Bedlam at the Sasquatch Exhibit
Though home to such rarities as the Giant Porcupine, the Prehensile-Tailed Marmoset, the hideous Blue-Eyed Black Sloth, a lascivious family of Bonobos, the inimitable Himalayan Clouded Tiger, and of course the highly coveted Giant Panda, it was quite a different beast that had traffic pouring in torrentially from every conceivable direction, and caused complete and utter bedlam on August 19th at the San Diego Zoo. He was the only being worth seeing on opening day.
Homo Pedimagnis. Sasquatch.
By 10:00am the line of cars waiting to enter the San Diego Zoo’s overflow parking annex stretched for miles on Route 5 and 163 in both directions, and the August sun was already strong enough to worry Vernon Whalesmith, who glanced down at the “Check Freon” light often, hoping it would magically turn off on its own. Part of his brain helped him believe such a miracle was in order. Another part of it, the part that Vernon hated, scoffed.
The Whalesmith family – Vernon, Kathy, and their son Winston – passed the time in the car listening to music. It wasn’t going too well. Winston, still a baby in many ways, had this annoying habit of generating a prolonged, gleeful toddler-shriek whenever he approved of a song. Should the song change without Winston’s consent, for instance because Vernon couldn’t guarantee the safety of his family whilst listening to it, Winston would then fall into an ominous silence just before emitting an eerie, bovine wailing, which, though much less abrasive to the ears, was undoubtably more demonic, and thus much, much worse than the toddler-screeching which at least was born from joy.
During a rare lull, Vernon turned to his wife. “ It must be a phase. I wonder how long this phase will last. How long is a phase anyway?”
“They grow up fast.” She smoothed her straight, dark hair with her fingers, looking back to check on their son.
“Doesn’t feel fast.”
“That’s what everyone says, though.”
“Maybe we can get him into a new genre,” he said, inching the car forward. “Bossa nova, acid rock. Something.”
They lined up behind folks driving airport rentals and RV’s, motorcycles and sedans, caravanning in the whole family out to the California desert, lining up since the night before, sleeping in their cars on the side of the road, pitching tents on the sidewalks. Those who had waited for consecutive nights had been met by cops with batons tapping on their driver-side windows, shaking their heads no, telling them to get going, go home, come back on the nineteenth. The streets were clogged like the arteries of an overweight sloth.
“Do you think he knows where we’re going?” asked Vernon.
“He must. You must have told him four hundred times.”
“I know but does he get it?”
“Vern, he’s four. He thinks dirt can be made into coffee.”
Because Winston loved Bigfoot, loved everything about it. He took after his father in that way. Harry and the Hendersons and the Star Wars trilogy, at minimum, were played on a continuous loop in their home. While Winston didn’t have the vocabulary to discuss the greatness of these two “fictional” depictions of the legendary animal, his glee alone was enough for his father to revel in his son’s future as the next great crypto-hominid biologist.
Vernon himself was no Sasquatch slouch, though it was too risky to admit. A career anthropologist at SDSU, he would have been laughed out of the department meetings if it had professed his real passion. Here, again, Vernon’s brain was split, with one part claiming he shouldn’t worry about avoiding derisive laughter at weekly departmental meetings, that he should just be himself, while the other part, the one he hated, sarcastically suggested he make room for the more talented anthropologists by quitting his job, abandoning his family, and moving to Canada.
There was certainly something confusing about Vernon’s brain. Before the Sasquatch was discovered, he often fantasized about revealing his adoration for the mythical beast, defending himself on the basis that, should it be discovered, it would become an integral part of anthropological study. Since most aboriginal peoples of the world had at least partial knowledge of cell phones, airplanes, and to a greater extent, Seinfeld, Vernon dreamed of discovering a tribe of men who weren’t quite men, who wouldn’t succumb to the fads or conveniences of modern culture, to whom everything done and owned and held in value by modern man would be irrelevant to their well-being, ignored by eyes that lacked the lust for ease. A tribe of Bigfoots may be the ideal discovery.
