When I first met Mike, the man who would become my stepfather, he had a foster daughter named Diane. As a teenager, she was too much for her parents to handle so Mike, who had a way with wild things, took her in. She left the farm about the time I arrived, taking Moses, her Neapolitan mastiff, with her. And some time after that, she got a second dog, a young Irish wolfhound she named Jason.
One evening, Diane showed up unexpectedly at the door of the farmhouse. She was crying and panicky. The night before, her mastiff had suddenly started bleeding from his rectum and died. She found a note that read, “We got your dog. Tonight we’re coming back for the other one.”
“They must have fed him ground glass,” said Diane. She was certain that whoever killed Moses planned to do something similar to Jason, the wolfhound puppy. She told us she had been living with a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and had left her “old man” without his blessing. Knowing a little about Dianne’s past, I wondered if there was more to the story, but clearly Diane had pissed off some badass biker and was afraid for herself as well as for Jason.
We sat around the table—my mother, Mike, Diane and I—and discussed options. One possibility was for someone to go home with Diane and stay up all night to keep watch—and to fight off the Hells Angels if they showed up.
I volunteered, even though I was only sixteen, was about five foot three, weighed at most 115 pounds, and had never been up all night. Nor, for that matter, had I ever been in a gunfight or serious fight of any kind. Plus, I had been born with a genetic defect that means I don’t take particularly well to gunshot wounds. I have hemophilia, a bleeding disorder, and I had gotten to that point in my life only by ignoring limitations. I had always insisted I could do anything, no matter what anyone else might say. When my parents told me I couldn’t have a bike without training wheels, for example, I borrowed a teenage neighbor’s six-speed and taught myself to ride even though I couldn’t reach the seat.
So while Mike, Diane, and my mother continued talking (on the surface at least, they appeared to giving the option of sending me serious consideration) I went into the master bedroom, unlocked the gun cabinet, and started arming myself. As a novice, I had no idea what kind of weapons I would need. Would I be shooting to warn, to wound, or to kill? Would the fighting be close in, or would I need a weapon with range? Would there be one biker or many? Since I had no answers, I prepared for any possibility.
I strapped on two shoulder holsters. Under the left arm, I shoved Mike’s untraceable Colt .45, and under the right a nine-millimeter Browning. I also belted a tiny .25 caliber automatic to one leg. I chose an over-under as my main gun. The top barrel fired a .22 longshot rifle round and the bottom fired a .410 shotgun shell. My hope was that I would not need anything too lethal. Still, I thought, I might require something more, just in case things got nasty. Just in case I needed to kill someone.
I was trying to decide between the Winchester Model 12 shotgun and the Weatherby big game rifle when my mother came in.
“We have decided to send Huxley instead,” she said, referring to one of Mike’s dogs, an English mastiff that weighed more than two hundred pounds. “He is trained to never take food from strangers.” She also pointed out that I had a math test the next day. “You need to study,” she said, as if this was the deciding factor.
I started unloading the weapons and stripping off the shoulder holsters. I was relieved and disappointed. If I had gone off to fight the Hells Angels, I might have gotten out of my test.
I told this story to someone once who responded, “It is a story about something that didn’t happen.” And to an extent that’s true. I didn’t end up in a gun battle. But it is also a story about something that did happen. It is one of those “what the hell were the parents thinking?” stories, but it is also a story about a sixteen-year-old thinking it was appropriate to arm for battle like that.
To understand why, I have to tell another story, one about my time in the basement.
In the summer before sixth grade, my family moved into a house with a partially finished basement. I spent a lot of time those days with swollen ankles, kind of like very bad sprains, but for me they seemed to happen spontaneously. When the pain got so bad I couldn’t sleep, I would spend my nights down there watching television. We didn’t have 24/7 television in those days, and when the last station went off the air, usually around midnight, there would be a brief image of a waiving flag and the playing of the national anthem, and then nothing but a cross-like test pattern, and a steady tone. Staring at that pattern and listening to that tone for hours on end, I would swear to god, any god, that I would believe, I would pray, I would serve, if only he—or she—would take the pain away. It never worked; I never did find religion.
