Chapter 42: The One with the Bronx Zoo
The knocking started at seven-fifteen, which was earlier than Ethan had any intention of being awake on a Saturday, and had the specific insistent quality of someone who had been up for a while and had decided that other people should also be up.
He opened the door.
Ross was standing in the hallway with a jacket already on, a camera around his neck, and the expression of a man who had made plans and was experiencing the gap between when the plans started and when the other person was ready for them.
"The zoo," Ross said.
"I know it's the zoo," Ethan said. "I agreed to the zoo. The zoo opens at ten."
"It's better to get there early," Ross said.
"Ross," Ethan said. "It's seven-fifteen."
"The animals are more active in the morning," Ross said.
Ethan looked at him for a moment with the expression of a man accepting his circumstances. "Give me twenty minutes," he said.
The Bronx Zoo on a Saturday morning in late May had the specific quality of a place that knew exactly what it was and had made peace with it — the families with strollers navigating the path systems, the school groups still gathering at the entrance, the particular ambient sound of animals doing their morning things behind their respective enclosures.
Ross had been to the Bronx Zoo approximately eleven times by his own count, and he moved through it with the confident ease of someone who knew which paths went where and had opinions about the optimal route. He had the camera out before they were through the main gate.
Julie had come.
This had been Ethan's suggestion, made Thursday evening at Monica's dinner in the natural way of someone mentioning a thing that seemed obvious — Julie was a paleontologist who had spent the past eighteen months in Mongolia, she was new to New York, and Ross was going to the zoo on Saturday. The connection required approximately no engineering.
Rachel had been present when he'd suggested it, which was intentional. She'd nodded with the specific Rachel nod of a woman who was choosing to trust the geometry of a situation, which Ethan had recognized as the right response and had noted accordingly.
Julie had accepted with the easy practicality of someone for whom Saturday at the Bronx Zoo was a reasonable way to spend a morning in a new city.
So they were three — Ethan, Ross, and Julie — moving through the zoo in the May morning, Ross slightly ahead with the camera, Julie with her hands in her jacket pockets and the comfortable observational quality of someone accustomed to watching things in their natural environments.
"The Mongolia dig," Ethan said, falling into step beside her while Ross stopped to photograph something in the bird house. "How long were you actually out there?"
"Fourteen months," Julie said. "Two seasons. The second one was the productive one — we found the partial skeleton in the third week of the second season and spent the rest of the time excavating carefully enough not to damage it."
"What's it like?" Ethan said. "The finding. That specific moment."
Julie looked at him with the expression of someone who didn't get asked this often. "Quiet," she said. "Everyone talks about the excitement, and there is excitement, but the moment itself is quiet. You're looking at something that's been in the ground for sixty-five million years and you're the first person to see it. The first person ever. That's—" She paused. "It makes you very careful with your brush."
"Ross talks about it the same way," Ethan said. "The first sight of something."
"It's why we do it," Julie said. She looked ahead at Ross, who was now in what appeared to be a serious photographic negotiation with a peacock that had wandered into the path. "He's exactly like his papers," she said.
"Is that good?" Ethan said.
"It's rare," she said. "Most people are either better or worse than their papers. He's the same. That's actually unusual."
They found the gorilla exhibit at eleven, which was where Ross had been aiming since they entered — he'd mentioned it twice in the cab and once at the gate with the specific energy of a man with a destination.
The western lowland gorillas at the Bronx Zoo had been there since the late seventies, and the troop had the settled quality of animals that had been in a place long enough to have fully occupied it. The largest male — a silverback named Timmy — was in the center of the outdoor area, sitting with the monumental patience of a creature for whom time operated differently.
Ross had his camera up before they'd reached the viewing area.
"Timmy," Ross said, with the reverence of someone greeting someone they'd heard about.
"You know his name," Julie said.
"I've been following the Bronx Zoo gorilla program since I was twelve," Ross said, without taking the camera away from his face. "Timmy came from the Cleveland Zoo in '88. He's been the dominant male here since '91. He integrated into the existing troop faster than anyone predicted, which—" He lowered the camera briefly. "Sorry. I know this isn't my field."
"It's interesting," Julie said, and she meant it. "The integration timeline. What was the prediction?"
"The keepers thought eighteen months minimum," Ross said, camera back up. "He did it in eight. The theory is that he's unusually good at reading existing social structures and adapting to them rather than trying to override them."
Ethan watched Timmy from the railing with the specific feeling he got sometimes when he was near something that had its own timeline running parallel to the human one — the animal's complete indifference to being observed, the self-contained quality of a creature fully present in its own moment.
