by Pasha Malla
"And what about yourself?"
Sue-Jane moved away. Whatever had been touching Karel was gone. She gestured at his plate with her fork. "Try the dhal, Karel. It's delicious."
THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, Sue-Jane said nothing to Karel, just nodded and was gone out the door, not even waiting to walk together out to the parking lot. Karel drove home through the city and out to the suburbs, pulled into the trailer park, and locked up the Neon with a robotic chirp. He stood for a moment in the dusk on the steps of Wayne's trailer, looking out over the glow of the city, all those homes producing all that light.
Inside, Karel heated up some dried pasta and store-bought sauce and ate with his computer on his lap, checking his email, erasing messages, writing to no one, scouring the Internet for bonobos, for porn, for whatever.
While he was online, a message appeared from his mother. This chilled Karel, the thought of them both in cyberspace at the same time - as if she might be spying on him, somehow.
Hi.
Still no word from you. Are things okay? Please, Karel, remember that you can come home any time. You did nothing wrong. But your dad and I both really think that taking these people to court might give this whole ordeal some closure. Anyway, think about it, and write or call if you can.
Love, Mom.
Karel trashed the message.
Well after Karel had gone to bed, Wayne came home and hovered over the couch, the smell of beer wafting from him and slowly filling the trailer.
"Hey, Kare," he said, prodding his cousin with his sneaker. "I got a date."
Karel rolled over and looked up at him. "Want me to sleep on the roof?"
"Not now, fucknut. Next week. You'd like her, she volunteers and recycles and whatnot."
"Cool. Can I come too?"
Wayne hiccupped, swayed, and hiccupped again. He pulled the curtains apart, collapsed on his waterbed with his shoes on. Within seconds he was snoring.
TO BEGIN KAREL'S fourth week as the Pet Therapy aide, he got in early, at about twenty to nine. Sue-Jane hadn't shown up yet, so Karel opened up a tin of food for Judith, pulled the cover off the parrot cage, fed the fish, checked on George and Martha, the gerbils, to make sure they hadn't eaten each other overnight, and let the dogs out for a pee. Then he made his way into the back room.
Ewing sat there, fingers laced through the bars of his cage. Karel crouched down and unlatched the door and Ewing came plodding past Karel and down the hallway, out to the playroom. Karel closed the cage and followed him.
Ewing perched on a stool by the window, presiding over the room like a judge. Karel squatted beside him and chanced putting a hand on the bonobo's back. Through the hair, thin and wispy, he could feel the tautness of muscle and, beneath that, the knobby cord of a spine. Ewing reached back, took Karel's hand in his, and held it up in front of his face as if he were trying to decide whether to eat it or read Karel his fortune.
Before he could do either the door opened and Sue-Jane entered the playroom. Ewing sprung off his stool and hopped about jabbering while she hung her coat.
Karel stood. "Hi," he said, waving.
Without looking at Karel, Sue-Jane swept Ewing up into her arms. "How's my baby?" she sang out, rubbing noses.
Soon after, the kids started filing in - the new ones tentative, the returnees going around and greeting the animals like divas at a cocktail party - and Karel took Ewing by the hand and moved outside. A crowd of young patients followed.
At five o'clock the nurses arrived and the kids dispersed, waving goodbye. Karel headed out back to lock the animals up for the night. When he returned to the playroom, Sue-Jane was gone. As he was turning off the lights, there was a knock on the door.
In the hallway stood a bald man in brown coveralls, holding a clipboard. Beside him was a dolly carrying a large wooden crate.
"Pet Therapy?" he asked, looking at his clipboard. A nametag embroidered on his pocket read Angelo and, underneath that, Tropicarium Exotic Pets. "We've got your delivery here."
"I'm sorry?"
"Are you..." Angelo's eyes narrowed. "Sujata?"
"Sue-Jane?"
"Maybe."
Angelo turned the clipboard around and showed Karel a name written at the top of a very official-looking form: Sujata Jain.
"Sujata Jain," said Karel. "Sue Jain."
"That's you?"
"No, no - but I'll sign. What have you got for us?"
