*Author’s Disclaimer: My wife, Julie, suggested that I write this piece for a reading but only if it was stated frankly, from the very beginning, that this is exactly how it happened. The following story is factual. Well, as factual as two middle-aged brains drawing from memory can get. But, to be fair, we’ve told this story a lot. And I understand that neurologically that is not the purest form of memory, but on my part there has been no cleverly fictionalized editing to support a plot here. People always say “You can’t make this shit up.” I’ll say I’m not sure if I could, but in this case I haven’t.
This hereby fulfills the verbal agreement I’ve made with Julie to preserve the integrity of the events. Thanks for all your help with the facts, Honey. Here’s to all the memories we haven’t made yet.
Julie and I are 28 years old. Taber’s six and TJ’s twelve. We’re taking the boys on a family road trip down the Oregon coastline to the sequoias outside of Crescent City, and then heading back up I-5 home. We check out the lighthouses, read their plaques, and take in various viewpoints of the ocean. Between work and school I’ve been gone a lot and as a family we need this trip to reconnect.
Our first night in Bandon we stay in a hotel with a pool. Julie and I share a bed and the kids share a bed. I lay back on our bed, exhausted. The boys have an all-out pillow fight on the bed next to ours until Taber takes a blow to the face. He covers his head and starts to cry into the mattress. But his cries aren’t sincere. And TJ doesn’t believe that he’s actually crying either, until he starts to reconsider and says, “Tay. Tay, I’m sorry.” At which point Taber starts giggling hysterically, rolling around on his back.
TJ hits him over the head with the pillow again.
The next day we wake up, collect our free continental breakfast and restack our bags in the car. Julie’s found this place called West Coast Game Park Safari where we plan on spending the day.
I’ve got to admit the park’s pretty cool. There’s a crazy amount of animals for such a relatively small place—which, I guess, is also pretty sad. It’s nowhere near as big as the Portland Zoo, but along with the free roaming peacocks there are also deer, donkeys, sheep, llama, and pygmy goats just walking around on the footpaths with us.
I’m watching the people around us, praying TJ doesn’t ask me to take another Elements, Evolutions, and Attack Moves quiz. I can only take so much of those things. And you can’t tell your son that you just don’t care about Pokémon and you never will.
We’re watching a black bear in its enclosure watch us when the mom of the family standing next to us says, “Have you guys held the tiger cub, yet?”
Julie’s eyes go wide with an overdose of imagined cuteness surging through her system. Taber is instantly excited and simultaneously a little afraid. TJ starts paying close attention, but trying to act like he isn’t.
“Yeah, it’s just over there, guys,” the lady says, pointing. “SOOOO cute!”
We make our way to the Bengal tiger cubs. We take our place at the back of the line parallel to the tiger’s home. A pygmy goat walks by and nods at Taber. Taber nods solemnly back.
TJ is flipping through a deck of Pokémon cards to my right, opposite the cage. He reads off every single stat like a mantra. He already knows them by heart. Julie’s behind TJ. I’m watching the people around us, praying TJ doesn’t ask me to take another Elements, Evolutions, and Attack Moves quiz. I can only take so much of those things. And you can’t tell your son that you just don’t care about Pokémon and you never will. You can’t say that. But sometimes you really want to. Julie is on the other side of TJ, at the ready with her camera in case that pygmy goat comes back and decides to strut its stuff again. In case two peacocks decide to kiss each other in front of us. It’s sweet. She’s sweet. If it wasn’t for her love of capturing moments like this, we would have very few photos of our family.
There are probably fifteen people in the line, in front of us, waiting to get their hands on those little balls-of-fluff tiger cubs; the excitement and strangeness of handling something while it’s still so small, before it has the chance to grow big enough to be able to eat you. There’s one couple, two people ahead of us that are all over each other. Making out, grabbing handfuls of each other’s asses. He’s in an off-white, ribbed tank-top and cutoff jean shorts with a wallet chain. When he’s not trying to inhale his girl’s face, he’s doing a pretty solid impression of Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High —except he’s not doing an impression. His hair’s much shorter than Spicoli’s and tiny-spiked. His girl is dressed like Peg from Married with Children without the big hair on top. I’m pretty sure they shared the same bottle of blonde dye, but it’s been a while. They’re probably in their thirties, but look deep into their forties.
No judgment here. I’m just painting a picture.
The chimp acknowledges the man in cut-off jeans, who is now picking imaginary things from his head hair and armpit hair and pretending to eat them. George does that Billy Idol lip curl thing and shakes his head like he either feels sorry for Spicoli or is thinking that Spicoli’s got a lot more work to do before they can be friends.
Adjacent to the line we’re standing in is a 10’x10’ cage, with thick-gauge cyclone fencing surrounding it. There’s more than one large sign that reads: “Do Not Touch The Chimpanzee.” There’s another sign that reads: “Do Not Taunt The Chimpanzee.”
