Chapter 3
The Wind
There was times in Mr. P’s four years here at the zoo when Looks would swing by my cage with the keys to let me out and I would tell him I wasn’t interested, but that didn’t happen much. Most every night I spent at the Monkey House with everybody else, gathered around Rubs’s cage scratching one another and listening to Mr. P tell stories.
He liked to sit on a little branch in a tree like a gorilla and flap his little paws in the air when he told his stories. They was fantastic yarns, too, but we almost didn’t get to hear them, for after he told the first two or three he had to quit and go make peace down at Water World, for the Water Creatures down there had a revolt and threatened a big conglomeration when they couldn’t hear every word he said. The only one who could hear was Blows More Oil—she had ears big enough to catch his Thought Speak—and she sent his yarns on to the rest of them fish who couldn’t hear him. But she got tired of it quick and quit on account of not being able to enjoy them herself. It wasn’t an easy job, for them stories was fantastical, but in the end them complainers down there threatened to turn loose one of their own, a feller in the shark tank named Jug who ain’t right in the head. They threatened to sic Jug on every shark in the shark pen and gobble every one of ’em alive, for he was a thirsty, mean devil. A cantankeration like that would surely get Man suspicious.
So Mr. P went down there again and straightened out Blows some kind of way. She’s a big old baby.
It was worth it, I do believe, for Mr. P enjoyed telling the stories as much as we loved hearing ’em. When he got his story going good, he’d flap his arms and legs together all at once, and his eyeballs would sparkle and the extra fur what he called clothes would stretch around him and almost swallow him up. He was a little Smelly, even by Smelly standards, but the stories he told was big. And most of ’em, of course, was about Man.
He told us, for example, that Smelly Ones marry two or three times in life, that they hate one another for not looking exactly the same, they all speak different tongues, and that the smoke-breathing-sticks they favor will eventually kill them. He said most of ’em who come to the zoo are scared of Higher Orders, even mice. We roared when we he heard that.
“Those Smellies are something,” Scratch howled.
“Why would they be scared of something small as a mouse or frog like Meat Eat Sniffer?” Rubs asked.
“Germs,” said Mr. P.
“Germs!” Rubs exclaimed. “They got more germs on their tongue than a dog do. That can’t be true.”
Sniffer, who was setting right there, piped in, “He ain’t lying.” He told a story about how he was once in a Smelly One’s house and a Smelly saw him and ran away. Then the Smelly set a trap for him that had a little metal bar on it that was supposed to slam down on his nose, but Sniff didn’t touch it because he doesn’t like peanut butter. That made us laugh even more.
“Laugh if you want,” Mr. P said, “but there are some other things you should know.” He told us that some Smelly Ones kill Higher Orders and don’t eat them. Instead they stuff the head with feathers and what all. “Then they hang it high in their house so the others can see it.”
Everyone got quiet. “That’s something I already know,” I said.
“I’d rather a Smelly eat me and boil my bones,” Rubs said, “than keep me around. Even if I already Jumped Souls.”
“What do it matter?” Scratch growled.
“It matters a lot when you get older,” Rubs said.
“It works out,” Scratch said. “If I were to eat the Twisted-Mouth Smelly who comes to clean my cage every day, when they hang me, they’re hanging him too, being that I have eaten him.”
“Why would you eat a Smelly?” I asked.
“If they’re gonna hang my head someplace, why not?” Scratch said.
“Keep your fur on,” Mr. P said. “First of all, not all Smellies do that.”
“Which ones do?” Scratch asked.
“Certain ones. Most of ’em wouldn’t be here at the zoo.”
“I’m glad,” Scratch said. “It’d be bad to go to war with them anyway.” And we all agreed on that. For by then Mr. P explained to us that only a fool would fight Man. Man, he said, remembers every wrong you done to him, whereas a Higher Order, well, if it don’t involve food and you got to run around to revenge your neighbor for what they done to you in the past, why, we’d just as soon forget all about it and take a nap. Animals ain’t never organized. Smelly Ones, Mr. P said, they write their little hates down on a piece of paper and pass the paper around. They leave them papers for their little ones and the little ones that follow their little ones, so they can all remember the hate from long ago.
