Backteria and Other Improbable Tales (6 page)

“Boy, am I thirsty,” said the man. “I sure could use a glass of lemonade.”

“Be my guest,” said a voice behind him.

The man jumped around. There, standing in front of him, was Professor Fritz’s refrigerator.

“Where on earth did this refrigerator come from?” wondered the man.

“From just outside the city,” said the refrigerator. And, quick as a wink, it threw open its door, splashed a pitcher of lemonade on the man and ran into the alley, laughing.

Two sign painters were sitting on their scaffold eating lunch.

“That’s funny,” said one of them to his friend, “I could have sworn I just saw a pair of long red underwear dancing across the roof of that building over there.”

“You’d better get your eyes examined,” said his friend.

A little girl ran up to the policeman.

“My dog just chased a pair of black shoes up a tree!” she cried.

“And both the shoes were sticking out their tongues!”

“Everybody around here is going crazy,” said the policeman to himself.

Just then Professor Fritz’s car skidded up to the curb.

“Has my house run past here by any chance?” Professor Fritz asked the policeman.

The policeman was just about to take Professor Fritz to the police station when there was a loud noise at the corner. The policeman looked in that direction and his mouth fell open.

Professor Fritz’s house had just stopped for a red light.

“There it is, the crazy thing!” cried Professor Fritz.

The light turned green and the house rushed off again.

“Stop that house!” cried Professor Fritz, driving after it.

The policeman jumped on a motorcycle and roared after them. He shot past Professor Fritz’s car and caught up with the speeding house.

“All right you, pull over to the curb!” ordered the policeman.

“Nuts to you too!” said the house and it threw a bowl of goldfish at the policeman. The bowl landed on the policeman’s head and the goldfish started swimming around his nose and biting it. This made the house laugh so hard that it didn’t watch where it was going. Suddenly, it crashed against a big tree — KABOOM!! The roof went one way. The walls went another way. Everything fell off, fell apart, fell in and fell down. It made a lot of noise.

Professor Fritz and Willy and Manfred got out of their car and walked over to the wreckage.

“Boy, what a crazy mess,” said Professor Fritz. “Not to mention all the furniture running around loose.

“I hope you learned your lesson,” said Willy.

“Oh, sure I did,” said Professor Fritz. “Next time I make things come to life, I’ll make sure they don’t get so fresh.”

Willy groaned and sank down on what was left of the sofa.

“Oh, wow, what next?” he said.

“I don’t even want to think about it,” said the sofa.

The zoo was almost empty as Mr. Jones walked slowly down the stairs with a scowl on his face.

A seal bark caught his ear like the cough of an ancient smoker. He could smell the flood of freshly cut grass and the toasty scent of warm leaves.

He made a wry face.

He passed a daddy carrying a junior on his shoulders. History repeats, mused Mr. Jones without favor. Some junior was probably carried on Roman shoulders to the arena to see Christians get digested.

He passed a row of wastebaskets and looked at the empty Crackerjack boxes as though they were hollow souls.

He stopped in front of the seal pool. His glance touched the sign. With my salary, I should feed them, he thought. And as for annoying them, I have better things to do.

The sun was ingot bright. Mr. Jones stared dully at the cool green water. He thought there were worse things than being a seal.

Suddenly a black whiskery monster poked its head out of the water and honked its horn at Mr. Jones.

Aaah,
shut
up, thought Mr. Jones. Stop shoving. Everyday it’s the same. Shove. Shove. I bet you love it you bum. Watch the doors! You and your goddam watch the doors!

Then Mr. Jones smiled benignly at the seal.

Won’t perform unless there are more people will you? You performer you. A black zoo fly sat down to rest on his elbow. He brushed it away impatiently and walked directly to the pheasant cage.

There were little boys looking at the birds. A poppa was feeding the birds. The sign said, do not feed. Mr. Jones sighed. Watch ‘em gobble gobble, said the poppa to his blonde-haired angel child nodding mutely.

The pheasants looked around in bobhead curiosity.

Your pigeon cousins walk in freedom. You sit in the cage in glorious Technicolor. Walk on wet concrete. Nibble at popular peanuts. Watch the beady eyes and strut.

