by John Inman
Mom bent down and placed a kiss directly between Rosemary’s eyes. Her head was about three inches away from Cory’s crotch when she did it, which was probably her plan all along.
She straightened and studied Cory again. Her face was absolutely beatific. Mother Teresa attending the poor. “A dog owner too!” She slid a lingering hand down the side of Cory’s arm. “I would never date a man who didn’t love a dog.”
That wasn’t true. I’ve seen my mother date men who wouldn’t know a dog from an aardvark.
“Let’s have a drink!” she squealed, breaking into a merry laugh.
It was seven o’clock in the morning, and my head was still thumping from the gin she had poured down my throat the night before. I waved my hands through the air like I was flagging down a bus. “Oh, no, no, no. I just came for the car, Ma. I mean Mummy. I mean Viv. We have some errands to run.”
She smiled at me like a doting mother, which was a bizarre development. I’ve never seen my mother dote over anything other than a new man or a fifth of Tanqueray, or quite possibly both at the same time.
“Of course you do!” she exclaimed. “You two should spend the day together. Get to know each other. Don’t worry about me. I have a date later anyway.” She turned her attention to me at long last. “Gerald wants a second chance.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially and wagged her pinky in my face. “I’m not sure whether to give it to him or not. He’s just so little, if you know what I mean.”
I knew what she meant, and I was pretty sure Cory knew what she meant too, judging by the new infusion of blood that gushed into his ears.
Still blathering on about something or other, she darted into the house, grabbed my car keys, and flew back through the door to press them into my hand. She gave Rosemary a final pat on the head, then turned her attention once again to Cory, stepped close, laid her head to his chest, and pulled him in tight. Craning her head back to look up into his blushing face, she said, “I’m so happy to have met you. You and my boy are going to be so good for each other, I just know it.”
I looked around for a hole to fall into but didn’t see one. “Mom, Cory and I are roommates. That’s all. He’s getting settled in the city. We’re going to go buy a terrarium for his snake.”
For one horrible second, I thought she would glance at Cory’s crotch after I said that, but she didn’t. What she did do was release Cory and pat me on the cheek. Leaning in, she whispered in my ear, “Do whatever you can for that man’s snake. I have a feeling you won’t regret it.”
I stammered out something or other, but all she did was beam at me with nunlike innocence before she snickered and gave us a wave good-bye. Impossible woman.
Five seconds later, Cory, Rosemary, and I were tooling down the street in my piece-of-crap car.
Rosemary had her head poked out the side window, scattering dog slobber from one end of the city to the other.
Quietly, Cory said, “Your mother is… nice.”
I tried not to gnash my teeth. “Thanks.”
Then we glanced at each other and started howling with laughter.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No, it’s fine. She’s interesting.”
I sputtered, “No, she’s not. She’s nuts!”
Cory had tears running down his cheeks. “I liked her. I did!” Suddenly it was Cory who was wagging his pinky in front of my face. “Even if her boyfriend is little!”
I sucked up a glob of snot and wiped happy tears away. I tore my streaming eyes from the road and just looked at Cory, sitting there beside me, laughing like a fool. My God, he was so beautiful.
It was at that precise moment that I understood which prediction my mother was talking about.
WE RETURNED to the apartment and changed into real clothes before grabbing a bite of breakfast. Beth had the morning shift at the Jack in the Box up the street where she was single-handedly bolstering the argument that the minimum wage needs to be raised posthaste before everybody who relies on it for survival finds themselves starving to death while sleeping in a cardboard box under a tree in the park. Leaving the battle of income equality to her, Cory and I left Rosemary and Leonard at home and set out to run the errands I had told my mother about.
We found a terrarium for Leonard at the pet store across town, along with a couple of unfortunate rats for Leonard to snack on later. We took a spin along the harbor to show Cory the boats and cruise ships moored there, and after that we bought a couple of tacos from a street-side vendor’s cart and sat on a pier, dangling our feet in the water of the bay while we ate. Later, we glommed a job-application form from the zoo, where if there truly was a God, they would hire Cory and make him scoop the gorilla shit instead of me.
