Did Not Survive

by Ann Littlewood

  I called Felines and got Dr. Reynolds.

  “Iris, I thought you’d want to be here.” Steely professional voice, emotionless, calm.

  I panicked again.

  “Rajah can’t get up this morning, and it’s time to put him down.”

  Shit. I wasn’t prepared for that, either. “You’re doing it now? I’ll suit up and be right over.” I couldn’t do that steady voice, not even close.

  “I’ll wait for you.”

  “Losa’s okay? The cubs?”

  “No problems there.”

  One more loss. I stood still outside the aviary shed and forced myself to think like a professional. Leave the owl and the leather gloves in the shed. Remember to disinfect the gloves later to get rid of any lice contamination. Uniform was contaminated also. I stripped off the coveralls, down to maternity jeans and a tee shirt, wadded them up, and dumped them in the shed. Locked it. After sloshing through the footbath at the Penguinarium and washing my hands, I rounded up vinyl gloves and a fresh face mask. I found Calvin’s spare clean overalls and pulled them on.

  Oh, Raj, I’m so sorry…

  I walked to Felines remembering, barely noticing the drizzle seeping from a gray sky. My first days as a Feline keeper, three years ago, with Harold training me in the two weeks before he retired. Wallace hanging out with me on my first solo day, suspecting correctly that Harold hadn’t done much more than show me how to put meat into feeding chutes. I was more afraid of the foreman than of lions or leopards. My terror led to clumsy mistakes, and Wallace had elaborated on each one and how it might have led to my death. Looking back, his extra training had helped keep me alive.

  Raj, old even then, was the bright note those first weeks as I struggled to get the job done and survive. Soon he permitted a little face scratching from the beginner, two fingers through the mesh of his night den—prohibited, unsafe, irresistible. After a month, he greeted me with the growly poof that is tiger for “hello” and I still loved rumbling back.

  I remembered when a naïve visitor dumped a pair of white domestic ducks on the zoo grounds, probably envisioning a happy life for them forever. One flew well enough to land in the tiger exhibit and had made Rajah’s day. I picked up white feathers in the exhibit for weeks.

  I’d salted his log and rocks with different scents—perfume, zebra manure, cloves—and watched him explore and react—intent, fierce, and gorgeous.

  I pushed aside a memory that still sent iced lightning through me: the day we ended up in the outdoor exhibit together, and he chose not to kill me. He snarled and stalked, but he let me back out and slam the door on him.

  Raj was my best animal pal. We were cross-species buddies, imperfectly, awkwardly, giving what we had. Tears had me pretty well blinded by the time I turned my key in the door to Felines. I had to be there, and, with precautions, my flutter would be safe. Half the pregnant women in America live with cats.

  The tiger was lying flat on his straw bed, Linda and Dr. Reynolds waiting in the hallway outside his night den, Kayla hovering behind them. Old and underweight, dying, he was still so beautiful he made my eyes sting and my throat ache. His food sat in an untouched pile a yard away from his nose, of no interest. I said, “Good morning, Raj” and he raised his head a little, then lay back down, relaxing, ribs rising and falling slow and shallow.

  In the last year, he’d survived dental work, an infected claw, and arthritis. Dr. Reynolds and Linda had bought him an extra six months, a comfortable six months, with diet, medications, and careful husbandry while his systems failed. Despite a special diet and medication for his failing kidneys, he was too damn old and sick to go on. Unquestionably time to say good-bye, but it was hard, hard.

  Near death, he still commanded respect. Dr. Reynolds waved us out of her way, took her time, and darted him with her pistol through the mesh. He barely flinched. His eyes closed. Dr. Reynolds loaded a pole syringe. She couldn’t reach him through the bars. Linda opened the door, the vet stepped in, jabbed Rajah in the rump, and stepped back out.

  After a long, long time—a minute or two—his ribs grew still. At Dr. Reynolds’ gesture, Linda opened the door to the den again and the vet walked in alone. She injected a syringe-full into his foreleg. He didn’t move. After a bit, she crouched to put her stethoscope to his ribs. “It’s over,” she said, standing up. We filed in to pay our last respects.

