by Cassie Cole
He took a step closer. “Why do I need photos when I’ve got the real thing?”
“Sexy photos can be fun.”
His eyes lit up with excitement. “Or sexy video.”
I let my hand rest on his chest. “Have you ever done that before?”
“Nope. But there’s a first time for everything.”
We grinned widely at the idea.
But it was another type of footage that would give us trouble that day.
“Hey, guys?” David called from across the clearing. “We’ve got a problem.”
27
David
Dad had always been a severely paranoid man. Throughout his life he believed there was a constant plot to take him down, to destroy his life and the zoo. He saw enemies wherever he looked, which was why he wanted the three of us to continue working at the zoo permanently. Because his three sons were the only people he could truly trust.
We had always laughed off his paranoia. But it turned out he was right.
All six of us gathered in the visitor’s center after the zoo was closed. I placed my laptop on the ticket counter so that everyone could see.
“What is this?” Rachel asked.
Brandon frowned. “It looks like a Facebook post…”
I hit the spacebar to play the video on the post. There was no sound. The video was shaky camera footage of the interior of our food preparation building. Blood and viscera were all over the tables and floor. The camera zoomed in on a chunk of half-cut meat in front of the band saw. Then it swung over to the industrial freezers along the wall. One door opened, revealing tubs of chicken parts. The camera zoomed in on a tub of chicken hearts, with a date written on the outside in sharpie.
“Someone broke into the food preparation building and took this video,” I announced. “They’re claiming the footage reveals unhealthy conditions in our zoo, and spoiled meat being fed to the animals.”
“What!” Rachel exclaimed. “We re-use those big plastic tubs. The date written on the outside is old, but the meat is fresh!”
“I know,” I told her.
“Don’t you guys, like, clean that building every day?” Mary Beth asked.
“We do,” I agreed. “This footage was taken while we were still preparing the food for the day. Of course the room is still messy.”
“When was this taken?” Anthony asked.
“This morning.”
“How do you know?” Jake said skeptically.
I rewound the video. “Because this morning, during the final batch of food trays, the band saw broke. See how it’s crooked? That’s why that final piece of meat was left out. The saw broke while I was in the middle of cutting it.”
Silence fell over the group.
“Maybe a visitor sneaked in?” Mary Beth suggested.
“Not if we had finished feeding the animals,” Rachel said. She reached into her pocket, checked her phone, and then put it away. “I took the last batch out before the zoo opened.”
“Not exactly,” I replied. “Even though we finished feeding the animals before nine, I went to the equipment shed to search for a backup band saw. I didn’t return and clean up the food prep building until after the zoo was open.”
“It was like, nine-thirty when we cleaned it up,” Brandon suddenly chimed in.
“You know the exact time?” I asked with surprise.
He blinked as everyone swung to face him. “Uh. Yeah. I know because six-thirty is when the morning Los Angeles surf report is posted. Which is, like, nine-thirty our time. I was refreshing the page when you hit me up on the walkie-talkie and asked me to meet you to start cleaning.” He held up his palms. “I’m not complaining, man. It’s all good. I checked the report when we were done. They had some gnarly conditions today.”
I chuckled. I had pegged Brandon as a surfer bro type of guy, but finding out that he really did care about surfing was funny.
“The band saw broke around eight. So the video was recorded any time between then and nine-thirty,” I announced.
“Then it could have been a visitor,” Anthony said. “The security cameras watch the outer perimeter of the zoo, and the enclosures, but nothing watches the areas marked employees-only.”
“Or,” Jake said ominously, “it was an employee.”
We looked around at each other.
“I didn’t… I didn’t do anything!” Mary Beth said in a shaky voice. “I was with Rachel most of the morning, helping feed the animals. I mean, not all morning. But most of it! Plus I wouldn’t do something like this!”
Brandon looked around with his mouth open but didn’t offer any verbal defense.
“What group was the video posted on?” Rachel asked.
I clicked out of the video and returned to the main page. “The AFF. Animal Freedom Foundation.”
“Never heard of them,” Rachel replied.
“Me neither. It looks like they’re a new group trying to make a name for themselves. And they’re doing a good job so far. The video has seven hundred comments on it already.”
“Eight-forty, now,” Anthony said with a wince. “Oh, man. They’re not being kind to us at all. Saying we’re just as bad as dad, if not worse.”
“They’re calling us the Crazy Carl Children,” I said, biting off every word. “The comment section is running wild with rumors and speculation. Don’t read it unless you want your blood to boil. This is going to make it harder for us to move animals into sanctuaries. It hurts our credibility. Organizations won’t trust what we tell them.”
“Have you made any progress with that?” Rachel asked.
“I’m working on it.”
“You need to find a way to get rid of them,” she insisted. “Once we dump more tigers, we won’t have groups like the AFF bothering us.”
“I said I’m working on it,” I said more heatedly than I intended. “I’m trying to find creative solutions, but it’s not easy.”
“We should issue a formal statement,” Anthony said. “I’ll look into what we should say.”
“You do that,” I said. “In the mean time, we still have work to do. Meeting over.”