Angelo looked at Karel sideways, grinned, then wheeled the dolly into the playroom. "You want to give me a hand here?"
Karel did his best to hold the crate steady as Angelo lowered the dolly. Together they slid it slowly onto the floor, Angelo coaxing, "Easy, easy." The thing must have weighed half a ton.
With the crate resting squarely on the floor Angelo produced a box cutter from his pocket, slashed at the bindings holding it closed, and pulled the walls down on all sides.
A few feet away, glinting in the fluorescent lights of the playroom, sat an oversized terrarium. And inside the terrarium, thick as a curb, wrapped and stacked upon itself, was a snake. Karel crouched down and stared into the two black, glistening eyes; his own reflection shimmered on the glass, a vague spectre of a face hovering around the snake's flat, angular head.
"Jesus - why didn't you say something?"
"Wouldn't have been a surprise then, would it?"
"What is that, a boa constrictor?"
"That, Sue Jain, is a reticulated python. Her name is Sally."
"Sally."
"She's twelve feet long, but she's young and might grow another six feet if you're lucky. But lately she's been refusing food. I think it's almost three months now that she hasn't eaten a thing. Maybe down here she'll get her appetite back."
"Well, let's hope." Karel couldn't take his eyes off the snake: it just sat there, a lethal coil of spangled, scaly muscle. "Angelo, that thing can't stay. This is a children's hospital."
"Relax, Sue. You keep her locked up and she'll be fine. Besides, kids love snakes."
"I'm sure there's been some sort of mistake?"
"Hey - I'm just the delivery guy. You got problems, talk to my boss." Angelo handed over a card. Karel crumpled it in his fist, still staring into the terrarium. He felt that if he were to slit the snake open the skin would peel back and reveal foam stuffing or a giant Slinky - never bones, never muscle, certainly nothing organic or alive.
Angelo passed along a booklet of care instructions, displayed how to open and close the lid, and offered additional advice that Karel didn't really hear. He plugged the terrarium into the wall and flicked on a heat lamp, lighting Sally up like a stove element. After checking that the lid was fastened tightly, Angelo headed out. Karel lingered in the room for a moment before shutting the lights off and locking up. The musty, burnt-cheese smell of animals filled the car as he made his way home to Wayne's trailer.
WAYNE WAS ON the phone. By the hushed tone of his voice, the unintelligible cooing, he was obviously talking to his new girlfriend. Karel tossed his keys on the kitchen table, poured himself a glass of juice, and sat down beside Wayne on the couch.
Wayne hung up and stood, fastening his belt. "Up to anything Wednesday, Kare?"
"Urn." Karel swished some juice around in his mouth.
"Come to this thing with me and Maya."
"Maya? That's your lady's name?"
"It's some charity dinner. For the World Wildlife Fund, or whatever - hey, that's right up your alley, Dr. Doolittle. Here, I'll leave you an invite. Except you need a date."
"A date."
"Bring that broad you work with. She must like animals and whatnot."
"Sue-Jane?" Karel recalled Angelo's sheet. "Sue?"
"That's the one."
"And you really want me to go?"
"Shit, dude, I don't care." Wayne laid an envelope on the coffee table. "There are two tickets here if you want them. Come if you want, I don't give a fuck."
"This isn't the same WWF that's on TV on Monday nights - you know that,
right?"
"Shut up, smartass. Maya volunteers for them."
Karel suddenly imagined Maya as a glam-rock groupie who liked kitty cats and blowing coke off guitar amps. "Tell you what, Wayne - I'll ask Sue about it tomorrow. If she's in, I'm in."
"Prime," said Wayne. He checked his watch again. "Listen, dude, I'm out of here." Then he was gone, leaving Karel alone with his juice. He drained the glass, produced his laptop from underneath the couch, and fired up the Internet. There was a new message from his mother: just a single line that Karel read quickly before trashing.
He closed his computer and rested his hands on the plastic lid. A slight buzz of warmth spread up from the machine into his palms. Karel sat there, thinking about the snake named Sally coiled in the dark basement home of Pet Therapy: silent, lethal, hungry.
