The Zoogoer
T.R. Healy
Sucking on a lemon drop, his second since he arrived at the zoo, Jared Scoble strolled behind some Japanese tourists who wore identical blue windbreakers and white canvas sun hats. He had visited the zoo so often and had seen all the exhibits so many times that sometimes he was more interested in observing the other visitors than the animals. Of course, he did not understand a word any of them said but somehow he felt comfortable in their presence until they headed toward the orangutan enclosure, then he did an about face and followed a woman with two little girls holding bright yellow balloons.
The other day he visited the Primate Forest in the zoo and spent almost twenty minutes watching the eldest orangutan who reminded him of an algebra teacher he had one semester in high school, Mr. Walloch. Both were large, bulky figures with thick necks and short, bowed legs and reddish-brown mustaches. Their dispositions were also similar, each easily annoyed by the attention of others, and while his teacher just glared at unwelcome intruders, the orangutan made a hissing sound that Rachel, one of the volunteer zoo guides, described as its “squeaks.” He was just about ready to walk away from the enclosure when the orangutan started sucking in air through its pursed lips, then threw a handful of its feces in his direction. Something he suspected Mr. Walloch might have done on occasion if he could have got away with it. So he decided it would be prudent if he kept his distance from the animal for a few weeks.
Still trailing behind the two yellow balloons, he chuckled to himself, wondering if the Japanese tourists would be greeted with a handful of feces if they lingered too long in front of the orangutan.
“Hello, Jared.”
It was Rachel who, like a few other volunteer guides, knew his name because he was such a frequent visitor to the zoo.
“Hello there.”
“How are you today?”
“All right, I guess.”
“You guess?”
He smiled. “I’m always all right when I come here.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
A slight woman in her early thirties, she often looked as if she had slept in her uniform safari shirt. It was full of wrinkles and so big she had to roll back the sleeves several times before her hands were visible.
“So have you signed up yet to be a zoo keeper for the day?”
“Not yet.”
“You should do it,” she urged him. “The last time I looked there were close to a hundred names on the waiting list.”
“That many?”
“Yes, sir, and the longer you wait the longer the list gets.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Do it. I’m sure you’d enjoy it.”
He smiled again as she strode by him on her way to the monkey house. He supposed he should have told her he really wasn’t interested in signing up to be a zoo keeper for a day but he didn’t want to disappoint her because he knew how much the program meant to her. Not only was it quite expensive, at $150, but he was not eager to clean and feed animals and spruce up their indoor and outdoor enclosures. There were other ways he could get his hands dirty that were not as costly and demanding.
He paused before a polar bear stretched out on a slab of concrete beside its pool. He would never tell Rachel or any of the other volunteers he got to know the past eight months, but he wasn’t all that interested in exotic animals but visited the zoo so often because it was a distraction, some place unusual go to get away from his otherwise humdrum life. At the zoo he saw things he could not see anywhere else in town. There he could pretend he was somewhere thousands and thousands of miles from his cramped little apartment on the other side of the river. There he could make-believe he was someone else for a while.
~ ~ ~
Bent over the heavy wooden cart, which was stacked with hornbooks and casebooks and state reporters and law reviews, Scoble pushed it down the main aisle of the law library. He proceeded slowly because he didn’t want any of the materials to spill on the floor as happened the last time he moved the loaded cart. The harder he pushed the louder the back left wheel squeaked which prompted a few students to look up from their books and yellow legal pads and glare at him. He smiled, reminded of the squeaking sound the orangutan made the other day before throwing its feces at him.
Not quite six years ago, a Hansel and Gretel law school opened in a former shoe emporium on the east side of town. It was affiliated with a small liberal arts college in the area and mainly attracted students who were unable to be accepted by either of the other two law schools in the state. Scoble was an associate librarian there. Prior to accepting this position, he was a substitute high school teacher for a couple of years so he didn’t have any professional training as a librarian but was hired after a single interview. He was surprised but then quickly realized that, despite his impressive sounding title, he was really only there to shelve books. Occasionally, when more than one of the senior librarians was absent, he got to sit at the front desk where he checked out books and answered questions. Then he felt like a real librarian but most of the time he was scarcely more than a stockboy in a hardware store.
