by Daniel Mason
I ask, ‘Is there a back way out of here?’
The nurse says, ‘Yes. There’s a walking track out the back, leads through the trees.’
I nod before I break into a run. There are sounds of the police storming the complex as I push through the double backdoors and stand in the open air; it’s started to drizzle. The walking track is paved and snakes across the lawn and through the trees to I don’t know where. Regardless, I follow it.
I’m telling myself this would be the worst time to have a tumour blackout.
After a few minutes of running I decide it’s better to veer from the track, so I dart between the trees, leaping fallen logs and crushing clumps of twigs and dead leaves under me. Low branches are slapping me in the face. I stop running where the treeline ends. If this were a cartoon there would be skidding sounds as my legs slide forward and I roll my arms in an effort to stop. I hear waves crashing far below me, and the sky opens right up in front of my face and I’m standing at the edge of a cliff that drops away to the ocean. From where I’m standing I can see right along the coast, I can see stretches of beach and cityscapes further in the distance.
I stand there with my arms dead at my sides, chest heaving. There are the sounds of police officers moving through the bush behind me, and I hear them call to one another. A gull swoops down before me, hovering for a moment on the wind. Then it drops toward the water.
The police burst through the bushes behind me, and I turn to face them with my hands up. I’m doing my best Fugitive impression as I say, ‘I didn’t kill my wife!’
This is the part where Harrison Ford leaps from the stormwater drain and plunges to what seems his certain doom.
I figure this is a trick that Spencer would appreciate. Of course, my gun is going to get wet. And there’s the matter of being battered against the rocks to consider. But I’m going to do it anyway. Freefall, I mean.
I’m toppling over and for a moment my mind is utterly serene as I plummet.
It’s just like skydiving, but you know this time there’s no parachute to save you. The distance isn’t nearly as great, and the world rushes up to meet you like a slap in the face.
One moment I’m seeing the tiny white crests of waves, the next I am feeling their salt spray on my cheeks, the next I am hitting the water like I’ve been hit by a bus, and then I’m submerged, floundering beneath the surface, the sudden sound of rushing wind and waves gone and only the sound of water in my ears. I can’t feel my legs or my arms.
I’m sinking. The surface is there above me, I can see the warm glow of sunlight in a wash of light blue, but all I feel is the increasing cold of the depths as I sink, and I see the blue grow darker, deeper around me.
My arms won’t move to save me. My legs can’t kick to the surface.
If I weren’t the Narrator, this would be the part where I drown. So my lungs don’t fill up with cold salt water. I can’t drown because I’m invincible, and all I do is wake up coughing and sputtering on a sandy shore somewhere, and I’ve still got the gun clutched in one blue and shivering hand.
It’s dark by the time I make my way back to Spencer’s. My clothes are dry but my feet are like I’ve been living in a trench. With the socks soaked through my soles are wrinkled and reeking. I’ve thrown the gun away sometime on the way home, I don’t remember when. It was useless. So were all of the bullets in my jacket, and I emptied them along the streets, dropping them like Hansel and Gretel drop breadcrumbs.
I come through the unlocked door into the dark house, and it sounds like nobody’s home, but actually Spencer is in the bedroom fucking Sophia. I wonder sometimes how she doesn’t snap. Physically, I mean. She’s like a twig, this girl.
How can Spencer stand to feel those bones jutting against him, so close beneath the skin? She’s nothing more than a bag of bones with a nosebleed, this girl.
I collapse in the living room, curled onto the floor. My heart is still beating like it’s ready to burst and I wish that I could sleep, but when you’re riding a high like this there’s no way you can sleep. It’s like insomnia. I prise myself from the floor eventually and go to the kitchen. I’m pacing restlessly back and forth through the house. My feet seem to move in time to my heartbeat, which seems to move in time with the rhythmic grunts and thrusts coming from the bedroom.
When Spencer is finished he wanders naked into the kitchen for a drink, and I’m standing there in the dark, dishevelled and wild. Opening the fridge, he says, ‘Jesus, man. What happened to you?’
I tell him that I jumped off a bridge. ‘You know, for fun.’