By the time we headed home, it was midafternoon, and we had advanced our friendship to the point where we no longer filtered everything we said to each other. In fact, we were no longer filtering anything.
I still understood instinctively that making a pass was a no-no, but as far as conversational gambits went, everything was fair game. We joked freely. And more than once, we touched freely too. A playful slap. A joking hug. A friendly tickle in the ribs.
By the time I switched off the ignition and helped Cory lug the terrarium into the apartment, I was more than ready to strangle my mother for putting certain ideas into my head.
Begging weariness, I excused myself while Cory piddled around setting up Leonard’s new quarters with the driftwood and the colored pebbles and the little water dish, which would hopefully keep Leonard occupied so he wouldn’t decide to break out and try his hand at stalking bigger game—such as me.
I stretched out on my bed, turned my back to the room, and stared through the window as the sun sank in the sky, dimming the apartment around me. Cory moved around softly, trying not to disturb me, assuming I was asleep.
But I wasn’t. I was thinking.
For the first time in my life, somewhere deep inside, down where darkness reigned and stomach acids bubbled and frothed, I felt a brand-new feeling rising up. A niggling little ache of either discontent or longing. I wasn’t sure which.
Something else was happening too. It was the strangest thing, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw only one thing in the shadows behind my eyelids. One image. One mirage of sprinkly, colored lights with two tiny glimmers of green in the middle of them.
The one thing I saw was Cory’s face. Cory’s green eyes. And every time I saw them, he was staring back at me. Just like I wanted him to.
Chapter Six
I WOKE up groggy after hearing the poor little rats scuttling around in their cage all night. No doubt they were suffering insomnia while fretting about their upcoming trek through the bowels of a frigging snake, which would ruin anybody’s sleep.
While Cory was in the shower and I was getting ready to head out the door to start bonding with the damn monkeys at the zoo, I secretly snatched both rats up by their tails and snuck them out behind the apartment building where I set them free at the base of a hibiscus bush, pleading with them to make a run for it before it was too late.
Rats aren’t dumb. After tipping me a salute of thanks, they were gone before their little feet hit the ground.
“Toodles,” I said softly, watching them scurry off.
We all have to do what we have to do. If San Diego later succumbed to an outbreak of bubonic plague, I’d rethink my actions then. Otherwise, screw it. So what if the damned snake starved to death. My sympathy still lay with the rats.
Feeling rather holier-than-thou, like an animal rights activist freeing lipstick-tainted bunny rabbits from an Avon lab, I mentally patted myself on the back and headed off to work, all the while trying not to imagine Cory standing naked in the shower while the hot water ran down his fuzzy legs, oblivious to the fact that his buddy Leonard no longer had rats à la carte on the menu for breakfast.
As far as my mother’s prediction concerning my long-awaited love affair with the man of my dreams, I pushed it as far back into the
recesses of my mind as I could get it. I wasn’t ready to deal with that. Maybe I never would be. And who was to say Cory Williams was that man anyway? Good grief, I had only just met him. Plus he was straight. Even I would have more sense than to fall for a straight guy.
At any rate, my love life wasn’t high on my list of things to worry about at the moment. It was all I could do to prepare myself to face a sea of gorilla poop.
I had learned during my tenure as head bird-poop scooper-upper that it is a thankless and humiliating job dealing with any sort of feces at the San Diego Zoo. The tourists always seem to find it most amusing and giggle and whisper about it even more than they do about the bloody animals. But being in show business, I was used to being giggled at and whispered about. You don’t have to be a star to fall flat on your face, you know. I had suffered some pretty humiliating moments in community theater. There is nothing more pride-shattering than stumbling your way through a scene in front of a full house after stage fright sets in, and you suddenly forget your lines and can’t even remember the name of the play you’re in, for Christ’s sake. And trust me, every actor has done that at one time or another. Yes, it’s true. The worst moments an actor spends onstage is a great learning tool for the worst moments he spends in real life. Karmic, huh?