Yeah! Strut you little minx. I know you. Can’t take a joke. Always, “Oh Behave Yourself Jonesy” or “What Would Your Wife Say If I Told Her?” or “I’ll Tell The Boss On You.” Well, the hell with you, you little minx, I know you.

Mr. Jones walked to the fox cage. He looked at the scrawny red excuse for the sign.

Well, they sure beat you. No more chases. No more holes to run in. Slide along the earth into the cool belly of the mountain, panting and sparkle-eyed; happy.

Mr. Jones pouted as he walked away from the red fox. The trees are green. I can see them through the bars.

He passed a truck of green acrid-in-the-nose hay. Why can’t we eat hay? Relative anyway. A filled gap is a filled gap.

Two pigeons scurried out from under his feet and continued their walk with gentle histrionics.

“Come
on
, come
on
,” said Mr. Jones under his breath, snap it up. Watch the doors.

He stopped and looked between the thick bars at two great moldy buffalo. He saw two baby buffalo standing behind their parents. Born in a public park. Sign of the times.

“Buffalos!” came a little girl shriek.

Mr. Jones turned away in distaste. My daughter does not open her mouth like that when she is looking at something.

Mr. Jones said to himself: I wonder if animals talk. People say no but how do they know? He shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the dead stagnant water where the black bear was drinking.

You old bear. Really lap it up, don’t you? You’re quite a businessman, Mr. Gibbons. Oh, you
love
that don’t you, you oily old bear. Then you get mad because someone disagrees. Just because I like to empty the wastebasket at noon and you like to do it at five. Don’t know your business Jones! Don’t know your business. Just because I like to empty the wastebasket at noon.

Old
bear
. I ought to quit. I ought to poke you one in those bloodshot eyes and say, So I don’t know my business haah! Well let me tell
you
one thing. I know more about my business than you know about yours! And don’t forget it. Huh!

Mr. Jones stamped his foot and almost waved a stern finger at the bear.

A mothervoice whined behind him:

“Alvah, have you urinated?”

Mr. Jones whirled with blazing eyes.

“Good god madam,” he said acidly. “Have you no sense of proportion!”

Then, without an answer, he turned away and stalked off.

Mr. Jones, bent over a concrete fountain, sent a burst of brackish water into his throat. A little boy standing at an adjoining fountain was putting his finger over one of the holes and squirting a stream of water in the air. A mother yelled. Mr. Jones passed on, superior.

He hardly looked at the straggly reindeer carrying bent clothes trees on their skulls. Barely noticed the floppy kangaroos twitching with fat zoo flies. He left the sunlight and went into the dark stale animal house. Voices sounded hollow.

He passed a raccoon who stared at him from blackrimmed eyes and then padded out onto its sun porch.

He stopped and looked at the big tan wolf pacing restlessly. They exchanged kind glances.

I know what you’re thinking. The people stand here and look at you. They think of Russia and Greta Garbo in a sleigh and you chasing it.

Well, someday they’ll put hairy coats on men again and put them in cages. And you can stand outside.

And laugh with your eyes.

Feeling particularly compassionate, Mr. Jones idled over to the lion’s cage. There was a righteous, eternal print on his features.

He gritted his teeth and winced as strident boy voices rang in the silence and they surrounded him like a relentless army of red ants. He looked down at their wild hair with distaste.

“Hey Mr. Lion what are you doing?”

For Chrissake little man. Can’t the king of beasts even take a leak in private? King of beasts. On exhibition for jokers.

“Look at his ears!”

Yours ears, you little bastard, are not so hot either. Mr. Jones could not contain himself. He uttered a long shuddering, “Shhhhhhhh” and walked on, barely noticing the slopebacked puma stalking drunkenly around its cage.

As he stepped into the sunlight, he heard the seals barking loudly. They must have an audience. Slick glory seekers. Whiskered prima donnas. Watch the doors.

He walked to a rail and looked over.

The silent ones. The great black ones. Silent laughing mouths. Leather pendulum of a tail. Garden hose trunk. Floppy cabbage-leaf ears.

He looked at the huge beasts swaying as they chewed chomp chomp on the hay. I wish she’d get a corset.

You look like hell darling. I’m sorry if it hurts your feelings. But what do you expect the way you eat? You’re getting as big as an elephant.