Many nights, I didn’t fall asleep until sunrise. I asked myself a lot of questions during those long vigils. By this time, I had stopped asking, pointlessly, “Why me?” Instead, I played out scenarios in my head. In one, I was in a life raft with several other people, but the raft would not stay afloat with all of us in and there wasn’t enough food and water to go around. Someone would have to go overboard into the frigid sea where the sharks were circling. I asked myself if I could be the one to jump, whether I would have the strength. Yes, is the answer that came back to me over and over. Yes.
I asked other, similar questions. For example, could I jump off a cliff if it would save lives? The answer was always yes. Meanwhile, my family slept soundly upstairs because I had taken it on myself to jump into the basement, where sharks shredded my ankles and I refused to cry out because I might wake them, adding to their burden.
Amid all these questions about sharks and cliffs, there was one question I never asked: Are these the kinds of questions a ten-year-old should be dealing with? But they were exactly the questions a boy might ask if he was ashamed and needed to justify being here.
You see, I didn’t feel I deserved to stay in the life boat, not unless there was room for everyone else. After all, I was defective. I had been born broken. How could I supplant someone who had a full life to look forward to, someone whole and normal? The best possible resolution to my situation, it seemed, would be to die a noble death. I didn’t think about suicide, that would have seemed cowardly and pointless, but I did think about making the ultimate sacrifice. It would offer redemption, wash away my shame, validate my existence.
These scenarios, these questions, were my own kind of test pattern, my own calibration.
That night when Dianne came over to tell us Moses was dead and asked for our help, I had been briefly offered the possibility of actually living out the kind of scenario I obsessed over all those nights in the basement—the possibility of dying in a hail of bullets to protect a woman and her puppy.
.
Category Archives: Tiger Farm
Lolita the Chimp
Note: I first presented this piece at Fireside Storytelling in San Francisco on Jan. 9, 2013. The theme was “Epic” and this story is about what felt like the longest car ride of my life. It has gone through a significant revision since the first telling.
When I was in junior high, my mother and father split and my mother started seeing her graduate adviser a man named Mike. By senior high, I was living on Mike’s farm. About a year before I arrived, Mike went down to Florida and came back with a tiger. Next trip, he came back with a jaguar, and after that he just kept going until he had a private zoo populated mostly by big cats.
Maintaining his menagerie required frequent trips to buy, sell, trade, and loan animals, and I often went along. One of his regular stops was Cooke’s Buffalo Ranch in Concord, North Carolina. Cooke’s was a Western store. Old Man Cooke had a herd of bison in his pasture, and for a few bucks you could ride past them on a restored stagecoach. He also has a small roadside zoo.
On one visit we discovered the zoo had a new attraction—a chimpanzee named Lolita. (I don’t really want to think too hard about why someone would name a chimp Lolita.)
I thought I knew what chimps looked like, but what I had seen were a few movies and television shows. I didn’t realize that the trained chimpanzees were cuddly little juveniles.
Lolita, on the other hand was a young adult. She had black face and a mouth full of very large teeth that she displayed by curling back her lips. When she stood fully erect, she was taller than me. What struck me most was the power of her forearms, which seemed twice the length of mine, with thick, ropy cords of muscle. I knew that if I got too close, she could grab me, dismember me, and pull my body parts through the bars of her cage.
Lolita’s cage was a former drunk tank. The county had recently built a new jail, and Cooke had purchased the old drunk tank. It was a freestanding iron cell—an almost cube six feet wide on the sides but slightly taller, perhaps eight feet, in height. A tow chain wrapped around her neck and held in place with a padlock had chaffed away some of the hair.