Today I would undoubtedly learn that scooping gorilla poop was a pain in the ass as well.
My days at the zoo start far earlier than the hour the zoo offices open up, so Cory would not be accompanying me. He had arranged other job interviews on this, the first business day after his arrival in the city. I presumed he would stop by the zoo later to turn in the application form he had filled out the night before while we were sitting around the kitchen table guzzling beers. He’d listed me as a reference, I remembered, but I wasn’t sure how far that would get him. I wasn’t exactly the zoo’s employee of the month. I doubted if any of the high zoo muckety-mucks knew I even existed. And why should they? As far as employees went, I was the equivalent of that unfortunate soul in a community theater production who plays, pro bono, any minor part that needs filling and is happy as hell to get it. I was the extra. The bit player. The only difference being that at the zoo, as opposed to the theater, I at least got paid.
Big Bird had been true to his word. Upon my arrival at the zoo, I found myself locked out of the bird sanctuary and shunted off to the primate center, where I met the head monkey man. Talk about typecasting. The man was hairy from one end to the other, and presumably hairy at all points in between. He was also considerably overweight, and his arms were longer than his legs. He didn’t exactly drag his knuckles when he walked, but it was close. The effect was heightened by the fact that he was scratching his nuts and eating a banana when I met him. We were standing at the edge of the gorilla enclosure. On the other side of the glass was the resident troop, presided over by Memba, the big silverback. Memba seemed to be eyeing me suspiciously. I couldn’t say I blamed him, since I was doing the same to him.
“I’m not getting in there,” I said.
Monkey Man looked fairly astounded I would say such a thing. “Of course not. Why would you think you should? Memba would eat you alive. I can already tell he doesn’t like you.”
“Like I care. But aren’t I here to clean the enclosure?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
There was a large box at Monkey Man’s feet. I had been warily eyeing that box ever since our interview began. I assumed it held the tools I would need for cleaning up ape droppings. You know, shovel, bucket, hazmat suit like I had threatened poor Elmer with.
“So what will I be doing, then?” I asked.
Monkey Man put a long hairy arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. After the squeeze, his hand slid down my back, and he patted my ass.
“I hear you consider yourself an actor, Malcolm. That’s your name isn’t it? Malcolm?”
His big monkey hand was still on my ass, so I gulped and said, “Uh-huh.”
“Well, son, we’re going to find out if you can act your way into separating a few of these cheapass tourists from some of their money. By the way, aside from acting, Bruce in the aviary says you have other talents I might be interested in.”
I couldn’t imagine what those might be. Well, yes, I could.
To my relief, Monkey Man laughed and patted me on the ass again. “Maybe one of these days we’ll arrange for a little canoodling after work. Get to know each other a little better, hey?”
Fat chance, I thought, chewing my lip.
“As for now, Malcolm, let’s have you strip down and try this on for size.”
I had a sudden irrational fear that he was going to whip out his dick and ask me to spread ’em. Gulping was becoming a way of life around this guy. What a sleazoid. I decided I should let Monkey Man know I could be butch if I wanted to, so I horked up a great glob of phlegm and spat it into the bushes. “I’m sorry. Did you say strip down?”
He didn’t seem particularly impressed by my expectorating talents. “’Fraid so, kid.”
Reaching into the box at his feet, he pulled out a gorilla suit. Yes, that’s what I said. A big, hairy gorilla suit. He thrust it into my arms, then pulled from the box a pair of big gorilla hands, two big gorilla feet, and a big gorilla head. All told, the outfit weighed about fifty pounds.
“You’re kidding. You want me to strip down and put on a gorilla suit right here in front of God and everybody?” I gazed up and down the zoo trail where we were standing. Just as I feared, there was no one else around. The zoo wasn’t open yet.
