Monkeys at the Zoo
I may be lowdown and shaded with hate but I still know how to have fun. Step on the border of the pond for the mud squishing greenly and the swan turds. I love to make my mark.
I’m waiting for the girl of last night’s dreams. I could feel her, and that’s a damn good sign. It means she might actually show up, might actually obey my conjure. Your dreams may not blend the future with the past, but mine do.
So what. More of the same. Whatever you or I touch, it isn’t soft any more. Goddamn this mud, so beautiful I could weep, and it means nothing to nothing, smudge to smudge. Lost and last; wrappers, eyes, diapers, bones, spoons, ground up into grey dust. Your hand will be dust. It came from dust.
This used to be a good place. Peacocks stepped dainty toe-pointed steps from rock to rock, dragging fine tails, wearing trembling crowns. Roosters and hens with feather frills pecked and clucked along ledges that went steeply up, planted with native shrubbery. All manner of swimming birds made their way through the cement ponds, reflected in the slightly scummy surface of the water. They glided through gentle wavelets, where sunlight spangled over small change and fragments of twigs and leaves. How my daughter laughed when a duck so importantly dipped her head and stuck her behind in the air to snatch a morsel before some other duck got it. How she cried out to the peacock, “Open your fan!”
They had gumball machines filled with food pellets, so you wouldn’t feed their animals potato chips or candy. I lifted my little girl so she could see over the stone ledge. All up and down the railing, other parents did the same, the children squealing and laughing and calling out, all lit up with hope, amazed at the world’s dazzling mysterious beauty, not ruined yet by life as we know it. While we were there, we felt it too, caught up in the moment, forgetting everything.
Why do I think each moment ought to exist exactly as itself forever, along with all the other moments? And yet this moment is worthless. This moment is dead, lifeless, even with the swans, the delectable mud, the scent of sour water, decomposing matter.
She might come, anyway, called by my dream. A sweet vision, haloed with her alloted years of dancing to the heart’s rhythm. If I say “good morning,” she might smile. That would sooth me, I think. That would make this life bearable.
The wind sighs, willows weep at the pond’s edge, maples and lindens sway. I’m a wisp, thin skin, thin hair, nothing but eyes looking lively, the rest of me a dry leaf, a stem, with a bit of fluff on top. My watch is too big for my wrist. I walk slowly, looking at the ground for lumps and stones, gnarled roots. Still full of agonies, as life is nothing but regret piled on regret, but I keep it to myself, on an inner glass shelf, poverty knick-knacks and tragedy statues and ashtrays of longing.
This is the kind of animal I am. What wisdom there is in the passage of time is knowing that none of this lasts, so each moment is stuffed with beauty beyond measure or apprehension, or it would be if I were paying proper attention. Distracted by some idiotic disconnection, most of the time. If I make it to reallyold, I’ll be too tired to feel anything but the halos of life and history, softer than fur. They’ll touch me, and I’ll let them. I won’t be striving anymore to make marks, just looking for a soft place to rest.
They didn’t used to have these swan boats. “Five dollars for fifteen minutes!” the sign says, only big enough for two, go out to the middle and dream, look back. I did that once, with a rowboat on Union Lake, and liked it, how everything was there but far away, and how the shining water with ripples of influence reflected the sky, its border of tree crowns, docks, roof peaks, windows like eyes. Is there peace like that anymore? Where the highway is just the faintest far distant whisper? Where sounds are like words. A whine of metal against metal, a bang of wood against wood, an angry shout, a dog barking, a fish splashing. Someone singing a fine day into being.
Whose child is that? She looks at me like she knows me. Maybe I resemble someone who was nice to her once.
“What’s that?” She asks, points to the squishy greenish mud oozing up around my shoes. “Is that dookie?” She examines my feet, eyes narrowed in critical appraisal. No more than seven years old, but knows better than to step in shit.
Maybe I can enlighten her as to the far off end of life, when all the rules change.
“Might be.”
“Why you step in it?”
“I like the way it squishes.”
From being all crimped up, her face unfolds and she looks interested. It must be she knows about squishing. Her face glows in the humid air. She sniffs.
“Smell like dookie.” She tilts her head to the side, eyes full of mischief. Are we playing a game?
