Zoo Bus

The Zoo Bus, custom-painted with long-legged flamingos, pulled up to the downtown stop, and I put away my highlighter and Nutrition in Sows and Boars. As the bus doors whooshed open, I slipped my bus pass out of my purse for the fifty-eighth time.

"Hi Sheila," said the driver. He waved away my pass. Of course we recognized each other. He also drove the route I took home from Children’s Hospital on work days.

I looked down the narrow aisle to see if the center back seat was free. From center back, it was seven steps to the exit door. From the rear door, I could step onto the brick walkway and avoid the mushy grass near the curb.

Behind me,I heard children’s voices and the squeak of stroller wheels. I stepped to the side as two boys thundered down the long ridged rubber mat, and right to the spot I’d planned to take for myself.

"No fair!” the smaller, rounder boy cried, as his wiry brother, smirking, threw himself onto the orange plastic seat.

"Jerome, make a space for Jeremy to sit!” called his mother. “And scoot over! I have to put Mandy’s stroller where you’re at.”

I gave up, turned around, and took a seat where I was. The tall man with brown hair, the one who'd been sitting two rows from the back on the driver’s side of the aisle for two months, had already felt too close for me when I had been sitting in my regular seat.

Now I had inadvertently chosen a seat across the aisle from him. A camouflage-pattern plastic badge, identical to mine, was, as always, pinned to his sweater. The man used a portable keyboard balanced on his long thighs. The keyboard was attached by a black wire to a smartphone. A large brown book lay on the next seat. Each time I'd passed thos man on my way to the back center seat, the man had raised his eyes briefly. I could tell he was always waiting for me to walk by, but didn't want me to know it.

Now he and I were looking right at each other, from opposite sides of the bus aisle. He looked very pleased. He unplugged the portable keyboard and folded it in half. He stowed the smartphone in his pocket, and picked up the leatherette book lying next to him.

“Another Tuesday at the zoo,” he said, smiling down at the oversize volume in his lap. “It's been about a year. I guess, since we both started to ride the jungle bus.”

“Week fifty-eight,” I said. “My first shift was on a Thursday." Now that I'd spoken, I feared he'd come sit with me. I didn’t like to talk to people; that’s why I always had a book with me. But the man with the brown hair just smiled and settled back with with his own large book. I spotted three meted binder rings.

It wasn't a textbook, I realized; it was some sort of photo album or scrapbook. I quickly opened my own textbook to reed about selenium deficiency in older sows.

I was only pretending to read. I kept feeling distracted by a noisy back-row argument between Jerome and Jeremy over who would hold the zoo membership card. And my thoughts were wandering. What kind of photo album did that brown-haired man have? Why would someone use a scrapbook as reading matter, especially on the Zoo Bus? I personally could easily read a book per week using the forty-five-minute ride time. Yet this man simply paged through a scrapbook which he'd probably compiled himself. He evidently had extra time on his hands, or he hadn't developed a strategy for effective time management.

The bus swung around the big left-hand curve which took us west to the river and then up Riverside Drive. I stopped looking out the bus window  and returned my eyes to my text. I was facing an exam that evening. Jerome and Jeremy kept squabbling, which irritated me confirming my error in spending twenty years as a dietician conducting useless research into childhood health. I didn’t like kids.

My current job involved research the world didn't need because we already know how to help children with obesity. The secret to a low body mass index? Fewer Twinkies, more kickball. But I had to keep working away at the study because I needed the paychecks while I was going back to school. I was forty-two and forced to fit my graduate work around my hospital schedule.

The Zoo Bus made the final turn into the front gate entrance, and I put away my textbook on swine nutrition. I was the first person to line up at the back entrance but as I exited, I sensed that the tall man from across the aisle was right behind me. I felt a little tense, but he and I took different paths away from the bus stop.

My morning as spent as a backup vet tech in the Rhino House, where a two-ton male had his hooves trimmed. I leaned back against the tiled wall end watched the vets attend to the rhino's three-toed feet. As e trampling alternative. I gave the vets a better chance of escape if the sedative level was too low. It was a good learning experience. At the Zoo, just as everywhere else, the newbie would be first to be stepped on.

I survived. At noon, I carried my satchel to the Flamingo Bay outdoor cafe. I saw the tall brown-heirer man from the Zoo Bus there, eLone at a grillwork table. The plastic name badge pinned to my sweater, I now noticed, said "Anthony." In front of him were the leatherette album, the smartphone and keyboard, and a small white paper plate on which which portobello mushroom slices neatly arranged on it. I glanced briefly at his table as I carried my satchel toward an empty table at the far end of the food court, then I pulled out the chair at an empty table. I waited a moment, then pushed the chair back in and went to Anthony’s table instead.