“Sure, kid,” Monkey Man said with a leer. “I’ll locker your clothes for you.” He checked his watch. “The zoo opens in thirty minutes. Chop-chop. Let’s get those clothes off.”
“So I’m going to be wearing a gorilla suit, then. I mean… like an actual gorilla suit.”
“Not too quick, are you? Did you think you’d be doing something else?” He gave me a leer and a wink and an eyebrow waggle. God, this guy was disgusting.
“Well, yeah,” I said, ignoring his ugly face as best I could.
He narrowed his eyes and studied me like a new breed of South American bullfrog. “Just what did you think you would be doing, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
It seemed Monkey Man had a sarcastic streak.
“Scooping gorilla shit,” I said.
He snorted. Rather derisively, I might add. “Sorry, son, but only trained personnel with zoological degrees get to scoop gorilla shit. Do you have a zoological degree?”
“Uh, no.”
“I didn’t think so. No, Malcolm, what you’ll be doing is wearing a gorilla suit and selling these to the masses.”
From another box, Monkey Man hauled out a little stuffed ape. The little stuffed ape was cute. Then he dumped the box out onto the pathway and about two dozen little stuffed apes tumbled out. Suddenly they weren’t so cute.
I was still standing there with the bigass gorilla suit in my arms, and now I was also up to my knees in baby stuffed gorillas. Everything was so hairy, I was starting to itch. Memba was staring at me through the glass like I was a gorilla serial killer, strewn with primate body parts and getting ready to come after his females and all his little hairy young ’uns. I stuck my tongue out at him, and he pulled his rubbery lips back and smacked his chest and growled.
“Stop teasing the primates and take off your clothes,” Monkey Man said. “You’ll die of a heatstroke if you wear your clothes under this monkey suit.” He checked his watch again. “Do it now, kid. I have other stuff to attend to before the gates open for the day.”
I thought about it just long enough to come to the conclusion that even dying of a heatstroke while wearing a gorilla suit and lugging around a truckload of stuffed animals under the broiling California sun was better than scooping gorilla shit. Plus there was the added benefit of knowing I would be incognito. No one could see who I was under that stupid gorilla mask. That would lower the humiliation factor considerably.
So I did wha
t he asked.
I dropped everything at my feet, yanked my shirt over my head, and stepped out of my pants. By the time I was standing there in Jockey shorts and socks, Monkey Man was appraising me up and down and scratching his crotch again.
“You have a nice little body there, son,” he said, licking his thick lips.
That was all the impetus I needed. I leaped into that gorilla suit so fast it left even Monkey Man astounded.
Burying his disappointment that I was no longer half-naked in front of him, he stepped back and eyed me up and down appraisingly. Apparently satisfied, he snatched up a long pole that was lying at the edge of the path. The pole had little hooks all over it, and the next thing I knew he had thrust the pole into my big hairy gorilla hands and attached a stuffed monkey to each one of the hooks. By the time he finished, the pole weighed as much as the suit.
He gave me another perusal as I stood there in my stupid gorilla suit, already sweating bullets, practically blind because the eyeholes were too small, and holding my stupid pole aloft with the damn stuffed animals hanging all over it.
When I spoke I sounded like I had fallen down a well. “It’s hot in here.”
Monkey Man was in the process of peeling himself another banana. “You’ll get used to it.”
“This pole is heavy.”
“You’ll get used to that too. Besides, it’ll be an incentive for you to sell the stuffed animals to the passing tourists. The more you sell, the lighter the pole will get and the easier your job will be.”
“Where do I keep the money?”
He snapped his fingers. “Almost forgot.” From the bottom of the first box, he hauled out a money belt and coin changer, which weighed an additional five pounds. He strapped it around my waist, once again rummaging around my ass while he was at it.
He finally stopped groping me and stood back with his hands on his hips, eyeing me up and down. “Perfect,” he said, chomping on his banana. “Now just walk around. Someone will relieve you in six hours.” And with that, he gathered up the empty boxes and walked off, chuckling.