Mr. Jones focused his eyes. He smiled.

“My god you
are
an elephant.”

“Whud you say mistuh?” asked a little boy.

“What’s it to you?” said Mr. Jones.

He left without an answer. He felt superbly witty. He stopped and waved by two pigeons. He passed two little boys with packs fastened to their shoulders.

The great outdoors haah fellas? Watch the cars. Don’t step on anyone. Forest primeval.

Don’t trip on beer bottles.

Mr. Jones breathed in the smell of warm leaves and found it not half bad. He conjectured briefly on whether sparrows have adams apples. He shrugged, felt very silly.

He stopped in front of a birdcage. He looked in.

His smile had no humor.

Tidy practical vultures. Nature’s morticians. Doesn’t cost a nickel for a dignified vulture funeral. No shrouds, sobbed eulogies, thick rugs, white faces, tuxedos or tears. No corteges of coffins. No nothing.

Mr. Jones stared at the ugly red head. He watched it rip the greenish guts from a fish.

Who put you here? he thought. Who said, I think people will get a bang out of watching a vulture rip dead flesh with his curved and bloody beak?

Oh, don’t turn away dear bird. Have I offended? You can’t help it. If you were put on earth to tidy up the dead, then who can shudder at your baneful carrion stare?

Hurry back to your fish. The zoo flies are making a black crawling pattern on the rotten death of it. Suck a lively beak. Go back you tired old redheaded hunchbacked and blackfeathered monster. Eat your dead fish. Have no shame.

Have we?

Something burned in Mr. Jones’ stomach. An anger that would not be revealed. An uncontrollable yearning to shout out meaningful words and tell everything.

But his mind would not shape the shapeless thoughts.

He walked thoughtfully into the monkey house and out again, hardly glancing at the mass orgies. He felt close to something very fine and he could not stop to look at the red behinds of hairy monkeys.

Mr. Jones stopped in front of a cage and looked in.

You look like a hyena, Crocuta Crocuta. I have several names like things in your world. You don’t really laugh do you? Not here, there’s nothing to laugh at. Sometimes I feel like crying.

Mr. Jones stopped momentarily to look at the skunk. He sniffed hard but smelled only warm leaves.

He smiled tenderly.

He walked over to the seal pool. There were many people staring down and laughing at the black mischief.

Mr. Jones watched a while dispassionately. Then a particular dive caught his fancy and he smiled against his will.

A chuckle followed, bubbling through his lips and then his laughter was lost in the roar.

Man and beast, he thought, with sudden delightful clarity. The ever-turning diamond. The flash of facets. Light.

Then dark again.

When he woke up he was lying on his right side. He felt a prickly wool blanket against his cheek. He saw a steel wall in front of his eyes.

He listened. Dead silence. His ears strained for a sound. There was nothing.

He became frightened. Lines sprang into his forehead.

He pushed up on one elbow and looked over his shoulder. The skin grew taut and pale on his lean face. He twisted around and dropped his legs heavily over the side of the bunk.

There was a stool with a tray on it; a tray of half-eaten food. He saw untouched roast chicken, fork scrapes in a mound of cold mashed potatoes, biscuit scraps in a puddle of greasy butter, an empty cup. The smell of cold food filled his nostrils.

His head snapped around. He gaped at the barred window, at the thick-barred door. He made frightened noises in his throat.

His shoes scraped on the hard floor. He was up, staggering. He fell against the wall and grabbed at the window bars above him. He couldn’t see out of the window.

His body shook as he stumbled back and slid the tray of food onto the bunk. He dragged the stool to the wall. He clambered up on it awkwardly.

He looked out.

Gray skies, walls, barred windows, lumpy black spotlights, a courtyard far below. Drizzle hung like a shifting veil in the air.

His tongue moved. His eyes were round with shock.

“Uh?” he muttered thinly.

He slipped off the edge of the stool as it toppled over. His right knee crashed against the floor, his cheek scraped against the cold metal wall. He cried out in fear and pain.

He struggled up and fell against the bunk. He heard footsteps. He heard someone shout.

“Shut up!”

A fat man came up to the door. He was wearing a blue uniform. He had an angry look on his face. He looked through the bars at the prisoner.