Now that’s an interesting sign.
The plaque in front of the cage reads: “Hi! My name’s George.”
TJ says, “Bulbasaur. Grass. Razor Leaf.”
Up until now George The Chimpanzee has been in the corner of his enclosure farthest from us, picking bits of something out of his fur, scrutinizing it, and then eating it. He’s not bothering anybody. But something about that bothers tank-topped Spicoli. He loses interest in the texture of his girl’s leopard print leggings (this was before leggings were in style) and decides to mimic what George is doing. The chimp acknowledges the man in cut-off jeans, who is now picking imaginary things from his head hair and armpit hair and pretending to eat them. George does that Billy Idol lip curl thing and shakes his head like he either feels sorry for Spicoli or is thinking that Spicoli’s got a lot more work to do before they can be friends.
That kind of dismissal only pisses Spicoli off. He gives the chimp a cold stare and starts doing that hunched-over ape dance. The one that, for some reason, you only see small children or grown men do.
George stands in his cage and faces the man dancing like a monkey.
We’re all watching the man.
The woman at the front of the line with the cubs says, “Sir, please don’t taunt the chimp.”
TJ says, “Squirtle. Water. Shell Shield.”
George, the chimp, steps over a small pile of his own feces and picks up a full-sized basketball in the middle of his cage.
Spicoli says, “Oooh oooh, ahh ahh. I live in my own poop.”
But George’s cage is surprisingly clean for not having a toilet.
The staff at the front of the line says, “Sir, don’t taunt the chimp!”
Julie’s staring at Spicoli like she’s trying to conjure a lightning bolt. She distances herself even further from him.
Taber is watching everything.
TJ says, “Charmeleon. Fire. Flamethrower.”
George starts bouncing the basketball. Slowly at first. Hypnotic. And he’s good. And now we’re all watching him dribble. Nodding our heads to the tempo.
“Oh yeah. Ooooh oooh, ahh ahhh,” says Spicoli while ape dancing to the rhythm.
And the ball starts bouncing faster. And faster.
“Sir. Sir. He’s gonna throw poop,” the staff member says.
Spicoli is now a blur of ape moves and sounds, trying to keep pace with the dribbling chimp.
I sense TJ and Julie back further away. Even blonde Peg Bundy is separating herself from her man.
Taber and I are mesmerized by the basketball. By Spicoli in our periphery.
“He’s gonna…” the staff says.
And the ball is a blur. Bouncing. Bouncing.
“Throw…”
And the ball is slammed, one last time with both of George’s hands, hard on the cage floor.
“Pooop!”
And the ball soars high in the air as I pull Taber to me and turn my back on the chimp. Spicoli stops dancing, his mouth agape. Everybody’s eyes are following the ball.
And that’s when George grabs a handful of his own feces and throws it through the cyclone enclosure, the metal scattering it like shotgun poop pellets, the pellets hitting their mark, splattering Spicoli’s face and tank-top and cut-off jeans. Shrapnel is hitting bystanders standing too closely. Spicoli’s ape dancing has turned to spastic wiping and spitting. His girl is standing with her hands half reaching, like she wants to help, but doesn’t want to touch him.
George holds his hands over his head in a victory stance (Clyde-Every Which Way But Loose-style) in the middle of his cage. He slowly puts down his arms and goes back to preening himself in the corner.
Spicoli storms out of the line and sits roughly on a nearby bench. He rips his soiled tank-top off, tries to find a clean portion, and uses it to vigorously wipe at his face and tongue. One of the free-range llamas walks right up to him. Spicoli looks up at the llama. The llama smiles, bares its teeth, and spits a thick loogie right between his eyes.
“Fuck,” Spicoli says, wiping harder.
“Baby,” Peg says.
A pygmy goat jumps up on the bench and gazes sweetly into the shirtless man’s face. Spicoli’s eyes soften slightly. The goat slowly leans towards him. I feel Julie going for her camera. And then fast, faster than Julie, as fast as George’s bouncing basketball the pygmy goat bites Spicoli’s earlobe, jumps off the bench, and runs away.
And my boys see it all. Every step of Spicoli’s downfall.
And that makes me so thankful for him, because I could never have explained it so well in a way they’d understand. How man makes his own luck. All the elements at play. All the evolutions that need to take place. All the karmic attack moves that nature can evoke on you.
I ruffle Taber’s hair. I smile and nod at TJ and Julie. Julie smiles back.
TJ looks confused for just a moment. He slowly smiles and says, “Dad, do you remember… what Weedle’s level 15 attack move is?”
Photo by Chris Tillman, taken at West Coast Game Park Safari, via Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0.
Jason Arias lives in Portland, Oregon. His debut short story collection Momentary Illumination of Objects In Motion was published in 2018 by Black Bomb Books. For more of Jason’s writing visit: JasonAriasAuthor.com.