It seemed a horrible way to live one’s life, but part of me was thankful for the bars, and maybe even for the chain. But then Old Man Cooke did something strange. He walked closer to the cage and stuck out his foot. Lolita reached through and gently, delicately untied his shoelaces. Then she tied them back again. Untie, tie, untie, tie, untie, tie. Cooke told us she would do this over and over again as long as you kept your foot next to her cage. I looked at the cage, I looked at the chain, I looked into her dark brown eyes. Seeing no hostility and a great deal of sadness, what else could I do? I offered her my sneaker.
A few weeks later, Mike informed us he had purchased Lolita. Tim, one of the regular weekend volunteers, had agreed to help move Lolita. Mike also made it clear that he was counting on my assistance, though I doubted there was much I could offer.
Tim arrived that day on his Harley Hog. When we climbed into the cab of the F350, Tim brought his motorcycle helmet with him. “Protection,” he said, pounding on it smugly.
At Cooke’s, we tied the end of Lolita’s chain to a post while Mike and Tim and some of Cooke’s workers loaded the tank into the bed of the truck. Mike decided it was too cool to transport Lolita inside her cage and his solution was to put her in the cab with us. It was a four door cab with two bench seats. He passed the free end of the chain through the split rear window and anchored it to the side of the bed. The chain kept Lolita from climbing into the front seat. It did nothing, however, to keep her from reaching across the seat and, if she chose, snapping me in half.
For the first part of the drive, Lolita occupied herself with dismantling the truck. She pulled out the dome light, unscrewed the door locks, and managed to yank loose one of the window cranks. Because her fidgeting made him nervous, Tim put on his helmet—and as soon as he did, Wham, Wham, Wham. Lolita repeatedly and forcefully whacked the back of Tim’s head. He sat there for the better part of an hour, absorbing blow after blow. The whole time, I tried to make myself invisible. Tim was a body builder. He was over six feet tall and probably weighed about 250 pounds—and he had a helmet. At that time, I probably weighed about 115 pounds and I had not yet reached my full stature of five foot six. I was a little guy with a skinny neck and no helmet. And I have hemophilia, a bleeding disorder. I quickly recalled all the stories I had ever heard about hemophiliacs dying from cranial hemorrhaging. If Lolita starts flailing on my head, I thought, surely I am a dead man.
Somehow, though, we survived. Mike and Tim unloaded the drunk tank in the middle of the yard and led Lolita into it. “Man,” said Tim as he was leaving, “I’m sure glad I brought my helmet.”
Later, we learned more about Lolita’s history. It seemed a man had trained a young chimpanzee to ride on the back of his motorcycle. He wrecked the bike and killed the chimp, so he bought Lolita as a replacement. Lolita was a too old to train and she hated riding on the motorcycle. Absolutely hated it. The man gave up and sold her to Cooke. Lolita wasn’t hitting Tim as much as she was hitting his helmet. If he hadn’t put it on, she would have left him alone. And I was never at risk.
Mike had no other place to keep Lolita, so he left her in the drunk tank. From time to time, he would take her out so she could exercise and he could clean her cage. He would lead her from the tank by the chain and tie her to one of the trees in the yard. One day, when he decided to put her back in her cage, she wasn’t ready to go. Imagine!
Mike insisted by yanking the chain, and she responded by biting him on the hand, practically severing his thumb. Mike didn’t miss a beat. With his intact hand, he picked up a beef bone the dogs had left in the yard and slammed it down on her head. I half expected to see her topple over, but instead she staggered momentarily and then raced contritely back into the tank. Mike shut the door, ran inside to grab a towel to wrap his hand in, and got my mom to drive him to the hospital.
When I think back on Lolita’s time with us, I am most struck by how much I feared her. It is what most people would expect, I think. But fear wasn’t really in my vocabulary. As a child with hemophilia, someone who could easily die by falling off a bicycle or mistiming a leap from the diving board. I never would have gone anywhere or done anything if I had grown up in fear. At the farm, it wasn’t good to show fear, especially when I was going into a tiger’s cage on crutches or waking to find a jaguar at the foot of my bed. It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid, but I refused to acknowledge my fear, even to myself.
