Menagerie of Fools

In just a few years, the two boys would speak to each other for the last time, even though as grown men they would always live no more than five minutes away from each other.

It seems some memories are best left untested.

Old man Rogers could see from his bedroom window that the goddamn kids were messing with his apple trees again but he was far too weak these days to do anything about it but complain. Now his cherry trees and plum tree? Even his blueberry bushes? If they would have thought to look for them, the boys would have found strawberries too.

“Fruit field is awesome”, yelled Winslow, as he whipped a cherry at Jackson’s head while a half-eaten plum hung from his mouth.

“I wonder who actually owns this place?” mused Jackson as he threw an apple that hit Winslow square in the chest.

“Us!”, said Winslow. “It belongs to us!”

“We should charge admission and sell tickets”.

“We could live here and never run out of anything to eat”.

Winslow finished his plum and pulled another beautiful apple off of one of the trees. He took a big bite and spit the seeds out. He knelt down to dodge another apple being thrown from Jackson and found an especially rotten apple which he tossed at his friend, missing him by a mile.

These were the days of wild abandon, long and filled with adventure. When night came the only decision to be made was at whose house they would have a sleepover and what kind of trouble they would get into. They were both ten years old, separated only by a month and were the best of friends.

“If we sold tickets, we’d have to charge a lot. I’d just as soon keep fruit field our secret.”

“I bet you wouldn’t mind if Candy was here right now. You’d share your fruit with her.”

“It’s true. I love her so much. I just want to kiss her and...hold her...and I don’t know what else.”

Shortly after having eaten their fill of fruit field they ran off to the nearby woods and straight into heaven itself.

The woods were also theirs, as far as they could tell. It went for what seemed like miles and never did they ever run into other kids and certainly not any grown-ups. They had several campsites set up and plenty of other secrets too. They had spent their days here for the last few months and as August was coming on, they tried not to think of the demise of summer and the beginning of another school year.

Without realizing, they passed by the spot where just last week they had been certain they had seen a monster. It had roared menacingly, causing them to run screaming while pinky-swearing to each other that they would never, ever go back there and never speak of it again. The monster seemingly lay hidden now and watched them in silence.

A short ways away was where they had found an underground bunker near the remains of what must have been a house but were now only the strange remains of wood beams half-buried in the dirt. They could see exactly where doorways had once been. The bomb shelter was locked and no matter what they tried they couldn’t get it open. The family hiding inside heard the pounding on the door and imagined the worst.

“Friends forever!” they yelled as they ran to the creek that coursed through the center of their woods. It was nearly dried up and they knew that without the rushing of water many treasures would be revealed.

The creek would permanently dry up by the following summer and it wouldn’t be soon after that the land would be levelled out and sprouting like weeds would come many cheaply-made but expensive houses with five bedrooms, three-and-a-half baths and attached two-car garages.

“Cool! A dead crayfish”, said Jackson. He poked at it with a stick until it crumbled apart.

“That’s nothing”, said Winslow, “check that out”. He hopped across the tiny trail of water, his shoes sinking into the muck on the other side. “It’s a dead muskrat!”

“Wow”, was Jackson’s natural response, his mouth replying before his mind could even fully grasp the awesomeness of the discovery they had just made. “What do we do with it?”, he wondered aloud, poking it with his stick.

“How do you think it died? It looks like its neck got bit. It has blood all over it.”

“Do vampires eat muskrats?”

“Vampires don’t eat anything. They drink blood and they certainly don’t spill that much of it. No, this looks more like a snake bite”, determined Winslow. He was often an expert on many things.

Jackson was trying to use his stick to move it so he could see the other side of it. It was squishy. A part of him wondered if it really was dead. Like, completely dead. He’d never really seen anything that big dead before. He’d seen dead birds and lots of fish and other creatures like crayfish but nothing that had eyes and a face and that seemed to communicate and understand you. He was slightly scared and a little excited. This was a really cool discovery, he knew.

Suddenly, Jackson’s face brightened and he dropped the stick, “we should take it home!”

Winslow laughed because he knew he agreed. That was a great idea. “We could hang it in my barn, there’s all kinds of hooks on the walls and nothing much hanging there.” He’d noticed the hooks just the other day and knew he’d think of something to put them to use for. “Only question is how we get it there”. He looked around for something they could use, some way they could carry it.

