EXPECTATIONS

The boy walked into the parking lot without a smile. His younger brother, Jon Jon, had a bounce in his step and couldn't stop talking. "Did you see the monkey trying to eat that hot dog through the glass? And that crocodile was kinda weird--almost like a statue."

"It was a caiman," the boy said.

"What's wrong?" his father asked. "You didn't have fun?"

"No, I did."

"Not what you expected?"

"The gorillas were funny. I guess it was cool."

The boy thought his father was going to leave it alone, but when they pulled onto the interstate he said, "You know that's considered one of the best zoos in the country?

"Yeah. They had everything," Jon Jon said. "It was awesome."

"I liked it, Dad. I did," the boy said. "I'm glad you brought us. It's just that it was nothing like Uncle Albin's stories. I guess I thought they'd be more impressive. None of em were scary. Not even the lions. Most of them looked broken. All those people staring at them. No way to escape. In a way, it was kind of sad." The boy wanted to take the last part back. Talking about feelings was something girls did.

"Sad?" Jon Jon raised one eyebrow and looked at his brother as if he said he hated chocolate.

The boy's father smiled at his youngest son's innocence. The older boy had been questioning life, death, and anything he didn't quite understand--like God and faith. Questions his father could not answer for himself. He was proud of the boy, but missed the part of him that was slipping away--the part that once gone, he would never get back.

"You ever see a deer act like that?" The boy asked Jon Jon.

Jon Jon shrugged.

The boy had never seen any animal look that way. Even cattle and pigs seemed to have more life in them. Some of the animals reminded him of old man Hillstone who used to walk down the road with his wife every day. After she died, the old man never left the porch. He just sat there, a blank stare on his face. A stare without care--without hope. Old man Hillstone eventually died. Some people said he died of loneliness. The boy always thought it was from hopelessness.

Uncle Albin kept a photo of a white rhino from Africa on his bookshelf. Even knowing his uncle later shot that rhino, the boy preferred the one in the photo. Its eyes held something the zoo creatures had long forgotten.

During the long drive back to their own state watching miles of wheat fields and pasture and native prairie blur by, Jon Jon perked up and tapped on his window. "There, Steve. Look. Look at the antelope. Dad did you see em?"

The boy scoured the fields for the next hour. He saw antelope. He saw deer. He saw a coyote.

Later that evening, even though he was tired and his arm hurt, he spent a little extra time throwing the ball for his black lab, Skip.