Savages

132

“Impossible,” Chon argued with him one time. “We’re violent by nature, nonviolent by training.”

“Other way around,” Ben countered. “We’re socially conditioned to be violent.”

“Look at chimps.”

“What about them?”

“We share ninety-seven percent of our DNA with chimps,” Chon said, “and they’re violent little fuckers who kill each other. You can’t tell me they’re socially conditioned to do that.”

“Are you saying we’re chimps?”

“Are you saying we’re not?”

Of course we’re chimps.

We’re chimpanzees with guns.

Chon recalls some old saw about if you leave enough chimps in a room with enough typewriters eventually they’ll bang out Romeo and Juliet and wonders if the same theory holds true for guns. If you left enough chimps in a room with enough MAC-10s, would they eventually all shoot each other?

All you’d really need is that one forward-looking chimp. That one sociopathic Cheetah with enough curiosity, brains, and inner rage to point the gun and pull the trigger and then it’s on, man. Monkey see, monkey do—lead and pieces of Bonzo would be bouncing off those walls until the last chimp left standing (as it were) was mortally wounded.

Chon wonders if God (assuming a fact not in evidence) ever wondered, Hmmmm, if you leave enough humans on a planet with the atom, would they … Of course we fucking would, Chon knows, of course we fucking will, we fly airplanes into buildings intentionally, in the name of God. (Well, not in the name of “God,” exactly, but …)

Anyway anyway, be that as it may.