“Got it”, yelled Jackson. Winslow turned around to see Jackson holding it by its hind legs, it hanging with its head almost touching the ground. Something gooey was dripping from it as he turned to head towards Winslow’s house. “Let’s hurry. This thing is probably giving me cooties right where I’m standing.”

They had to cut through fruit field again to get to Winslow’s backyard and thus to his barn. As they passed through they stopped for a quick snack. Winslow had to stick an apple in Jackson’s mouth since he refused to drop the muskrat and didn’t want to touch what he ate with his dirty hands.

“Cooties, I told you. Just pick it up and stick it back in my mouth. I’m hungry.”

He spit the apple out. “That one was rotten!”

Winslow was very concerned. “They’re all rotten”, he cried back. He moved onto one of the plum trees but they were rotten, too. "You're the piggie who ate all the good ones."

"Am not."

"Are too."

They gave up and continued to Winslow’s barn.

“You know”, said Jackson, “we should set up a zoo. The muskrat could just be the start of it.”

“And we could charge admission!”, said Winslow.

“Exactly. Fifty cents a kid”, suggested Jackson.

“Aw heck, for the great stuff we’re going to have, a whole dollar!”

“You know, I saw a squirrel that was missing part of its tail just the other day over by the haunted house”.

“And I know where a really cool spider is”, said Winslow.

“This is gonna be the best zoo ever!”

Mounting the muskrat took a little bit of work and just a bit of creativity. They eventually just put the hook right through the back of its head. Its mouth was open and you could see every one of its teeth.

The squirrel was easier to get hold of than they thought it would be. Getting the spider was a little tricky but they eventually got it into an old jar they found and screwed the cap on just as it was trying to escape.

“Punch a hole in the top or it’ll die”, said Jackson.

Winslow looked confused. “Why? It’s not like they breathe air.”

“Of course they do. What else would they breathe?”

“Who says they have to breathe at all? I don’t even think they have mouths.”

“Yeah they have mouths. How do you think they bite?”

“I think they just shoot it with their fangs and it kinda just liquifies and they suck it in.”

“Through what? Their butthole? Their fangs are in their mouth, you meathead, and they eat with their mouth just like you do. Now punch a hole in the lid or I’m telling you it’ll be as dead as that muskrat.”

It was a challenge but over the next few days they took their time and gathered up as many different animals as they could find. A butterfly, a caterpillar, lots of worms and even a snake. Then they hit a lucky streak and found some really rare ones. They spent every day of the next week gathering up as many specimens as they could muster up. They found some real treasures, they believed. They wanted their zoo to have creatures no one could see anywhere else.

They took their time and set up each in the nicest exhibit they could come up with, complete with food and a place to sleep and water to drink so as to make it as realistic as possible. They wanted it to be as much like a zoo as they could so the kids would be amazed and know they got their dollar’s worth.

"A diarrhea, I think he called it", said Winslow

"He told us it was a diorama, you dumb head", said Jackson, being an expert again.

They started spreading the word to all the kids in the neighborhood that something big was coming and that they should save up their candy money.

Winslow’s dad seemed to be at work all the time so they had free rein of the barn all week to get it ready.

They were busy making signs advertising their zoo when his dad pulled into the driveway one day.

“What’s going on, boys?”

Both boys were hesitant to involve a grownup. Grownups had a tendency to find something wrong with anything fun that they tried to do.

“You got some kind of project going on? What is it this time? Another carnival?

It’s not a yard sale again, is it? You never did get my good dress shoes back.”

“It’s nothing, Dad. We’re just drawing pictures.”

“Well, OK. You guys don’t have to be so mysterious all the time.” Winslow panicked when it looked like his dad was going to go into the barn. The barn really wasn’t used for much these days, not since the mean old owl moved in.

In an effort to keep his dad from seeing the zoo before it was ready, he said the first thing that came into his mind.

“Mom fell down the steps and she’s bleeding real bad.”

“What?”, he said, turning around in sudden concern. “She what?”

“She’s hurt real bad. She said you should go and see her as soon as you get home.”

Their expressions seemed believable since both of them kinda believed their own lie. He quickly ran inside, leaving his briefcase next to the car.

