Part 11 (1/2)

Harry lost his cool. 'I don't give a d.a.m.n about your stupid nuts.'

'Oh, you should. They are a native product and...'

Harry took his posters and left. Alfonso watched him go and handed me the polished apple he had been holding.

'I think he needs more fibre,' he said.

I nodded. It was a fruit-and-vegetable kind of approach. 'He's mad all the time now.'

Alfonso shook his head. 'It's a shame. He used to be such a nice kid but he had a tough time.' It was hard to imagine Harry having a tough time. 'Growing up at the zoo and his mom not married. I think it was okay till Billie died. He thought he should have saved her. After that there was Miss Strange and all. He sure did get teased at school. Then he went away to war and he came back so tough. Pearl was good but when she went there was nothing left to soften the edges. It's a shame.'

I wanted to ask about Harry and Billie but someone came in for potatoes and Alfonso swept off on a short root-vegetable lecture. I got the pecans and went home. When I got back Mother was waiting. I used to dream about her waiting for me, standing there with milk and cookies and a solicitous word about my day, but this was the wrong day. I didn't want to see her when I was sweaty. When I was thinking about Harry being teased. When I had been digging and pulling and generally doing things which were probably bad for your nails. I knew she wouldn't approve and it was terribly important to me just then not to hear that. She didn't seem to notice much about me at all. I gave her the pecans.

'Dorothy, I've got you something. A present, you know, you said... a few things, et cetera.' She spoke with the quietness of Father which we all used in the house.

She produced a box. The box I had longed for, from the Sears, Roebuck Company. It was my shorts and matching T-s.h.i.+rts. I went as red as if I had been supplied with something risque from an erotica collection. The clothing mattered terribly and yet I couldn't tell her. There was a moment when we might have actually said something to each other but that time I spoiled it. I took the box without saying a word, went into my room and shut the door. I wanted to put the clothes on privately. They mattered too much for an audience.

The next morning I looked fabulous. No Joan of Arc in newly polished armour could have been more confident of her appearance. In knee-length royal blue shorts and matching T-s.h.i.+rt, I was fit for battle. I led my herd at the zoo round to the old track. I was unstoppable.

'If we can break up the old track, we can dig it in and make the enclosure. It's very strong.'

Miss Strange eyed me and nodded. It was a great idea. Cosmos clapped her hands.

'Ganesh has answered our call.'

'Ganesh?' inquired Sweetheart.

'Don't start her off,' sighed Miss Strange, but Cosmos had moved on.

'He's the Hindu G.o.d with the head of an elephant - the remover of all obstacles and bringer of good fortune. He is on our side. We can achieve all.'

'Right ... yes ... so,' said Miss Strange. 'Just one thing. How much do you think each piece of track weighs?'

We all looked at the slumbering lengths.

'A lot,' I said as a ballpark figure.

Miss Strange nodded at Cosmos. 'So, do you think you could get your Ganesh to come up with something to get the track from here to the field?'

Miss Strange went to finish clearing the old wood and get the bonfire started. Cosmos and I were to try and see if any of the track could be s.h.i.+fted from the old sleepers.

I think Miss Strange was just trying to keep me out of the way. Helen drifted off to the b.u.t.terfly house. Sweetheart and Perry kept the drinks coming. I was glad of a little time with Cosmos. After all the discussion, I had spent the night trying to have a vision from Jesus and nothing had happened. I thought maybe Buddha was a good second option.

'So, Cosmos, you wors.h.i.+p this Buddha?'

'Oh no, Buddha is not a G.o.d. He's a Great Teacher whose doctrines and example each individual may follow on the road to enlightenment. You know, trying to ascend to higher levels of being. He was a real guy - Siddhartha Gautama. ”Buddha” is just a t.i.tle. It means awakened or enlightened one. He was a prince. Son of the rulers of the kingdom of the Sakyas. When he was sixteen, he married his cousin, Princess Yasodhara. They lived in this fabulous luxury palace. Then when he was twenty-nine he realized that all human life is suffering. That, you know everyone has to die. So he gave up the palace, left his wife and infant son and went looking for the truth.'

'He left his wife and son?'

'He wanted to find the four n.o.ble truths.'

'I don't think he should have left his kid.'

'That's not like, the point, Sugar.'

But I thought it was typical. Leave the princess at home to do all the work. I went off Buddha in an instant. Why couldn't his wife have gone to find the four n.o.ble truths? At least they could have made it a family trip. I didn't think Buddha would be my friend either but I did think of Gabriel over at the Mobil station. He was my friend. He had a religious kind of name and he had a tow-truck. At lunch I biked over to the garage to see if he would help. I was beginning to judge the businesses in town by whether they had a Close the Zoo poster or not. There were a lot of them around but not at the gas station. I figured it would be okay.

