Despite seven years of employment at the Queer Zoo, Sam’s understanding of the culture remains scattered. The Flamingo exhibit is wildly popular among gay men, but why, exactly, is this? What’s the history there? Also he wonders about the enthusiasm with which their lesbian visitors respond to the big cats, and to the Manatees.
Staff meetings are thick with acronyms and eyebrow maneuvers. Sam does his best to participate in the banter, although he’s only just learned to say certain words without stuttering. He listens for rumors about the existence of other straight employees. There’s no actual policy at the Queer Zoo against employing people like him: that would be illegal. His girlfriend Teri says he underestimates his co-workers, that they’re more open-minded than he gives them credit for. But it would be absurd, after all this time, to admit he isn’t gay. He likes these people. He likes being a member of their club.
Sam cleans cages. Monkeys, birds, elephants. No, not cages: enclosures. At the Queer Zoo, the word “cage” is forbidden.
The Queer Zoo is home to the world’s largest collection of homosexual, bisexual and transgender animals. Our 200-acre compound includes an African savanna, habitat to 14 species of antelope, five giraffes and world-famous lesbian elephants Kikora and Irene, who in 2007 became famous for co-parenting Irene’s baby after she was forcibly inseminated by zookeepers in San Diego. We are best known for our primates, which number more than 75 and include the largest collection in North America of Bonobo chimpanzees.
It’s six in the morning, summer work hours. Sam is cleaning the chimp habitat. Soon visitors will line up outside waiting for the gate to open: moms from town anxious for an opportunity to let their kids run around madly before the temperature hits triple digits at ten thirty. Queer or not, to the locals it’s still just a zoo.
Bixby approaches the young male who arrived from the Bronx three weeks ago and peers into his eyes. Bonobo chimps are ninety eight percent bisexual. Lately Sam has been keeping an eye on Bixby. Today she screams in protest at the sexual advances of Louise, her half-cousin. Technically these animals aren’t supposed to have names. When zoos don’t name their animals, kids on school field trips go home and inform their parents they observed a Brazilian Macaw. If the bird has a name, they say they met a big parrot called Sparky.
Louise has been pursuing Bixby ever since she reached adolescence. Pursuit is one of those things, Sam believes, that keeps your average person distracted from the desperation of their lives. He used to be a big fan of pursuit, of reaching. He figures that ridding yourself of a desire for more simply requires an adjustment of your hopes. He has come to accept that all he wants is to work on his screenplay, clean cages and live with Teri. Sam keeps this information to himself: if Teri had a full understanding of the degree to which he is already happy with his life, with his comfort in the smallness of it, well…she doesn’t need more fuel for her exasperation.
The primate zookeeper has so far failed to notice Bixby’s pursuit of Mr. Bronx, or, for that matter, her historic disinterest in sexual activity with the other females. Sam wishes he could warn Bixby to watch her back.
