***
The layout of the zoo was roughly – more or less, if you looked at the map at just the right angle, and maybe squinted your eyes a little – circular; designed, presumably, by an inebriated or perhaps slightly insane architect. To be fair, and in the architect’s defense, it was the 60’s after all, when almost everybody was inebriated or slightly insane. In approximately the center of the “circle”, inaccessible to the public and largely avoided by a staff almost entirely ignorant of its existence, was a small pond. There were no obvious paths leading to it, and it was totally obscured, by trees and other assorted undergrowth, from the public walkways and the keeper areas. Ovaloid and about the size of your average Beverly Hills backyard (or indoor, if the case may be) swimming pool, it was populated by native wildlife largely extirpated throughout the rest of the New York City Metro area.
Frogs (green, leopard, bull, gray tree) sat waiting patiently on lily pads for tasty little bugs to pass by. In the spring tadpoles swarmed the shallows, and further inland, little fat toads snapped up juicy worms. Fish swam beneath the surface, breaking it occasionally to snatch a mayfly nymph or springtail. Various birds of all types (song, egrets, raptors, even parrots – Quaker parakeets are fairly abundant throughout their adopted Queens homeland – visited frequently, on their way to, or from, less hostile environs. Red-winged blackbirds flitted among the overhanging foliage and summer evenings often found a stately great blue heron silently and motionlessly stalking an unlucky sunny or two. Sleek muskrats, mischievous chipmunks, nervous voles and field mice, and in the evening, raccoon and possum, called this tiny oasis home. Water and garter snakes sunned themselves on the banks. Painted turtles basked, snapping turtles lurked, and box turtles grazed, giddily ignorant of the ugly human urban turmoil just yards away.
Near the pond was a fallen log, and on the log was a small spot worn perfectly smooth by hours and hours of contact with a hard and bony, canvas cloth covered, butt. This was Donald’s “thinking log”. This was where Donald came to sit and watch the dragonflies soar by, enjoy a smoke, practice his scowl, and mull his not-so-rosy future at the zoo; the quiet, lonely and beautiful place where he could sit and ponder where it all went wrong and what he could possibly do to make it right. Where he could call his bookie and be reasonably certain that he wouldn’t be caught.
***
Donald scratched the red rashy spot on his shoulder that “the patch” had given him, plucked the Virginia Slims from his shirt pocket, and went to his “thinking log”.