Angered, the female chattered at him. When the trapeze swung to the top
of its arc she leaped and caught the cage bars, then dropped down them
until she was only a few feet above the capering man. She screeched
at him, pounding one hand against a bar, and the spectators laughed.
On the opposite side of the cage the male chimp dropped to the floor
and scuttled toward her. Stopping beneath her, he lifted his arms and
growled low in his throat. She turned, snarling, and began to climb
bars. With a last wild screech at the shouting, dancing man outside
the cage she jumped, just as the male's fingers brushed her foot. Far
over his head she went, then thumped to the floor. He dropped, and ran
after her. She was climbing toward the trapeze again when he caught
her. He sidled in, cuffing at her, then they grappled. A scream split
the air as his teeth sank into her shoulder. Added now to the smells of
popcorn, sweat and cotton candy was the smell of blood.
There was quiet in the cage and out of it as the female backed away
from the hunched male. Unmolested, she climbed the bars slowly and
swung to the trapeze, where she sat with one hand held to her bleeding
shoulder. On the floor of the cage the male lifted both arms to her.
The spectators breathed again. "Did you get it?" said Al. "Did you?
What a shot! Terrific, but terrific!"
"I got it, Al, I got it!" his wife said, eyes shining.
Mr. Kemper grinned at Al and shook his head admiringly. "Say, that was
quite a performance." Still breathing hard, Al shoved his hair out of
his eyes and returned the grin.
"Oh, Al's great," his wife said. "You ought to see him sometime at a
party."
Mr. Kemper said, "He certainly does have talent."
"Ah, it's nothing," Al said. "Nothing to it, fella. You sure you got
those shots, Baby?"
Moving closer, Mr. Kemper lowered his voice. "Listen, would you like to
get some really terrific shots? Ones you'd remember all your life?"
Al looked at him. "Yeah. Shots of what?"
"Be at the lion cage at three o'clock. You'll never have a chance like
this again, believe me."
"Sure, sure, but shots of what, friend?"
So Mr. Kemper bent his head and whispered to him, and as he did he saw
the gleam start deep in Al's eyes and swell to the pale surfaces. But
Al's eyes didn't gleam the way his wife's did. And after a while Mr.
Kemper left them, and the cage that was silent except for the slow
creaking of the trapeze.
After looking at his watch Mr. Kemper walked faster. The sun dropped in
the sticky sky and there was only a faint wind. And for the next hour
or so Mr. Kemper was here, there and everywhere. If there was a bunch
of little boys shouting at the rhinoceros, then Mr. Kemper was there,
smiling and nodding. When a party of college students stood making
dirty jokes about the baboons, there too was Mr. Kemper, eventually
saying something that made everyone stare at him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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