We all returned to work cleaning up the zoo and doing the end-of-day work on the enclosures. Tidying things up so we wouldn’t need to do it in the morning. Then we walked back to the house, all of us silent and brooding. Anthony made beer sausage for dinner, with a side of pasta for everyone else.
“I looked into it,” he said while we ate. “I can issue a copyright takedown request on Facebook and get the video removed. That might buy us a day or two, but eventually it will get re-posted. It’s their video so they can do whatever they want.”
“That would probably just make everyone think we have something to hide,” Rachel added. “We should take a video of the food prep building now that it’s clean. Show everyone how it really looks.”
“Fuck that,” Jake muttered. “It’ll just look like we got caught and quickly fixed our mess.”
“Then we show them the food delivery recipes,” she insisted. “We received fifty pounds of chicken parts last week. That will prove that we’re not feeding the animals spoiled food.”
“Responding to only one accusation would mean admitting to the other,” Anthony replied. “If we release our food recipes, we need to bring up our cleanliness standards too.”
“We shouldn’t do shit,” Jake said angrily. “Dad never gave these people the time of day. Best thing is to ignore those fuckers and tighten our security.”
“We have to do something,” Rachel replied.
Jake tossed down his fork. “No. We don’t.”
I pulled out my phone and opened the zoo email account. The company that delivered our food sent us weekly invoices, but I wasn’t sure how granular they were. They might not even show a breakdown of food items.
But before I could look up an old invoice, I noticed there was a new email from the delivery company. I scanned the words quickly, then read them a second time.
�
��Son of a bitch,” I cursed.
Everyone else stopped arguing and turned to me. “What? Do you not have the invoices?” Rachel asked.
I tossed down my phone angrily. “They’re raising our prices.”
“What!”
“Apparently the owner of the food service had a handshake deal with dad. He gave dad a massive discount on food, and in return dad allowed his daughter to have special photo shoots with the tigers. Apparently she’s some Instagram influencer or something else stupid like that.”
Rachel made a squeak and glanced at Anthony. My brother turned as white as a sheet.
“What?” I asked.
“I think we already met her.” Rachel sounded like a teenager who was admitting that they had wrecked the family vehicle. “She showed up on the first day and demanded to take photos with the tigers. She left in a huff when we told her no. David, I know it’s tempting to bend our policy for this girl. But if we do it for one person…”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. This guy sent me an angry letter about the whole situation. He’s pissed off about how we’re sending animals to proper sanctuaries, so he’s jacked his prices way up.”
“Told you we shouldn’t be dismantling dad’s legacy,” Jake said.
“How much of a price difference are we talking?” Anthony asked. “Ten percent? Twenty?”
“Double.”
Rachel and Anthony gasped.
“He’s doubling the price. Effective immediately.”
“So we’re back to square one,” Rachel said to herself. “We’re still going to run out of money in a few weeks.”
“Right. And this bad publicity will certainly hurt our ticket sales.”
“Because that’s what really matters here,” Rachel muttered.
“Yes,” I snapped. “It does matter. Money matters. It’s the most important factor in everything we do here.”
She clenched her jaw and looked like she disagreed, but she didn’t argue further.
Jake got up from the table. “I’ll be back later.”
“Where are you going?” I demanded.
“Out.”
“We have a problem that we need help solving.”
“Maybe I’ll find the solution out there,” he said simply. The front door opened and closed.
I had to stop myself from grabbing my dinner plate and smashing it against the wall. Every time we took one step forward, something pushed us two steps back. It was like the world was out to get us. We were never going to succeed in moving the animals to proper homes.
I grabbed my plate, and instead of smashing it I carried it into the kitchen.
28
Rachel
I hated seeing David upset. He had taken all the responsibility onto his shoulders and the pressure was starting to get to him. It was getting to all of us, but him most of all.
I put my shoes on and ran outside. Jake was standing outside his car, talking on his cell phone.
“Would it kill you to be helpful for once?” I demanded.
He glanced at me like I was an annoying fly, said a few more words, then hung up. “That was rude.”
“Your older brother is in there tearing his hair out trying to fix this place. And you just walk away?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got an idea how to fix it.”
I scoffed. “Yeah right.”
“Sure I do.”
“I’m all ears, Jake.”
“Might not pan out. Need to think about it for a while. I’ll let you know.” He got inside the car and closed the door.
Not sure what else to do, I threw open the passenger door, slid inside, and buckled my seatbelt. Jake stared at me like I was crazy.
“Wherever you’re going, I’m going with you,” I said stubbornly. “I want to see what’s more important than the family business.”
His dark eyes glistened in the dark car, but then he shrugged and started the engine.
We drove down the dark, winding road away from the zoo. I realized I had not left the zoo complex in weeks. Jake flew down the narrow, winding road like a man with a death wish. I gripped my knees and tried to relax. I knew he was driving this way to punish me for tagging along, and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of showing my fear.
“I know you hate it here,” I said.
He stared straight ahead, one hand on the wheel.