And yet, despite these fantasies, he never once brought up his position, never once put on record his interest in the creature. Instead, he opted to enjoy the full membership benefits of the International Sasquatch Society, up to and including free bumper stickers, t-shirts, and pre-sale ticket rights for bi-annual ‘Hike and Record’ missions into the wild North, all the while continuing his traditional research and lectures.
When the story of Sasquatch’s capture broke, he took the news like a gentleman gambler winning a horse race. He held a dignified air while his core boiled with rapture. As one of the only members of ISS with a PhD, he was certain to be selected to study the beast.
Winston, meanwhile, was unfazed by the news. For him, doubting the existence of Bigfoot was impossible, given his own father’s unwavering belief and the fact that he’d seen the creature innumerable times on television. That placid look meant the world to Vernon.
The early stages of the capture were mostly rumor, speculation, and doubt. Then came the official announcement. He was captured by three Sasquatch hunters in the western Yukon, brothers in their mid-forties who had devoted the better part of their lives to tracking and capturing one of these elusive beasts. Impeccably prepared, they sedated the animal and carried it on a stretcher twelve miles back to their truck, where they kept it tranquilized for the duration of their trip to the local hospital. Having radio’d ahead, a team of doctors, including two veterinarians, awaited it arrival. They treated the Sasquatch as they would a distressed and potentially hostile hermit – he was kept tranquilized until they could figure out who took care of these kinds of things, finally transporting him by helicopter to the University of British Columbia Humanoid Research Center, where he remained under heavy guard as the story of his discovery was slowly and deliberately dripped into the public eye.
Though aptly named, the UBC-HRC hadn’t the funding nor the facilities to conduct a long-term study of Sasquatch. Rather than embark on such an expensive project, they requested proposals from zoos and universities around the world to house and study their prize capture, for a certain (large) percentage of any resulting proceeds.
Meanwhile, human rights advocates sent letters of protest, demanding our close cousin be treated with the utmost dignity, not loaned around the world as a side-show under the auspices of “scientific study”. Fanatical religious groups of all types demanded the beast’s immediate eradication, both in the physical and metaphorical sense. And there was a flurry of inquiries from Hollywood studios (and agents) showcasing an array of shady contract terminology.
All the while, Vernon waited patiently for his phone call. With his secret decades-old passion now vindicated, and with the added bonus that San Diego State University, his alma mater and employer, partnering with the San Diego Zoo, beat out the world’s competition for a long-term study of the creature, he was at once ecstatic and terrified. His opportunity to study the animal himself had practically fallen into his lap. And yet....he hadn’t once spoken with anyone from the university who had written the proposal, hadn’t even known SDSU had submitted one, and as the days went by and his messages to various departments went unanswered, with the beast soon arriving, eventually there, in San Diego, at the university, a few minutes walk from his office... he still hadn’t been invited even to glimpse the thing, let alone study it.
Once, lying in bed at night next to Kathy, he had even teared up.
Over the weeks, Vernon stopped calling, stopped leaving messages, painful though it was to admit he was excluded from all Sasquatch research. Never a spiteful man, he read the reports of the newly formed San Diego Institute for Hominid Studies, gobbled them up along with the Sasquatch online community boards and mainstream media and everybody else in the world. He couldn’t contain his excitement at the first report, which detailed the Sasquatch’s extreme hostility to his surroundings, his resentment toward being captured, imprisoned, and, quite frankly, probed, by these hairless lookalikes in white, starchy clothing. Haha! Vernon thought. At least he hates them.
The Sasquatch was much like its mythological depiction: large, nearly nine feet tall, with ropey limbs, speed, agility, and unbelievable flexibility. His uncontrollable hostility was at first attributed to a lack of kinship with humans, which they hoped to mitigate by showcasing the largest and hairiest members of mankind. They played live feeds of the NBA playoffs and showed stock-photos of men with Hypertrichosis, the kind of footage only university science departments have on file. Despite his staring fondly at the flickering screen from behind a furry, sloped brow, researchers believed that the presence of the television itself was so confusing that the point was lost on him.
Another article described how researchers placed pieces of furniture in his habitat to see how he would treat inanimate, manmade objects which possessed properties of comfort. Chairs, sofas, inflatable mattresses, coffee tables – all and more were presented, and destroyed. It appeared Sasquatch had the uncanny ability to see man’s creations as being comprised of an underlying network of blunt-objects just waiting to be ripped from their unnatural forms and used against them.