As he creaked past the printer, his left hand holding the stack of books in place, a cell phone suddenly chimed in a corner of the library. The ringtone was “The Rise of the Valkyries” so he knew at once whose phone it was---Seligman’s. More times than he could remember he had told the obnoxious third year student that cell phones must be turned off inside the library. So he knew the rules but didn’t feel he had to abide by them for some reason. He was incorrigible, carried on as if he had already graduated and passed the bar exam.
Reluctantly Scoble stepped away from the book cart and walked over to the easy chair where Seligman was ensconced, loudly making plans to have dinner with the person who called him. Without saying a word, he set on the small table in front of him a recipe-sized card that said in bright red letters “No Cell Phone Use in the Library.” The guy barely looked at it before he brushed it aside with his thumb.
“Excuse me,” Scoble said firmly, “but you have to step outside if you want to use your phone.”
Ignoring him, he continued his conversation.
“Sir, you can’t use your phone in here.”
“Some douche bag is hassling me,” he said to the caller, “so I’ll talk to you later.”
“You know the rules here. You know you can’t use phones in the library.”
“Christ, man, it’s not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal for those who are trying to do some work in here.”
“What difference does it make to you, pal? All you do is shelve books all day long.”
At once, he felt the blood rise in his face. “You do this again you’ll be asked to leave.”
“Ooooh!” he purred, wrapping his arms around his flabby chest. “I’m scared.”
“I’m serious. You’ll be escorted out of here.”
Immediately he got up, saying, “Hell, I'm out of here now,” and brushed past him as he knocked the card onto the floor.
“That guy give you a hard time?” Peter, another shelver, asked after Scoble returned to the cart.
He shrugged. “I guess because he's in his last year here he thinks the rules don't apply to him and he can do as he likes.”
“He isn't the only one at this school who doesn't think he has to follow rules.”
“So I've noticed.”
“You know, another librarian who used to work here told me once that a not so secret secret in America is that law schools, by and large, are dens of mediocrities---full of people who think they are smarter than they really are.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Neither am I, Jared, but based on the folks I've come in contact with here, I suspect there's some truth in that statement.”
~ ~ ~
After work, Scoble boarded the 33 bus to go home, and as he always did looked for a seat by a window. The bus was crowded but he did spot a window seat toward the back and walked over to it and sat down. Many passengers read newspapers and paperback novels or talked on their phones but he preferred to look out the window. Not only did it help make the ride pass more quickly but he was interested in what was going on outside the bus. Just as he watched animals at the zoo, he watched people on the sidewalk. He watched them go in and out of stores and restaurants and cross streets and hail taxis and brush past one another as if no one else was there.
The other week he spotted his last steady girlfriend rifling through her imitation Birkin handbag outside an antique shop. Urgently he rapped a knuckle against the window he was sitting by, and when Kelsey looked up he waved but almost at once she resumed searching through her bag. He wondered if she saw him but was pretty sure she had and chose not to acknowledge him. He was not surprised. Their break-up five months ago was full of recriminations. She claimed he didn't show enough interest in her, complained in particular about his many visits to the zoo, but he suspected the real reason she moved out of his apartment was because he wasn't ambitious enough for her. She wanted to be with someone who some day would earn enough money to make her life very comfortable. That was not someone who shelved books for a living.
~ ~ ~
A battered green pickup truck chugged past the bus and on the bumper was a sticker that said “I Knew Where I Was But I Was Lost.”
~ ~ ~
The first person to take Scoble to a zoo was his Aunt Viola, a boisterous young woman with candy apple red hair and a perpetual smile that was every bit as bright as her hair. He was six years old and, as if it were yesterday, remembered the first exhibit she took him to see was the elephant house. As soon as they entered the rank enclosure, his aunt cupped her hands around her mouth, pressed her lips together, and emitted a trumpeting sound that was almost identical to the bellows made by the elephants. He was too young to be embarrassed but still he stepped away from his aunt as if she were a stranger.
For almost a year, a couple of times a month, she accompanied him to the zoo which was located high in the hills that surrounded the city. Of course, she enjoyed seeing all the wild animals as much as he did but even more he believed she looked forward to seeing this guy she was very fond of who worked there as a keeper. His name was Caleb Carruthers. Scoble thought he looked quite a bit older than his aunt but that might have been because of the pale scar along his left cheek where he was struck by a tiger's paw while cleaning its cage. Though a bit gruff at times, Caleb was pleasant to him and often offered him a lemon drop from the tiny stuff sack he always carried in the side pocket of his leather jacket. Soon, like his aunt, he became more interested in seeing Caleb than the animals because he was so full of information and sometimes let him help with some of his chores.