The boys didn’t know what they would do when he came back so they quickly tossed the signs into the barn and closing the door, ran off to hide in the huge bush in the neighbor’s yard.

They spent the night at Jackson’s house, sleeping in a tent in the backyard in their sleeping bags. They planned to stay there until the heat died down at Winslow's house. It was quiet and peaceful at night and very easy to sneak around which they did as soon as it seemed everyone else was asleep.

They went back to check on their zoo as best they could. They knew they couldn’t open the barn door as it would make too much noise but they peered through one of the old windows and shining their flashlight in could see that everything seemed just as they’d left it.

“Tomorrow’s the day”, announced Winslow. “We open the zoo up tomorrow.”

Winslow’s dad just happened to be in the kitchen and saw the flashlight beams reflecting off of the barn windows. A rush of adrenalin put him on alert but he quickly calmed when he realized who it was. It wasn’t uncommon for him to catch the boys out late at night wandering around the neighborhood. He knew that when they stayed the night at his house they usually asked if they could sleep on the front porch for just this purpose.

They probably thought they were being all super-spy but they were being pretty sloppy: lights shining everywhere, laughter, pure amateur stuff.

He figured he’d go outside and put a good scare into them.

The boys were content that all was well with their zoo and were debating where to go next when they both realized fruit field was the obvious choice. They were behind the barn heading off together, following the lights of the flashlights they held when they heard the strange noise behind them.

Their ten year old minds assumed it must be a bear. It growled like a bear. For a second, they were worried something nasty had escaped from the barn but this sounded like nothing they had heard before.

Instead of quickening their step away from the sound, they both froze in their tracks uncertain what to do and where to go. The growling sounded almost human and as it got louder they also heard footsteps quickly coming towards them. They did the most logical thing they could think of and dropped to the ground and played dead.

Winslow’s dad leaped over them, laughing as he did so.

“You boys are up to no good, just like I thought”, he yelled. The boys were even more terrified to find that it was a grownup. They would have much preferred to encounter a bear.

“Aw, dad. We were just...um, just playing”, Winslow stammered.

“I saw you shining your lights in the barn. And why is the door closed? You boys are up to something, aren’t you?”

“No, dad”, Winslow pleaded. “Just let it be. You’ll spoil everything and anyway, it isn’t ready for you to see. It’s, um, just for kids and nothing good can happen if you go in there.”

“We’ll see about that”, Winslow’s dad announced as he turned and headed around to the front of the barn. The boys scrambled to their feet and followed him, continuing their pleas that he just let it be.

Winslow’s dad opened the barn doors. A warm green glow that hadn’t been there a moment before began to emit from the barn. He pulled the door back all the way and then stepped backwards, raising an arm to shield his eyes. The interior of the barn glowed brightly into the night.

A snakelike creature oozed its way out of the barn. It left a trail of goo behind it as it slithered past the three of them.

An elephant’s trumpet blared from within.

A small gnome-like humanoid walked out, looked up at the boys, gave a salute of some kind and marched off into the night.

A terrible creature, too terrible for words, crawled out of the barn and casting what may have been its eyes in their direction, opened a hole in its head and hissed at them before burrowing into the earth and disappearing.

Winslow’s dad was frozen in place, not sure whether to scream or to run. He decided to run but discovered his legs no longer worked. He was forced to wait to see what would happen next.

To his relief, what appeared to be a miniature eagle flew past next. He was pretty sure he saw a hamster standing on its hind legs holding onto reins as if steering where it flew.

The boys realized there was no hiding the rest of the zoo from Winslow’s dad. So, instead they acquiesced and decided they might as well show off.

Each taking a hand they walked Winslow’s dad into the barn. Mounted onto the walls were their proudest specimens but dad’s attention was drawn towards what appeared to be a demon standing two feet tall and chained by its ankle to a stake they had driven into the ground in the rear of the barn. The demon snarled at the three of them.

“He’s still angry that we tricked him”, said Winslow matter-of-factly.

The boys positioned Winslow’s dad in front of the prize of their zoo. They beamed with pride. Winslow’s dad leaned over and vomited onto his shoes.

He hung his head for another minute, afraid to look again at what had so disturbed him. Still holding the boys’ hands, he raised his head slowly.

