A Petting Zoo Story

Jacksonville, 1995

I remember having some fun once with a couple young African Americans who worked at the petting zoo in Jacksonville, the parking lot of which I had parked my cab in, to sleep, after having brought a couple Navy guys all the way to Blount Island from nearby some ship downtown.

So, 25 miles out of town, and definitely at the end of a day that had probably started at 5 a.m. on Jacksonville Beach, when the sun started shining brightly enough to wake me, and/or the temperature inside the cab had eked it's way above probably 83 degrees. That has always been my "sticky" temperature, the point where the skin become slightly tacky and enough so to wake you up.

Then, I would have popped the trunk open and grabbed my "trunks" and my soap and shampoo and towel, and maybe tried to change in the back seat of the cab into just the trunks, and I would then start wading out, into the shark infested ocean of Jacksonville, Beach...

At some point when the water was already up to my chest and the first rogue wave had already slapped me in the face, I would go under, and maybe open my eyes for a second, always seeing something that I couldn't rule out as being a hungry Great White Shark.

Then, grateful for the fact that there aren't many people on the beach at 5:30, and that the few who were there were being distracted by the sunrise, I would walk back towards the beach until I was just up to my ankles, and lather myself from head to toe with the soap and shampoo (note to self: invent a soap that lathers up really well in salt water) and then, I would go into the deeper water and dive under, and swim under water, surface, and repeat.

How attractive must that be for a shark; a human swimming underwater and leaving a long trail of foam and suds, which is coming out of its trunks?

But, I would have started my day that way, and at 2 in the morning, would be ready to "book into a zone" and catch some sleep. Depending upon how much sleep I wanted, I would choose the zone that way. If I wanted the fare box to rudely buzz in just 3 hours, I would book into one of the downtown zones, and I would probably be 11th in the zone, behind other cabs, but they would go kind of fast.

The hospital zones are different, and you might get a good 8 hours of sleep, booked into one of those zones.

People come from way out in the sticks to receive care from the specialists, who work at the big hospitals. They even pay (or maybe insurance does) for the patients transportation through a voucher.

If it's a guy who comes in from, say, Kingsland, Georgia because he has a condition so rare that the nearest specialist is a hundred miles away, in Jacksonville; then, he is just as rare for the doctor, who specialized in the treatment of the rare thing; and so, perhaps a voucher for $210 is printed and the guy becomes a prize of a passenger.

After a while, the cab drivers all have their calendar books filled with fares "So, when do you have to go back for dialysis, Mr. Turnip? " type of thing...You can even cloak your question in mock concern if you're the driver trying to get his $210 trip "Gosh, hopefully you're feeling better now; it must suck having to go in there, what, every month, or something?...?

But, I digress, for the purposes of this story, I booked myself into a fine St. Luke's Hospital zone, and was content to sleep the eight hours, while other cab drivers did the same thing, perhaps in the parking lot of St. Luke's where they had nothing better to do than to hold their position in the zone, while the specialist took all the time he needed with the patient, whether that be a 2 hour nap, or a 5 hour one; not a problem. He will be right there, ready to give the guy another $210 ride back to rural Georgia.

And, I would be fast asleep in the parking lot of the Jacksonville Zoo, safeguarding the 50 bucks I had made off the Navy guys (which I would have immediately deposited into the nearest ATM using envelopes I kept for the purpose; had I not been in the safety of Blount Island where animals of all kinds would probably alert me, by going bonkers if someone was coming around the cab, type of thing.

So, in the morning, I was surprised to learn how early animal feeders come in to work, as the crunch of their tires on the gravel stirred me a bit. But, I was still booked into the hospital zone, and had gotten about 3 and a half hours of sleep, and had moved down the queue so that I was something like the 5th cab in line to get someone coming out of a hospital that I was 30 miles from. I had time to sleep more, and awoke probably at about 8 in the morning.

I wouldn't be starting this day with an ocean bath; but rather, with a visit to what is technically a petting zoo, wherein goat-like animals are very interested in the ice cream cone full of brownish pellets that actually smell pretty good.

And, well everyone knows what a petting zoo is...

The young African Americans who had the summer job of selling ice cream cones full of pellets, among other things, seemed appropriately bored, despite the best efforts of the developers of the primitive cellphone apps of the day.

And, so after seeing some cool animals and some cool college girls carrying buckets and mops around to different cages, I decided to have some fun with the staff of the petting zoo. And, so I went to them and accused one of the goats of having put his nose "right in my privates" and I remember their astonished looks at first.

"It sure did, I'm an emotion wreck; I think I'm traumatized..." they could tell it was a joke now, it was a guy and a girl; both wearing brand new looking zoo tee shirts; a fringe benefit, I thought. "I'm going to go home and wash myself over and over and then take a wire brush; and..."

At this point; they had been kind of laughing, btw, the girl chimed in with: "Oh, no a wire brush is a little extreme..."

So, I changed tack with: (lowering my voice a little, and sounding like I was a little nervous) "I, um, actually liked it..."

I went on with: "Do you have more goats like that one; like maybe...3 of them, that you know (a quick nervous glance around) for a few cones will, you know, have a little fun...if you know what I mean?"

It seemed like they were getting a good laugh; they knew I was kidding and it was a splendid time; I got back to the cab with only a couple cars ahead of me; and so figured I should at least make the 40 minute ride to the hospital; so as to be right there, ready to grab the patient, whose voucher then becomes like a scratch-off ticket in the driver's mind. 

"Valdosta, Georgia, whew hooo!!!; er, I mean, how are you feeling, Mr. Turnip; gee I bet you hope you don't have to go through with all this every week, or..." type of thing.

But, that is my story of how 2 young and smart African American probably college students working at the zoo between semesters because they are probably down to earth, and like animals; were able to see the humor in the goat thing.

Not so much for the driver of the bus that brought me back from the Guitar Center trip debacle.

I was standing at the stop, but the bus had to stop behind a few cars and was 40 feet short of the exact spot of the stop. I started to walk towards the bus anyways. This is because I have seen some drivers who are happy to open the doors to scoop you up rather than having to wait for the light to turn green and for the cars to pull up and get out of the way, and then to pull up to the actual stop spot, and stop. The light may be a quick one, and the driver might lose his greenlight...

This particular driver, a black guy, motioned with his hand towards the actual stop. No problem; he pulled up and I got on.

Then, to make conversation, I told him of how "I heard that it was a bus driver who let a passenger off in a place that wasn't the actual stop, and that person either got hit by a car, or broke his ankle in a pothole, but that's why it's a rule with the bus company's, so I guess I shouldn't have walked towards the bus; I was encouraging you to break the rules."

To make a long story short; I was just making conversation; then I sat down and was kind of quiet, and before I knew it, the ol #39 was right back near the Shell station. So, I walked to the front and stood behind the yellow line.

We were stopped at a red light in front of the Brown Derby, where I wanted to go and I thought it would be funny to say: "I can get out here..."

But, the driver actually seemed to get pissed and said: "I can't be around you!" Then repeated it, because of the plexiglass muffler. "I can't be around you, man, just get off!"

So, it just goes to show you the vast difference between different African Americans. I guess he just wasn't understanding what I was saying. His loss. I was going to tell him some of the interesting things I know about goats...