“I wouldn't be surprised if you became a keeper some day when you get old enough,” he said one afternoon as he watched him feed a banana to an elephant.
“I'd like that.”
“So would I, Jared. We need people like you who really care about what you're doing.”
Several months later, when his aunt found out that Caleb had become engaged, she was no longer interested in going to the zoo and stopped taking him without any explanation. He didn't need one, though, and instead she took him to the movies on Sunday afternoons. Still he missed their regular visits to the zoo because he felt more involved there even if he was just a visitor. He felt as if he were doing something worth his time not just passing time.”
~ ~ ~
His head bowed, his hands extended behind his back like a tail, a youngster no older than nine paced back and forth in front of the clouded leopard enclosure. Grinning with all his teeth, he thought he was being clever as did his parents who seemed to encourage his crude imitation of the animal. Scoble was not amused, however, believed the kid was being very disrespectful and was about to tell him so when his mother said it was time to go because she wanted to visit the bear pit.
“Do we have to?”
“Yes. Now come on.”
The kid then pulled some gumdrops out of his back pocket and threw them into the enclosure.
Scoble was livid. “You shouldn’t have done that, son.”
“What business is it of yours, chum?” his father barked.
“These animals all have special diets, that’s why there are signs posted all around the zoo cautioning visitors not to feed the animals.”
The father glared at him for a moment then turned to his son. “Come on, Lenny. We don’t need to listen to busybodies.”
Scoble, who almost always visited the clouded leopard when he came to the zoo, stepped a little closer to its enclosure. It was such an unusual looking creature with its long tail and long teeth and its yellowish-gray coat covered with large cloud-like spots that were dark as ink marks. Sometimes, when he locked eyes with it, he wondered if the leopard remembered him at all from his many visits but knew that was unlikely. Still, he wished it were so because he identified with it more than any other animal. According to the information plaque posted in front of the enclosure, the clouded leopard was the most solitary of the large cats who often found it difficult to adapt to its cramped conditions. That described him as well he believed. And something else he shared at one time with the leopard was quickness of foot.
He was an avid squash player. He had been since he was a small boy and accompanied his father to the YMCA on weekends. There, under the tutelage of his father and others, he developed into a very solid player who won the state championship his senior year in high school and went on to play in college where he was always one of the premier players on the squad. For as long as he could remember, he had aspirations to be a professional player even though he knew it was unlikely he would ever earn much money in such an obscure sport. He didn't care, though, because he so enjoyed playing and, besides, it was one of the few things he was any good at he knew.
His strength as a player was what his coach in high school described as his “cat-like” quickness. He was almost always quicker than his opponents, able to cover the court as if he had on skates. As a result, he was able to wear down players who could not keep pace with him and win matches he was expected to lose. His stamina was so strong because he ran every day, not long distances but short sprints. In particular, one of the so-called ghosting drills he did whenever he had sufficient space was to race from the center of the imaginary court, known as the “T,” to one of the four corners then race back to the T then race to another corner and back to the T and so forth until he raced to all four corners. Then he would rest for a minute and run the drill again and again until he was bone-tired but never exhausted because he always knew he could do another set if he was so inclined.
He never realized his dream of becoming a professional player on account of a nagging hamstring injury he suffered late in his junior year in college and that persisted throughout his senior year. Because of it he was no longer as quick as he once was and unable to cover the court as well and lost matches he should have won. Sometimes he felt as if he too were in a cage, his speed and agility denied to him because of some transgression he had unknowingly committed.
~ ~ ~
“Damn it!” Scoble cried after dropping a frayed 5th edition of Black's Law Dictionary on his left foot.
Wincing, he picked up the book and set it on a shelf. That was the second dictionary he dropped today and it hurt because each one was as heavy as a snow shovel. He was not a clumsy person but since he started working at the law library he seldom went a day without dropping a couple of books that he was attempting to shelve. He suspected it was because he was so tired. Shelving books, even very heavy legal texts, wasn't really that demanding physically but it was so monotonous it sapped his strength. Often he brought to the library a thermos bottle of black coffee that he sipped throughout the day in order to stay awake. Surprisingly, even on weekends he felt just as tired as he did at work.