“Mm hm.” I try to catch a glimpse of myself at the age of seven. “Can’t smell as much as I used to could,” I say.
“I can smell everything!” She sniffs with her nose high, reading hay and manure. “I can smell lions,” she says. “andI can smell elephants!” She checks me out, like I might not believe her, but sure enough, there must be lion and elephant in that thick aroma of shit and animal sweat.
“There’s so many smells here it’s like reading a book with your nose,” I say.
“That’s because there’s a zoo right over there!” She stretches her arm to its full length to show me where to look.
“Is that so? Well, what do you know, there it is.”
What an interesting little person, standing here talking to me like I’m a human being.
I suppose I should try and think of something to talk about, appropriate to a young girl. What can an old man, especially one as darkly thinking as I, full of gloom and bitter regrets, find to say to an innocent child?
Anyway, whose child is she? Maybe someone is anxiously calling for her just out of earshot.
“Where’s your mother and father?” I ask. My imagination makes me think she might be neglected, and the words come out sharp.
Now she looks troubled and shifty, and doesn’t answer, though a cloud casts a shadow over her small smoldering face.
Fine. She can have her secrets. Sooner or later someone will come looking for her.
Evidently this conjure brought a different animal than what I meant, more alive than an ordinary wish can foresee. A dream girl, yes, but mighty small and fresh; not suitable for such as I had in mind. She stares at the swan boats, disdainful and yearning.
“Ever been on one of those?” I ask.
“Nope.” She shakes her head.
“Me neither. Wonder what it’s like.”
Does she knows how it feels to float, free of the shore, the hard press of gravity?
“What should I call you?” I ask. “I’m called―my name is―” which, for this occasion?
She looks at me, waiting.
“Let’s see now, what ismy name? I used to know it. Was it Top-hat? Junior? Mr. Williams? Was it Jerry?”
She laughs behind her hand.
Boys cloud across the grass way down by the fountain. They’re not doing anything in particular. I try to read their shouts and laughter, but can’t. I don’t trust boys in swarms, don’t like the crowns and tridents on alley fences that try to cancel each other out.
“That’s it! Jerry.” I smack my forehead. “It’s been so long since anybody said my name, I almost forgot what it was.”
She giggles.
“It’s true!” I say, and it nearly is.
“Not even your family?” She stares, astonished.
“None of my family live here any more.”
“Not even your friends?” She asks, even more astonished.
“All my friends are long gone. The only friends I have now are the little birds that come to my window for seeds.”
She studies me, sympathy all over her face.
“You should see them, snatching up seeds, jostling on the sill, singing, flying off.”
She says, “You should teach the little birds to say your name. Then you won’t forget it.”
I feel pitiful, but I want to laugh. “Now don’t tell me you don’t remember your name either.”
“I do too!”
“Well, what is it then?”
“Florida.” She says it proudly. She loves her name. It matches her purple dress, her gold sparkling shoes, her sockless feet. It matches her braided pigtails with rainbow-colored bows.
“Florida!” I say.
The boys are zigging and zagging our way. Probably harmless, but maybe not, and why take the chance? There’s nothing more dangerous than a juvenile. Their brains are sharp with ideas but nothing is real to them. It’s all a game.
“What a beautiful name. Lady Florida, would you care to go for a ride with me on a swan boat?” I wave my hand out to the bobbing boats. They’re stained with algae, I notice, and mud, and the grime that floats on the wind, but they’re big white birds, nevertheless. Fairy tale boats, that a girl named Florida would probably feel at home in.
She follows my gaze, hesitates. “That water is nasty.”she says. She eyes the algae and decayed leaves floating on the brown murk. “I might fall in.”
“Oh, I don’t know about nasty, the swans don’t mind it.” I catch her eye to see if I hit it right. “Look at those flowers over there, floating in the water, they don’t mind.”
“They’re pretty,” Florida says.
“Anyway, Florida, I know you won’t fall in. I can tell you have good balance. “
She can’t quite bring herself to ask, but I answer anyway.
“When you have good balance you can keep to your feet even if something tries to knock you over.”
I can see I just made some kind of sense. Her face lights up.