TUESDAY MORNING Karel hurried to work, figuring there had to be somewhere they could stow Sally before any kids showed up. He could only guess how the board of directors might react to a patient getting swallowed.
When Karel arrived, Sue was dangling a frozen mouse by its tail into the terrarium, her hand perilously close to the python's head. The lid rested against the wall.
Sue sighed and stared at the snake. "She won't eat a thing."
"We're not keeping it, are we?"
"No, no," she said, straightening and patting Karel's arm. "They sent the wrong one. We were supposed to get two corn snakes. I don't know how this happened."
"But in the meantime?" Sue's hand held Karel at the elbow. He swayed a bit and felt the bulge of her hip against his thigh.
"In the meantime we should enjoy having Sally with us. Do you have any idea what one of these pythons costs? It's a real treat having an animal like this around."
"And the kids?"
Sue looked at Karel for a second, eyes scanning his face as though she were searching for something. The tiny hairs on her cheeks were orange in the light of the playroom. After a moment she let go of his arm and pulled away. "Oh, kids are always great too."
"No, no. Will it be safe? With the kids?"
"Listen, Karel, as long as no one climbs in there with it everything will be just fine. Even then she's so lethargic I doubt there'd be much danger. I think she's depressed."
They both looked at Sally, who had yet to move anything other than her eyelids.
"Maybe she's lonely," Karel offered.
Sue tossed the mouse into the terrarium. It bounced off Sally and landed on its back near her head. "Better get that lid back on before the patients arrive."
THAT MORNING KAREL stayed outside with the goats, dogs, Ewing, and one thin, jaundiced boy who had gone into hysterics over the snake and been relegated to the pen. In the playroom the rest of the kids huddled around the terrarium whispering and pointing at Sally. Sue got out the art supplies and soon the walls were plastered with drawings of a patterned spiral in repose.
Karel stationed himself between Ewing and the goats. The yellow boy poked for a while at a clump of dung with a stick, then threw his stick into the woods beyond the pen and, apparently having conquered his fears, wandered inside. The goats were eating plastic bags on the far side of the pen. Karel and Ewing stared at each other, neither quite sure what to do.
"So," said Karel, squatting.
Ewing shrieked.
Karel held up his hands. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you."
Again Ewing yelped. His arms flapped at his sides like the wings of some desperate flightless bird. He yelped and flapped and started hopping in place, eyes wild and manic.
"Jesus," said Karel. "What's your problem?"
Ewing ducked past Karel and bounded up to the playroom door. He slapped his hands against the window and hooted until the door opened. Karel was left crouching in the hay and mud of the pen. The goats watched him, chewing.
AT FIVE, AFTER locking Sally up, Karel was ready to head out, but Sue intercepted him at the doorway. "My car's in the shop. Want to take me to dinner?"
"Yeah? I mean, no, I can't. I have this thing tonight. With my cousin."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah, I actually meant to ask you to come - it's just some charity dinner, or something."
"The SPCA benefit?"
"Maybe. I thought it was World Wildlife?"
"SPCA. I volunteer there sometimes." Sue looked intrigued. "You're going?"
"Well, yeah, I guess. I have tickets. Just have to go home first and grab them."
"Perfect. I'll be your date."
The inside of the Neon smelled like wet fur. Karel mentioned this to Sue as they pulled out of the parking lot, but she just laughed and said she didn't even notice that animals smelled different from people any more.
"So you've worked with animals for a long time?" Karel asked.
Sue smiled out the window and said, "Of course."
"Doing pet therapy?"
Her smile disappeared. "No."
"What, in a zoo or something?"
"Not a zoo." Sue looked at Karel, hesitating. "In a lab."
These three words were like a door closing shut on a private, secret room. Karel didn't say anything for a while, just kept driving. The sky was deepening into a sombre purple. The car swallowed the yellow dividing line as it appeared on the road out of the dusk.
Karel broke the silence: "I was charged with abusing a child."
He could sense Sue stiffen in her seat. Karel breathed, signalling and turning the car off the main boulevard onto the quiet, dark road that wound up through the hills to the trailer park.