When he played squash he was often tired after practice or a match but soon he recovered and was ready to play some more. Nowadays he felt tired practically all the time as if still depleted from some grueling five game match. Some mornings he could barely get out of bed he was so exhausted. For a while he thought perhaps he was suffering from some infection and made an appointment to see a physician recommended by his colleague Peter who told him after the examination that he was in splendid health.
“Then why am I tired all the time, doctor?”
“Just because you think you’re tired doesn’t mean you are.”
“Doesn’t it?” he asked, confused.
“Exhaustion can be a state of mind that doesn’t always correlate with a person’s actual physical condition.”
“When will I feel like I used to feel?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Scoble. That depends on you.”
~ ~ ~
Later that afternoon, riding home on the 33 bus, Scoble noticed a hefty guy in a surplus overcoat get aboard and stagger halfway down the aisle, then almost collapse in a window seat two rows in front of him. The guy, who seemed very agitated, was talking to himself and wiggling his fingers as if they were struck together. His hair was a tangled nest, his eyes puffy and red. The cap of a whiskey bottle was visible in a pocket of his overcoat.
Scoble watched him closely, concerned that at any moment he might explode and blame whatever was troubling him on another passenger. Just the other week an incident was reported in the newspaper of a drunken passenger on a commuter train who threatened to clip off the hair of the woman seated beside him. Apparently, after grabbing a handful of her hair, he pulled out a hunting knife and was about to start cutting when two other passengers charged down the aisle and took away the knife and subdued him. Immediately they were recognized as heroes, got their pictures in the paper and were honored with a reception at City Hall.
Resting his head against the window, he wondered what he would have done if he had been a passenger on that train. He hoped he would have responded as those two men did but he just didn’t know if he had the strength.
Watching the troubled man ahead of him, he half wished the guy would lose his temper so he could find out what he would do if anything.
“Get up!” he urged the guy under his breath. “Come on, for Christ’s sake, do something!”
He imagined, if the guy became the least bit menacing, he’d spring out of his seat and get right in his face to make sure he didn’t injure anyone. And if he had a knife in his hand, he would take it away even if there was a chance he might get hurt.
The guy continued to mutter to himself but otherwise he was perfectly still with his hands folded in his lap.
“Come on, goddamn it! Do something!”
The lumbering bus stopped in the middle of the next block and more people came on board. Scoble was sure the guy would bother some of them as they walked past him to find a place to sit, and he was ready to pounce on him but to his surprise the guy didn’t budge.
“Come on! Come on!”
Scoble didn’t pull the cord as the bus approached his stop because he wanted to be there when the guy did something threatening. He rode past two more stops but knew he could not miss another one otherwise he would have a very long walk back to his apartment. So he pulled the cord, and as he got up to leave he saw that the guy in front of him was sound asleep.
Bastard, he fumed.
~ ~ ~
Tilting his head back, Scoble swallowed what little remained in the Coors bottle and set it on a corner of his desk beside two other empty bottles. Then, feeling a bit light-headed, he plopped down in the swivel chair behind the desk and stared at the three bottles. A few years ago, when he shared the apartment with a woman he thought he was going to marry someday, he had on his desk a framed photograph of the high school squash team that won the state championship. She, of all people, knew how much that photograph meant to him so, during a particularly nasty quarrel, she smashed the frame against the back of a chair and ripped the picture in half. Though he tried to, he could not forgive her for what she did because it was the only picture he had of the whole team together. It was taken the day they won the championship and was without a doubt the best day of his life because it was his singles victory that secured the trophy.
A week later, at the team banquet in the school cafeteria, the coach again congratulated them on their successful season, then reminded them that trophies were only a temporary measurement of a person’s true worth. “You should not rely on trophies and medals and ribbons and certificates as a source of self-esteem. If you do, gentlemen, you’ll be very disappointed after you’re done competing.”
Scoble didn’t know if he agreed because whenever he looked at that team photograph on his desk he definitely felt a little better about himself.
~ ~ ~
As he looked up at the giraffe, a light mist rinsed his face and he grinned. He always enjoyed visiting the zoo on rainy days because not as many people were there. Then he felt as if he had the entire place to himself and could do whatever he wished. Still grinning, he turned to walk over to the clouded leopard enclosure then looked back at the giraffe and released a harsh wail from the pit of his stomach.