“Oh yeah,” she says, like she just now remembered what she already knew. Florida smiles and takes a few steps toward the dock, where a white-haired, red-faced man with a giant belly is waiting for business. He’s wearing a zoo sweatshirt and bucket hat. The green clashes with his bulbous red nose. We’re his only customers. He gives Florida a big smile. He could tone it back a little.
“ I think somebody is going on a swan boat ride today!” He says, clapping his hands and rubbing them together.
“Yes I am!” Florida shouts.
I walk over, wiping my shoes on the dry grass, and give the man my five dollar bill. Regretfully. For the rest of the week I’ll have to do without coffee at the Bitter End (and the girl with black hair and large hands who serves it).
“Now that we got that figured out, which boat should we ride in?” I walk over to the dock, pat the beaks of the nearest swan boats. They bob under my hands, nodding yes.
Florida follows. She chooses the proudest one, a somewhat older model with a lively expression. She looks up at it’s fiberglass face like it might be alive, or at least have a soul. For such a bold girl, she looks shy. Ah―I remember that. How it feels to make a new friend. A sensation forces its way up into my chest and jams it open, a real surprise. I gave up on that a long, long time ago.
“You folks can go ahead and stay out as long as you please,” the boat man says. “Unless for some crazy reason a whole busload rolls in wanting to float around.” His laugh is too big for the occasion. “What name should I put this under?” He’s got a clipboard on his little podium, his pen at the ready.
“Top Hat Junior!” Florida takes his cue.
“Mr. Williams,” I say, “would be the more accurate sobriquet.” Using the French for “nickname” allows me to give the man a genuine smile, however small and fleeting.
“Sweet little girl,” he says to me. “Your granddaughter?”
“Her name is Florida,” I say. “She ain’t been on a swan boat before.”
I step aboard, nearly lose my balance, laboriously maneuver across to the far seat. Before I can sit down Florida grabs the swan by the neck, steps on the gunwale. The swan boat rocks in a way I consider dangerous. I manage to avoid falling in, but not without waving my arms and whinnying like a horse. Florida laughs and laughs, taking her seat, gripping the arm rests.
“I guess being shorter and lighter makes you better at keeping your feet.” I say, to myself mostly, heart pounding.
The red-faced man laughs himself silly. “You gotta move slow in a boat!” He tells Florida.
“What’s this?” She pokes her foot at a faded life jacket. “It looks like a hot dog bun.”
“You put that on like a jacket,” he tells her.
“Why? I ain’t no hot dog.” Florida and the red-faced man crack up.
“It’s what you do in boats.” I say, irritated at the light-hearted banter while I’m stuck in this perilous situation. “It’s a life jacket. Everyone wears them.”
My answer is more economical than I’d prefer, but I’m flustered. I struggle into a life jacket while the boat man helps Florida with hers. As much as I’m interested in the two of us not being available for little gangsters to torment, I realize I may have chosen the wrong method of escape.
Apparently these swan boats operate by pedaling, but how do you get them aimed right?
The red-faced man takes pity on me. “This here’s your rudder, see. That’s how you steer. Simple as that.” He gets us going with a surprisingly powerful shove.
As we float away I can see that gang of boys harassing the statue of the zoo park’s original benefactor. It’s on a stone pedestal, a life size old man with a boy and girl on his lap, the metal shined up by climbers. No kid can resist it. The boys cover him like acrobats before the ticket-taker at the gate hollers at them to get down.
I commence to pedaling, raising up a froth behind us, a soft roar of cascading water. A pair of mallards take off, annoyed at the disturbance.
“Take your time!” the man yells, waving and sitting back down. Now that we’re floating, my heart is subsiding from my throat, but Florida is shivering with excitement.
“Whew!” I say, glancing over at Florida’s bony knees, vibrating, in spite of her arms squeezing them tight. I consider whether I should give her my jacket, though it smells of old man. “Cold?” I ask.
Florida’s eyes shine with a mix of fear and exultation. She hugs her knees and hides her face inside her life jacket. I pedal us out toward the middle. The water-fall of the paddle wheel seems to be the only sound in the empty park.
“I bet you’re just excited to be out in the middle of the water in a swan boat.” I holler.
She nods into her knees, raises her head for a peek.
