So Mike Alft's recent column and the fundraiser for the Lords Park Zoo got me thinking.
About the old zoo I mean, not the nicely kept petting zoo or the large area where deer and elk roamed contoured grounds.
No, the old, medieval zoo where a decrepit bear lay near stagnant water and a mangy, fly-blown lion named Lord Spark (get it? No? Say it fast) lolled in the hot sun waiting for the highlight of his day, the moment when someone threw in a mottled carcass for dinner. That zoo faced Grand Boulevard and its contoured slope, which bends gently toward the creek and serves as a sledding hill in the winter, is all that remains.
That was the old zoo, back before it dawned on anyone that confining wild beasts in small concrete enclosures for our amusement might not be in their best interest.
Oh, and there was also a snake pit there, on the back side of the hill, facing what is now the deer and elk pen. As I remember it, one would stand close and sort of lean over this square hole in the ground where down in the shadowy, murky depths, snakes of all manner occasionally slithered over each other in a tangle of slimy flesh, the stuff of nightmares. Some entertainment.
But we were youngsters then, no more than 12 or so and the zoo provided a brief stop on a summer's bike ride through the park, especially for Doug.
Now Doug was abnormal and there's no denying it. But when your universe is confined to the two blocks on each side of your house, you can't be too choosy about your friends. Doug had a warped, almost punitive nature at times, as though the world must pay for some vague and undefined wrong visited on him at some point in his life.
Accompanying that was as warped a sense of what was funny as I have ever encountered. Doug could think of things to make himself laugh more reliably than anyone I ever knew outside of a mental institution. And as far as I know, he is still outside.
A trip with Doug to Lords Park was always an adventure in itself but on this particular day of which I speak, Doug had something even more demented in mind.
We sat on our bicycles in front of the bear, waiting for him to do something — anything — that could be construed as movement. Once in awhile he would arise, look out at us as though he would kill every last one of us if could get across the moss-covered moat and through the rusting bars, but no, that would require too much energy, and he would lay back down.
As I watched the bear for signs of life, Doug moved on, past whatever was in the next cage to the monkey cage. I watched the bear a moment longer and heard a howl and screech like the fury of Hell from the monkey, an ear-splitting, high-pitched yowl and then a frenzied run around the cage as though chased by an invisible demon.
Doug was in front of the cage, laughing happily.
I gradually slid the old green Schwinn a little closer as the monkey cautiously returned to the front of the cage. Children passed, holding hands tenderly with their parents. Bikes with streamers slid past us and someone with a bicycle card in the spokes motored by, the rhythmic click-click fading, Doppleresque in the afternoon.
The monkey screamed again and took frenzied flight around the cage. I looked back at the creature and then at Doug, whose face revealed a serene but quite mad satisfaction that was perplexing and chilling at the same time.
More people passed as I pretended to look at them while glancing back at Doug when I saw him remove a long straw from his pants pocket, insert the end in his mouth and place a small piece of pea gravel in the end of the straw. Slowly I turned toward the monkey cage and saw the target was the dangling genitalia of the male monkey, which descended like low-hanging fruit on the hot summer day. A quick puff and the projectile once again found home, sending the monkey screaming off into the afternoon.
This was not for mere perverse enjoyment, Doug confessed, but was rather payback for an incident involving him, the monkey and something tossed at him from the cage the week before.
Fast forward to the next fall, playing "murder ball" in the half gym at Larsen junior high school, a Darwinian game in which the slow, the obese and the weak are systematically exterminated by the strong and agile using a spongy kickball administered with full force at close range.
There's Doug, lying on the hardwood floor, rolling back and forth, cradling his ornaments and howling in pain, a smirking ninth grader displaying his sympathy by pointing at the rolling carcass and laughing.
It was not, in my view, a random event. Like a George Raft prison movie, it was a message from the Monkey: "I can get to you anywhere."
About the old zoo I mean, not the nicely kept petting zoo or the large area where deer and elk roamed contoured grounds.
No, the old, medieval zoo where a decrepit bear lay near stagnant water and a mangy, fly-blown lion named Lord Spark (get it? No? Say it fast) lolled in the hot sun waiting for the highlight of his day, the moment when someone threw in a mottled carcass for dinner. That zoo faced Grand Boulevard and its contoured slope, which bends gently toward the creek and serves as a sledding hill in the winter, is all that remains.
That was the old zoo, back before it dawned on anyone that confining wild beasts in small concrete enclosures for our amusement might not be in their best interest.
Oh, and there was also a snake pit there, on the back side of the hill, facing what is now the deer and elk pen. As I remember it, one would stand close and sort of lean over this square hole in the ground where down in the shadowy, murky depths, snakes of all manner occasionally slithered over each other in a tangle of slimy flesh, the stuff of nightmares. Some entertainment.
But we were youngsters then, no more than 12 or so and the zoo provided a brief stop on a summer's bike ride through the park, especially for Doug.
Now Doug was abnormal and there's no denying it. But when your universe is confined to the two blocks on each side of your house, you can't be too choosy about your friends. Doug had a warped, almost punitive nature at times, as though the world must pay for some vague and undefined wrong visited on him at some point in his life.
Accompanying that was as warped a sense of what was funny as I have ever encountered. Doug could think of things to make himself laugh more reliably than anyone I ever knew outside of a mental institution. And as far as I know, he is still outside.
A trip with Doug to Lords Park was always an adventure in itself but on this particular day of which I speak, Doug had something even more demented in mind.
We sat on our bicycles in front of the bear, waiting for him to do something — anything — that could be construed as movement. Once in awhile he would arise, look out at us as though he would kill every last one of us if could get across the moss-covered moat and through the rusting bars, but no, that would require too much energy, and he would lay back down.
As I watched the bear for signs of life, Doug moved on, past whatever was in the next cage to the monkey cage. I watched the bear a moment longer and heard a howl and screech like the fury of Hell from the monkey, an ear-splitting, high-pitched yowl and then a frenzied run around the cage as though chased by an invisible demon.
Doug was in front of the cage, laughing happily.
I gradually slid the old green Schwinn a little closer as the monkey cautiously returned to the front of the cage. Children passed, holding hands tenderly with their parents. Bikes with streamers slid past us and someone with a bicycle card in the spokes motored by, the rhythmic click-click fading, Doppleresque in the afternoon.
The monkey screamed again and took frenzied flight around the cage. I looked back at the creature and then at Doug, whose face revealed a serene but quite mad satisfaction that was perplexing and chilling at the same time.
More people passed as I pretended to look at them while glancing back at Doug when I saw him remove a long straw from his pants pocket, insert the end in his mouth and place a small piece of pea gravel in the end of the straw. Slowly I turned toward the monkey cage and saw the target was the dangling genitalia of the male monkey, which descended like low-hanging fruit on the hot summer day. A quick puff and the projectile once again found home, sending the monkey screaming off into the afternoon.
This was not for mere perverse enjoyment, Doug confessed, but was rather payback for an incident involving him, the monkey and something tossed at him from the cage the week before.
Fast forward to the next fall, playing "murder ball" in the half gym at Larsen junior high school, a Darwinian game in which the slow, the obese and the weak are systematically exterminated by the strong and agile using a spongy kickball administered with full force at close range.
There's Doug, lying on the hardwood floor, rolling back and forth, cradling his ornaments and howling in pain, a smirking ninth grader displaying his sympathy by pointing at the rolling carcass and laughing.
It was not, in my view, a random event. Like a George Raft prison movie, it was a message from the Monkey: "I can get to you anywhere."