T.R. Healy
Sucking on a lemon drop, his second since he arrived at the zoo, Jared Scoble strolled behind some Japanese tourists who wore identical blue windbreakers and white canvas sun hats. He had visited the zoo so often and had seen all the exhibits so many times that sometimes he was more interested in observing the other visitors than the animals. Of course, he did not understand a word any of them said but somehow he felt comfortable in their presence until they headed toward the orangutan enclosure, then he did an about face and followed a woman with two little girls holding bright yellow balloons.
The other day he visited the Primate Forest in the zoo and spent almost twenty minutes watching the eldest orangutan who reminded him of an algebra teacher he had one semester in high school, Mr. Walloch. Both were large, bulky figures with thick necks and short, bowed legs and reddish-brown mustaches. Their dispositions were also similar, each easily annoyed by the attention of others, and while his teacher just glared at unwelcome intruders, the orangutan made a hissing sound that Rachel, one of the volunteer zoo guides, described as its “squeaks.” He was just about ready to walk away from the enclosure when the orangutan started sucking in air through its pursed lips, then threw a handful of its feces in his direction. Something he suspected Mr. Walloch might have done on occasion if he could have got away with it. So he decided it would be prudent if he kept his distance from the animal for a few weeks.
Still trailing behind the two yellow balloons, he chuckled to himself, wondering if the Japanese tourists would be greeted with a handful of feces if they lingered too long in front of the orangutan.
“Hello, Jared.”
It was Rachel who, like a few other volunteer guides, knew his name because he was such a frequent visitor to the zoo.
“Hello there.”
“How are you today?”
“All right, I guess.”
“You guess?”
He smiled. “I’m always all right when I come here.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
A slight woman in her early thirties, she often looked as if she had slept in her uniform safari shirt. It was full of wrinkles and so big she had to roll back the sleeves several times before her hands were visible.
“So have you signed up yet to be a zoo keeper for the day?”
“Not yet.”
“You should do it,” she urged him. “The last time I looked there were close to a hundred names on the waiting list.”
“That many?”
“Yes, sir, and the longer you wait the longer the list gets.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Do it. I’m sure you’d enjoy it.”
He smiled again as she strode by him on her way to the monkey house. He supposed he should have told her he really wasn’t interested in signing up to be a zoo keeper for a day but he didn’t want to disappoint her because he knew how much the program meant to her. Not only was it quite expensive, at $150, but he was not eager to clean and feed animals and spruce up their indoor and outdoor enclosures. There were other ways he could get his hands dirty that were not as costly and demanding.
He paused before a polar bear stretched out on a slab of concrete beside its pool. He would never tell Rachel or any of the other volunteers he got to know the past eight months, but he wasn’t all that interested in exotic animals but visited the zoo so often because it was a distraction, some place unusual go to get away from his otherwise humdrum life. At the zoo he saw things he could not see anywhere else in town. There he could pretend he was somewhere thousands and thousands of miles from his cramped little apartment on the other side of the river. There he could make-believe he was someone else for a while.
~ ~ ~
Bent over the heavy wooden cart, which was stacked with hornbooks and casebooks and state reporters and law reviews, Scoble pushed it down the main aisle of the law library. He proceeded slowly because he didn’t want any of the materials to spill on the floor as happened the last time he moved the loaded cart. The harder he pushed the louder the back left wheel squeaked which prompted a few students to look up from their books and yellow legal pads and glare at him. He smiled, reminded of the squeaking sound the orangutan made the other day before throwing its feces at him.
Not quite six years ago, a Hansel and Gretel law school opened in a former shoe emporium on the east side of town. It was affiliated with a small liberal arts college in the area and mainly attracted students who were unable to be accepted by either of the other two law schools in the state. Scoble was an associate librarian there. Prior to accepting this position, he was a substitute high school teacher for a couple of years so he didn’t have any professional training as a librarian but was hired after a single interview. He was surprised but then quickly realized that, despite his impressive sounding title, he was really only there to shelve books. Occasionally, when more than one of the senior librarians was absent, he got to sit at the front desk where he checked out books and answered questions. Then he felt like a real librarian but most of the time he was scarcely more than a stockboy in a hardware store.