It was a depressing thought, and we all got gloomy over it. So Mr. P told us some funny stories about how Smellies like to have fun. He said they like to throw a ball around and kick it, then throw each other to the ground to get the ball. Sometimes it’s little white balls, sometimes it’s big brown balls. Other times, two Smellies get in a little square and beat each other with fancy cow-skin paws just for fun. And sometimes to relax, they like to lie around in the sun to make their hairless hides look dark and pretty.
“Now hold on a minute,” I said. “Only a fool or a cold snake would lay in the hot sun.”
“I’m telling you it’s true,” Mr. P said. He drawed a little Thought Shape in his mind showing a female Smelly laying on a beach with the hot sun over her. “That’s called a tan,” he said.
“That’s called a lie,” I said. “You told us before that White Smelly Ones, which ain’t white really, not like Urge Me the polar bear here”—that poor bugger was standing there sweating it out—he come every night—fascinated like the rest of us—“don’t like the black Smelly Ones, which ain’t black really, not like Scratch here. Now you’re saying that the White-Pink Smelly Ones lie out in the hot sun to look like the Black-Brown Smelly Ones, which they don’t like? Why would a body do that?”
“It’s complicated,” Mr. P said.
“They must not like each other much,” I said.
“It’s true,” Rubs said. “Let me tell you what I seen before I come here.”
Setting on a low branch of her tree, she told us a story about how she was a tiny gorilla captured in the jungle a long time ago. They brung her to the lair of a White-Pink Smelly. Inside the lair was a Black-Brown Smelly who worked at the lair, cleaning up and burning the food for the White-Pink Smelly. This Black-Brown Smelly raised Rubs and gave her a name and taught her everything. Then not too long after, they both died off and Rubs came to the zoo.
“But before she died, the Black-Brown Smelly hated the White-Pink Smelly something terrible,” Rubs said. “Every time she walked out the room, she talked about her like she was a Human Being.”
“That’s not so bad,” Mr. P said. He didn’t know that’s the worst thing you could say about an Animal.
“I’ll tell you something else,” Rubs continued. “That Black-Brown Smelly One who raised me was real superstitious and had all sorts of bones and powders she carried in a sack around her neck. At night sometimes when I was setting alone in my cage looking, she’d kneel next to her bed, fold her hands together, and—” She stopped. She looked around the room pensively. “Forget I brung that up,” she said suddenly. She sat on her haunches, a look of fear on her face. “Let’s change the subject,” she said.
But now everyone sitting in a semicircle around her was fascinated, and every Animal howled in protest.
“Finish the story, Rubs!”
“Don’t stop now, Gorilla. Spill it!”
Rubs looked around the room, fearful.
“I can’t!” she said.
Scratch was lying on a high branch above Rubs’s head and swung down, hanging from her front paws. “Rubs. Remember that time you asked me to howl like a chimpanzee so that big Ape Mingo they brought in to
mate up with you would loosen up and laugh? Didn’t I do it?”
“His face was so ugly his looks could curdle a cow,” Rubs said. “I’m glad I didn’t mate him.”
“That was ’cause of me, too,” Scratch said.
“How’s that?”
“I said I’d kill him. So the zoo got rid of him.”
“Scratch, you lying like a dog,” I griped. “You ain’t never made a peep to any Smelly in the world till Mr. P come here.”
That panther ignored me. She was slick as a piece of snot and don’t mind lying her ass off to get her way. “Be a sport, Rubs,” she said. “Finish the story. I love good endings.”
“You ain’t gonna like this one,” Rubs said.
“Why?” Scratch asked.
“I can’t tell why . . . I shouldn’t’ve brung it up.”
“I’ll get you a box of bananas,” Mr. P said, for he’d got on his hind legs about hearing the thing, too.
Rubs’s furry face was creased with doubt. “I wouldn’t tell it for a hundred bananas,” she said. “I don’t know what got into me for bringing it up.”