He knew, in the way he knew things, that Timmy's story had a complicated chapter ahead. The questions about his future — breeding programs, transfers, the ongoing debates about captivity that would intensify through the nineties — were already in motion, already being had in rooms Timmy knew nothing about.
He didn't say this.
Some knowledge wasn't useful to share. It was just something you carried while being present in the moment that existed.
"He's beautiful," Julie said, quietly.
"He really is," Ethan agreed.
They ate lunch at the zoo cafeteria, which had the specific quality of institution food elevated slightly above what it needed to be — not excellent, but better than expected, which was its own kind of achievement.
Ross had taken forty-seven photographs by noon, which he reported with the satisfaction of a man who felt the morning had been productive. He was going through them on the small camera display with the focused attention of a film student reviewing dailies.
"This one," he said, turning the camera toward Ethan and Julie. "Timmy right before he looked at the camera. One second before."
The photo was, in fact, very good. Timmy in three-quarter profile, mid-movement, with the specific quality of a living thing caught between one thing and the next.
"Ross," Julie said. "You should do something with these."
Ross looked at the camera, then at her. "They're just — I take photos at every visit. It's not—"
"There are thirty years of documentation in the zoo's behavioral research program," Julie said. "If you've been doing this since you were twelve and you have the negatives, that's a longitudinal record that might actually be useful."
Ross looked at the camera with the expression of someone who had been doing a thing for years without thinking of it as a thing and was now thinking of it as a thing.
"I have all the negatives," he said slowly. "In albums. At my parents' house."
"That's a research archive," Julie said. "Talk to the zoo's research department."
Ross looked at Ethan.
Ethan gave him the small nod that communicated she's right, do this.
"I'll call them Monday," Ross said, with the settled energy of a man who had just been shown something about himself he hadn't seen.
On the cab ride back, Ross fell asleep somewhere around the Triborough Bridge, which was the prerogative of a man who had been awake since six-thirty and had photographed forty-seven things. He was in the front seat with his head against the window, the camera still around his neck, his expression in sleep having the specific peaceful quality of someone who had had a genuinely good day.
Ethan and Julie were in the back.
"He mentioned Rachel," Julie said, after a while.
Ethan looked at her.
"At the museum," she said. "Tuesday. He was showing me the specimen and he mentioned her — not in a particular context, just naturally, the way people mention someone who's present in their thinking all the time." She looked out the cab window at the Bronx going past. "I'm saying this because I want you to know that I understand the situation."
"The situation," Ethan said.
"I've known Ross professionally for two years," Julie said. "I like him as a colleague. I'm not — I'm not here for anything other than the specimen and the research." She paused. "I know what it looks like from outside when someone new shows up. I just wanted it to be said plainly."
Ethan looked at her. She had the quality he'd noted when they met — the directness of someone whose professional life required reading situations accurately and responding to what was actually there.
"Rachel's coming to Monica's dinner next week," Ethan said. "You met Monica on Thursday — that's her apartment, that's her table, and everyone around it matters to her in specific ways." He paused. "Being at that table means being present for all of it, not just the parts that are easy."
"I understood that on Thursday," Julie said. "Monica's table doesn't have casual seats."
"No," Ethan said. "It doesn't."
Julie looked at the bridge going past. "I think I'm going to like New York," she said.
"Most people do," Ethan said. "Eventually."
"How long did it take you?" she said.
"About a week," Ethan said. "But I had a head start."
The cab crossed into Manhattan, the city assembling itself around them in the afternoon light, and Ross slept in the front seat with his camera around his neck and forty-seven photographs of a Saturday well spent.
He texted Rachel from the cab.
Zoo was good. Ross photographed everything. Julie's good people. See you at Monica's next week.
Rachel's response came in forty seconds, which was fast enough to mean she'd been thinking about it.
How good?
He considered the question for a moment. Then:
The kind of good that doesn't require any management. She knows what's what.
A longer pause this time. Then:
Okay. Good.
And then, after another moment:
Tell Ross I want to see the gorilla photos.
Ethan showed his phone to Ross, who was awake now, blinking at the Manhattan skyline.
Ross read the message. Something moved in his face — the specific thing that happened when Rachel did something that confirmed what he already knew.
"I'll print the best ones," he said.
"Print the Timmy one," Ethan said. "The one right before he looked at the camera."
"That's the best one," Ross agreed.
The cab moved through the Saturday afternoon traffic, the city doing its thing around them, and the day held everything it had held — the gorilla in the morning light, Julie's plainspoken geometry, Ross asleep with forty-seven photographs of things worth keeping.
More than enough.
[500 Power Stones → +1 Bonus Chapter]
[10 Reviews → +1 Bonus Chapter]
Enjoyed the chapter? A review helps a lot.
P1treon: Soulforger (20+advance chapters)