As he creaked past the printer, his left hand holding the stack of books in place, a cell phone suddenly chimed in a corner of the library. The ringtone was “The Rise of the Valkyries” so he knew at once whose phone it was---Seligman’s. More times than he could remember he had told the obnoxious third year student that cell phones must be turned off inside the library. So he knew the rules but didn’t feel he had to abide by them for some reason. He was incorrigible, carried on as if he had already graduated and passed the bar exam.
Reluctantly Scoble stepped away from the book cart and walked over to the easy chair where Seligman was ensconced, loudly making plans to have dinner with the person who called him. Without saying a word, he set on the small table in front of him a recipe-sized card that said in bright red letters “No Cell Phone Use in the Library.” The guy barely looked at it before he brushed it aside with his thumb.
“Excuse me,” Scoble said firmly, “but you have to step outside if you want to use your phone.”
Ignoring him, he continued his conversation.
“Sir, you can’t use your phone in here.”
“Some douche bag is hassling me,” he said to the caller, “so I’ll talk to you later.”
“You know the rules here. You know you can’t use phones in the library.”
“Christ, man, it’s not a big deal.”
“It is a big deal for those who are trying to do some work in here.”
“What difference does it make to you, pal? All you do is shelve books all day long.”
At once, he felt the blood rise in his face. “You do this again you’ll be asked to leave.”
“Ooooh!” he purred, wrapping his arms around his flabby chest. “I’m scared.”
“I’m serious. You’ll be escorted out of here.”
Immediately he got up, saying, “Hell, I'm out of here now,” and brushed past him as he knocked the card onto the floor.
“That guy give you a hard time?” Peter, another shelver, asked after Scoble returned to the cart.
He shrugged. “I guess because he's in his last year here he thinks the rules don't apply to him and he can do as he likes.”
“He isn't the only one at this school who doesn't think he has to follow rules.”
“So I've noticed.”
“You know, another librarian who used to work here told me once that a not so secret secret in America is that law schools, by and large, are dens of mediocrities---full of people who think they are smarter than they really are.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
“Neither am I, Jared, but based on the folks I've come in contact with here, I suspect there's some truth in that statement.”
~ ~ ~
After work, Scoble boarded the 33 bus to go home, and as he always did looked for a seat by a window. The bus was crowded but he did spot a window seat toward the back and walked over to it and sat down. Many passengers read newspapers and paperback novels or talked on their phones but he preferred to look out the window. Not only did it help make the ride pass more quickly but he was interested in what was going on outside the bus. Just as he watched animals at the zoo, he watched people on the sidewalk. He watched them go in and out of stores and restaurants and cross streets and hail taxis and brush past one another as if no one else was there.
The other week he spotted his last steady girlfriend rifling through her imitation Birkin handbag outside an antique shop. Urgently he rapped a knuckle against the window he was sitting by, and when Kelsey looked up he waved but almost at once she resumed searching through her bag. He wondered if she saw him but was pretty sure she had and chose not to acknowledge him. He was not surprised. Their break-up five months ago was full of recriminations. She claimed he didn't show enough interest in her, complained in particular about his many visits to the zoo, but he suspected the real reason she moved out of his apartment was because he wasn't ambitious enough for her. She wanted to be with someone who some day would earn enough money to make her life very comfortable. That was not someone who shelved books for a living.
~ ~ ~
A battered green pickup truck chugged past the bus and on the bumper was a sticker that said “I Knew Where I Was But I Was Lost.”
~ ~ ~
The first person to take Scoble to a zoo was his Aunt Viola, a boisterous young woman with candy apple red hair and a perpetual smile that was every bit as bright as her hair. He was six years old and, as if it were yesterday, remembered the first exhibit she took him to see was the elephant house. As soon as they entered the rank enclosure, his aunt cupped her hands around her mouth, pressed her lips together, and emitted a trumpeting sound that was almost identical to the bellows made by the elephants. He was too young to be embarrassed but still he stepped away from his aunt as if she were a stranger.
For almost a year, a couple of times a month, she accompanied him to the zoo which was located high in the hills that surrounded the city. Of course, she enjoyed seeing all the wild animals as much as he did but even more he believed she looked forward to seeing this guy she was very fond of who worked there as a keeper. His name was Caleb Carruthers. Scoble thought he looked quite a bit older than his aunt but that might have been because of the pale scar along his left cheek where he was struck by a tiger's paw while cleaning its cage. Though a bit gruff at times, Caleb was pleasant to him and often offered him a lemon drop from the tiny stuff sack he always carried in the side pocket of his leather jacket. Soon, like his aunt, he became more interested in seeing Caleb than the animals because he was so full of information and sometimes let him help with some of his chores.