Next, he was shown illustrations and sketches of beasts thought to be close relatives of his: the Tibetan Yeti, the Siberian Chuchunya, the Floridian Skunk Ape. All were met with a stern gaze and gnashing teeth.
Researchers concluded that Sasquatch would rather be alone than have friends.
But the highlight of the seven-month study was the discovery that Sasquatch could count. He was, in fact, an enthusiastic counter. This produced an overwhelming amount of discussion about his intelligence, extrapolations about his many undiscovered abilities. Some hypothesized that compulsive counting was a central component of Sasquatch society. Others maintained it was this particular being’s function in said society, and that other Sasquatches had other tasks based on their respective skills, such as fighting, hunting, and fornicating. And still others held that compulsive counting was a normal reaction to the extreme boredom of captivity, similar to the incessant circular swimming of Sanchez the Bottlenose Dolphin, or Tiffany the Capybara’s futile attempts to tear out her own eyeballs for attention.
All the while, they were flooded with letters from human rights activists demanding that researchers release him from captivity so he might hold a respectable place in society, as was the right of any biped with a very large brain.
One letter from the International OCD Foundation requested that researchers inform the Sasquatch of their existence and present the enclosed certificate indicating the Sasquatch as a most welcome honorary member of their organization.
And while the researchers became celebrities on campus, as their magnificently publicized discoveries were revealed over the ensuing months, sculpting in the collective hearts of humanity this lovable, wondrous creature, Vernon had worked quietly and diligently in his office and mulled over the reports at home before bed. He would try now and again to get access to the research center, but they’d just smile politely at his enthusiasm before turning him away. It was a classic case of ‘If we let you in, we’d have to let everybody in.’ There was nothing he could do, nothing he could point to to stake his claim as someone with a serious academic right to the creature. The ISS was nothing more than a club of enthusiasts and survivor-men, with no standing in university life. If he had chanced a scientific approach to his Sasquatch interests, then maybe....but it was too late. He could only take solace in having first dibs on discounted pre-sale tickets for being a member of the university, ensuring he would be among the select few in the country, and indeed the world, to see the beast in real life before it was tagged, transported back to its native land and possibly never put on display again.
***
After an hour sitting in peristaltically slow traffic, flanked on either side by two immovable lines of cars, Vernon resigned himself to listening to the same Katy Perry song on repeat in exchange for Winston’s blissful catatonia. Staring through the windshield, distantly aware of the imminent death of the air conditioner at a potentially crucial moment in the afternoon sun, he focused on what lay before him, imagining himself suddenly at the front of the line, muttering the words ‘well that wasn’t so bad,’ a little too quietly for Kathy to hear and think him deluded.
The air conditioner did indeed putter, collapse, wheeze, and croak prematurely, giving the sun plenty of time to roast the Whalesmith’s beneath the car’s thin metal roof. About an hour later, with sweat-heavy clothes and strawberry-red faces, they were finally waved through by an oversized parking attendant with a surprising amount of shoulder flexibility, spinning one arm like a windmill while keeping the other pointed into some far off infinity, which was exactly where Vernon expected to park. The thermometer read 92 degrees. They walked through the lot, slowly joining more and more visitors as they passed through the rows of gleaming cars, so that from far above they looked like droplets slowly converging into long streaks of water to pool at the bottom by the ticket-booth.
Given the volume of visitors expected, it was special policy to admit only two hundred guests at a time. But even then, the enthusiasm and impatience of the crowd squeezing through the turnstiles created an uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous lack of personal space. The staff already had difficulty controlling the mob, which slowly gained in mass as it absorbed those around it, until it became one congealed blob of visitors, and Vernon was forced to hoist Winston above the surrounding clusterfuck and onto his shoulders.
It was right around this time that Kathy realized they had forgotten the umbrella.
“He’s going to burn.”
“So are we,” replied Vernon. He gazed over the heads of a huge sea of people before him. More than a few individuals around him were wearing full or partial Sasquatch costumes.