"May I join you?” I asked. Anthony nodded. His expression was both pleased and surprised.

1 sat down and took my insulated lunch cooler from my satchel. I hesitated over the front compartment, where my swine text was tucked away, then decided that I would take the book out but place it to the side.

I looked at Anthony’s scrapbook. "Project documentation?” I asked. “Family photos?”

"Cats,” he said, spinning the album around on the black mesh tabletop for me to see. Four vinyl pockets, two per page, each contained a color photograph of a different cat. “I’m digitizing these into here.” He tapped the screen of his phone.

“You must have had some reason for using emulsion film,” I said, lifting my salad container from my cooler.

“I can’t adjust the pixel count for the warm, fuy look I need,” said Anthony. “So I take an old-fashioned picture and then scan it.” A plastic-wrapped salad, with a packet of bleu cheese dressing sitting on top of the tightly-stretched plastic wrap, sat next to Anthony’s little plate of mushrooms.

“Saving your salad for later?” I asked. I shook my bottle of vinaigrette till the herbal flecks swirled in spirals from top to bottom.

“I can’t get my dressing packet open,” he said, turning a vinyl page to reveal a photo of a Maine coon cat with a very fluffy face. He continued to lift the pages of the album, settling each page carefully after its trip over the bifurcated arches. “It says ‘Tear Here’ but evidently they had trouble with the perforator.”

“I have plenty of oil and vinegar,” I said. “Would you care for some?”

“Yes, that would be nice,” he said, He carefully moved the photo album out of the way and then pulled the salad container close. I handed him the little jar. He carefully tipped the jar so that none of the herbed oil ran down the bubbled outer surface. He set the jar down near my plate, clean and dry.

I could not to take my attention from the album of cat pictures. I indicated it with my salad fork. “Are you a cat person, Anthony?” I took a bite of romaine leaf. “I’m Sheila, by the way."

“I know,” he said, and that made me a little nervous. I kind of had craziness, cat-loving, and stalking a bit conflated in my mind.

But then he said. “Wondering how I knew? The driver always greets you by name.” He poked the leaves of his salad, distributing the dressing evenly. “I am a cat person, but no cats actually live with me.” He carefully wiped his fingers on a paper napkin, then picked up the smartphone, tapped the screen and held the device so that I could view the web page on the screen. “Adopt-A-Pal Kitty Companions,” said the heading, above a row of cartoon cats: a tabby, a Siamese, a Persian, and one which was surely a jellicle cat.

"Oh, I see," I said.

Anthony finished his salad and his plaste of mushrooms. He dabbed dressing from his mustache, pushed the dishes away, and then picked up his phone again. He swiped through the smartphone photos in rapid succession. "This is the hospice page, companions for people who are, um, at the end of their lives. And here are cats good for lonely people who have lost a spouse. This next page are all very loving cats for kids with attention deficit disorder, or former prison inmates, or formerly homeless people who now have a stable place to live.”

“Do you match older animals with people in hospice?” I said. "Kittens with the children™

"I sort the matches by temperament,” said Anthony. “Human and feline."

"So you think animals have personalities?” I said.

"You don't?” he said. “What about the animals here at the zoo? Or the ones you study in school?”

“I started out with poultry,” I said. “We measured feed taken in and waste produced. Too much waste means profit loss.”

“I’m not sure chickens are the best choice for a study of the animal mind,” said Anthony. “Those little pointy faces are hard to read.” He smiled. “You’ve moved on to large animals, then?” He indicated Nutrition in Sows and Boars.

“Yes,” I said. “I work with swine. If I was twenty-five, I might look at more options. But I need to get my degree while I’m still young enough to get into a practice.” I used my fork to lilt carrot shreds from the bottom of my salad container.

Anthony shut the album of cat photos. “Would you like to come over for dinner on Thursday? I promise you won’t have to eat with a cat sitting on your head.”

I opened my scheduler, and Anthony whistled at the colored-coded rectangles.

“I’ve got so much to do that I have to stay organized,” I said.

“But you enjoy it, too,” he said. “Being organized.”

“I do,” I said. “I do enjoy it.” I colored in the Thursday evening slot and shut the schedule.

Anthony looked at his watch. “I’m supposed to go clean buckets at Manatee Coast. I'll ie: you finish your lunch in peace.” He rose, tossed his trash into the mouth of a hippo-shaped trash can, and headed for the gift shop.

“Anthony?” I called. “Aren’t you going to Manatee Coast?”