“Yep. Floating on the water like a giant swan. Or maybe we’re little swans, and our mother is giving us a ride.” We make it to the middle of the pond. I stop pedaling. The swan boat rocks on tiny waves. “Here we are, safe and sound, looking across the water to the weeping willows, looking at the clouds floating overhead and all around.” I find I’m chanting, looking for rhythms and rhymes. “Here we are, floating with our mother, looking at all the floating flowers.”
Florida sits up, turns her head to look at the world reflected upside down. She holds her own hand reassuringly tight, then gives out a big sigh. It seems to join with the ripples we’re making, drifting off and mixing with everything, filling the world with peace. Suddenly she’s at home on the water, wriggles out of her fear and back into a relaxed and friendly attitude toward swan boats.
“What’s making that sound?” she asks. “It sounds like big breathing.”
“That’s the wind in the trees.”
We look up into the tree crowns. Cottonwood leaves flip back and forth, catching the light. Lindens, maples, locusts, willows, oaks, they all wave and bow in a slow dance.
The boys pause in their swarm across the park to chat with the man selling swan boat rides. He cracks wise with them, it seems, judging by the shouts and bawls and doubled over knee slaps.
“Pretty nice out here, eh?” I lean my shoulder into Florida for a friendly nudge, a bit of warmth, just enough.
She nudges me back, tries to say something, but every time she starts she ends up in giggles.
“What’s so funny?” I say. “Never seen an old man change into a swan before?”
She laughs full out, closing her eyes to see it, a swan in a plaid jacket.
“I like it out here.” She says. “Everywhere you look, it’s pretty.”
“Yes it is.”
We float for a while, enjoying the peace. Every sound has to come across water to reach us. I watch the boys head for the zoo gates. I remember it’s monday, the zoo’s free day. Maybe Florida and I can go for a jaunt in the zoo. That is, if nobody shows up in the meantime to claim her.
“Ever been in the zoo, Florida? Ever seen the monkeys on their little island?” We could watch them for hours, my daughter and I, how they’d fight, play, groom, ride the goats.
“Those monkeys are funny.” Florida smiles to think of them.
It’s nice out here, for sure, beauty everywhere, but I can barely feel it. It seems as I age my senses bring me less of the world. I’m forced to live inside myself, which is seldom pleasant. I try taking a deep breath, like Florida, and letting it out slowly, so it mixes with the ripples we make. It works! I warm up a little to the light-dazzled willow leaves, the diamond glitter of sun on water.
Far off, sounds of mowing, laughter, bird calls, barking dogs, the squeal of brakes, the roar of truck gears, the hollow smack of something somewhere falling hard. It all gets lost in the soup of sound. From inside the zoo there are shouts of what sound like alarm. What have those boys gotten up to? The slight poke at my peace is brief, it floats off into the larger pattern.
After a while, I pat the swan’s neck. “You’re a good swan boat,” I say, “you float like a dream.” Another deep breath, and more softness sinks in. I feel my muscles, always ready to fight off danger, relax. I lean into the backrest to look up at leaves and sky.
Florida’s been thinking. “When I’m grown,” she says, “I’m going to have a pond and a swan boat just like this.” This is a plan she’s making, not an idle daydream. “Except with a Burger Land right nearby, because that’s where I’m gonna work, and eat hamburger and french fries every day, and a mall, for I can spend my money on all the best everything.” Her smile beams a sun of happiness and pleasure. Then why do I suddenly feel sad?
“Is that so, Lady Florida? Your own pond?” I’m trying to figure out what to say, if anything, about horizons. What if my bold young friend never aims higher than Burger Land? What if she never gets farther than the mall?
I look around for something to give me an idea. The man selling rides is standing now, looking over at the zoo, talking on his cell phone. He walks across the nearly empty parking lot toward the zoo gates.
If he’d look back over his shoulder he’d see a human-like shape emerge from around the wall and move smooth as a shadow across the grass. I watch for what seems like a long time, testing out whether this might be a hallucination, but the gorilla doesn’t blink out. It pauses occasionally, looking around, and finally heads toward the trees and shrubs that bunch up on one end of the pond. Leaves rustle and twigs snap. The gorilla climbs the lower reaches of a weeping willow.
