“They were captured,” I say. “They were put into cages.”
By the giraffes, lighting another cigarette, making a wisecrack about Michael Jackson, Bruce says, “Don’t leave me.”
This is what he said when British Vogue offered me a ridiculously well-paying job that I was not capable of doing and that my stepmother arranged and that, in retrospect, I should have taken and he said it again before he left me that weekend for Florida, he said “Don’t leave me” and if he hadn’t made the request I would have left but since he did, I stayed, both times.
“Well,” I murmur, carefully rubbing an eye.
All the animals look sad to me, especially the monkeys, who mill around unenthusiastically, and Bruce makes a comparison between the gorillas and Patti LaBelle and we find another refreshment stand. I pay for his hamburger because he doesn’t carry cash. We got into the zoo today because of a friend’s membership Bruce had borrowed. When I asked him what kind of person would have a membership to the zoo, Bruce silenced me with a soft kiss, a touch, a small squeeze on the back of my neck, offered me a Marlboro Light. Bruce hands me a receipt. I pocket it. A newly married couple with an infant sit at a table next to ours. The couple make me nervous because my parents never took me to a zoo. The baby grabs at a french fry. I shudder.
Bruce takes the meat patty off the bun and eats it, ignoring the bread since he considers it unhealthy, “bad for me.”
Bruce never eats breakfast, not even on days he works out, and he’s hungry now and he chews loudly, gratefully. I nibble on an onion ring, giggling to myself, and he will not talk about us today. It crosses my mind, stays, starts melting, that there is no impending divorce from Grace.
“Let’s go,” I say. “See more animals.” “Mellow out,” he says.
We move past uselessly proud llamas, a tiger we can’t see, an elephant that looks as if it has been beaten. This is a description hanging by the side of the cage of something called a bongo: “They are seldom seen because of their extreme shyness and the markings on their sides and back make them blend into the shadows.” Baboons strut around, acting macho, scratching themselves brazenly. Females pick pathetically at the males’ fur, cleaning them.
“What are we doing here?” I ask. “Bruce?”
At some point Bruce says, “Are we as far back as we can get?”
I’m staring at what I think are ostriches. “I don’t know if we are,” I say. “Yes.”
“No, we’re not,” he calls out, walking ahead.
I follow him to where he stops, staring at a zebra.
” ‘The zebra is truly a magnificent-looking animal,’ ” he reads from a description hanging next to the habitat.
“It looks very … Melrose,” I say.
“I get the feeling an adjective just escaped you, baby,” he says.
A child suddenly appears at my side and waves at the zebra.
“Bruce,” I start. “Did you tell her?”
We move to a bench. It has become overcast but it’s still hot and windy and Bruce smokes another cigarette and says nothing.
“I want to talk to you,” I say, grabbing his hands, squeezing them, but they lie there limply, lifeless in his lap.
“Why do they give some animals big cages and some not?” he wonders.
“Bruce. Please.” I start crying. The bench has suddenly become the center of the universe.
“The animals remind me of things I can’t explain,” he says.
“Bruce.” I choke.
I swiftly move a hand up to his face, touching his cheek gently, pressing.
He takes my hand and pulls it away from him and holds it between us on the bench and he quickly tells me, “Listen—my name is Yocnor and I am from the planet Arachanoid and it is located in a galaxy that Earth has not yet discovered and probably never will. I have been on your planet according to your time for the past four hundred thousand years and I was sent here to collect behavioral data which will enable us to eventually take over and destroy all other existing galaxies, including yours. It will be a horrible month, since Earth will be destroyed in increments and there will be suffering and pain on a level your mind will never be able to understand. But you will not experience this demise firsthand because it will occur in Earth’s twenty-fourth century and you will be dead long before that. I know you will find this hard to believe but for once I am telling you the truth. We will never speak of this again.” He kisses my hand, then looks back at the zebra and at the child wearing a CALIFORNIA T-shirt, still standing there, waving at the animal.