Day 16: A Day at the Zoo

You couldn’t ask for a more perfect day. The sky had that crisp shade of blue that stretched on forever. There was a light breeze and the sun was shining bright. The only clouds in the sky looked like giant pillows made of that one bear from the fabric softener commercials. They could have skinned him and stuck his hide in the sky. That would be an accurate description of the day.

Daisy and I arrived at the zoo right when it opened at eight-thirty. That meant we were awake at six a.m. on a Saturday.

“This is going to be so great. I love the zoo,” she said.

I nodded as I put the car into Park and took a large audible yawn.

Daisy was already out of the car and headed to the front gates where no one was waiting. The high for the day was supposed to be one-o-five. I just prayed that she would want to spend the majority of the day inside the desert museum. Not that I cared about what was inside. I just wanted AC.

Since I moved to Arizona I think that I’ve adapted to the heat fairly well. I haven’t died yet. There were plenty of hot summer days in Indiana growing up, but nothing like these scorchers. I moved here for college. I thought Arizona would be a cool place to live for a while. I moved back to Indiana during the summers, avoiding the really hot days. I planned on moving back north after graduation, but then I met Daisy.

“Hurry!” I heard her yell from the ticket booth. I was grabbing my string backpack full of water bottles. I wasn’t going to pay for the overpriced plastic at the shops and vending machines.

I made it to the front gate. Daisy was waving the ticket for me to take. Then she pulled it away as I was about to grab it. She did that twice before I snatch it.

“Bag please, sir?” the guy at the gate asked. I handed it over. He rummaged for a half a second. “Can’t bring these in,” he said pulling out a water bottle. He wasn’t much older than me but he was taller.

“Why?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Company policy. No outside food or beverage.”

“It’s water.”

He shrugged.

“This is just some ploy to get us to buy overpriced water bottles," I scoffed.

“Honey,” Daisy snapped back under her breath.

The guy stared blankly at us, still with a bottle in one hand and the bag in another. Another employee had taken notice from the other gate and was watching the scene. I looked at Daisy. She had that look on her face.

Goddamn it.

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. “Fine. I’ll take them back to the car.”

The guy put the bottle back in the bag and handed it to me.

“You know it is supposed to be over one hundred degrees today?” I said to the man, hoping Daisy would also take notice.

He nodded. “We have water fountains.”

“Then why the f-” I took a breath, turned, and took the bag to the car.

At the giraffe palace, I had to pee.

“I have to pee,” I told Daisy.

“You shouldn’t have drank all that water,” she commented after taking the tenth photo of the same giraffe.

“It’s -” I stopped myself. What good would it do to tell her it was hot? She knew it was hot. Everyone knew it was hot. At least a normal person would know its hot.

I went to the bathroom and came back outside. Daisy was still taking pictures.

“Can we go to the museum?” I asked.

“Why do you want to go there?”

“Because it’s inside.”

“It’s so beautiful out.”

A salty tear of sweat from my forehead dripped into my eye. “Shit. Ow.”

“Shh. You’ll scare her away.”

“Who?” I said, holding my eye.

“Betty here. She’s beautiful.”

I blinked away the pain. “Do you think Betty loves posing for your photoshoot?”

Betty was chewing leaves from the tree in her pen.

Daisy was on the ground and taking photos of the giraffe’s hoves. Then she got up real close to the fence and took a photo. Then she took a selfie. Then she tried climbing the fence but couldn’t get good footing.

“Help.”

“No.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun.” She hopped down.

“Can we please go inside? It is awful out here.”

“Wuss,” Daisy said with a smile. That smile.

When we first met I couldn’t take my eyes off her from across the bar. We were both with a group of friends. I spotted her early on in the night. She was laughing at something and I fell in love right there. That smile. Those eyes. Green as Emerald City. They liked to hide behind her long jet black hair. So mysterious, I thought. There wasn’t much mystery anymore. Not sure if there ever was.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t born here and don’t have the tolerance you do,” I said.

“Did you put on sunscreen?”

“No, I forgot.”

“You’re gonna burn. There’s probably some in the gift shop. Let’s go get you some.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ll burn. Come on. It won’t take long. I’ll buy the damn bottle if it’ll make you happy.”

I stared at the giraffe. Betty was getting a large gulp of water from her kiddie pool.

“We’ll be insiiide,” Daisy prodded.

“Fine.”

Daisy and I had been dating for almost two years. We moved in together on our one year anniversary. It was the first time I had lived with a girl. It was the first time I had lived with anyone besides my family. I got lucky in college: my assigned roommate my freshman year dropped out before school started. And then I was able to work it out so I got my own room every year.

Living with Daisy was great for a while. She’s a great cook when she wants to cook. We ate out a lot and ordered pizza. The overcrowding of the bathroom and closet was a bit of a surprise, but my dad said that is a normal thing. So did the Internet. We shared a lot of the same interests in TV shows, which was nice besides having to wait for the other person to watch the next episode. Daisy was a bartender and worked late often. I worked at Home Depot the majority of my college career and afterward. It was a job. Because Daisy worked late at the bar, I often found myself going out at night. Not to her bar, but out to drink. It was a way to pass the time. Most nights I was passed out when she got home. She would have some after-work drinks with her coworkers and get drunk. And then at four in the morning, she would want to talk or screw after I had been asleep for a few hours. It was sweet at first but became annoying after a while.