No one seems to be after it, though the shouts of alarm and excitement have increased inside the zoo. The red-faced man is nowhere to be seen. Nothing moves but the tree tops, nodding and waving.
“Florida!” I whisper. “Did you see that?”
“Lilla!” Florida’s eyes are wide, she sits up in her seat, nearly aloft. Concern and astonishment play over her features.
The gorilla jerks its head around to stare at us. For a moment I can’t speak.
Finally I say, in a weak voice, “You know that gorilla by name?”
“She’s in my book! It’s Lilla!” Florida’s impatient. The situation is urgent. She stands up, the swan boat rocks but Florida hangs on to the swan’s neck. I catch hold of her life jacket, just to be on the safe side, and wonder, is this is a genuine predicament, or am I dreaming?
Florida is hopping up and down, calling out, “Lilla, Lilla, Lilla.” I’ve got one hand braced on the side of the boat and the other clenching a handful of Florida’s life jacket.
If I find out what she thinks is going on, maybe I can get her to stop jumping around.
“Florida! Who is she? Who’s Lilla?”
“Lilla is a gorilla! She used to live in the jungle and came to the city by accident, because her parents were killed by hunters, and she tried to find a place to live but no one would leave her alone, so she had to run away and hide all the time, but she met a dog and a bear and a tiger, and the tiger knew how to get back to the jungle, so they all went together to live in the jungle again!”
I’m laughing with tears in my eyes. Florida’s shaking with excitement, straining toward a dream come true, an imaginary friend in the flesh.
“Somebody caught her! They took her to the zoo and she got away, and now she’s looking for the forest!”
“But what can wedo for Lilla?” I ask, with nothing in mind. I know what will happen. The gorilla will get caught, shot with a dart or a real bullet.
“Let's talk to her.” Florida leans out over the water, her eyes locked on the dark, worried face peeking out through willow fronds.
I like Florida’s story better than mine. “Okay, but let’s go slow. We don’t want to scare her.”
Florida nods, sits down, to my great relief. I pedal the swan boat slowly and steer in Lilla’s direction. She sits in the willow, half hidden, and looks at us through a curtain of brilliant green-gold leaves, shifting from side to side for different views. I guess she’s trying to figure out what we are. Never seen a man so old and dark nor a girl so small and bright, riding a white bird.
Even at this slow speed, water splashes musically behind us.
“Lilla, you’ll be all right, don’t be afraid,” Florida says.
It sounds so convincing. She believes it with all her heart.
Lilla comes forward on her branch. My heart is still pounding just as hard as when I first saw her loping black shape against the green lawn. I try to ignore it. My hands shake.
“Jerry, look! She wants us to come over there!” Florida stands up fast and hops impatiently.
I don’t feel so good.
“Florida, dear, would you please stop jumping around in this wobbly boat? I think I’m getting seasick.”
Florida stops straining forward and turns to look at me. Lilla stands up to see better through the willow leaves.
“I’m not fooling, look at my hands,” I hold them up.
“Are you scared, Jerry?” Florida says. “Lilla won’t hurt you. She’s nice.”
“I’m sure she is, but I still wish you would sit down a minute. If this boat keeps rocking every which way I think I might throw up.”
“Why?” Florida says. “Don't you like it when I rock the boat?”
“No!” I say, and then I think about it. “Well, maybe sometimes I do, but let's take a break, all right?”
Florida studies me, with her serious eyes, and looks at Lilla, who looks back. She sits down, leaning in Lilla's direction. “But we're going to help her, right? She has to get back to the forest.”
“Of course we will,” I say, still feeling the beat of my heart, “we'll find a way. Why don't we sit quietly here with Lilla and think of what to do.”
The gorilla sinks down on the branch, where there's more cover. The zoo is strangely quiet, but I hear a siren, and then another, getting louder, and see a fire truck swing around the corner way at the other end of the park and head up the drive.
I almost cuss, but catch myself.
“Look who's here,” I say. “I wonder if they’re looking for Lilla.”
The truck rolls up to the gate and two guys and a girl jump out in their blue uniforms.
“Uh oh,” Florida says. “They probably don't know how to treat gorillas.”
“Then let's keep Lilla a secret for now.” I say.
Florida nods. She watches the firefighters carry their gear inside the zoo, checks to see that Lilla's still there, relaxes a bit.
