Detective

spider web made of rope. I would have liked to climb it too, but I’m too big.
    We pressed on to the slide, which is two stories high, and spirals around inside of what is made to look like the trunk of a large tree. I went down it once. Tommie went ten more times, while I waited at the bottom.
    On our way to the petting area where you can feed the animals, we stopped at the men’s room beside the path. I tricked Tommie into going by saying I had to go—a trick that usually works.
    I had to lift him up to the urinal. The urinals at the main restroom go all the way to the ground, and Tommie can use them himself. The ones in this restroom were attached to the wall at a height just a bit more than he could reach. The man next to me was holding up his son, who must have been 3 or 4. Tommie and the other boy finished together, and I learned a universal truth. When you pee, you shake your penis to get the last drops off. When you hold up your son to pee, you shake the whole child.
    The other man and I shook our sons together; and smiled at the common knowledge.
    Tommie and I washed our hands, and went on to the petting area. We fed a goat and a sheep, at twenty-five cents a whack for a handful of food from the machine. I’m not sure, but I think when he was younger, it was only a dime. And he’s only five.
    After the Children’s Zoo, Tommie wanted to ride the Skyfari. He loves the Skyfari, a tiny green cable car that carries you high over the top of the zoo. I am slightly less enthusiastic—I can never help checking the bolts and wondering what keeps the damn thing from falling down, but I ride it for his sake.
    We waited in line for fifteen minutes. Then an attendant locked us in our own private car, and, after a minute and a half, during which the two cars in front of us took off, we lurched forward, and swayed up into the sky.
    I checked the creaking nuts and bolts while Tommie peered happily out the windows saying things like, “We’re higher than the trees!” which gladdened my heart.
    We passed over the restaurant and the duck pond, and the reptile and ape houses. As we passed over the mountain goats, I looked out at the meadow in the distance where the giraffes stood among the trees.
    A boy near the fence frightened a small giraffe, which shied away and ran on stilt-like legs. The other giraffes hadn’t seen what had frightened him, but they saw him running, so they ran too.
    I stared at the giraffes. A simple fact of nature. Scare the weakest one and they all run.
    “Daddy, look at the giraffes!” Tommie cried.
    “I see them,” I told him.
    “Aren’t they funny?” he said. He had to ask me twice.
    “Yes they are,” I told him.
    I knew what I had to do.

25.
    L EROY T WIRLED THE C OGNAC A ROUND in his glass and pursed his lips. “I’m not certain that I understand you correctly,” he said. “You want a what?”
    We were sitting in Leroy’s living room in Queens. I had declined his offer of champagne or cognac, and was contenting myself with a Diet Pepsi Free.
    I repeated my request.
    Leroy frowned. “You will pardon me for asking, but just what do you want with a gun?”
    “You’re better off not knowing,” I told him.
    Leroy nodded judiciously. “That bad,” he said. He cocked his head in my direction. “Do you think I’d be stupid enough to engage in my chosen profession while in possession of a gun?”
    “Certainly not,” I said. “I just thought you might have picked up some rare curio somewhere in your travels.”
    Leroy smiled. He got up, and went up the stairs to his bedroom. He returned minutes later carrying a nasty-looking piece of machinery.
    “Now this,” Leroy said, “is a genuine German Luger from World War II. I cannot swear to the number of G.I.’s it has punctured in its day, since I am not familiar with its pedigree. But I can vouch for its authenticity.”
    He held it out to me. I took it gingerly. I’m scared shitless of guns.
    “Is it loaded?” I asked him.
    “It is not,” Leroy said. “That is its only drawback. It has no ammunition.”
    I turned the gun over in my hands. It still scared me, even knowing it wasn’t loaded. I took the grip in my hand, put my finger on the trigger. I aimed at what I assumed was a genuine Degas, or at least a genuine something. If Leroy were wrong, it was going to cost him, not me.
    I pulled the trigger. The gun clicked. I lowered the gun and looked at Leroy.
    “That’s all right,” I said. “I don’t need any