I think I feared Lolita because if I had been her, I would have attacked, and that’s why it always felt an attack was imminent. After all, her previous owner terrorized her. Cooke put her in chains and jailed her. To his credit, Mike eventually sold Lolita to a zoo, and I wondered if that was his plan all along, to get her away from Cooke and into a bigger place where she had her own kind for company. But I don’t know that for sure, and she couldn’t have known it either.
Tim triggered her PTSD when he put on his helmet. Mike led her around by a chain, and slammed a bone down on her skull when she fought back. And me? Could I claim innocence because I was just along for the ride?
Fear is a complex emotion. Sometimes it is simply about preservation, but I think it can also be a secondary emotion. Like anger, it can mask something deeper. Perhaps in my case, that something was guilt.
I don’t think I feared Lolita more because she was any deadlier than the other animals I worked with, or because she was at heart a wild and uncontrollable beast. I think I feared her because she was so damn human..
When I was in junior high, my mother and father split and my mother started seeing her graduate adviser a man named Mike. By senior high, I was living on Mike’s farm. About a year before I arrived, Mike went down to Florida and came back with a tiger. Next trip, he came back with a jaguar, and after that he just kept going until he had a private zoo populated mostly by big cats.
Maintaining his menagerie required frequent trips to buy, sell, trade, and loan animals, and I often went along. One of his regular stops was Cooke’s Buffalo Ranch in Concord, North Carolina. Cooke’s was a Western store. Old Man Cooke had a herd of bison in his pasture, and for a few bucks you could ride past them on a restored stagecoach. He also has a small roadside zoo.
On one visit we discovered the zoo had a new attraction—a chimpanzee named Lolita. (I don’t really want to think too hard about why someone would name a chimp Lolita.)
I thought I knew what chimps looked like, but what I had seen were a few movies and television shows. I didn’t realize that the trained chimpanzees were cuddly little juveniles.
Lolita, on the other hand was a young adult. She had black face and a mouth full of very large teeth that she displayed by curling back her lips. When she stood fully erect, she was taller than me. What struck me most was the power of her forearms, which seemed twice the length of mine, with thick, ropy cords of muscle. I knew that if I got too close, she could grab me, dismember me, and pull my body parts through the bars of her cage.
Lolita’s cage was a former drunk tank. The county had recently built a new jail, and Cooke had purchased the old drunk tank. It was a freestanding iron cell—an almost cube six feet wide on the sides but slightly taller, perhaps eight feet, in height. A tow chain wrapped around her neck and held in place with a padlock had chaffed away some of the hair.
It seemed a horrible way to live one’s life, but part of me was thankful for the bars, and maybe even for the chain. But then Old Man Cooke did something strange. He walked closer to the cage and stuck out his foot. Lolita reached through and gently, delicately untied his shoelaces. Then she tied them back again. Untie, tie, untie, tie, untie, tie. Cooke told us she would do this over and over again as long as you kept your foot next to her cage. I looked at the cage, I looked at the chain, I looked into her dark brown eyes. Seeing no hostility and a great deal of sadness, what else could I do? I offered her my sneaker.
A few weeks later, Mike informed us he had purchased Lolita. Tim, one of the regular weekend volunteers, had agreed to help move Lolita. Mike also made it clear that he was counting on my assistance, though I doubted there was much I could offer.
Tim arrived that day on his Harley Hog. When we climbed into the cab of the F350, Tim brought his motorcycle helmet with him. “Protection,” he said, pounding on it smugly.
At Cooke’s, we tied the end of Lolita’s chain to a post while Mike and Tim and some of Cooke’s workers loaded the tank into the bed of the truck. Mike decided it was too cool to transport Lolita inside her cage and his solution was to put her in the cab with us. It was a four door cab with two bench seats. He passed the free end of the chain through the split rear window and anchored it to the side of the bed. The chain kept Lolita from climbing into the front seat. It did nothing, however, to keep her from reaching across the seat and, if she chose, snapping me in half.