'Hey, Gabriel,' I called casually, popping a wheelie on my bike in the forecourt.

'Yo, Professor.' Gabriel thought I was real smart ever since I had read his draft letter. I forget how I asked him. I don't think it was too subtle. Something along the lines of 'You wanna come help with an elephant? You'd need a truck.'

He'd shrugged and mumbled something which sounded like 'Okay.'

You couldn't tell with Gabriel how much had gone in. I wasn't sure he would turn up so I didn't say anything to the others.

We were all just helping to finish piling up the bonfire when Gabriel arrived in the tow-truck. It was a huge white machine with Jacobson's Garage painted on the side. It had ridiculously ma.s.sive tires and a crane at the back. Off the school bus and behind the wheel of his ma.s.sive machine mover, Gabriel looked impressive, even to me. Helen was reading quietly to us when he arrived and I don't think she really noticed him at first.

”'Once a bull is mature it will enter a state of musth once a year. The word is Urdu for 'intoxicated'. During musth, a young bull is drunk with only one thought - to pick fights and seek females in estrous. It can be a dangerous time. A fully mature bull has the strength of around seventy men”'

Gabriel slipped from his truck and grabbed one of the last posts from Miss Strange. He tossed it on the top of the fire with barely a muscle ripple. Unaware, Helen ploughed on.

”'The bull advertises his condition with a striding walk showing off his tremendous size, strength and confidence.”'

Gabriel grinned at all of us and moved to his truck. He walked led entirely by his hips. A loose open walk which advertised all that he had to offer. Sweat ran down his forehead and his arms as he walked. He was just eighteen but a strong scent of male and grease pervaded the air. If the Army could see him now they would definitely have to rethink that 4F status.

”'The bull's temporal glands, above and behind his eyes, swell and release a thick fluid which flows down the side of his head. Everything about him tells you that the bull is a swaggering male on heat. One bull can produce as much as a litre of e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e. A single jet of elephant sperm from the four-foot-long p.e.n.i.s can provide enough protein to feed a forty-foot-high anthill for a year.”'

For Helen it was straightforward scientific fact, but everyone was entirely silent as she looked up. Gabriel leaned against the Jacobson's logo on his truck, muscles bulging against muscles. Muscles where there shouldn't ought to be muscles. Muscles on top of muscles. He wore breathtakingly tight jeans, a white T-s.h.i.+rt and a large pair of work boots. He smiled and he sweated. No doubt we were a strange sight. Five females with their mouths wide open and not speaking. Instinctively I understood a great deal at that moment. These were the moist moments in life which Mother always guarded against. Certainly I knew that it was a bad time for Harry to show up.

The election was in full swing. You couldn't drive through town without a loudspeaker on someone's car yelling, 'Stick with Schlick' or 'Say h.e.l.lo to your own Joe'. The whole of Sa.s.saspaneck had become addicted to Styrofoam boaters. The men wore them at rakish angles proclaiming their Democratic or Republican fervour. The women were less comfortable with their hats and perched them on top of carefully constructed coiffures. It made them look less confident about the whole thing. As if the hat and the political affiliation had landed when they weren't looking. Harry swept into the zoo sitting on the back of a convertible Caddy. Blue balloons trailed from every piece of chrome. He stood up as the car came to a halt. Football hero Harry liked to be the centre of female attention. Arriving when everyone's focus was entirely on young Gabriel probably didn't help how it went.

'Thank you, thank you. h.e.l.lo, people.'

The people said nothing. Harry leaped down, leaving his entourage ready to move out at a moment's notice. I didn't know what he was going to do. The general form was to shake a lot of hands and then kiss babies. I didn't think anyone would really want to shake hands. Perry was out of the question and Gabriel probably didn't have the brain to have an opinion. Harry was smiling but he seemed rather nervous. He looked beyond us to the bonfire.

'Burning the place down, eh? Great! Save us a lot of trouble.'

Miss Strange looked at him. 'Where are your manners, Harry? Good afternoon.

He almost blushed. 'Sure, right, good afternoon. Uh, Miss Strange, have you seen the plans for the new football stadium? Going to look mighty fine.'

Miss Strange looked straight at him. 'Forget it, Harry. You are not building anything here.'

Harry smiled and tutted at the same time. 'It's over but you won't let go, will you? I am talking about building a future for the young people of this town and all you want to do is cling on to the past. Hanging on till some b.a.s.t.a.r.d animal gets you too.'

Little Perry grabbed at Harry's pants and pulled. 'Balloon,' he said. Harry ignored him. He was in full speech mode and would not be swayed.