by Paul Kmiotek
3
A Day at the Races
I
“I shoulda known better,” Ron grumbled to himself under his breath. He was standing in the doorway of the zoo commissary, peering into the empty room. “I shoulda saved myself the grief and just looked there first.”
Ron McDonald had been with the zoo since the day it opened; June 25, 1964. He started his career there as a 150-pound teenage ticket taker. Now, nearly forty years and 150 pounds later, he was an animal supervisor. In the interim he had held nearly every position imaginable at the zoo – security guard, hot dog vendor, donkey ride assistant, puke sander, receptionist. Name a job at the zoo and Ron probably did it at one time or another. Oddly enough, though, prior to becoming a supervisor, Ron had never worked with any animals.
He stalked down the hall of the Administration Building, rounded a corner, and opened the first door to the left. On it was the silhouette of an animal with antlers and beneath the illuminating graphic, as if it weren’t already obvious, was the word “Stags”. He entered the well lit, sickly green tiled room. Ignoring the pair of golden eyes, belonging to a fairly large primitive reptile, peering at him from beneath the row of sinks to the right of the door, he moved over to the last stall on the left, the handicapped stall, and pounded once on the door with his smoked ham sized fist.
The keeper jumped a good eight inches off of the toilet seat, dropping the newspaper and toilet brush from his lap in the process, and yelped “JESUS CHRIST! YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!”
“Well then, it’s a good thing you’re in there, isn’t it. I’ll see you in my office in two minutes.”
Fifteen minutes later Donald poked his head into the doorway of Ron’s closet-sized and already over-stuffed office. “What.”
“I need you to go pick something up for me.”
“I can’t. I don’t have time. I’ve got way too much work to do. I’m never gonna catch up . . .”
“Shut up. There’s an alligator arriving at JFK at 11:30. You and Guenther are going to get it.”
Donald’s perpetual scowl softened slightly. A road trip with Guenther. This may not be too bad after all.
Guenther Schlitz worked in the maintenance department. Ever since he was a kid he was always building and tinkering and tearing things apart. His pride and joy was his all-nude HO train set. At first glance it resembled a thousand other well-crafted, finely detailed miniature cities. But closer examination revealed that every 1/87th scale resident of the tiny plastic burg was naked. The commuters on the platform waiting for the train, the pedestrians window-shopping along the avenues, the farmer plowing his fields, and even the crossing guard - all as naked as jaybirds. Gun, as everybody called him, was especially proud of the fact that each and every figure was hand-painted by Gun himself, right down to his or her tiny pink nipples. Gun’s wife envied the wives of normal men who merely collected porn.
Donald and Gun often ate lunch together at the Aristotle Diner. Conveniently enough, (but not necessarily co-incidentally) the Aristotle Diner was situated two doors down from the neighborhood OTB. Actually, Donald and Gun usually returned to the zoo as hungry as when they’d left, having spent the entire hour (and most of their money) losing on the ponies.
But today he and Gun were heading over to the airport. And JFK was practically next door to Aqueduct Raceway. Yeah, this might not be too bad at all. Donald came close to smiling. Then, his shriveled, long dormant, facial muscles started to spasm from the effort and his familiar, comfortable scowl returned.
Donald was descended from a long, distinguished line of scowlers. His grandmother scowled, his father scowled, his sister scowled - but Donald out-scowled them all. He mastered the art of the frown by his third birthday and never looked back.
“Of course, if you’re too busy . . .” Ron continued.
“No. No. I’m O.K. I can catch up this afternoon.”
“Good. Gun’s bringing the van around. Be ready to leave in ten minutes.”
II
Guenther was sitting in the maintenance shop, jeweler’s monocle in one eye, painstakingly painting tiny black triangles on the crotches of some newly acquired HO figures when he got the call. His initial irritation at being disturbed at such a crucial moment softened somewhat when he found out he’d be traveling with Donald. He picked up the keeper near the gate and headed for the highway.
“Hey, Gun. Didja hear about Tiliqua? She’s probably gonna be out for a coupla weeks.”
Tiliqua Orlidia Vanna White was 250 oddly placed pounds of pure Bronx attitude. About a fifth of her total weight was distributed between the upper half and the lowest quarter of her body. The remaining 200 pounds was confined to her gargantuan rear end.
Uniforming Tiliqua was a challenge. She fit just fine into a women’s medium button down uniform shirt; the pants were a little more problematic. When the company that provided the zoo’s uniforms was presented with her pant size requirements, they responded, in all sincerity, that the plant was simply not equipped to manufacture clothing for livestock. As a result, she was the only keeper permitted to wear her own, personal clothing to work. Today she was wearing a pair of pink sweat pants with an identity crisis. They were apparently under the impression that they were skin-tight spandex. There were two iron-on white letters stretched tortuously across her left cheek. “S” and “E”. Fuzzy pink fabric peeked through the cracks in the vinyl appliqué. Two more letters, “X” and “Y”, plastered across her right cheek, conspired with the first two to create the mother of all self-image delusions.
“No, what happened?” Gun entered the highway and crossed over two lanes without signaling. Or looking.
“She was, um . . . violated, by Antonio.”
“What?! Does Muffy Know?”
“No! No! Antonio the pony, not Antonio the Dominican.” Confusions like this were common due to the Dominican’s narcissistic practice of naming animals after himself.
“Tiliqua was violated by a pony?”
“Apparently, she was cleaning his sheath when he got a little excited. I guess from behind, when she’s got her hair in a pony tail, pardon the pun, and that butt of hers, well it’s an easy mistake to make.”
“Man, you’re going to hell.” Gun was laughing so hard he was having trouble keeping the van on the road. “Whadaya say we stop at Ari’s and pick up some breakfast?”
Donald and Gun arrived at the airport forty-five minutes later. Donald was driving now and his initial giddiness had soured considerably. As usual, the idiot drivers that populated this fucking city just couldn’t resist colliding into each other, and what should have been a twenty-minute ride down the Van Wyck had more than doubled. It was now almost 11:45, and they were just pulling into the Delta airlines loading dock. Donald jumped out of the van and called over to one of the dockworkers.
“Hey bubbaloo!” (Donald called everybody “bubbaloo.”) The dockworker looked up, clearly annoyed, and Donald continued, oblivious, as usual, to his insult. “We’re here to pick up a crate. It’s supposed to be on flight 2300. Let’s get a move on. Post time’s at noon.” The worker just pointed to the glassed-in office adjacent to the dock. Donald went into the office, irritated another airline employee, and returned to the van five minutes later. “The mook behind the desk says the flight’s delayed for at least an hour. You know what that means, right?”
“If we leave now we might still make the first race,” Gun replied.
“Let’s go!”
The pair returned to the loading dock an hour later, much lighter in the pockets, and much darker in disposition. Gun headed to the can while a third irritated employee showed Donald to his crate. It didn’t look strong enough to hold an alligator, but what did he know. The dockworker had him sign for it, and left him to load it into the van by himself. Five minutes later they were on the highway and headed back to the zoo.
III
“What the hell’s
this guy up to?” Donald muttered.
“What the hell’re you talking about?”
“This guy behind me. He keeps leaning on his horn and flashing his high beams.” Donald leaned out of the window. “Hey, asswipe!” he yelled, “You ever seen the New York State Bird?” He stretched his left arm as far as he could out the window, clenched his fist, extended his middle finger and winced in agony.