The Petting Zoo Read online

The Petting Zoo

 

  By Jon Sindell

  In this story, first published in Many Mountains Moving, the eleven–year–old son of newly–separated parents spends the day with his folks.

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  Acknowledgement and Thanks

  The excellent cover photograph was taken by Tonny Watanebe:

  https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=14867&picture=shegoat

  The Petting Zoo

 

 

  It’s weird when you’re eleven and run into your teacher at Walgreen’s or Target. It’s even weirder when you walk into your dad’s place and find her in the bathroom in your dad’s old robe, the way I did last week. “Oops, Sorry ” I pulled the door shut. Why? Don’t know. She wasn’t naked, she was in Dad’s robe. Brushing her teeth. I knew those teeth well. She had a great smile, and she smiled a lot. I had a crush on her, frankly. We all did.

  She opened the door. “Hi, Kenny.” Her mouth was foamy. I could tell she brushed well. She must have meant what she said on Tooth Day. Good. I hate teachers who tell you one thing, then do another. She looked embarrassed, standing there sucking the toothpaste back into her mouth and waiting for me to say “hi.” I couldn’t. “Hey, Kenny.” I got dizzy. “I forgot something in my room,” I said, not knowing whether to call her “Miss Landis.” I forgot where my room was. Remembered. Ran in there.

  Dad knocked. “Hey, sport.” Sport. Ever since he’d moved out last summer, Dad had been trying nicknames on me like shirts. Hey sport. Hey dude. Hey trooper. Hey droogie. Like my regular name wasn’t good enough anymore. Like our regular life wasn’t. “Hey sport. Wassup?”

  Wassup. I gagged. Wassup. “Nothin’.”

  “Hmm.” Dad sat down next to me on the bed. I grabbed my phaser and started blasting droids. Zip-Zip Zip-Zip Zip-Zip Zotz-z-z-z Dad hated toy guns, but decided to ignore it. He knew I was freaked. “Hey, ace, remember I told you I’m friends with Miss Landis?” Uh, yeah, guess so, sure. “Well, guess what? She did a sleepover last night.”

  Oh, she did a sleepover last night “Since when do grown-ups do sleepovers ” Jerk.

  Dad leaned away and put up his hands. “Put that gun down, droogie.” You’d have thought it was real.

  “What the hell’s a droogie, Dad?”

  “Aw, don’t swear now, ace.” Dad had that kind sort of face, with laugh lines around his eyes. The laugh lines were white but the rest of the face was reddish from being in the sun so much. “I didn’t expect you to get so upset, pal.”

  “Who’s upset ”

  “Aw, come on now, kiddo.” Dad stared at his fingernails. There was black dirt under them. His hands always had the great smokey smell of the planting mix he used–organic mushroom, the best. Miss Landis knocked. The door was open but she knocked anyway. She was dressed now. Faded jeans and a flowery blouse. Hardly any make-up. She looked great. And I mean, great. She looked great in school, too, but that was a different kind of great, more official. Today she looked more natural. Softer. “I think I’d better go now,” she told Dad. He got up and stood facing her. They stood staring at each other for a long time as if there was a glass partition between them like the visiting room of a prison. Then they started leaning towards each other like stacks of bricks beginning to fall. “Goodbye ” I said. “Adios Sayonara ” Dad took her hand and half shook it, half held it, like he couldn’t quite decide what to do with it. They were looking at each other, but I could tell their radar was on me. “I’ll call you,” he told her. “Bye, Kenny,” Miss Landis said. I looked away and blasted some droids. Then when she turned I got up and watched her walk out. I liked her still, and she looked nice walking. But I wasn’t letting Dad off that easy. “I wanna talk to my mom ” I called her “my mom” because she was my mom–my mom, mine, not his, just mine. She was still in the car heading home. I knew she missed me, she said she missed me already when she dropped me off. And she had her cell phone and could still turn around.

  “Come on now, sport, let’s talk this over.” Dad looked worried. Maybe he thought he’d get in trouble with Mom’s lawyer.

  “Is Miss Landis coming back?”

  “We’ll talk about that, ace.” That meant yeah, though not right away. “It must be weird having a teacher in the house, huh, pal?”