"At the daycare," he continued, "where I used to work. I was there for three years after finishing my ECE." He had to concentrate to keep his hands steady on the wheel. "Then one day my boss came up to me and she was like, 'There's been a complaint."'
Sue watched him, waiting.
"It was - I don't know. It ..." Karel breathed. "I just said, 'What?' That's all I could think, What? What? Like it couldn't be real. And I went home that night and my mom and dad were waiting with dinner on the table and I couldn't even look at them, let alone explain what had happened. I felt like I'd maybe even done it - that I might have blacked out for a bit and like sleepwalked my way into something. Or just been kidding around and maybe touched a kid in some way I shouldn't have, without realizing."
"Oh, Karel," said Sue. She reached out and took one of his hands from the steering wheel, cradled it in her lap. He looked over and then turned back to the road. Behind the looming shapes of oak trees identical duplexes slid by, some glowing from the inside, others just dark shadows in the dusk. Her fingers played over his; her thumb stroked his thumb.
"There was an inquiry. It turned up nothing but it went on for months. You live in a small town, everybody talks, and even when they figured out I hadn't done anything, I'd go around and people would still look at me like I was guilty."
Karel drove, his left hand clutching the wheel, his right in Sue's lap. She ran her nails over his knuckles. The sky was a deep bruise.
They turned another corner, headed up a private driveway, and arrived at the trailer park. Karel pulled the Neon in front of Wayne's trailer and sat there, the engine idling. "Looks like we're going to be a little late. Do you think it's a big deal?"
Sue stared out at the trailer. "You live in that thing with your cousin?"
"Yeah."
A chorus of crickets chirped away somewhere nearby.
Karel turned to Sue. "Do you want to see inside?"
In the trailer Karel poured them both glasses of juice. He flicked on the table lamp and a yellow splotch of light spread across the couch. They sat down together and Sue gazed around as if some detail might reveal the secret of the place.
Karel sucked back his juice and cupped the empty glass in both hands. "So, you volunteer over at the SPCA?"
"Saturdays," she said, staring at the curtain that hid Wayne's bed.
"You must be busy, Sujata." The name just came out. Karel felt strange, as though he'd crossed some unspoken boundary.
&nb
sp; Sue lifted the glass of juice and sniffed it. In the lamplight, the fuzz on her face was golden. "What's your cousin like?"
"Wayne? Oh, he's all right."
"All right?"
"Well he's nice enough, but one of those people who lives totally for himself -'in the now,' or whatever. Just look at this place. His whole world could up and roll away."
"Not like you."
"Well, no, that's not what I'm saying - that I'm better than him or anything."
"Right. So what are you like?"
"What do you mean?" Karel sat there, staring at the floor, pulling at some loose stitches on the couch with his free hand. "I'm looking for my own place."
Sujata sighed. "You know," she said, "we really ought to get another bonobo in for Ewing. A female."
"To mate?"
"No, no - to control him. Bonobo culture is dominated by the females. The males are pretty much at their mercy. They even dictate when and what to eat. Sex is used as a sort of regulatory device."
"But if we got Ewing a lady, he'd stop fucking the goats. Then you wouldn't need me at all."
Sujata smiled, considering. Outside, the crickets were still chirping.
Karel put a hand on her knee. Sujata slid her hand over his.
"I don't think Ewing even likes me," said Karel.
"Oh? Why's that?"
"I don't know. He's just weird, like he's scared of me or something."
"Hmm..." Sujata paused. "Maybe he's jealous."
They sat in silence, looking around, his hand on her knee, her hand on his hand. Karel's gaze wandered from the front door, over the kitchen, to the Tv, and finally to the curtain. Behind it sat Wayne's waterbed, ready and waiting.
WHEN KAREL ARRIVED at Pet Therapy on Thursday morning, Sally lay coiled up in the same position, shimmering under the fluorescent lights. Sujata had already let the animals out and she was sitting with Ewing on a stump outside. The bonobo had his arms wrapped around her neck; both of them were gazing up at a solemn, overcast sky.
"God, I'm so tired," Karel said.
When Sujata spoke, it was less to Karel than to the clouds. "He's very clingy today."