“I wouldn't be surprised if you became a keeper some day when you get old enough,” he said one afternoon as he watched him feed a banana to an elephant.
“I'd like that.”
“So would I, Jared. We need people like you who really care about what you're doing.”
Several months later, when his aunt found out that Caleb had become engaged, she was no longer interested in going to the zoo and stopped taking him without any explanation. He didn't need one, though, and instead she took him to the movies on Sunday afternoons. Still he missed their regular visits to the zoo because he felt more involved there even if he was just a visitor. He felt as if he were doing something worth his time not just passing time.”
~ ~ ~
His head bowed, his hands extended behind his back like a tail, a youngster no older than nine paced back and forth in front of the clouded leopard enclosure. Grinning with all his teeth, he thought he was being clever as did his parents who seemed to encourage his crude imitation of the animal. Scoble was not amused, however, believed the kid was being very disrespectful and was about to tell him so when his mother said it was time to go because she wanted to visit the bear pit.
“Do we have to?”
“Yes. Now come on.”
The kid then pulled some gumdrops out of his back pocket and threw them into the enclosure.
Scoble was livid. “You shouldn’t have done that, son.”
“What business is it of yours, chum?” his father barked.
“These animals all have special diets, that’s why there are signs posted all around the zoo cautioning visitors not to feed the animals.”
The father glared at him for a moment then turned to his son. “Come on, Lenny. We don’t need to listen to busybodies.”
Scoble, who almost always visited the clouded leopard when he came to the zoo, stepped a little closer to its enclosure. It was such an unusual looking creature with its long tail and long teeth and its yellowish-gray coat covered with large cloud-like spots that were dark as ink marks. Sometimes, when he locked eyes with it, he wondered if the leopard remembered him at all from his many visits but knew that was unlikely. Still, he wished it were so because he identified with it more than any other animal. According to the information plaque posted in front of the enclosure, the clouded leopard was the most solitary of the large cats who often found it difficult to adapt to its cramped conditions. That described him as well he believed. And something else he shared at one time with the leopard was quickness of foot.
He was an avid squash player. He had been since he was a small boy and accompanied his father to the YMCA on weekends. There, under the tutelage of his father and others, he developed into a very solid player who won the state championship his senior year in high school and went on to play in college where he was always one of the premier players on the squad. For as long as he could remember, he had aspirations to be a professional player even though he knew it was unlikely he would ever earn much money in such an obscure sport. He didn't care, though, because he so enjoyed playing and, besides, it was one of the few things he was any good at he knew.
His strength as a player was what his coach in high school described as his “cat-like” quickness. He was almost always quicker than his opponents, able to cover the court as if he had on skates. As a result, he was able to wear down players who could not keep pace with him and win matches he was expected to lose. His stamina was so strong because he ran every day, not long distances but short sprints. In particular, one of the so-called ghosting drills he did whenever he had sufficient space was to race from the center of the imaginary court, known as the “T,” to one of the four corners then race back to the T then race to another corner and back to the T and so forth until he raced to all four corners. Then he would rest for a minute and run the drill again and again until he was bone-tired but never exhausted because he always knew he could do another set if he was so inclined.
He never realized his dream of becoming a professional player on account of a nagging hamstring injury he suffered late in his junior year in college and that persisted throughout his senior year. Because of it he was no longer as quick as he once was and unable to cover the court as well and lost matches he should have won. Sometimes he felt as if he too were in a cage, his speed and agility denied to him because of some transgression he had unknowingly committed.
~ ~ ~
“Damn it!” Scoble cried after dropping a frayed 5th edition of Black's Law Dictionary on his left foot.
Wincing, he picked up the book and set it on a shelf. That was the second dictionary he dropped today and it hurt because each one was as heavy as a snow shovel. He was not a clumsy person but since he started working at the law library he seldom went a day without dropping a couple of books that he was attempting to shelve. He suspected it was because he was so tired. Shelving books, even very heavy legal texts, wasn't really that demanding physically but it was so monotonous it sapped his strength. Often he brought to the library a thermos bottle of black coffee that he sipped throughout the day in order to stay awake. Surprisingly, even on weekends he felt just as tired as he did at work.
