establishments as well as from neighbors in our apartment house. She called her trade piecework. Sometimes, she sewed hems in new skirts, dresses and trousers, but mostly she mended rips and tears in well-worn skirts, dresses and trousers, and even darned holes in socks so that they could be used again and again by our thrifty neighbors.

      My mother was very superstitious, which really was her only creed. She spit when someone complimented her on sewing ability or when she heard about or saw a troubling incident or misfortune on the street or on television. She even spit when she heard a clap of thunder or saw a blade of lightening, having a primal fear

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