“Should we go back? We can’t go back right?”
“We just went through hell to get here. We’re not going back.”
“Give him your shirt.”
“But,” he whined, “then I’ll burn.”
Kathy stared at him, her chestnut eyes agape, as though she had suddenly lost her hearing entirely. They continued to move, as they were now part of the blob of visitors and had only modest control over their locomotion. Like Vernon, Kathy had a similar part of her brain that liked to take a perfectly obvious fact, like Winston will burn without shade, and bury it beneath a plethora of other stimuli, a tactic quite effective as they found themselves bombarded by color and movement from all angles in this free-form zoo-circus that stretched as far as the eye could see. Rows of shops selling Bigfoot-themed merchandise, everything from hats to full masks to full body suits, t-shirts with clever innuendos about the anatomical parallels of having big feet, hot pants, furry leg-warmers, and, leaving apparel, lunch-boxes, cell-phone covers, camping gear, and statues of the beast in every size, including life. Separate stands sold pamphlets containing every Sasquatch myth from around the world, binoculars for heightened viewing pleasure, and even a “Take Your Picture With Sasquatch” booth – an ordinary photo-booth that developed your snapshots with an automatically photoshopped Sasquatch, arm around you, head cocked to one side, grinning a toothy grin. And for the thrill-seekers, there were roller coasters and wheels and vomit-inducing spinning machines, all imported from other amusement parks and bearing no actual Sasquatch association other than blatantly tacked-on names like The Sasquatch Drop and the Sasquatch Wheel above the respective emblazoned images of dragons, lions, or falcons on the fronts or sides.
Then, deeper into the zoo, the Hunting Grounds, for which some events coordinator somewhere deserved an Emmy (or award of equal but pertinent status). The Hunting Grounds was an outdoor firing range, exclusively bow-oriented, featuring as wood-cut targets a variety of wildlife found in the Pacific Northwest. Deer, Grizzlies, Woodland Caribu, a North American Lynx, a Grey Wold, and of course, as the most prize-worthy target of all, a barely visible Sasquatch peeking out from behind a tree. Though not made clear, one had to assume the largest of the stuffed animals hanging by the bow-dispenser/ticket-window were reserved for anyone who shot the Sasquatch between the eyes.
And throughout the festivities were scores of street performers there to lighten the mood of anyone who either missed his target at the Hunting Ground or couldn’t afford the souvenirs or simply was put off by the whole event: musical buskers, jugglers, magicians, men standing on blocks of wood coated in a metallic sheen. If one were to speak briefly with the performers, one would notice that most hailed from the Deep South. This, among countless other curatorial decisions, would remain totally inexplicable.
By now, Vernon had realized two things. 1) Winston was suffering, his face now the color of an over-ripe apple. And 2) that many ordinary citizens had already seen the Sasquatch, left the zoo, and were now on their way home. This second, disappointing but inevitable fact shouldn’t have upset Vernon as much as it did. After all, for months people had been testing, feeding, studying, and interacting with the Sasquatch. So why was he so upset? Was it just the unease of standing in a public blob, moving as one like some slippery jelly sliding along the asphalt? Or was it the knowledge that several groups just like this one had already seen the animal, had their moment, and were probably never going to see it again?
His only relief came from the fact that, from a height standpoint, his own lank coupled with Winston perched on his shoulders meant he and his son combined to be the tallest “person” in his flight of now four-hundred plus visitors. The Sasquatch was sure to notice him and Winston, hopefully even see them as kin. Certainly, at the very least, be impressed by his stature. Perhaps very impressed....
At about 2:30pm, with the Sasquatch exhibit still off in the distance, insane circus hedonism and Sasquatch jamboreeing all around him, Winston began emitting a soft whine. Scattered like constellations across his skin, no less sensitive than a piglet’s, were the red dapples of heat stroke. He kept a quiet eye on Winston, hoping that if he didn’t acknowledge his pain, neither would his son. Then Kathy spoke up.
“He’s getting sick. Look at his skin.”
“We’re almost there.”
“Where’s the water,” she said, opening her purse. Winston began to cry. “Honey, shhhhhh.”