When he played squash he was often tired after practice or a match but soon he recovered and was ready to play some more. Nowadays he felt tired practically all the time as if still depleted from some grueling five game match. Some mornings he could barely get out of bed he was so exhausted. For a while he thought perhaps he was suffering from some infection and made an appointment to see a physician recommended by his colleague Peter who told him after the examination that he was in splendid health.
“Then why am I tired all the time, doctor?”
“Just because you think you’re tired doesn’t mean you are.”
“Doesn’t it?” he asked, confused.
“Exhaustion can be a state of mind that doesn’t always correlate with a person’s actual physical condition.”
“When will I feel like I used to feel?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Scoble. That depends on you.”
~ ~ ~
Later that afternoon, riding home on the 33 bus, Scoble noticed a hefty guy in a surplus overcoat get aboard and stagger halfway down the aisle, then almost collapse in a window seat two rows in front of him. The guy, who seemed very agitated, was talking to himself and wiggling his fingers as if they were struck together. His hair was a tangled nest, his eyes puffy and red. The cap of a whiskey bottle was visible in a pocket of his overcoat.
Scoble watched him closely, concerned that at any moment he might explode and blame whatever was troubling him on another passenger. Just the other week an incident was reported in the newspaper of a drunken passenger on a commuter train who threatened to clip off the hair of the woman seated beside him. Apparently, after grabbing a handful of her hair, he pulled out a hunting knife and was about to start cutting when two other passengers charged down the aisle and took away the knife and subdued him. Immediately they were recognized as heroes, got their pictures in the paper and were honored with a reception at City Hall.
Resting his head against the window, he wondered what he would have done if he had been a passenger on that train. He hoped he would have responded as those two men did but he just didn’t know if he had the strength.
Watching the troubled man ahead of him, he half wished the guy would lose his temper so he could find out what he would do if anything.
“Get up!” he urged the guy under his breath. “Come on, for Christ’s sake, do something!”
He imagined, if the guy became the least bit menacing, he’d spring out of his seat and get right in his face to make sure he didn’t injure anyone. And if he had a knife in his hand, he would take it away even if there was a chance he might get hurt.
The guy continued to mutter to himself but otherwise he was perfectly still with his hands folded in his lap.
“Come on, goddamn it! Do something!”
The lumbering bus stopped in the middle of the next block and more people came on board. Scoble was sure the guy would bother some of them as they walked past him to find a place to sit, and he was ready to pounce on him but to his surprise the guy didn’t budge.
“Come on! Come on!”
Scoble didn’t pull the cord as the bus approached his stop because he wanted to be there when the guy did something threatening. He rode past two more stops but knew he could not miss another one otherwise he would have a very long walk back to his apartment. So he pulled the cord, and as he got up to leave he saw that the guy in front of him was sound asleep.
Bastard, he fumed.
~ ~ ~
Tilting his head back, Scoble swallowed what little remained in the Coors bottle and set it on a corner of his desk beside two other empty bottles. Then, feeling a bit light-headed, he plopped down in the swivel chair behind the desk and stared at the three bottles. A few years ago, when he shared the apartment with a woman he thought he was going to marry someday, he had on his desk a framed photograph of the high school squash team that won the state championship. She, of all people, knew how much that photograph meant to him so, during a particularly nasty quarrel, she smashed the frame against the back of a chair and ripped the picture in half. Though he tried to, he could not forgive her for what she did because it was the only picture he had of the whole team together. It was taken the day they won the championship and was without a doubt the best day of his life because it was his singles victory that secured the trophy.
A week later, at the team banquet in the school cafeteria, the coach again congratulated them on their successful season, then reminded them that trophies were only a temporary measurement of a person’s true worth. “You should not rely on trophies and medals and ribbons and certificates as a source of self-esteem. If you do, gentlemen, you’ll be very disappointed after you’re done competing.”
Scoble didn’t know if he agreed because whenever he looked at that team photograph on his desk he definitely felt a little better about himself.
~ ~ ~
As he looked up at the giraffe, a light mist rinsed his face and he grinned. He always enjoyed visiting the zoo on rainy days because not as many people were there. Then he felt as if he had the entire place to himself and could do whatever he wished. Still grinning, he turned to walk over to the clouded leopard enclosure then looked back at the giraffe and released a harsh wail from the pit of his stomach.