Spencer is nodding. We’re grooving to the same music now, he’s thinking.
‘I can’t sleep,’ I tell him. ‘I have this problem sometimes. Haven’t slept for days. I used to count sheep. Well, not sheep. I used to imagine a zoo, you know. And count the animals. It lulled me into rest.’
Spencer thinks it over and he says, ‘That’s a good idea. Where’d you come up with that one?’
I tell Spencer the story about how my father used to take me to the zoo when I was younger, back before he died, back before I knew how to read. My father would read the plaques for me, describing each individual animal, telling me about what they ate, when they slept, where they originated. My favourites were the reptiles, because they seemed the furthest from human, so cold and relentless. We always went to see the reptiles.
I tell this to Spencer, standing in the kitchen drinking our beers and leaning back against the cupboards. In the dim light the sweat on Spencer’s neck and shoulders makes him shimmer with each movement. After a while he asks me, ‘You been to the zoo here yet?’
I’m raising my eyebrows because I didn’t know that there was a zoo in Sydney.
He’s saying, ‘Sure. You want to go? I haven’t been in years.’
‘It’s open at night?’
Spencer shrugs. ‘Prob’ly not.’ Things like this don’t stop a man like Spencer.
Taronga Park Zoo is situated in Sydney Harbour at Athol Bay and was officially opened on 7 October in the year 1916. It’s reasonable to suggest that eighty years ago the zoo was considered something of an amusement park, designed for the entertainment of the masses. Of course, zoo officials of the modern era will tell you that the zoo is designed for the preservation of endangered species and our natural heritage. They will claim this preservation comes through capturing and confining animals outside of their natural environment.
When we’re over the fence and into the premises of the zoo, Spencer says, ‘The sharks are over at the aquarium. Sadly, that’s at Darling Harbour.’ Spencer could tell me all about the sharks at the aquarium. He could even name each individual shark in its tank, pointing against the glass and leaving finger smudges, if we’d been there. He can tell me when feeding times are, and how the sharks will react at each feeding, often varying according to who is feeding them and what they’re eating.
There is a sign near the zoo entrance that reads: DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. There’s another sign with CAUTION printed boldly on it, and then in smaller print it tells us: Captive animals are less fearful of man. This causes animals to be potentially more dangerous. Do not attempt to touch the animals or this may result in injury.
We’re near a bird enclosure and the birds are chattering away into the night. Spencer has a flashlight but he’s hesitant to use it for fear of security guards.
‘Do zoos have security guards?’ I ask him.
He shrugs and says, ‘I guess. Somebody has to stop the greenies from trying to free all of the animals in the night.’
By this stage I can’t remember the last time my heart wasn’t jackhammering that day.
Spencer finds a map board posted against a brick wall. He says, ‘Okay, which animal do you want to see first?’ He’s squinting, trying to make out the symbols. The map is white and green and the shapes of animal silhouettes appear in black upon it.
‘Something dangerous,’ I tell him. ‘Something with teeth.’
He a
sks, ‘Does a rhinoceros have teeth?’
‘How the fuck should I know?’
‘Okay, okay. Geez. Get that monkey off your back. Haven’t you ever broken into a zoo before?’ Spencer maintains complete calm, and it’s hard to believe that I’m the one who was shooting up a retirement village that afternoon. It might be a case of having burned all of my fuel, my testosterone, my adrenaline. Maybe my body has been pushed so hard it’s struggling to produce any more of the stuff. The chemical plant is sporting a sign: OUT OF PRODUCE.
‘The crocodiles are all the way over on the other side,’ Spencer says. He knows I want to see the crocodiles, because they were my favourite as a kid. We’ll have to shine a light on the water in the dark. I know that the eyes of a crocodile glow in the torchlight. Enough television documentaries have taught me that this is how they’re hunted at night.
Spencer is tapping one foot on the ground and slapping his palms flat against his thigh. He’s restless. He’s definitely coursing with adrenaline. For a moment I wonder if I were to open Spencer’s neck and drink from him, would the juices of his energy flow to me?
He’s saying, ‘Ummm.’