“Look, we can’t go back now. I can’t get these tickets again. This is our one chance.”
“Baby, are you okay?” she cooed to Winston, taking him into her arms. “How could we have forgotten the umbrella?”
“I swear it was in the trunk.”
“Well, we have to do something.” Do we bring him to the infirmary?”
They looked at the map together. The infirmary was located very much in the opposite direction as the Sasquatch habitat.
“I don’t know if they take our insurance. Let’s just take him after. We’ll be done in a few hours.”
“He’s sick. He needs medical attention.”
“I can see he’s sick, Kathy. Anyone can see that.
During the ensuing stare-down, Vernon looked into his wife’s eyes, past the heavy, red child in her arms, and made the decision that he believed any member of the International Sasquatch Society would make. He chose his words carefully, one by one, and then spoke. “This means a lot to me.”
She looked to the ground. “You’re pathetic, you know that?”
Vernon remained silent. He was already out of ammo.
“I mean, nothing about this is meaningful, you realize that?”
“I just...” he croaked. “I just feel like once I see it, I’ll be fine, and we can get back to taking care of Winston. You know, forever.”
“I’d like to see it too. Everyone would like to see it. It’s a fantastic event!”
“Not like me.”
“Vern, you missed it. Just seeing the thing isn’t gonna make any difference.”
He looked down at his feet. “It’s right up ahead,” he said, hopefully.
She paused. “Im leaving with Winston. We’re going to the infirmary, or the car. If you don’t find it, it means we drove it home. Take a cab.”
Keeping her composure, Kathy lifted Winston onto her shoulders and walked away. As he watched them go, it dawned on him that he now lacked the height advantage that was so crucial for him to stand-out from the crowd.
Not to worry, he thought, as he now felt limber and light, could use his size to create a pathway through the crowd, finding small openings and exploiting them, for ten, fifteen, thirty minutes, he couldn’t say, squirming his way through the swell of people, shoulders against sweaty shoulders, nose grazing moist mops of hair. He sweated profusely, swallowed down a dusty thirst, made himself thin enough to squiggle through the crowd. Soon, however, he could break through no more. The mass of visitors was so compact he was forced to resign himself to moving at their pace, with the blob of humans, orientation fixed on the exhibit now visible on the horizon, and with that resignation came the shiftless anxiety from earlier, the dread of the next few minutes, at seeing the Sasquatch and moving on, walking back to his car, the deed done.
As the group approached the exhibit, more and more strangers were putting on and taking off different components of their ape costumes, masks without a body suit, some a body suit without a mask. It was a hideous spectacle, with every other person seeming to change from ape to man, and man to back to ape. Vernon worried for the Sasquatch, imagining the confusion seeing his own brethren mixing with the alien, hairless captors who study him day and night. Vernon knew there wasn’t a chance of a connection between the two of them, that he would be nothing more than a face among faces, another object for his compulsion.
Again the sluggish mass of people came to a standstill. Vernon looked up. The habitat was in sight. Beyond legions of writhing spectators it stood, a habitat resembling the Serengeti more than the northern reaches of the Canadian wilderness. There were sizable rock formations acting as the back wall, with two ten-foot openings to a cave. Huge barrels filled with berries stood tall at opposite sides of the habitat, and closer to the front, beneath where spectators clenched the fence’s iron bars, looking down into the Sasquatch’s temporary home, a moving creek ran like a moat around the perimeter of the habitat. The habitat was placid, empty.
He was no where to be seen – the restless, noisy mass of visitors shifted from one foot to the next, agitated and impatient.
Those managing the zoo entrance were unaware of the overcrowding occurring near the exhibit. The crowd was fifty people thick at least, perhaps one hundred wide, and no one was moving, a mass of humanity still shifting between colored t-shirts and Sasquatch costumes. If he stretched onto his toes, reaching a formidable six-foot-four-inches, he could make out the tops of the cave entrances, but at that moment there was no need to stretch. He could sense the growing frustration of the hovering audience and listen to their whispers trickling back through the crowd.