For the first part of the drive, Lolita occupied herself with dismantling the truck. She pulled out the dome light, unscrewed the door locks, and managed to yank loose one of the window cranks. Because her fidgeting made him nervous, Tim put on his helmet—and as soon as he did, Wham, Wham, Wham. Lolita repeatedly and forcefully whacked the back of Tim’s head. He sat there for the better part of an hour, absorbing blow after blow. The whole time, I tried to make myself invisible. Tim was a body builder. He was over six feet tall and probably weighed about 250 pounds—and he had a helmet. At that time, I probably weighed about 115 pounds and I had not yet reached my full stature of five foot six. I was a little guy with a skinny neck and no helmet. And I have hemophilia, a bleeding disorder. I quickly recalled all the stories I had ever heard about hemophiliacs dying from cranial hemorrhaging. If Lolita starts flailing on my head, I thought, surely I am a dead man.
Somehow, though, we survived. Mike and Tim unloaded the drunk tank in the middle of the yard and led Lolita into it. “Man,” said Tim as he was leaving, “I’m sure glad I brought my helmet.”
Later, we learned more about Lolita’s history. It seemed a man had trained a young chimpanzee to ride on the back of his motorcycle. He wrecked the bike and killed the chimp, so he bought Lolita as a replacement. Lolita was a too old to train and she hated riding on the motorcycle. Absolutely hated it. The man gave up and sold her to Cooke. Lolita wasn’t hitting Tim as much as she was hitting his helmet. If he hadn’t put it on, she would have left him alone. And I was never at risk.
Mike had no other place to keep Lolita, so he left her in the drunk tank. From time to time, he would take her out so she could exercise and he could clean her cage. He would lead her from the tank by the chain and tie her to one of the trees in the yard. One day, when he decided to put her back in her cage, she wasn’t ready to go. Imagine!
Mike insisted by yanking the chain, and she responded by biting him on the hand, practically severing his thumb. Mike didn’t miss a beat. With his intact hand, he picked up a beef bone the dogs had left in the yard and slammed it down on her head. I half expected to see her topple over, but instead she staggered momentarily and then raced contritely back into the tank. Mike shut the door, ran inside to grab a towel to wrap his hand in, and got my mom to drive him to the hospital.
When I think back on Lolita’s time with us, I am most struck by how much I feared her. It is what most people would expect, I think. But fear wasn’t really in my vocabulary. As a child with hemophilia, someone who could easily die by falling off a bicycle or mistiming a leap from the diving board. I never would have gone anywhere or done anything if I had grown up in fear. At the farm, it wasn’t good to show fear, especially when I was going into a tiger’s cage on crutches or waking to find a jaguar at the foot of my bed. It wasn’t that I wasn’t afraid, but I refused to acknowledge my fear, even to myself.
I think I feared Lolita because if I had been her, I would have attacked, and that’s why it always felt an attack was imminent. After all, her previous owner terrorized her. Cooke put her in chains and jailed her. To his credit, Mike eventually sold Lolita to a zoo, and I wondered if that was his plan all along, to get her away from Cooke and into a bigger place where she had her own kind for company. But I don’t know that for sure, and she couldn’t have known it either.
Tim triggered her PTSD when he put on his helmet. Mike led her around by a chain, and slammed a bone down on her skull when she fought back. And me? Could I claim innocence because I was just along for the ride?
Fear is a complex emotion. Sometimes it is simply about preservation, but I think it can also be a secondary emotion. Like anger, it can mask something deeper. Perhaps in my case, that something was guilt.
I don’t think I feared Lolita more because she was any deadlier than the other animals I worked with, or because she was at heart a wild and uncontrollable beast. I think I feared her because she was so damn human..