“What?” he said, stopping to look at me. “Am I turned around again?” He shaded his eyes toward the gift shop, where long-armed monkey puppets hung from a mini circus tent. "They keep changing the layout on me.”

I pointed in the right direction, and Anthony crossed to the correct walkway. He stoppea “On Thursday, do you want to ride the Zoo Bus to the Park & Ride lot, and I can give yu a lift to my place? I can show you the shelter, too, if you want.”

“Sure," I said, nodding. He smiled. I watched him pass the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cart. Then I pulled The Nutrition of Sows and Boars closer, and turned to Chapter 4.


*****


The Park & Ride parking lot was three blocks from the bus stop at the courthouse square. Anthony's car, a Volvo station wagon, had four huge tubs of cat litter in the back bay.

"Good for traction in the winter,” Anthony said as he unlocked my door and went around to the driver’s side. “My dad will come by some weekend and help me haul them in. My back's not great. The walking at the zoo is good, therapeutic and all that.” He waited for me to fasten my seat belt, then he started the engine. He made a left turn to get out of the lot, then drove down the two-lane street, past a row of older modular homes, all in light pastels.

"The shelter’s up the road,” said Anthony, when we reached his driveway. "We could leave our things here, and walk up.”

"I always walk if I get the chance,” I said. “I’d walk to the zoo if it was five miles closer to my house.”

"I’d walk with you,” said Anthony, swseetly. “I would miss you too much to keep taking the Zoo Bus." He hurried ahead. The asphalt driveway ended and we now walked on pea gravel embedded into hard-packed dirt.

Anthony slowed his pace so I could catch up. “I hope you’ll like my cooking. I’m a vegan so it's hard restaurant food I can eat.” He grinned. “I bought some organic chicken. I bet you're a carnivore.”

"High-protein, low-carb diet,” I said. “Keeps my blood sugar regulated.,"

The corrugated-steel warehouse was unmarked and a bit corroded in places. I wondered if I was foolish to go inside it with Anthony. Maybe all those cat photographs were a ploy. But no, even as we stood outside the building, I heard a faint but insistent chorus of meows from inside. These grew louder as Anthony stepped up to a gray steel door with metal grillwork over the window. He tapped buttons on a security panel.

“Cat kidnappers?” I said, looking at the panel.

Anthony tilted his head to indicate he’d heard me. The speaker over the button panel buzzed, and with a click, the metal door popped open. “I thought I better keep it secure. Thieves might think there’s machinery or tools in there.”

Inside, Anthony used his foot to push aside some boxes. “I could be using the space a little better,” he said, shifting a wobbly tower of cat chow bags out of a path between carpeted scratching posts and plastic jugs of scoopable litter.

Anthony’s makeshift shelter wasn't unpleasant, really. Cluttered, chaotic, and overfilled with cats, yes, but it had a good pine-cleaner smell, and cozy areas for the cats to congregate. Pieces of yard-sale furniture made the walled-off areas look a bit like my first apartment. I liked a funny little 1960s side table with a dark faux-wood finish on it, a lamp rising through its second tier. A fat cat with tufty ears sat on the main surface while a second feline sat on the upper ledge, tapping the big cat on the back of the head with a playful paw.

The air was filled with cat sounds, some faint and some noisy. Several American shorthairs circled my ankles, adorning my slacks with wavy tendrils of whitish hair. A tiny calico cat stood in the improvised pathway, yowling. I could see to the very back of its ridged tongue. But now my attention was drawn to an overhead network of elaborate walkways, tunnels, scenic overview and nesting cradles, where a sleek black cat was being chased by a similar one. I looked at Anthony. “Did you build all this?”

He looked proud. “My father was a contractor. See all the garage doors?”

I realized that many of the walls had raised panels and tiny windows.

“Dad and I installed most of the garage doors on this side of town,” he said. “I worked fo him every summer. We sold the business a couple years ago. He didn't need the warehouse, and when I made the nonprofit for Adopt-A-Pal, Dad donated the building to us.”

“It’s truly amazing, Anthony,” I said, spotting an aerial ziggurat which offered plush-covered stairways for streams of cats. Inside the kitty-size Babylonian monument, cats perched in oval cubbyholes. In the shadows, I saw tiers of green and yellow eyes with narrow pupil slits. There were oddities: a mismatched pair, a single eye, a pair of copper-colored eyes which drew me in. These particular eyes held a meaningful glow, like that of an indicator light signaling in red, orange, or pulsing yellow that one's attention is required. The glow in the copper eyes said. "I have seen what I need. You are what I need.”

As I looked at the cats, all contented or curious or busy, Anthony drifted next to me. I understood I, like the cats, had found a refuge.