Then, out of no where, there was a collective intake of breath, a massive gasp. Arms with cell phones attached to their ends raised high. Silence overcame the audience, as though suddenly a live golf tournament had just broken out. Over the crowd, Vernon spotted the head and shoulders of a massive creature, larger than he could have imagined, covered in hair, lumbering around his habitat confidently and casually, as though oblivious to the hordes of people looking down on him. Though calmly drinking from the fresh-water brook, this myth turned reality, at once alien and cousin, produced a nerve-wracking tension throughout the audience, a boiling hush for a beast of ill-defined humanity.
Shockwaves of excitement permeated the group, simmered and vibrated in anticipation for a massive emission of excitement, and these emotions elicited in Vernon an overpowering loathing for this animal, for himself, for the pathetic mass of on-lookers he’d joined, outside the cage looking in, while the real work is being done elsewhere. There, out of reach of the beast, he was struck with the obvious notion that all his years of enthusiasm were for nothing, for what he loved was a myth, nothing more. Before the Sasquatch arrived, Vernon had a claim. Now he was one of these pathetic people satisfied to daydream about what they love, instead of showing it irrefutably.
As though driven by Vernon’s siege of anger and loathing, the collective hush began to shift. News of Sasquatch’s emergence traveled through the crowd. Those at the back, moving as always as one mass of people, surged toward the habitat; those closer to the cage, stuck shoulder-to-shoulder, became impatient at the spectators up front, enjoying their unobstructed views, and joined the deluge forward, at no particular point very intense, but always increasing with each slight push, with those toward the front finding themselves trapped, immobile, pinned to those around them and to the iron bars that separated the viewing area from the habitat. There was no where to turn, no way to move, most had no way of knowing the developing crush towards the front, but it wouldn’t matter, as the pressing continued beyond their individual wills, pushed the people as a separate force, mashing one against another so they had no choice but to do the same. Visitors in front received the brunt of the pressure, crushed against the iron bars by the sheer weight of people. All through the area people were trapped against others, arms reaching out for help, elbows creating small inches of space before landing against a neighbor’s trachea. Faces turned blue, bodies went limp, insides turned to pulp, the sounds of cracking bones muffled by the screaming and pleas for order coming from all sides, all squeezed as though by some invisible fist, with nothing to be done, no one could stop it. Sasquatch whooped and screeched, and ran for his cave. The iron bars at the front began to bend as the pressure mounted, and eventually breaking them and spilling visitors over and into moat and the now empty exhibit.
As more and more people spilled into the habitat, and from there crawled to safety, leaving dozens of bodies behind, ambulance sirens blared their way over to the exhibit and members of the zoo staff managed to ease the fray and disperse the crowd. Those uninjured wandered the tragedy, ashamed and unsure of who to blame, themselves or others, lifting their eyes only to meet another face which looked just like theirs, or else ineffectually offering help to arriving paramedics, or reporters counting how many were in need of medical attention.
***
The parking lot seemed strangely close to the Sasquatch exhibit now that he was on his return, as though he had gone through the the length of the zoo just to find the Sasquatch exhibit back near the entrance. As he approached his section, he wondered whether Kathy had taken Winston home. Then he saw his red Chevy, with Kathy and Winston sitting in the back seat together. The air was cooler now, a breeze blew through their open windows. From the stereo came the soft, soulful voice of Billy Holiday. She looked up as he approached.
“Are you okay? What happened? I saw ambulances.”
“There was a stampede, or something. I’m not sure. Everyone was screaming. I don’t know. I think some people died.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“Get in. I’ll drive.”
As he climbed in and reclined the seat, he glanced back at Winston, who was listening to music through a pair of headphones. He looked up at his father and smiled. His skin was rosy in a cherubic kind of way, but otherwise fine. Vernon turned to face forward, closed his eyes, and wondered why Winston, surely listening to his favorite songs, wasn’t shrieking with excitement.
Kathy climbed into the front seat and turned on the engine. It struggled momentarily before catching.
“Great job quieting him down. I can’t believe we didn’t think of that before,” he said, referring to the headphones.
As they pulled out of the parking lot, Kathy said, “I hate to ask.” She paused a moment, shifting gears. “It seems to wrong to ask.”
“What the hell.”
“Well,” she said. “Did you...see it?”