  “Poor old thing,” Kayla said softly. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

  Dr. Reynolds nodded.

  He seemed both bigger and smaller than before. I rubbed his cheek for old time’s sake and ran a hand down his shoulder and leg, my first and last chance to feel the coarse fur and now-slack muscles. His feet were enormous. I tried to smooth an eyelid down with a white plastic finger. Linda’s face was wet with tears as was my face mask. We touched him respectfully and bid his spirit a silent farewell. I wished him a verdant jungle with fat stupid deer, lovely lady tigers, and no people.

  Dr. Reynolds murmured something and I looked up. “What?”

  She was talking to Linda. “I left the zoo van outside with a litter. We’ll need some help lifting him.”

  Kayla asked, “What do you want to do with him?”

  Dr. Reynolds said, “I’ll take a look, a standard necropsy. Maybe I’ll find something that might help with the next tiger or other cats. Then we’ll donate the body to one of the universities. You can make the calls to see which one wants him.”

  Kayla nodded.

  “I’ll call Hap for help,” I said and walked to the kitchen to use the phone.

  He showed up with Denny and Ian. At my raised eyebrow, Denny said, “Takes manpower to lug tigers, Ire. You shouldn’t be lifting. By the way, you look ready to decontaminate Chernobyl.”

  “Price of admission.” I adjusted the face mask, which managed to let air leak around it while still impairing my breathing.

  Ian didn’t say anything.

  Denny and Hap brought in the empty litter and stood for a moment in the den, looking at the old tiger. Linda and I stood with them. Denny put an arm around my shoulder, a brief half-hug, and let it slide off. Hap shook his head and said, “Sorry, Linda. Comes to every one of us.” We’d worked together, in our different roles, for enough years, enough triumphs and disasters, to share an understanding of what Rajah’s passing meant. I wouldn’t cry over a deceased snake myself, but I knew why Denny might want to and that I would attempt a word of comfort. Hap didn’t work with the zoo animals as directly, but he raised parrots at home, and he knew.

  Ian and Dr. Reynolds and Kayla waited quietly. A tickling wiggle in my belly made an obvious but helpful point about the cycle of life. The moment passed. We lifted Rajah’s legs to roll him onto the litter, an ignominious procedure. Linda draped a stiff blue tarp over his body to hide him from visitor eyes. The zoo wasn’t open yet, but someone might be on a special tour. Hap and Denny were clear that I was not to help. I stood around as Denny and Hap took one end. Linda and Kayla arranged themselves together, Ian took the fourth corner. Hap said, “On three,” and counted. The litter sagged and they adjusted their grips and posture, then carried him out into bright sunshine. In his prime, Rajah had weighed almost four hundred pounds. He’d lost weight steadily this last year, but he was still a lot of cat. Dr. Reynolds opened up the rear of the van, and they shoved the litter inside.

  “Put him on the necropsy table,” Dr. Reynolds said. “One of the sun bears has a bite wound, and I have to get over there. I’ll notify Mr. Crandall later. He’ll put out the press release.”

  Five of us climbed into the van, a big white box, anonymous since Maintenance hadn’t gotten around to sending it out for zebra stripes and the zoo logo. I was of no use, but neither was I ready to let go of Rajah. Ian chose to walk rather than crowd in with us.

  We sat with our tiger on his semi-final journey, Hap driving, Denny in the passenger seat, Linda crouched alongside Rajah’s tarp-covered back. I was near his head, Kayla sat by his hi
nd legs. Linda and I each laid a hand on the tarp, as though to steady or comfort the body beneath. The van smelled of cat, a hunter’s scent. We were all silent, even Denny. Hap slowly steered this funeral cortege toward the fence that separated the visitor area of the zoo from the restricted Commissary, maintenance barn, and hospital side. He activated the key pad to open the gate, drove through, and turned left to drive along the alley toward the hospital, between the visitor fence and the outer perimeter fence. The gate swung shut behind us.