We found time for each other on our days off. We hiked in the foothills outside of Tuscon when it wasn’t too hot. Trips to the Phoenix for concerts were fun. We both still had our friends from college that we hung out with from time to time. A few moved away. None of us were pursuing careers in our majors.

Life was going by just fine. I loved Daisy. She seemed perfect for me, or at least as perfect as a person could get, I guess. She was funny and liked to have fun. She didn’t pressure me to get a better job than Home Depot. Her family was cool. We barely fought and if we did we would make up quick. I figured I would end up marrying Daisy one day. I didn’t really know when. I wanted to move out of Tuscon and back home, but Daisy didn’t want to leave her family. I thought we could compromise with Kansas or something. It was the one big argument we had. We argued for hours about it.

“I’m just sick of getting sunburnt all the time,” I blurted out, searching for another reason to move.

“So wear some damn sunscreen.”

“It’s not just the sun.”

“So what is it?”

“I don’t know.”

So, we got the damn sunscreen from the gift shop and headed back out. We didn’t spend enough time in there to cool me down. Sweat was taking over my t-shirt.

“What do you want to see next?” Daisy said with the map open.

“What’s inside the museum?”

“Lizards and shit. I want to see the gorillas.”

“Lizards are cool. I’ll see the lizards.”

Daisy rolled her eyes. “You don’t care about lizards.”

“I care. They’re cool.”

“Oh yeah? When we were watching Planet Earth you’d always skip the desert episode because you said that nothing lives in the desert so it would be boring.”

“Well, now we know that lizards live there. Let’s go get some knowledge.”

“Oh my god, we will go to the museum. Fine.”

So we did. The place had a bunch of cacti and desert animals in small chambers behind clear plexiglass. The backdrops made the chambers seem bigger, but you could tell that these animals only lived in this tiny space.

“I wonder if they like their life,” I said.

“Why wouldn’t they?” Daisy asked, systematically taking photos of every animal and every blurb written under their Latin name.

“I mean, I’m sure they are well-fed and all, but if I were them I would want to be out in the wild.”

“They’d probably get eaten.”

“So?”

“So, they would get eaten.” Daisy looked over at me.

“They are going to die in here anyway,” I said, actually thinking about what the lizard would want. “Why not have a life of freedom in the wild?”

“In the hundred-degree heat? You don’t think they enjoy the AC like you?” She giggled.

“It’s not the same. They like the heat.”

“How do you know?” Daisy stood up. “How do you know they are not completely content and happy living in these boxes, being fed like kings, not having to go hunting or find food for their young, or worry about predators eating them at night?”

“I don’t know. I just know that I would go crazy living in a cage like this.”

“You mean a cage like us?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That’s what you’re thinking though.”

“I didn’t say that. You’re overreacting. Come on, let’s go see the gorillas or something.”

“I’m overreacting. Why don’t you just say how you feel, Sam? You don’t like it here and you want to move somewhere where it’s not a hundred degrees out, but you can’t move because of me and you resent me for it.”

I didn’t know what to say. I turned back toward the Iberian emerald lizard, a.k.a., Lacerta schreiberi. He was lounging on a piece of dead, dry cactus. His skin was the color of Daisy’s eyes. Her black hair matched his spots. A grasshopper walked casually in front of the lizard’s face. The lizard just sat and stared. I guess he was full. Or bored.

“Why can’t you just be happy here?” she finally said.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

She sighed. “Then I don’t know either.”

There was a long silence until a family walked in with three kids. One wore a funny animal hat from the gift shop. Another wore green plastic glasses with thin strips in the lens. The parents were smiling and holding hands. The mom bent down and said something to her little girl and pointed. The girl went running by Daisy and I, probably toward the komodo dragon at the end of the exhibit. The two boys stuck around to check out the snakes while the parents went to check on the girl. They smiled at us as they walked by. The man glanced at me, at Daisy, and we locked eyes. He gave me a look with raised eyebrows: Sorry, bro. Been there. And walked on.

“Are we going to see the gorillas or what?” Daisy said.

I nodded. “Alright. Let’s go.” And I forced a smile. She turned away.

The gorillas and tigers and koalas cheered Daisy up. By the time we left the zoo, she was all smiles and pictures again. I even bought her a souvenir necklace from the gift shop as an I’m sorry. She knew and accepted as she turned around to let me put it on.

We shut the car doors and buckled up.

"Ugh," Daisy said. "I'm almost out of space on my phone again. And the battery's almost dead. Did you bring your charger?"

"Yeah, it's in my bag."

"Thanks," she said and kissed me on the cheek.

I put the car into drive and stepped on the gas. The car moved forward, slowly, finding its way throughout the maze of the parking lot toward the exit.

“Good day at the zoo,” Daisy said, looking back toward the entrance.

I sighed. “Yup, good day.”