He says, ‘Fucked if I can find crocodiles on this map. I might be able to get us to where they keep the lions from here. But they would be indoors at night, right?’
‘I don’t know. Aren’t they nocturnal?’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
We set off along the path. There are trees looming over us on each side and this is just like a public park somewhere, except we can hear the nearby calls of restless animals. The birds are the loudest, followed by what sounds like monkeys. The calls are strangely similar.
We wander alongside an enclosure and I squint in the darkness and ask Spencer, ‘What’s that?’ There’s something through the trees that I can’t identify.
‘Deer,’ Spencer says, lighting the plaque. ‘Spotted fallow deer, from Asia.’
The deer stands deathly still, barely visible through the foliage. To me it looks not quite real, as if maybe it were made of wax. I take the flashlight from Spencer and level it at the creature, flicking it on and off, and the deer doesn’t make a single movement under the strobe flashes.
Spencer says, ‘Must be blind.’
We find what purports to be the bear enclosure, but we can’t find any bears. I’m keen to see a bear because they have claws and a very short temper. Without making too much noise we try to wake the bears, but they don’t come out, and we give up.
It isn’t long before we’re lost. I’m blaming Spencer entirely. We’ve wandered past the kangaroo pen, some monkeys, what looks like a petting zoo, some flamingos and then we’re lost outside the coffee shop.
‘This is fucking ridiculous,’ I’m muttering.
Spencer is about to say something when we hear the growl of what seems like a lion.
He says, ‘Bingo. Teeth.’
Teeth, yes.
The lion enclosure sports a small creek behind a fence, which prevents the lions from getting too close to the viewer. There are bushes and logs and small trees. And no visible lions in the darkness. Further along there is a windowed passage that leads within the enclosure, and from there you can peer inside at the sleeping lions. It’s dimly lit, but I can see a lion cub curled against the window, fur pressed flat. I tap the window and the lion doesn’t move. It’s impossible to draw its attention.
Standing back outside by the fence, Spencer calls to me.
A lion has maybe come out of its cave because it’s heard us, and it utters a low growl that sends a wave of almost visible excitement through the both of us. It’s a male, broad and muscular.
I fish around on the path for something to throw at the cat. There’s nothing, so I rush to a nearby tree and snap loose a twig. Spencer asks what I plan on doing with that, but I answer silently by tossing the wood over the fence. It falls short of the cat, which doesn’t seem to notice. I mutter under my breath.
I light a cigarette and we stand there staring at the lion, which has ceased movement, and it returns our stare in the still night. It seems to look curiously at the ashlight I’m waving back and forth.
‘Toss the cigarette,’ Spencer says.
‘What? I just lit,’ I tell him.
‘At the lion,’ he urges. ‘See what it does about the cigarette.’
I take a final, long draw before I carefully throw the cigarette over the fence, pinching it between two fingers and thrusting into the air. As it tumbles through the air, we lose sight of it, until a series of sparkling ashes light up on the dirt floor and it rolls to a stop, still winking in the shadows.
The lion pads over, intrigued.
‘Smoke it,’ Spencer is saying. ‘C’mon an’ smoke it.’
Of course the lion doesn’t comply. Eventually it tires of sniffing the cigarette, which goes out, leaving a trail of smoke curling up toward us.
Spencer says, ‘This sucks. Let’s find the crocodiles.’
A saltwater crocodile floats very low in the water, at most times leaving little more than their eyes and nostrils above the surface. The crocodile island is in a sunken pit, surrounded by a moat-like ring of water. The island is situated in the middle of the enclosure, a large lump of long grass and reeds.
In the night it’s next to impossible to see anything. We hear the gentle lapping of water, and the rest is total silence. Spencer is breathing heavily next to me.
‘Use your flashlight,’ I suggest.
He looks around, presumably checking for security guards, and turns the light on, shining it down at the island. In the beam of light, the night air seems misty and I can even see it moving slowly, swirling. He rakes the light across the island, spying nothing.
‘The water,’ I’m saying. ‘Look for the eyes.’
The water reflects the beam back at us and we find nothing.