  Rajah was hand raised as a cub and lived his entire life in a zoo, never missing a meal but never killing for himself. Well, except for that luckless duck. He’d had the best life we could give him, but a limited one. It was easy to picture a different life in the wild—hunting and mating, cooling off in jungle pools with tropical orchids overhead. The picture included local villagers stalking him with guns to protect their livestock and for the princely sum his hide would bring into their impoverished lives. Wild tigers weren’t living in any paradise these days. Populations were on the skids, and the extinction alarms were sounding. Raj wouldn’t have lived this long if…

  Kayla erupted with something along the lines of “Aggh!” and, jarred back into the real world, I looked toward her and saw Rajah’s hind legs twitch under the tarp. Then, next to me, his front paws moved, reaching out from under the tarp with claws extended.

  I also said something a lot like “Aggh!” and yelled, “Hap, he’s not dead! Let us out!”

  Hap glanced once over his shoulder, gunned the motor, spun the van into the space between the Commissary and hospital, and killed the engine. We emptied that van in milliseconds, piling out through the front doors. Somehow Kayla scrambled out before either Linda or I did. Hap slammed one door, Denny slammed the other, and Hap clicked the “lock” button on the key ring.

  We stood in a huddle like alarmed primates. “What the hell?” Hap said. “I thought he was supposed to be stone dead.”

  “Holy crap,” Denny said.

  “Twitching after death is normal,” Kayla said with a complete lack of conviction.

  “You bailed out like your hair was on fire,” I said.

  Linda spoke into her radio. “Dr. Reynolds, mission was not totally accomplished. There is still activity,” she said, calm enough to use words that would not alarm anyone overhearing. Stress overtones were thick in her voice, but the lousy sound quality might mask that.

  After several seconds of silence, Dr. Reynolds’ voice crackled back. “Negative. Mission definitely accomplished. Normal activity. Don’t worry.”

  Don’t worry. “No way are we opening up that van.” Denny spoke for us all.

  “We’ll wait for you before we move him,” Linda said into the radio.

  “And another dart,” I squeaked.

  “Holy crap,” Denny said again.

  We stood around in the rain for several minutes, peering into the van now and then. Ian joined us. The blue tarp twitched once for sure and maybe a second time. Kayla and Hap explored the concept of undead tigers in a zombie zoo, Kayla giggling. Linda and I couldn’t switch moods that fast. Ian stood back and said nothing.

  “She’s not coming any time soon,” Hap said. “Call me when you need me.” He ambled off toward the Commissary, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Ian followed.

  Linda said. “We might as well wait inside.”

  We took a final look at the blue tarp through the van windows, agreed the tiger was definitely probably dead, and walked in. The hospital had a small sitting area next to the entrance. Linda and Denny and I settled at the table and chairs. My face mask was sliding around, and I pulled it off.

  “I might as well get some work done,” Kayla said. “I’ll be in the quarantine rooms if you need me.”

  Denny waited with us, reading a Natural History magazine that was on the coffee table. Linda and I told Rajah stories and debated how long we should wait before returning to our areas. I asked about her ceramics and she told me about a class she was taking. “It’s more sculpture than throwing pots.”

  “Did you ever get your own kiln?” I asked.

  “No. The landlord won’t permit it. He thinks I’ll set the building on fire. I can’t afford anyplace else.” She looked frustrated. Ceramics were serious with her, and Birds had beautiful leaf-like water bowls as a result.

  Sam came in to drop off giraffe and llama fecal samples, annoyed because Ian wasn’t on the job. “I sent him to the Commissary for a salt block, and he never came back.” We explained that he’d been hijacked. Sam picked up an ointment for a split starting in one of Nakri’s toenails and left.

  “I should go,” I said. “You don’t need me here.” I opened the door to leave at the same time Dr. Reynolds opened it to enter.

  “So what’s the problem?” she asked, a little curtly.

  “He moved,” I said. “A lot. So we left him in the van. We wanted back-up.”

