You should’ve eaten a bigger breakfast. Now you’re famished among all these trilling youngsters and overworked parents. The giraffe in this exhibit looks chewed up. After the cradle, and along with the crib, there’s the stroller. They clutter the pathways — singles, doubles, maybe a triple somewhere. In this autumn, before the grave, you’ve found yourself in something similar. The older push the young, then often push the eldest or the unfortunate. You’re both.
You survived high school, the field trips to field hospitals in the bomb lands, the corporate meat market, the marital meat grinder, and today’s morning routine. But you barely survived your birthday way back when phones were dumb. That summer when you decided to skip the run-down water park. The one where the waterslides shook and leaked, like junkies in withdrawal. When you turned down an invite to that lake. The one where herds of college kids, soused out of their minds, played bumper boats, and shook their tits. When you instead had family and friends over. The day’s highlights included ripe watermelon, all kinds of imported beer, water balloon fights, and a severe neck injury. If that wasn’t bad enough, your kids weren’t even paying attention when you tried to impress them. You were sure that backflip would land you in the pool. As sure as imported beers disappear into the bellies of middle-aged birthday girls.
You’d have to struggle to remember that pain, and you can forget about anything before it. You can feel when your son kisses your forehead, or when your granddaughter grabs your nose. But south of your neckline, it’s a big, dusty question mark. At least you can still taste and smell. For the most part, you can still hear and see. At the next exhibit you’ll see elephants, and just wait until you smell those.
Your son married an angel, now she’s your angel too. She brings you up to the railing for a better view. The cherub perched in the crook of her arm points and giggles at these strange creatures. They’re like the cartoons in her learning videos, but more leathery, more like you. Her first time for elephants might be your last. Stomping forward, all grey and looming, one approaches the sloshing moat between the fence and their living area. It’s obvious the elephant is male. You can’t miss it. He sucks water up into his girthy trunk, then sprays it all over your face. Voices around you squeal and laugh. Your granddaughter starts crying out of shock. Her mother tries to be comforting. She scrambles for a towel to wipe your face, a bottle to soothe the tyke. Moms really can do it all, until they can’t anymore. The leaves littering the ground say it all. Winter is just around the corner. Regardless, today is as hot as that summer way back. Summers feel longer each year. But, you know what? This is nice. The cooling spray, the youthful energy of surprise and laughter, the male attention, even if it came from an unexpected source. Life’s too short to fret over elephant snot in your hair.
Stylish letters grace the arch at the entrance to this next section, spelling out Simian Shindig. First up, the bonobo enclosure. Your angel moves you front and center to see. Looks like it’s feeding time. You could’ve had an omelet or waffles. The bonobos play while eating mangoes. You could’ve had fruit. Instead, you had a plastic cup of sugary yogurt, and that’s it. Now there’s gurgling in your guts. You can hear it, a reminder of forgotten sensations. But you won’t let low blood sugar soil your enjoyment. There are bonobos to see! In your mind, you tell your creeping lightheadedness and mounting irritability, “Go screw each other!” It’s as if the apes use telepathy and take that thought to heart. A few of them start getting busy. It’s what they’re famous for. Here comes the swirling heat of blushing. It tries to brand you with annoyance, propriety, sheepishness, or jealousy. Whichever it can. But, you know what? Good for them. At least someone’s getting some. Adult guests laugh and cover their kids’ eyes, and some walk away. Almost everyone else has their smartphones out, but only a few seem to be documenting the event. The rest bow their heads in worship, swiping away, praying for validation.
With all the distractions, it’s only you who notices. Off to the left, renegade bonobos sit in a small group. One of them has a stick. It looks like she’s drawing a symbol in the dirt. After she finishes, she lifts the stick to the sky. Another ape erases the symbol, and the scribe draws another. This repeats and repeats. The rest of the huddle form hand gestures in rhythm with the drawing and erasing. It goes like this: draw, erase, gesture, draw new symbol, erase, form new gesture. They quicken the process. Now faster. Faster, still. They move like a high-tech assembly line. Dust rises from the ground. The dust cloud glimmers dark green, flickers yellow, flashes neon green. Their eyes glisten with electric, liquid, blue wisps. They open their mouths and out pours the most heavenly sound you’ve ever heard. You weep as the harmony fills your chest with a phantom warmth. Their bodies become transparent, formed of pure lightning. They strike skyward into the clouds. All that remains is a final symbol in the dirt. The rest of the bonobos are still eating, climbing, and rutting around. But now every single person bows to their phone in communal oblivion.