A couple of police cars speed in, park in a zig-zag by the gate. Four cops step importantly out, one talks into her radio, looks around. We must be far enough away to be wallpaper, because they take no notice of Florida and I, not to mention Lilla. They leave the cars running. One of the zookeepers meets up with them, leads the way, secures the gates behind them.
We listen to the faint squawks from the radios, a baby crying, distant traffic. One of the parrots near the gate says “Hello. Hello.”
“Let’s pretend we don’t know there’s a gorilla over there in the tree, all right?” I say. “We’ll just pedal very slowly, so you can’t even tell we’re moving.”
Florida sits primly, her eyes the only give-away that something’s afoot.
I pull out a long, thin cigar, chew the end. The cellophane crinkles when I stuff it in my jacket pocket. “Ah, that's better. A nice dose of nicotine.” My hands tremble only slightly.
Florida tries to stay prim, giggles. Her eyes are slits and her small hands with coral pink fingernails cover her smile.
“Now what’s so funny?”
“Jerry, you look like a scarecrow with a snake in his mouth.” She checks to see how I'll take it, and when I grin she tosses her head and shrieks with laughter, casting a glance at Lilla to include her in the joke.
I play along, mug for Lilla and Florida. I take the cigar out of my mouth and make a face at it.
“What'd you do to my cigar?” I say. “You didn't change it into a snake, did you?”
While we goof around the boat rocks on the minor turbulence of our wake. I pedal without attention to aim. There’s plenty far to go before we get to Lilla.
Of course I have no idea what I’m going to do. I want Florida’s dream to come true, but it can’t. It’s a dead end street.
“Lilla's going to be happy to see her friends again.” Florida says. “I wish I could see my friends from my old neighborhood.”
“Where's that?”
“Franklin, right by King Park. That's the best park ever―except for this park.”
“So you miss your old friends, eh?” I say. “Maybe you could visit them.”
“My mama won’t let me take the bus by myself.” Florida frowns at the injustice.
“Maybe she’ll go with you.”
“She won’t.” It’s a flat out certainty, sounds like, born of bitter experience.
“Well, I guess that’s that.” I’d offer to take Florida to King Park myself, except I know that’s so unlikely as to constitute the raising of false hope, which I’ve already done enough of.
The fact is, this is probably the last I’ll ever see of Florida, at least up close. Her mother, or grandmother, or some other authority, is sure to suspect me of nefarious intent.
No sense in thinking about that. Mothers, gorillas, they do what they do.
“Look, Jerry, look at Lilla.” Florida smiles fondly.
Lilla leans on a low branch, pensive, elbow on knee, chin in hand, watching our progress. I remember a story about a gorilla saving an injured boy. Lilla seems like that kind of gorilla. Now I wish I had a piece of fruit to offer.
We’re getting awfully close―closer than I intended. That’s something I didn’t think to ask―how the hell do you stop this thing? I try to pedal backwards, but it doesn’t work, the pedals slap my feet. I jerk the rudder to go for a U-turn and the knob breaks. It slams me back in my seat. I stare at the over-stressed metal in my hand.
“Shit!” Then, even though we’re in trouble, and my guts are acrobatic, I realize that for Florida’s sake I need to calm down. “I mean, daggone it. Sorry Florida, didn’t mean to swear.”
“Ooh, you broke it!” Florida knows I’ll be in trouble with the red-faced man.
“ Well, yeah, but Florida―”
We're under a canopy of green. A smell that combines sweat, butt, toes, dirt, lilacs, and trampled vegetation wedges its way into my nostrils. The swan's neck bumps into a thick branch, and even though we’re not drifting very fast, Florida and I are knocked forward. I put my hands against the rough bark to steady us. A large, creased hand covers my own. Silence befalls us, with just the sound of Lilla's breathing, and waves, and a sigh of wind.
I’ve got a shiver of fear going down, and a spring of pleasure rising up. I should be more afraid than I am, thinking of ways to get out of this mess, but I feel alive, all my senses are full blast.
Florida looks up at Lilla, turns to see if I feel it too, then looks at Lilla again. A sweeter gaze I never saw, a flower to the sun.
I want to hang on to that for as long as I can.