  “Well, back-up is here. You saw normal agonal twitches, which is post-mortem muscle activity. That animal is dead. Let’s get him into the necropsy room. Where’s the van?”

  “Right outside,” I said, and walked out onto the little porch.

  No van.

  “Maybe Hap moved it,” I said. Why would he do that? He was as scared as the rest of us. I called him at the Commissary.

  “You ready to move him?” he asked. “I want the vet or a shotgun.”

  “Hap, where’d you put the van?”

  Hap hadn’t put the van anywhere. The van had vanished, tiger and all.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was a good half hour before we were all convinced the van was really gone. Hap used the hospital phone to check that no one from Maintenance or Grounds Keeping had moved it. I checked that neither Administration nor Education had taken a notion to use it. We put the word out over the radio asking if anyone could see it. Nada, zip, goose egg.

  Back outside, standing in the road, Hap waved toward the gate and diagnosed the situation as a carjacking. “Somebody on Finley Road drove by, saw the van, grabbed the opportunity. Didn’t even know the tiger was in there. That douche bag is going to get a big surprise. Be sweet if the tiger really is alive.”

  We contemplated that for a moment as the sun broke out from cloud cover and dimmed again.

  “He is not alive, and I’m not convinced the van was stolen,” Dr. Reynolds said. “Someone took it for zoo use. When we find out who it is, I’m going to have a word or two with them. You can’t take off with a zoo vehicle any time you find one idle. Let me know when you find it.” She went back inside, the door closing firmly behind her.

  Hap held out his open palm, showing us the key ring. “Didn’t use these.”

  “It’s a joke,” Denny said. “Somebody’s idea of a prank. Maybe Arnie or one of the maintenance guys.”

  “It’s only a prank if they know the tiger’s in there. Otherwise, it’s just irresponsible,” Linda pointed out. “They wouldn’t know about the tiger unless they watched us load him. I think one of those Education volunteers took it for a program in a park somewhere.”

  “Some crook got through the perimeter fence and jacked the van open,” Hap said. “Hotwired it. Quick on his feet.”

  “Or someone grabbed another key off the key board at the maintenance barn,” I said. “I’ve got to get back to Birds. I’ll stop by Maintenance and ask where they keep the keys.”

  “Good luck,” Hap said. “Those boys are loose with keys.”

  He was right. I talked to Ralph and José, who pointed me to the key board. They picked through the jumble and found another key they thought was for the van we’d used, but couldn’t come up with a definite answer as to how many keys to that van actually existed. “They get lost, we get new ones made,” Ralph said. “Don’t worry, that van is around here somewhere.”

  I’d heard that before. It was more convincing the first time. “Did you see anyone take a key in the last half hour?”

 
They hadn’t, but both had been working in back and wouldn’t have noticed.

  It seemed that the zoo’s borders were surprisingly permeable. Picketers, thieves, and maybe a killer were coming and going freely without anyone seeing them. It was unsettling. I went back to Birds and the longer I worked, the madder I got. Some idiot had stolen Rajah. Once the creep figured it out, the old tiger’s body would be dumped in a ditch on some lonely road, covered with brush, and forgotten. The van would be chopped and sold. We’d never find out what happened. Raj would rot like road kill.

  I forgot the elderly owl in the cardboard box until late afternoon, and, stricken with guilt, carried him to the hospital. Dr. Reynolds was in her office at the computer. “Here’s the owl. Where do you want me to put him?”

  She organized her hair behind her neck. “You can leave him here. I’ll have Kayla set him up in a cage. I’ve been looking for a chance to talk with you. It’s been chaotic today—the van missing, sun bears fighting, reporters calling.” She put her arms on the desk, hands clasped together. “I want to apologize for asking you to investigate what happened to Kevin. Please don’t make any inquiries or call attention to yourself. You shouldn’t put yourself in danger in any way.”

  This was a switch. Only a few days before, she wanted in the worst way for me to be her eyes and ears in the elephant barn. The exemption from spy duty was a relief, but puzzling. Why was she suddenly worried about me? “Any special reason?”