“Can’t be that bad,” I said.
“It ain’t bad or good. But there’s some here who’ll hate me for the telling of it.”
“Hate?” Mr. P was lying on his side on the floor beneath Rubs’s tree branch, and when he heard that he pulled himself over to her and gently stroked her on the head. He was crazy about old Rubs. And she was soft on him, too. “Man hates. Animals don’t hate. You been in the zoo too long, Rubs. Who could hate old Rubs? Hate you because you’re scared of something? We’re all scared of something, Rubs. Just remember every fear that lives inside makes you smaller. But when you air your fears, they disappear.”
“How’s that?”
“They’re out there to be seen, so you can address them. You can fight what’s out in the open. That’s why you put your fears to the air.”
“That’s just it. The air,” she said. I got a bad feeling when she said that and started to open my trap on it, but quick as you can tell it, she took a deep breath and said, “Gather in close.”
Everyone circled around and she whispered, “This Black-Brown Smelly every night, she’d kneel next to her bed, fold her hands, and speak to the Wind.”
Well, that done it. A stunned silence followed. No Thought Speak. No grunting or growling. Nothing. But the wave of fear that swept through us was thick as forest fog. I felt the hair on my back rise.
“Now that’s enough,” I said. “I’m hearing all these stories and I’ve had enough. Rubs, you’re old and your mind must be slipping, to talk about You Know Who.”
“I’m telling you it’s true,” Rubs insisted. Even as she spoke, I felt a shaking of the ground and seen Urge Me the polar bear heading back to his tank. He’d had enough. Several Animals watched him go and looked soon to follow.
“Can’t be,” Scratch snapped. “And you know it’s an insult to the Order to even speak of it.”
“Damn right it is,” I heard somebody say, and Step and Stop, a cheetah, sprang from the rear of the Animals gathered around and landed before Rubs. I knew Step since he first come to the zoo. It sure don’t pay to fall in love with him. That scoundrel got a heart the size of a full-grown pea. He’s a nasty little critter that’ll eat his own.
He leaned in towards Rubs, gnashing his teeth, his tail curled and his eyes burning, the hair on the back of his neck high and stiff. “I oughta send your gorilla ass rambling to speak of You Know Who,” he said.
“Hold up, son,” I said. I rose up and stepped between him and the gorilla.
“Step aside, Get Along. You know she’s wrong.”
“In the jungle she is. Not here.”
“Laws is laws, lion.”
“I don’t need no law to make you fresh meat.”
“There’s plenty here that agrees with me,” Step said. “There’s rules and there’s blood.” He turned to the creatures behind him. “Which one is this here lion for?” There must’ve been thirty or thirty-five standing there, staring at Rubs and me, and none of them looked pleased.
See, there ain’t many laws to being a Higher Order, but of the few that’s there, Rubs had broke the biggest one. Being of the Higher Order, you is allowed to communicate with just about anything that’s living if you want, though some Animals do it better than others. Water is a difficult fellow to talk to, though fish do it pretty easy. Rain is hard to reach, though I know a snake who did it once. The Sun is next to impossible. Plants are easy if you’s the plant-eating type and don’t mind munching on your friends like us carnivores, and of course most Higher Orders can read Thought Speak from other Higher Orders. I would say the top of the list in terms of difficulty is Man, for Man’s a lying idiot. And on top of that is the Wind.