He could just barely tell that it was a muskrat. Blood and bits of brain were caked around the spike from which it was mounted. Its mouth had been forced open and held in place by what appeared to be staples. The sound it was emitting was sickening, tortured and full of pain. Its tongue lashed back and forth and a steady stream of something dripped from its mouth. Its limbs were held in place by smaller nails but it pulled steadily in an effort to free itself.

“Isn’t it beautiful?”, Winslow asked his father.

“It was most definitely dead when we brought it here”, Jackson added, “but we’re pretty sure that thing…” He nodded towards the demon. “...did this to it. We figured this was reason enough to raise the price for admission another quarter”.

A moth about the size of a bat circled the light bulb hanging in the center of the barn. Other animals and creatures had gathered around them as they stood. Many more could be seen tapping on the glass of the jars that held them. Winslow’s dad peered into one of them and nearly stepped on a miniature giraffe as he took a step to look closer. Within the jar he could see what appeared to be a tiny village. He could see movement on its tiny little streets and clouds floating above the little houses and buildings.

Another jar he looked in held a japanese beetle that was so big he wondered how they got it into the jar to begin with.

He shook his head in disbelief as he turned to look at what was displayed on the other side of the barn. He had to step around what appeared to be a potted plant that sprouted eyeballs. One of them blinked at him.

The demon asked for a glass of water but did so in a dead language that no one on Earth spoke anymore. The boys paid him no heed.

Winslow stood next to his father. “Isn’t it the best zoo, ever? Of course, now we’ll have to chase down some of the ones you let escape but that should be no problem”.

“That’s right”, said Jackson, “That 'ol barn owl told us where to find the best specimens”.

“He's not so bad once you get to know him”, said Winslow.

Winslow’s dad stared in awe. Literally every jar they could get their hands on had something bizarre displayed in it. A few other creatures were mounted like the muskrat but unlike it, seemed to be sincerely dead. He could still hear the muskrat whimpering and he was carefully trying to think of a way to put it out of its misery when the green glow that lit their surroundings began to flicker in and out.

“That’s enough for tonight”, said Jackson. “We still have a little more work to do before it’s ready for our official opening. Of course...there is one type of animal we don’t yet have on display”.

The barn owl was perched in the corner. Winslow's father shivered in fear. He'd had his own run-ins with that damn old owl. That's why he had essentially abandoned the barn to begin with. It blinked a few times in rapid succession, and hooted loudly, this being the signal the boys were to watch for.

Jackson looked at his friend and said, "It's time".

Winslow nodded his head in agreement, turning back to his dad, “We talked about it and knew there was only one way we were going to get one”.

“And that would be if someone got curious”.

“That’s right, you see, we can’t have just anyone poking around the zoo before it’s open and leaving a pukey mess for others to clean up.”

“So...dad...we swear we’ll take good care and it will only be for a few days”.

Jackson unscrewed the lid off of a particularly small jar. "The barn owl told us the words to say."

The boys held hands as Jackson held out the jar to Winslow’s dad who began to back away in confusion.

Together they chanted, as the owl had taught them, “llams ni raj, og eth nam. Llams ni raj, og eth nam”.

As they continued the green glow began to fade until only the tiny light bulb shined from the rafters. After another minute, even the bulb faded to darkness.

When the light came back on, only Winslow, Jackson and that mean 'ol barn owl remained. Jackson screwed the lid onto the jar and placed it carefully on the shelf.

“Did you poke holes in the lid?”

“Yes, I poked holes.”

“Did you give him some food and water?”

“I put some cracker crumbs in there and I spit a little. It’ll be plenty to last him at least for the night”.

The boys smiled widely at each other, proud of their little zoo.

“Now we have the best zoo ever”.

“Definitely. The best”.

Flipping off the light switch and carefully closing the barn door, the boys ran back to their tent down the block. Too excited to sleep just yet, they talked into the night about what they would buy with the money they would earn from their zoo. In the morning, they would ask the owl what he thought.

As dawn came, the boys rested peacefully while down the road in a rickety barn, ruled by a strange old barn owl, a tiny man cried out. The demon, annoyed at his screams, told him to shut up.

Of course, he said it in a language as ancient and as dead as the night itself.