Ambient 06 - Going, Going, Gone

behave yourself.«
    Zipping across Columbus we wandered over to the 77 th Street entrance, underneath the big arch. The old ladies manning the counters looked about as upset as the matinee crowd back at Roosevelt Centre but they were probably more used to seeing visitors from faraway climes. I led the gals upstairs, through the long marble corridors, past the glass ferns and the stuffed parrots and the big painting of old Teddy. Didn’t strike me as odd that a Jersey girl, even one with a fondness for animals, wouldn’t have gotten to the museum before this. A tourist trap, on the one hand, and on the other something to keep eugenicists happy. Eulie looked pleased, though; and Chlo seemed to have calmed down enough that I wasn’t as worried she’d suddenly start pulling those construction worker tricks.
    When we reached Akeley Hall, where they keep the gorillas and the rhinos and the herd of elephants in the middle of the room, that was when I really started to wonder about them both. As soon as we went in they stopped dead in their tracks; they looked at the lit cases with three-year-old’s eyes. Eulie looked especially upset, considering she’d wanted to go the zookeeper route. True enough, though, I never found Jersey girls, even down in Devil territory, in the Pine Barrens, to be any more adept than New Yorkers at dealing with animals more exotic than Airedales. I stood there with them for maybe five or ten minutes before I realized that both Eulie and Chlo were letting loose with the waterworks. I’m no stone heart but like many gentlemen of my acquaintance, I never know what to do when a woman breaks down with a bad case of the boohoos. »There’s more to see,« I mumbled. »Come on.«
    »They’re alive now?« Eulie said as we stumbled back into the brighter light in the hall, hooking her arm into mine. I tucked her in close to me as it sunk in to my thick head just how much the place seemed to be upsetting her.
    »They had their day in court,« I said. »Look real, though, don’t they –?«
    » Nya,« she said, dabbing her eyes with my sleeve. »In habitat, meant.«
    »Honey, I don’t get you. What’s wrong?« I glanced at Chlo, but she looked as sad; perhaps not as willing to seek comfort.
    »Extinct,« she said. »They’re not extinct?«
    »Course not, not on this floor,« I said. »You want extinct, we got to go up to the fourth floor and see the bones.«
    The two of them sat down on a marble bench, looking like they’d just come out of a four-hankie matinee. Eulie’s makeup ran, turning her eyes all raccoony. Nothing I said seemed to bring them out of it. »What’s the matter with you two?«
    »We’ve only seen visuals,« she said.
    »I don’t get you two,« I said. »Half the time you act like you’re in charge of the show, and half the time you act like you’d spend your life savings buying magic beans.«
    They started drying up.
    »Cognitive dissonance,« I said, remembering the phrase. »Why don’t we go?« I asked. »I never thought this was a good place, myself. Come on, this way.«
    We stood up, and I led them down the hall, thinking I knew a quicker route to the exit from where we were. I waited to see if they were going to say anything, but they were trying to pull the old speak-no-evil again. It wasn’t long before I realized that we’d wandered right into the Hall of Man. I hadn’t been in the museum since I first hit town; once was enough. »Not this way,« I said. »Over here, I think –«
    But Chlo had already spotted what I’d tried to avoid seeing, and strode across the floor, almost knocking over an elderly couple passing away their remaining time. »Eulie,« she said, whispering – of course, she could have whispered in the basement and you’d hear her in the attic. Eulie sidled over to where her big pal stood, blocking the view. I heard her say one word.
    » Godness.«
    They gave the exhibit the old looksee over and over again, like they hoped to get some kind of reaction out of those black glass eyes. They looked at it probably the way I looked at it, the time I’d seen him before. I’d read about the exhibit back in Seattle, and found it as hard to believe as it was easy to believe – cognitive dissonance popped up all over the place, once you started thinking about it. They’d set him up just off Akeley Hall when he was first installed, I gathered; I suspected they wanted him there so the curious could conveniently size him up, vis- à -vis the