It ain’t possible to speak with the Wind. The Wind is different than any other thing on earth. A fella can get hurt trying to talk to the Wind. The Wind can hear everything you say, the tiniest strain of your heart, the smallest dot on your soul, ain’t no secrets to him. Every creature on earth is taught from the time of birth to her Big Sleep that the Wind don’t need you for hisself, for the Wind is sacred, the ultimate power. The Wind controls everything, the sun, the trees, the flowers, the water, life itself. The Wind brings all things. Good weather. Bad weather. Sun. Rain. You cannot live without water. You cannot live without food. But it ain’t no crime to die from lack of those things, for life ain’t never complete. You go to Sleep and come back again. But whether you’re living or dying, sleeping or not, you live inside the Wind, which carries you in his pocket while you in your Big Sleep till he decides to drop you back as the Next Thing. You cannot be the Next Thing until the Wind decides it. When I was a cub the old lions used to say if you lead a good clean life, the Wind will lift you back to this life as any Animal you desire, even straight back to lion again without having to start at the Bottom. If you have any dream for tomorrow, give it to the Wind. If you have any dream from the past, give it to the Wind. But don’t never mention the Wind, for nobody comes back from trying to fool with it. You’re nothing if the Wind is mad at you. You are forever empty. Gone. Forgotten forever.
Rubs had crossed the line, and all the creatures there knew it. That’s why they were standing there, surrounding me and Rubs, ready to kill. They would’ve done it, I think, had I not gived that nasty cheetah Step my words, see, that I wasn’t going to take no backwater off him about Rubs. That gave ’em a little pause, for they had been in the zoo a long time and weren’t particular to fighting and surviving in the middle of Man’s land where none of ’em know one hiding or hunting place from the next, and I believe that’s the only thing that kept ’em from leaping at my bones.
Step seen they wasn’t jumping to his word, so he calmed down a little.
He said, “All right, lion. But just remember, you got a can tied to your tail, too. Rubs talking about the You Know Who put us all in hot water. I don’t mind coming back as a fish or a mouse, but I don’t wanna step out of the circle and be nothing forever.”
“Maybe that won’t be,” I said. I turned to the others. “Rubs here,” I said, “she’s just telling what she saw and it ain’t no insult to tell what a body think they seen. Of course she made a mistake, is all. Ain’t that right, Rubs?”
“If I’m lying, I hope I come back as a small fish,” Rubs said.
Well, that made it worse. A few Animals began to walk away. A few others growled. As the Animals peeled off and moped towards their cages, Rubs spoke to their backs. “Have I ever lied?” she said. “In all my years here?”
Nobody said nothing, but a few that was walking away slowed down, for Rubs is the oldest creature in the zoo. One of ’em stopped and said, “There’s always a first time, Rubs.”
That hit her where she lived. She slapped her forehead. “Carnivores! Put me down,” she said. “Put me to Big Nap righ
t now.” She dropped down from her tree limb with a thud and lay flat on her back, her eyes closed. “C’mon back, everybody. Deaden me now. It’s a good day to die. Eat my hams and all. Share me equally. And I hope I come back as a small fish.”
The Animals who were walking away stopped. Several turned around.
Rubs kept talking, lying on her back. “Hurry up, y’all,” she said, “I ain’t got all day. I’m good eating.”
Step the cheetah and a few other meat eaters including Scratch began to growl and edge up to Rubs.
“I don’t understand,” Mr. P said nervously. He watched, terrified, as they edged ever closer to Rubs.
I stepped between the meat eaters and Rubs and growled, “Y’all wait one minute.”
“It’s the law of the jungle,” Scratch said, licking her chops as she eyed Rubs lying prone on the ground.
“This ain’t the jungle, Scratch,” I snarled. “The first one of y’all to touch Rubs goes home in threes.”
“You ain’t the law!” Step said.
“Be quiet and lemme think a minute or I’ll bust you inside out,” I said.
That threat didn’t hold much, for there was several of ’em there, including two small tiger cubs plus their mamma, who was pretty big, Step himself, who’s a cheetah, Scratch, who ain’t no slouch when she’s mad, and two or three elephants who was looking right upset. If they jumped all together, I wasn’t no match for ’em. Even a lion got limits.
See, we was getting into a touchy area. Rubs thought nobody believed her and wanted us to wipe her out so she could take the Big Nap with honor, which is a natural thing for Higher Orders who are insulted or just want out some kind of way. If an Order asks to die, you obliged to give them their wish. But I wasn’t ready to see Rubs off. Beside, this was new ground, being that we was discussing the Wind in the zoo rather than out running free. That, to me, made a big difference.