Author Archive: Joey Esposito

His eyes opened just a sliver at first. The sunlight pouring in the window was too much to handle all at once. He heard a few voices around him; voices he knew but couldn’t quite recognize as his brain scrambled to restart. It was all quite confusing. There was a loss of time and space. His memory was distorted, sort of an all encompassing blur of the events that led to this particular moment.

After a few minutes, he was able to open his eyes to a thin squint. The sun was still painful, but he could make out the figures that surrounded his bed. For some odd reason, the very first thing he did was glance at his feet. They poked out of the bedsheets, covered in thick wool socks. He could feel the sweat between his toes, and for this reason knew that he must not be paralyzed. At least that was some good news.

He shifted focus from his feet towards the people that occupied the room with him. He saw their lips moving, though their faces were still obscured by the brightness of light. He heard their voices talking but everything sounded as though it was being regurgitated through water before it hit his ears.

“Get him something to drink,” said the tallest figure. “Get the nurse, too.”

One of the dark figures scuffled out of the room in an instant, leaving the remaining few to hover over the bed. As his eyes adjusted, he recognized the figures as two females and one male. All of them had rather light hair, though he wasn’t sure if that was merely a reflection of the bright sun or their natural color. Soon the person that had left returned, water in hand. He was a young boy, maybe 7 or 8, wide-eyed and delicate. Slowly, he felt the bed begin to rise from behind his shoulders, lifting him into an upright position. It was clear to him now that he was in a hospital room, but why? How did he get there?

There was silence in the room and his visitors stared at him as though he had been brought from the brink of death. Before he had time to think too much, the nurse strolled into the room with her pen out and clipboard ready.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” she said. “Your family’s been very good to you.”

All of the people surrounding him smiled.

“I…” he started, but never finished his thought.

“Hush, now,” the nurse continued. “You save your breath. Let your family do the talking for now, fill you in on what happened.”

He stared at her for a moment, nodding in reluctant agreement.

The patriarch of the group spoke. “Welcome back, son.” The man smiled.

The eldest woman had tears in her eyes as she stroked his hair. His feet were really sweating.

The nurse smiled. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” Her exit from the room was brisk. The older man gave a quick glance towards the door as the nurse left. Just as quickly, he gave a subtle nod to the young boy. The child strolled over to the large window, staring directly at him in his bed, and smiled. Without pause, he pulled the blinds shut, banishing all light from the room.

As the darkness returned, he realized that he did not have amnesia. He wasn’t missing memories; he knew who he was. These people weren’t his family. He didn’t know them at all.

I wake up.

I see lady.

I leave cage.

I do tricks.

I get peanuts.

I get kicked.

I see crowds.

Crowd laughs.

I get laughed at.

I get kicked.

I drink water.

I eat food.

I do tricks.

Crowd laughs.

I sit down.

I get treats.

I do tricks.

I get tired.

I get kicked.

I do tricks.

Crowd laughs.

Sun goes down.

Crowd leaves.

Nice lady leaves.

I go in cage.

I fall asleep.

Nice lady never comes.

I give up.

It feels like just yesterday I was standing at the gates of the Central Park Zoo, standing like a baffoon with my hands full of candied apples and my voice echoing over the heads of the patrons. Parents who had brought their spoiled little brats to ogle the giraffes and orangutans, sitting in their own shit, boring themselves to death. Still, a man has to make an honest living. Mama showed me how to make candied apples when I was a boy, after Pa died, to try and ease the loss. I figured I could come to the big city and make a buck.

I never expected to meet Patricia. Meeting her shaped who I am today, whether that’s a good thing or bad I’ll leave for you to decide. She worked as the trainer for Hattie, the smartest elephant in the world. Every day, she’d finish her nightly routines with the beast and then stroll out the gates, happy as a clam. I envied how much joy she took from her work, especially inside a zoo that was run by men. It couldn’t have been easy for her to step all over the machismo of the brutes, taking the credit for the success of Hattie. I guess that’s probably why what happened, happened.

Folks’d come from all over the States to see Hattie perform. Patricia was responsible for all of it. She’d explained the story to me at one time, about her father’s trip to Ceylon and how he’d acquired the beast. She’d demanded to stay with Hattie when she was sold to Bill Snyder in ‘03. Of course Snyder, the rat, took all the credit for Patty’s work, and his employees followed suit. Anyhow, every day she’d walk past my apple cart flashing those big green eyes, and I finally mustered the courage to ask her out one evening. As my luck would have it, she accepted and before you knew it, we were engaged to be wed.

Boys will be boys, of course, and the news of our engagement spread throughout the zoo like wildfire in the West. Being one of ‘em, I can still never understand how a man can elevate himself above a woman but always feel like he’s got to fight for her affection. Long story short, the boys were jealous. First Patty had taken their spotlight, and now I had taken Patty. They even went so far as to put some sort of African dung in my candy brew and made the few customers I had sick as dogs. Flubbing with me was fine, but it’s what they did to Patricia that I can’t stand.

As a prank one evening a couple of months ago, they scared the holy Hell out of some of the elephants, just as Patty had finished her nightly routine with Hattie. Leaving the pen, she was trampled. Flattened like Mama’s flapjacks. Outside the walls, I barely even heard the scream. The sun went down and as old Bill Snyder came out, locking the gates, I knew something wasn’t right. He didn’t acknowledge me at all. I jumped the fence that night, and I can’t rightly recount what it is I found, as the pieces were indistinguishable from the woman I loved.

Not long after, just last month in fact, Hattie passed. The animal doctors said it was an unidentifiable illness, but I know what it was. Hattie had been with Patricia since she first arrived in the States. Living without her wasn’t manageable.

For a while there, I had considered layin’ right down next to the beast and dying myself. My wife, my love, gone, with no due justice. Bein’ a candy apple vendor isn’t exactly a respected profession; the NYPD wouldn’t give me a second glance, especially not up against a local entrepreneur like Bill Snyder. The zoo brought in thousands of tourists every summer. It was naive to think that a citizen would take precedence over the Chamber of Commerce. Realizing the futility of my case, I’m bringing matters into my own hands. I got one thing at my disposal after all, and that’s making the best damn candied apples on the island of Manhattan. But as business must, it’s got to evolve. Revolutionize. I’ve got a new recipe that’s been a hit in this dirty city.

I can’t bring back my wife, but I can make the children of her killers eat their Daddy’s hearts.