Food court. It must drive the apes up the wall to smell pretzels baking all day. You need to request a detour. Do it. Tell her to stop. You open your mouth and out pours a guttural creaking. What you just witnessed back there has your mind in pieces. What are words? You can’t find any. So you drift past the place, speechless and dumbfounded by that hominid rapture. The scents, like spirits, twist around you. Chili, fake nacho cheese, grilled pineapple, fried whatever. Even that dissatisfying chili, somehow too spicy and too bland at the same time, cries out to you. You’re so hungry you can smell the plastic utensils. But even if you could speak a syllable, it’d be one less calorie to cling to. So onward to the chimpanzees, silent and haunted.
Your guiding angel stops the wheelchair. Momentum pulls you forward. Hunched, helpless, neck aching, throat clenched, you manage to bleat for help. Commotion up at the chimp cage has her transfixed. She flinches, turns to you, and sets you up proper. She stuffs her precious cherub between your empty stomach and limp arm. “Wait here,” she says as she sets the brake and flies to the front of the crowd. Your nostrils flare as garlic and cheese waft in from behind. Some torturing devil pulled a gourmet vegetarian pizza with creamy sauce from the oven. The guests laugh and jeer, not at your frustration, but at the chimps. Those apes are not happy about it.
A guest shouts, “Apeshit! Caged bitch! Ook-ooky! Want cookie?” You want cookie. Chocolate, peanut butter, oatmeal walnut, garlic. Chimps grip the bars with white knuckles. They pump their powerful bodies with black arms. They pound their chests against the cage, screaming obscenities in an ancient tongue. Many of the humans fume with rage. They shout vulgarities at the chimpanzees. The rest of the crowd reeks of fear and fascination. A girl drops her smartphone into a puddle of urine. She gazes at the quarrel with blank eyes in her soaked jeans. A milkshake soars over her head and smashes against the cage. The delicious strawberry grenade explodes, splattering the chimps with cold, pink goo. Your mouth waters.
“Stop!” the angel cries out. Her righteous voice rings. “This is wrong!” All the primates, both the caged and the captive, turn on her. Primal hostility stews in the crowd. They spit and curse at her. They circle her with sharp fingers. As they close in, a warm, brown slap defiles her face. The crowd pauses, then erupts with petty laughter. Hoots and howls echo from the cage. People retch and vomit from the stench. Smartphones clatter to the acrid ground. Now the real shitstorm begins. A fetid salvo peppers the crowd, a post-digestion food fight. Armored in khaki cargo shorts and stunning, white shoes, a defiant man stands tall. He weathers one fling after another as he pushes to the frontline. Ferocious, grinding teeth flash from his face. He hurls his phone.
The device bounces off the chest of the largest male chimp. It lands face up in his disgraced home. The ape family gathers around it. An adorable kitten fills the screen, lapping milk from a saucer. Behind the kitty, someone’s placed a cucumber. When the kitten leaps, startled by the serpentine veggie, the chimps giggle, and coo, and hoo-hoo-hoo.
Aftermath. As disinterested humans disperse like clouds, steam rises from the soup of animal fluids. Soup, even in this heat, would be a godsend. They limp away, gagging, sobbing, dazed, and filthy. But, you know what? This is nice. Being here with your family. The triumph of cuteness over vile aggression. Being in this divine moment. Sitting with your sparkly-eyed cherub, untarnished by armageddon. Too bad about your angel. There’s only so much a towel, damp with elephant mucus, can fix. At least everyone finally took a break from the phones, except the chimps.
But she’ll clean up just fine in time. She’ll shine. And she’ll deliver you to that plentiful food court, to eat the greasy food thereof. And you’ll be damned if those aren’t the best sweet potato fries you’ve ever tasted.