“You got stuck working here. Anthony and David took off and left you to deal with your dad all by yourself. That sucks. It really does. But the sooner you help the rest of us move the animals to proper homes, the sooner you can leave too.”
No response. It was like talking to a brick wall.
“Why did you even come back if you didn’t want to help? You could have stayed wherever the hell you were and never worried about the zoo. That would have been easier on everyone. Much better than showing up and doing whatever you want without telling anyone.”
I gave up talking to him. We drove through Blue Lake, and then Jake pulled into a liquor store parking lot. The neon sign was broken and dark, and there was a single halogen light shining over the door. The windows were covered with metal bars.
Jake went inside and returned with a brown paper bag. He handed it to me and I peeked inside.
“Oh, good. A bottle of whiskey. That’s exactly what the tigers need.”
“Ain’t for the tigers,” he replied.
“I can see that. I was being sarcastic!” I knew I was frustrated by a lot of things unrelated to Jake, but his selfishness was the match that lit the gasoline. “It’s really shitty of you to buy liquor and play pool while your brothers try to solve the big problems.”
“They have their ways of fixing problems,” he said simply. “And I’ve got mine.”
“Getting drunk doesn’t solve anything.”
“Sure it does.”
We drove for half an hour down back roads, many of which weren’t paved. Twice I asked Jake where we were going. Both times he told me to mind my own business. I tried to check the map on my phone but we were in a dead zone. I started to grow concerned.
Wherever Jake was going, it wasn’t to a pool hall.
The thick forest cleared and we came to the open land of a tobacco farm. Jake slowed down and turned onto an unpaved gravel driveway. The farmhouse might have been nice when it was built in the early twentieth century, but it was now long past its prime. It needed a lot more than a fresh coat of paint. Jake parked out front behind a shiny Ford F150.
He grabbed the bottle of liquor from between my legs. “You can stay in the car or come inside. Doesn’t matter to me.”
Too afraid to stay by myself, I followed him onto the creaking front porch. He rang the doorbell, and then the door swung open. The man standing in the doorway might have been good-looking… except he wore a stained wifebeater and his dark hair ran down the back of his head in a stereotypical mullet. When he saw Jake he grinned, revealing a mouth that was missing three or four teeth.
“As I live and breathe! Jumpin’ Jake himself!”
The two men embraced.
“And who is this cute little thing?” he asked.
“This is Rachel. Rachel, meet Bobby John. He’s an old friend.”
Bobby John scoffed. “Boy, we were more than just friends. We were teammates on the Central Carolina High School football team! Mighty pleased to meet ya, Rachel. I like that name. Like Rachel from Friends. You don’t know a Phoebe and Monica do ya?”
I couldn’t help but smile at his unrelenting cheerfulness. “I went to school with a Monica, but we weren’t friends.”
“Too bad. That’d be funny.” He elbowed Jake and said, “You’re better lookin’ than most of the girls he dated, I’ll tell ya that.”
“Oh, we’re not dating,” I quickly said. “We work together at the zoo.”
“Right. You work together.” He gave me an exaggerated wink.
Jake handed him the bottle of whiskey. “Brought you this.”
“Aww. You should
n’t have. Let’s have ourselves a taste. Bad luck not to share a gift bottle with those who brought it. You like whiskey, Rachel?”
“I do.”
“She’s not drinking,” Jake cut in. “She’s my DD.”
“Smart man! Lucky to have a woman like her.”
“I’m not his woman,” I repeated.
“Right, right. You’re just colleagues. I forgot,” Bobby John said like he was keeping a secret.
The interior of the house looked like it had been remodeled in the seventies. The kitchen appliances were green, and he had orange shag carpeting in the living room. But it was cleaner than I would have expected from someone who looked like Bobby John, and it smelled like lemon cleaner. We sat at the dining room table and our host brought us three plastic cups, one of which was filled with ice water.
“Thanks,” I said. “Why’d you call him Jumping Jake?”
Jake groaned. Bobby John grinned widely at his embarrassment.
“Why, Jakey here was the star running back on our football team. Was famous for hurdling the defenders who tried to tackle him. Course, he was only good at what he did because he had good blockers up front. The offensive linemen are the real heroes of any ground game.” Bobby John leaned toward me and whispered, “Yours truly was a right guard.”
“I figured as much,” I said with a smile.
Bobby John opened the bottle of whiskey, filled the other two cups, and then toasted. “To old teammates reuniting.”
They both chugged the drinks like they were beer. I blinked. There had been at least four shots of whiskey in each glass.
“So what’ve you been up to all this time?” Bobby John asked while refilling the cups. “You’re not on the Facebook. So we’ve all been wonderin’.”
“Oh, this and that,” Jake said. “Bouncing around Ohio most recently. Working in a distribution center. Driving a forklift. Before I came home, I mean.”
Bobby John sighed. “Welcome to the dead dad club. Sorry you had to join.”
Jake shrugged.
“Couldn’t believe the news when I saw it,” he went on. “Your pops was an asshole, but he was a character. World ain’t the same without him. You know? Like livin’ in a world without… I dunno. Evil Knievel. It ain’t right.”