Zootopia

February 1995
As a child, I always detested the overabundance of rules at the zoo. ‘Don’t feed the animals.’ Pffft. What fun is an animal kingdom if you cannot interact with the creatures? So it was something of a childhood dream come true when Alex takes me to the zoo in Sibiu. This is a zoo right out of my earliest fantasies. There are no signs warning against feeding the animals, no patrol of uniformed zookeepers watching your every move, no semblance, in fact, of any order whatsoever. And the zoo seems eerily deserted, as though we have it all to ourselves.

The first cage holds a few timid deer, and though the animals themselves don’t interest me, I am overjoyed by the fact that I can walk right up to the chain-link fence and TOUCH IT!

“Alex! This is better than the WONDERLAND RANCH!”

We walk up to another cage, also constructed of simple chain-link. A zooworker, the only employee I see all day, approaches carrying two buckets, and sets one down next to us, seemingly oblivious to our presence.

“He’s going to feed them!” I squeal in glee, overcome by the reptilian excitement of watching another animal eat. But since the fence is only 6 feet high, my excitement is tempered by the expectation that whatever creature lies within must be fairly timid and non-threatening. I expect to see a family of muskrats emerge drowsily from the overgrown weeds to feast on their morsels.

Instead, he dumps one of the buckets over the chain-link fence and 5 wolves burst out of nowhere.

“Aahhh!” I pinch my nails into Alex’s arm and guiltily wonder if I can outrun her.

The wolves descend upon their prey and what ensues is a chorus of crunching that makes my eyes water and my left lip curl upwards.

“What the hell is he feeding them?”

I look in the bucket next to me. It is full of nothing but chickens’ feet. I look back at the wolves and whisper, “I’m so sorry!”

The next cage is also constructed of chain-link fence, but there is a kind of webbing that covers the top of it, so I expect it must house some kind of bird. Although I realize some birds can be dangerous, I put my hands upon the fence anyway and peek in closely, unable to see either wings or feathers, but nevertheless, I feel so grateful to be in a zoo where there is no security, and no one to enforce the rules. Stupid rules like don’t touch the fence and don’t get too close to the animals and, uh oh, what the hell is that? Just 10 feet away, I see the creature that lies within this flimsy cage with no rules, and with a cold realization I see why there are no zookeepers around. They are afraid.

It’s a lion.

“Good God, Alex! The lions are loose!”

But the lion, a female, I think, or perhaps a balding male, just sits there, staring aimlessly at the wolf cage, clearly perturbed as I am by the ENDLESS CRUNCHING OF CHICKEN BONE AND ROOSTER CLAW. A few feet away, three Romanian boys are laughing and pushing each other and start shaking the cage back and forth, yelling obscenities at the lion.

“WHY ARE THEY DOING THAT ALEX?!? MAKE THEM STOP! OH, PLEASE, TALK TO YOUR PEOPLE! THEY”RE YOUR PEOPLE! MAKE THEM STOP!”

But they keep shaking and swearing, swearing and shaking, shaking and swearing, like a trio of, uh, swearing shakers. And as I fear, the lion gets up and approaches the three foolish boys, and I wonder which of these boys will be the ‘lesson of the why you should never taunt the lion tale’ that the two survivors will tell their grandchildren about years down the road.

The lion stops a few feet short of the cage, however, and turns away, and I think, ‘Well, the cage must be electrified!’ but of course, this makes no sense, because I AM CURRENTLY GRIPPING THE CAGE WITH MY BARE HANDS!

No, the lion stops short and turns around not because of electric current, but because of hatred. A stream of liquid, which I’d like to believe is the acid that runs through the veins of the Mother Alien, but I’d be lyin’, shoots out of the bottom of this animal and strikes all three of the boys, who rattle the cage even harder now, cursing like banshees. One of the boys even holds his arms open to the lion and says, "Come on!" and I realize that the lion would never in fact kill this boy, because this young boy is part of the lion’s plan to allow the human race to populate itself with imbeciles, thus restoring the lion to its rightful throne as king of the jungle.

By now, I realize that my childhood dream of visiting a zoo with no rules is fatally flawed, and I am eager to leave. I don’t even look at the rest of the cages as I drag Alex out of this animal nightmare, fearful that behind the next chain-link fence might be another unlikely creature, like a polar bear on a bungee tether or the ‘angry hornet’ open exhibit or the kimodo dragon petting zoo/sack race.

But of course, as we walk past the last exhibit, I feel compelled to stop, because those three boys are actually sticking their hands INSIDE the cage, and I wonder what monstrosity’s balls they are trying to tickle now, and I see that there are just a few small monkeys. One of the monkeys approaches the outstretched arm, and takes what the boy has offered, and part of me softens at this gesture, because this, ‘the feeding of the monkeys,’ like God reaching for Adam, is what I did imagine in those dreams. The monkey walks back to the end of the cage, and I look closer to see what kind of morsel the boy has handed it. Is it a plum, perhaps, or maybe a bit of chocolate? Could it be something nutritious and delicate, like a whole-wheat wafer, or mildly symbolic like an apple? No, it is none of these things.

It is a lit cigarette.

The monkey inhales deeply and blows a big cloud of smoke, in which I can scarcely make out yet another childhood dream gone horribly awry.