CLUMPS AND VOIDS

PROSE FRAGMENT

I.

The zoo had been built smack in the cornfields 50 years before by one of the Oorts. The hardware store Oorts. Yellow bungalows with squat brown junipers later circled in the first ring. After the Depression and the Woor (as the Slovenian ticket-taker would say), an unruly outer ring accreted of aluminium-sided tract houses like Jane’s

The zoo originally had lacked context. It thus was designed with institutionally high walls, a turned back to the grackles. With the growth of the town, the zoo’s inward gaze became a willful aversion, an attempt to go unnoticed. Perhaps as a result, everyone inside the zoo became invisible as well. Innumerable spectacled bears were inured to the wolves across the small plaza, as they were to the glazed crowds and — despite an unduly successful breeding program — each other. Parents recited tedious exhibit signs aloud without comprehension, and lost their children without guilt. The caramel-corn man had the thermal pits of a viper: he pushed boxes out of his cage without every looking up.

For Jane, invisibility was like the slide-rule: an attractive device that she never had learned to accurately manipulate. This had nothing to do with looks. Indeed, Jane by this time had resolved to rely on her intelligence. Not did it relate to physicality. Mary for instance was always invisible. Yet she was as stolid as a pawn in the ivory chess set brought back by Uncle Bob, with his Section 8 discharge, from Korea. But Jane knew that she herself always must assume that she was seen or risk embarrassment, or worse.

On this first day of July, Jane actually was traveling to the invisible zoo by herself. Her mother historically had prided herself on being unreasonably protective. But this summer she was at the kitchen table, tented under a changing Chicago Daily News. She had stopped demanding Jane’s itinerary, and indeed left the table only to retrieve coffee pot and sugar bowl. Jane wanted to believe that she was merely preoccupied by that liar, Nixon. But then why hadn’t she watched TV when Dean had testified before the Watergate Committee the week before? And why had she stopped answering the phone?

II.

Jane bought her ticket late in the afternoon from the caged woman, who muttered “isn’t fer.” Striding past, she then paused for a moment at the aquatic mammals sign. But pools of water were like the night sky: uncertain depths full of floating matter that didn’t connect. She turned right, and headed toward the aviary and the horned owls.

She had read that owl feces contained the tiny bones of their prey. Why was this fact both fascinating and satisfying? Because you knew the truth about where the owls had been? And where had she read that? The school library never had anything interesting, except during the book fair when she could buy adult books, like A Death in the Family.

In plastic library chairs with the rest of her class, Jane had heard a presentation last year from some man with enormous brown eyes. He had asked them to submit anonymous written questions so that he could answer then “confidentially.” But during the question and answer period, he paused. “Yes,” he said. “Absolutely. Someone absolutely can be an alcoholic if they just drink beers.” He scrutinized their faces. “I don’t know who asked this, but you should see me after we are done.” Jane had met his initial gaze, and then turned to examine titles on the nearest shelf. The speaker finally sighed, and excused them. Jane filed out with everyone else.

At the horned owl cage, she found a sweaty keeper in dung-brown coveralls. He swung his white bucket into the cage. Each of seven owls swiveled its head. Wielding monstrous tongs, the keeper plucked out dead mice one by one. He carefully draped each mouse, head on one side and tail on the other, over its own molded plastic branch. The owls now focused on the mice, yellow eyes avid. They shifted their weight, and flexed their claws. They hopped, first one and then the next, closer. Jane noted their metallic beaks. With a breeze, each tiny tail swayed.

III.

“Christ! You’re not really going to watch them eat, are you?” She looked left, to find a lunky blond boy. “Are you?” He was tall, and his blue eyes piercing behind round John Lennon glasses. But one eye was slightly crossed and his eyebrows invisible. He looked like a boy scout who might well defile the s’mores.

“This is gross. Come with me to the mold-o-rama.” After a silence, he added: “You are Jane Goggin. I’m Sam Thorne. I was in the class next to yours, right? The other Special Op-on-Pop class.”

“Oh, right.” Jane found herself walking.

“Did you see that guy’s name?” Jane struggled for focus.

“His name! On his pocket. Murt!” Sam chortled. “What a no-eyes.” Jane searched for a less obvious “huh” equivalent. “It’s a Lester Young expression,” he offered, “so it’s hard to explain. It’s kind of the opposite of nice eyes.” Jane knew that she should not ask the next question.

“Lester Young?” Sam spread his arms wide. How can you not know Lester Young? The seminal jazz tenor saxophonist? Played with Count Basie? The Kansas City Six? Friend and collaborator of Billie Holiday? Prez??” Sam looked annoyed, and tried his sure shot. “You know: the guy who held the horn at a weird angle?”

Jane tried to explain. “We don’t play any jazz at our house. All we get is Beethoven’s Ninth. Loud.”

“Well, maybe you can come over and hear some.” Sam brightened. “I’ll play you Lester’s version of Polka Dots and Moonbeams, and then you can say whether you like it more than Dexter Gordon’s version. I promise not to prejudice you.”

To Jane’s relief, they had arrived at the Lion House. On the theory that nothing could make cats smell worse, the zoo had installed the mold-o-rama inside the dark vestibule. The machine had the color, bulk and — as Jane recalled lost quarters — recalcitrance of a rhino. Sam jingled the pockets of his baggy black cotton pants.

“So,” Jane ventured. “Why is this is so great? Don’t all of the animals end up looking exactly the same?”

He shrugged. “But it’s such a great idea. Extruded animals! On demand!” The machine clanged to announce the stench. A hand-sized brown object thudded to the ground (the mold-catcher was missing). It was quadruped. “There you go,” said Sam. “Done and dun.”

“I suppose that you’re going to display it prominently at home.”

“Not unless it becomes collectable.” Sam headed out of the Lion House, and towards the exit.

Jane finally felt that she had a permissible question. “So your parents collect things? Like what?”

Sam stopped to face her. “My parents have some Carnival glass, spear-type arrowheads, fountain pens — those are mine, baskets, Indian pots and blankets, musical instruments, victrolas — I found the best one and made them put it in my room, old radios, 78-records, campaign buttons, three sets of Wedgwood, matlack steins, fruit jars, glass telephone line insulators — those are really cool, bottles, brass padlocks, brass skeleton keys and doorknobs—“

“My great-grandfather Black collected doorknobs in Canada,” Jane inserted, “where they had no indoor plumbing—“

“ — car hubcaps,” he continued, “car headlights, radiator emblems — those have always been expensive, light fixtures, license plates — some of those are leather, Simmons and Keen-Kutter items, walnut furniture, walnut bowling balls, collector plates, bone china, marbles — my brother has those, stereo view-master cards, leaded and stained glass windows — ”

He paused, and Jane noticed the lengthening shadow of the Lion House sign.

“There are all of the antique tools — my Dad is a carpenter: levels, planes, square, nails saws, brass blow torches—“

Jane simultaneously wondered why she wasn’t irritated, and whether this list would ever end.

“ — brass tea kettles, coins, stamps, metal tins, wooden boxes, picture frames, model airplanes." Sam finished up, “And of course my Dad wins best in show a lot. For all of the Winchesters. The guns.”