T. Boyle - T.C. Boyle Stories II - Volume II

They barely glanced at the savanna but went on into the primate center as if they’d agreed on it beforehand. There was hardly anybody around. The chimps looked raggedy, the gorillas were asleep. Vik wrinkled up his nose. “Man, it stinks in here. Don’t these things ever take a bath?”

“Or use underarm deodorant,” Manny put in. “They could at least use deodorant, couldn’t they? I mean, for our sake?” And then he was lifting his voice till he was shouting: “Hey, all you monkeys — yeah, I’m talking to you! You got no consideration, you know that?”

And this was funny, flat-out hilarious, because they were all feeling the effects of the weed and weed made everything hilarious. He laughed till he began to feel oxygen deprivation, Vik’s face red and Manny’s too.

“Remember the time,” he was saying, trying to catch his breath, “like maybe two years ago or something, when we were here and those dudes were painting the cage?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Manny gasped, and they were all laughing again at the thought of it, the day they’d come into the ape house and there were two workers inside one of the empty cages, painting the back wall, and they’d all crowded up to the bars making jokes about the new species of ape on exhibit and how clever it was— Look, it’s Bigfoot, and look, look, it can dip a paintbrush, cooooool —until one of the workers turned around and told them to go fuck themselves.

Was it really all that funny? Yes. Yes it was. Because it was a routine now and they could call it up anytime they wanted, the three of them united and the rest of the world excluded.

So they laughed, drifting from one exhibit to another, not really paying attention, and if there were any girls to look at they were few and far between. Because it was a holiday. Because it was Christmas. At some point they were out front of the snack bar — the Leaping Lemur Café, another joke — and Manny said he wanted a fresh orange drink to make the vodka go down and maybe some nachos. “Anybody want nachos?”

Vijay got himself a Coke because his throat was dry and watched the kid behind the counter pour a glob of neon-orange cheese over Manny’s nachos while the only other people there — a mother with a baby in a stroller and an older couple gobbling hot dogs — looked on as if the whole world had come to a stop. The kid behind the counter had the name of some pathetic metal band tattooed across his knuckles— Slayer —but since there were six letters and only five knuckles, the er had been squeezed in on the last knuckle, which was the smallest one, and what did that say about planning and foresight? Not to mention basic IQ? After that, they drifted over to the big cats, hoping to see them up and about, if only for the sake of breaking the tedium, but the lions — a male and two females — were lying there unconscious. “Shit, look at them,” Vik said. “They might as well be rugs.”

“Zoned out,” Manny said. And then he got up on the metal rail where you’re not supposed to be and started waving his arms and shouting—“Hey, lions, hey! Hey, I’m talkin’ to you!”

Vik joined in and this was funny too, the two of them goofing, the lions stretched out as if they were dead, the sky closing in and everything as dim and gray and depressing as only a winter’s afternoon in San Francisco could be. They began to roar then, roar like lions, and he joined in just for the sheer crazy throat-rattling rush of it, but still the lions never moved, not even to twitch their tails. They all three roared till they were almost out of breath and then they broke down and laughed till they were.

Finally Vik straightened up and said, “I don’t know — this is boring. I’m ready to bag it, how about you?”

Manny shrugged.

And then, surprising himself because it really didn’t matter one way or the other and they were going to have to go home eventually, everybody knew that, he said, “What about the tiger?”

Siobhan

Her mother wasn’t watching, her mother was busy air-kissing everybody and waving her wine glass, and once the music got going people started dancing, which provided a natural screen. She ducked away under the cover of swaying gowns and tuxedoed shoulders and met Jason in the bushes just off the path, where nobody could see them. “Come on,” he whispered, taking her by the hand, “it’s this way.”

She could feel her heart going. Her mother would kill her if she found out. Absolutely kill her. Plus this was Jason, a boy two years older, and he was holding her hand. He led her through a fringe of low palms and then back onto the walk where it looped away out of sight of the pavilion. It was dusk now and the bushes seemed denser, dangerous suddenly, as if anything could have gotten loose and hidden itself there in the shadows, waiting to spring out at them. The birds were chattering, the ones in the trees and the ones in the cages somewhere up ahead. Suddenly Jason let go of her hand and darted up the path, his dress shoes slapping at the pavement. She hurried on, nearly frantic with excitement, the smells coming to her now, the sounds of furtive movement, the low coughs and snorts and muffled roars. But there he was, just ahead, down on his knees and gesturing to her, the soles of his shoes palely glowing and his suit jacket bunched at the shoulders. “Over here,” he said, trying to keep his voice down. “Hurry!”

When she came up to him she saw that he was bent over a dark uneven stain on the concrete, a spot no bigger around than one of the desktops in school. “See it?” he whispered.

She looked down, leaned closer, then straightened up, hands on hips. “That’s just a wet spot.”

“Yeah?” he said. “And why do you think it’s wet? And it’s not just water, believe me”—and here he pressed his palm to the stain and then spread open his hand for her. “See that? See it? That’s blood.”

She saw nothing. Just his five fingers, the ones he’d wrapped around hers a minute ago, and his palm, which might have been slightly darker — or damper. “That’s not blood,” she said.

“Is so.” He gave her a strained look, his features melting into shadow. The sound of the music from the pavilion suddenly came clear, drowning out the birds and whatever else was out there. He held her eyes and wiped his hands on his pants. “Diluted blood anyway.”

Vijay

If the lions were comatose at this point, the tiger gave them what they wanted. The minute they appeared there at the edge of its enclosure — an open pit with a dry moat at the bottom of the wall and some fake rocks and a raked-over tree stump in the background — it looked up at them and started pacing. Or more than pacing — it was slinking, flowing like water from one place to another, its feet almost a blur and the muscles flexing hard in its shoulders. They all just stood there for a moment, watching it. He could feel the weed blurring things and the vodka trying to counteract it, burning through him. He felt rocked, dizzy almost, as if everything were floating a couple of inches off the ground. Vik said, “Now that’s what they’re supposed to do — give us some action. I mean, we’re paying customers, right? Or at least moms is.”

And then, without warning, Vik jumped atop the restraining bar and began roaring down at the tiger. The effect was immediate: the tiger froze, staring up at him in confusion. Vik roared, flapped his arms. The tiger seemed to cringe, then its hackles rose and all of a sudden it was flowing faster, around and around, down into the moat below them and then back up and around again. Next thing Manny climbed up and they were both roaring and Manny started sailing nachos out into the void, one after the other, the tiger shrinking away from them as if they were on fire. “Ka-boom!” Manny shouted. “Ka-boom!”