Spencer says, ‘Fuck this.’
There’s a plastic viewing wall here alongside the crocodile island. The plastic bends over toward the top, facing outward, making it next to impossible to climb. But there’s a statue of a crocodile erected here, and Spencer puts one leg on the crocodile and hoists himself upward. He’s sitting on the plastic fence above me and he says, ‘We’ll get a better view down there.’ He’s pointing at a rock ledge at the edge of the water right below us.
‘You’re crazy,’ I tell him.
He shrugs. ‘So are you.’ With that he’s gone and there’s only air in the space where he sat on the edge. I don’t hear a splash, so I assume he’s landed safely. Peering through the plastic, I can see him kneeling by the water, swinging the light back and forth.
I take a deep breath and climb over too. It obviously hasn’t occurred to Spencer, like it has to me just now, that there’s no swift way back out of here if there’s any trouble. I’m about to tell him as much when he grips my arm and says, ‘There. You see it?’
I follow the beam of light, and there on the water I see two glowing eyes peeking above the surface. It’s almost like they’re detached from the body, glowing orbs floating alone. I try to imagine how big the creature must be under the water. In my mind there are the murky images of powerful hind legs and forelegs, and a thick armoured tail swishing back and forth.
‘You’d think he’d, like, try and attack or something,’ Spencer says. He keeps the light steady and doesn’t look at me while he says this. He’s almost hypnotised.
‘Maybe it just ate,’ I tell him.
‘So that means it should be safe to enter the water,’ Spencer muses. He hands me the light and tells me to keep it steady. The next moment he’s slipping gently into the water, just like a crocodile would from a muddy shore. He’s fully clothed, and then he disappears beneath the surface. He comes up and he’s maybe thirty feet away from the glowing eyes.
‘There’re probably more crocodiles in the water you can’t see,’ I tell him.
His laughter is like a whisper. ‘Of course there are more.’
Spencer moves around in th
e water slowly, without a splash and without a sound. I understand what he’s doing as he explains. ‘A crocodile won’t attack what it thinks is another crocodile, unless they are two males in the wild defending their territory. They don’t have the greatest of eyesight. See the way that I’m moving here? He doesn’t know I’m any different to a crocodile.’
Every moment that Spencer is in the water, I’m expecting him to be sucked under. I’m expecting him to jerk and slip beneath the surface. I’m expecting a crocodile to come thrusting out of the water with its jaws wide, roaring, hissing hot breath.
But none of this happens. I follow the beam of light I’ve been shining. The glowing orbs are gone, the crocodile with it.
I say to Spencer, ‘I lost it.’
He says, ‘Lost what?’
‘The croc,’ I tell him.
He doesn’t listen to me. He’s moving back and forth. Saltwater crocodiles prefer brackish water. The stench of dirty salt water wafts up to me.
Spencer says, ‘You should join me.’
I switch out the light and wait for my eyes to adjust. There’s a splash, but I think that’s just Spencer. I light a cigarette, as much to see if he’s still sitting there in the water as I do to smoke it. And he’s sitting there, watching me silently in the glow of the cigarette lighter. There are no visible eyes surfacing nearby.
Eventually he says, ‘Enough tempting fate.’
He climbs out and drips water all over me, and it runs from his sopping clothes in noisy streams. He shakes himself like a wet dog.
‘Stand on my shoulders and I’ll boost you out of here,’ he says.
I can easily reach the fence on Spencer’s shoulders and I clamber out of the pit. The air is cooler up here. I lean back and grab his outstretched hand, which is moist. My grip falters and then I have him and he’s pulling himself upward, feet walking against the wall.
Then both of us collapse near another sign that reminds us not to feed the animals.
We tried, at least.
It’s in the background, on the radio news: ‘… a non-violent protest blockade of the Australian Stock Exchange today turned violent when an explosion rocked the building. The body count is so far sitting at three people, two protesters and a police officer, with several others wounded and in critical condition. Authorities are unable to comment on the source of the explosion at this time, though unsubstantiated reports have the cause as a homemade bomb of some kind. Further information pending …’
