Jonathan Foer - Here I Am

“What would your Dr. Silvers say?”

“I’m impressed you remember his name.”

“You’ve made it easy.”

“What would Dr. Silvers say? Probably that I was protecting myself with the vagueness.”

“How much do you pay this man?”

“I pay him a preposterous shitload. And insurance pays the other two-thirds.”

“Protecting yourself from what?”

“From caring more?”

“Than I do?”

“I’m not making an argument for my enlightenment here.”

And not only behind the walls, above the ceiling, and under the floor — the room itself was filled with activity of which Jacob had only the dimmest awareness: radio broadcasts, TV stations, cell phone conversations, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, leakage from the microwave, radiation from the oven and lightbulbs, solar rays from the biggest oven and lightbulb of them all. All of it constantly passing through the room, some of it cultivating tumors or killing sperm, none of it noticed.

“We were so dumb,” Tamir chuckled.

“We still are.”

“But we were even dumber then.”

“But we were also romantic.”

“Romantic?”

“About life. Don’t you remember what that was like? To believe that life itself could be the object of love?”

While Tamir went for another beer, Jacob texted Julia: where are you? i called maggie and she said you weren’t there.

“No,” Tamir said into the fridge. “I don’t remember that.”

Their socks had become sweat sponges at the zoo that morning thirty years before. Everything in D.C. in the summer was a purification ritual. They saw the famous pandas, Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, the elephants and their memories, the porcupines and their shields of writing implements. The parents argued about which city’s weather was less sufferable, D.C.’s or Haifa’s. Each wanted to lose, because losing was how you won. Tamir, who was a highly significant six months older than Jacob, spent most of the time pointing out how little security there was, how easy it would be to sneak in, perhaps not realizing that the zoo was open, and they were there, and it was free.

After the zoo, they took Connecticut Avenue to Dupont Circle — Irv and Shlomo up front, Adina and Deborah in the back, Jacob and Tamir facing backward in the Volvo’s rear — had sandwiches at an unmemorable café, then spent the afternoon at the National Air and Space Museum waiting in line for the twenty-seven glorious minutes of To Fly!

To make up for the crappy lunch, they went to Armand’s that evening for “the best Chicago pizza in D.C.,” then had sundaes at Swensen’s, then watched a dull action movie at the Uptown, just to experience the awe of a screen so big it felt like the opposite of being buried, and maybe even the opposite of dying.

Five hours later, the only light coming from the security system’s keypad, Tamir shook Jacob into wakefulness.

“What are you doing?” Jacob asked.

“Let’s go,” Tamir whispered.

“What?”

“Come on.”

“I’m asleep.”

“Sleeping people don’t talk.”

“It’s called talking in one’s sleep.”

“We’re going.”

“Where?”

“The zoo.”

“What zoo?”

“Come on, shithead.”

“It’s my bar mitzvah tomorrow.”

“Today.”

“Right. And I need to sleep.”

“Sleep during your bar mitzvah.”

“Why would we go to the zoo?”

“To sneak in.”

“Why would we do that?”

“Don’t be a pussy.”

Maybe Jacob’s common sense was still offline, or maybe he actually cared about being a pussy in Tamir’s estimation, but he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and put on his clothes. A phrase formed in his mind— this is so unlike me —that he would find himself repeating throughout the night, until the moment he became his own opposite.

They walked down Newark in the darkness, took a right at the Cleveland Park branch of the public library. Silently, more like sleepwalkers than Mossad agents, they padded down Connecticut, over the Klingle Valley Bridge (which Jacob was incapable of crossing without imagining jumping), past the Kennedy-Warren apartments. They were awake, but it was a dream. They came to the verdigris lion and the large concrete letters: ZOO.

Tamir had been right: nothing could have been easier than hopping the waist-high concrete barrier. It was so easy as to feel like a trap. Jacob would have been happy enough to cross the border, make the transgression official, and turn right back around, newly acquired trespassing badge in trembling hand. But Tamir wasn’t content with the story.

Like a tiny commando, Tamir crouched, searched his field of vision, then gave Jacob a quick beckoning gesture to follow. And Jacob followed. Tamir led him past the welcome kiosk, past the orientation map, farther and farther away from the street, until they lost sight of it, as sailors lose sight of the shore. Jacob didn’t know where Tamir was leading him, but he knew that he was being led, and would follow. This is so unlike me.

The animals, as far as Jacob could tell, were asleep. The only sounds were the wind moving through the copious bamboo, and the ghostly buzzing vending machines. Earlier, the zoo had resembled an arcade on Labor Day. Now it felt like the middle of the ocean.

Animals were always mysteries to Jacob, but never more than when they slept. It felt possible to outline — if only a crude, gross approximation — the consciousness of a waking animal. But what does a rhinoceros dream about? Does a rhinoceros dream? A waking animal never startled into sleep — it happened slowly, peacefully. But a sleeping animal seemed always on the verge of startling into wakefulness, into violence.

They reached the lion enclosure and Tamir stopped. “I haven’t stopped thinking about this since we were here this morning.”

“About what?”

He put his hands on the rail and said, “I want to touch the ground.”

“You are touching the ground.”

“In there.”

“What?”

“For a second.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m serious.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes. I am.”

“Then you’re fucking crazy.”

“Yes. But I’m also fucking serious.”

Tamir had taken them, Jacob then realized, to the only part of the enclosure where the wall was short enough for some DSM-5 exemplar to be able to climb back out. He’d obviously found it earlier in the day, maybe even measured it with his eyes, maybe — certainly — played out the scene in his mind.

“Don’t,” Jacob said.

“Why not?”

“Because you know why not.”

“I don’t.”

“Because you will be eaten by a lion , Tamir. Jesus fucking Christ.”

“They’re asleep,” he said.

“They?”

“There’s three of them.”

“You counted?”

“Yes. And it also says so on the plaque.”

“They’re asleep because nobody is invading their territory.”

“And they’re not even out here. They’re inside.”

“How do you know?”

“Do you see them?”

“I’m not a fucking zoologist. Of all the things that are going on right now, I probably see about none of them.”

“They’re asleep inside.”

“Let’s go home. I’ll tell everyone you jumped in. I’ll tell them you killed a lion, or got a blowjob from a lion, or whatever will make you feel like a hero, but let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Nothing I want here has to do with anyone else.”

Tamir had already begun to hoist himself over.

“You’re going to die,” Jacob said.

“So are you,” Tamir responded.

“What am I supposed to do if a lion wakes up and starts running for you?”