  “Duh, maybe.” I shrugged Dad’s hand off my shoulder and looked around my crummy room. Half the size of my room at home, and the window was cracked. I missed my dog. He lived with Mom. Lived with me, I mean–“You do still live with Dad, Kenny, and you live with me–just not at once.” So, yeah, I still lived with my dog. 71% of the time.

  “I know how you feel, sport.”

  Yeah, yeah. “What’s for lunch?”

  “Didn’t you just have breakfast, ace?”

  What the–what the hell did that mean? I’ll tell you what it meant, it meant he was worried about my weight. He was always worried about other people’s weight, like Mom’s weight even though she’s not fat; definitely not. Man, he could be stubborn. No matter how many times you told him about her fat glands, he’d still just smile like he didn’t believe you. Finally one time he said, “Frankly, son, it’s her fork,” and I decided to just stop wasting my breath. “Duh, yeah I had breakfast, I wouldn’t be asking about lunch if I hadn’t.”

  Dad never got too upset with me. With us it was party time all the time. Party party party party. “We’ll make something good.” I knew he would, he was a great cook. Grilled cheese, fish sticks, hot dogs–you name it. “Nothing’s too good for my partner,” he’d say. “Here,” he said, “punch me in the gut.” He always talked about his hard gut, how he earned his muscles honestly, from hard work. The hard work was digging. He was a landscape architect, so he dug all the time. The plates on his beat-up pickup even said “I DIG.” He always told me to punch him in the gut, and I always did, but I always held back. I didn’t wanna kill the man I held back this time, too... not. “Oomph,” Dad said like the steam press at the cleaners. Ooo, I got him. He threw me down on the bed and got me in a headlock. I pounded his gut like a rat-a-tat-tat.

  Mom and Dad had a friendly divorce. Mom’s scary lawyer made sure of that, the one she bragged to her friends about before the bills got too obscene. She always told me not to listen when she talked about the divorce, but she always talked about it right in front of me, so what was I supposed to do? Besides, it was interesting. One time Mom was on the phone with her lawyer, and she put her finger to her lip and said, “No, I don’t think he’s hiding any money,” and “Yes, I know he’s a gardener”–look, let’s get something straight right here, he’s a landscape architect, I don’t know why she can’t ever get that right–and then I started thinking, jeez, is Dad hiding money in all those holes he’s always digging? Then I thought, no, that would really be stupid, what if he goes to dig it up and his customers lie and say it’s theirs? Then Mom said, “Yes, I know I receive cash payments too, but I assure you my hands are clean,” so she wasn’t digging at all. Mom’s lawyer always called Dad, and he had to waste money he needed to pay child support to get caller i.d. so he wouldn’t waste our quality time talking to her. And he’d trip over his rakes and shovels rushing to turn down the answering machine. “No need to expose you to this crap.” He didn’t have to worry, I’d seen Runaway Jury and other lawyer flicks. Lawyers didn’t scare me.

  Mondays were the weirdest. I’d have fun with Dad all week
end, then Mom would pick me up from school, and whoosh–little league, homework, bedtime–stress. “Someone has to be the grown-up,” Mom would say. I was eleven, that was kind of a duh. I felt rotten this Monday. I felt rotten most Mondays. “Rainy days and Mondays always get you down,” she sang (some old song). My stomach hurt big time. “No wonder,” she said, “with that gunk Dad feeds you.”

  We ate good at Mom’s, but not the same kind of good as at Dad’s. Mom’s food was like magazine food, with bright colors and major food groups. At Dad’s the food was all pale. I’d pick at Mom’s food, and she’d stare at me like I was dying. Then I’d start packing it away, and she’d look at me like I was American Idol.

  “Dad’s got a new friend,” I said for no good reason except I was bored.

  “Oh?” Mom had interesting eyebrows. She spent hours pulling hairs out of them to make them thin. She raised one till it looked like a question mark.

  “Yeah. Miss Landis.”

  “Oh, really?” The eyebrow climbed even higher. Dad told her she couldn’t do that if she bought the Botox he thought was a ripoff, so I guess she never did.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I was really packing it away now. No one believes me when I say I like veggies, but Mom makes all that stuff taste good, plus she