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At the orangutan dome the grandfather purchases a plastic cup in the shape of an orangutan head. He offers his grandson a sip. Then he slips behind a
tree with the cup and afterwards the boy isn’t allowed to drink from it. The boy begs for his own.
Eight dollars for soda in a plastic head, his
mother thinks. The flesh-and-blood orangutan is dignified and bored. It sighs and its body deflates. The family turns toward a glass case labeled
FENNEC FOX. “Look,” the grandfather says. “Weasels.”
The foxes are tiny, Chihuahuas with gold fur and satellite-dish ears.
“Elephant weasels can hear things happening in space,” the grandfather tells the boy. “They can hear when your tummy rumbles and
they think how much they’d like a little boy to snack on.” The boy clutches his grandfather’s hand. He believes nearly everything
anyone tells him. He has large, serious eyes and a look of constant apprehension that make it easy for his mother to forget his growing size, that he
is too old now for the collapsible stroller she has brought in case he becomes tired. His legs dangle whenever she straps him in with the juice boxes
and snacks.
“You know what their favorite foods are?” the grandfather asks. Everyone standing at
the enclosure knows, because the label lists them: plants, small rodents, lizards, and insects. “Elephant weasels love roast beef,” the
grandfather says. “And key lime pie. And kid stew.” He picks up the boy to give him a better view. The people at the enclosure decide they
do not care enough to bother saying anything. Let the foxes be weasels. What does it hurt?
The mother does not
share their indifference. She grinds her teeth when her father speaks. Her whole life he has been telling these stories, and there was once a time she
believed them. As a child she gave show-and-tell presentations on birds that turned out not to exist, on fictive countries whose names were sexual
innuendo she was too young to understand. She was marked down, taken aside by concerned teachers. She still winces at those old humiliations, her own
credulity. She has promised herself that her son will grow up on firmer footing.
The grandfather has one hand
around the boy and the other around his drink. He gestures with the cup and the orangutan head smacks the glass. The foxes prick their ears toward the
sound. Someday, the mother thinks, her father will break her son’s gullible little heart.
“Let’s see something bigger,” he says. “This zoo got any rhinos?”
The mother is a patent lawyer. Her father is in town for the week visiting,
and she is using a vacation day rather than leave him alone with her son. She is
supposed to be preparing an infringement suit related to proprietary athletic
surfacing, patented types of artificial turf and running track. Her husband
is a dermatologist, and they will always have enough money, the lawyer and
the doctor. on the way to the rhinos the family passes the capybara habitat. “What do they
eat?” the boy asks.
“Fritos,” the grandfather says. “But these might do.” He
flings a handful of chips over the fence, a new kind of Doritos that were for sale in the orangutan Dome, mystery-flavored and slightly green. The
chips land in the moat and the capybaras turn their heads to watch. The chips start to dissolve and the capybaras disappear into the reeds. The boy is
sad to see them go.
The boy’s favorite television shows are all on Animal Planet and he sobs piteously when anything dies.
His favorite stories are all fairy tales. He likes Dora the explorer and dislikes Bob the Builder. He ties ribbons
around the necks of his stuffed animals. It has occurred to his parents that the boy might turn out to be gay and that these are the early signs. He
is who he is, they tell themselves, whoever that turns out to be. The boy’s grandfather finds this repellent.
After the capybaras comes SafariLand. “Giraffe,” the son says, when his grandfather points
out the neck monsters. His mother wants to cheer.
“Sure, I recognize them now. We rode them, in the
war,” the grandfather explains. In fact, he has not been in any war. He enlisted after korea and spent two years in Fort Greely, Alaska. He
tells war stories like it’s expected of him, like he doesn’t know any other way to be an old man, a grandfather. “Giraffes sure can
move. Gallop like motherfuckers.”
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