The Fine Art to Hating Absolutely Everything

fifteen: the summit of el plateado

Mamma only had a pickup so that she could transport animals. When she worked at the zoo, a long time ago, she had the unofficial job of being the animal ambulance, among other things. She used to tell me all kinds of stories about her and the pickup. My favourite one was the one about the baby elephant.

There was an emergency at the Jaxoncreek Living Museum, where Mamma worked in her twenties. The past three days had been full of the type of rain that drove straight into your skin. It'd gotten so overwhelming that a sinkhole had developed on the border of the elephant enclosure, and gave way in the matter of a snap. As the dirt and mud shriveled into the earth, the chain-link fence that kept the elephants from the rest of the world bent and collapsed - and at the same time, so did Tima.

She was born some five years ago, to a steel plate of a mother. She was the treasure of the zoo, the face of its advertisement, the main attraction. She was the colour of anthracite and had the cutest sprouting hairs on the top of her head. When the fence gave way and the ground crumbled beneath her, however, Tima became the colour of light brown, and her sprouting hairs were about the only thing that saved her from being trapped in the mud until her death.

Mamma saw them. She got the crew together and together they hauled Tima out. Mamma's unlatched truck bed was Tima's gurney from Jaxoncreek Living Museum to Kaiser Zoologist Park, 25 miles away. Kaiser had responded quickly to the Living Museum's call for help, and promised the little elephant a safe enclosure on solid bedrock, properly fastened fences included, for a week's time. Mamma sped, then, down the highway, skidding through water as Tima cried and moaned in the back.

It wasn't until Mamma had made it and ran around the truck, unlatching the bed and climbing up onto the platform, that Tima decided to attack her. Tima had always been a peaceful baby, pulling pranks on her mother and being curious about this dull, caged-in life she led. She had never shown signs of violence. But that day Tima wouldn't let Mamma into the truck bed. Instead, she charged and headbutted Mamma to the ground, and proceeded to stomp on her with two thick, round feet, piercing Mamma's lung with one of her ribs. The Kaiser staff roped Tima off and after a few minutes, shot tranquilizer darts at her. Mamma insisted on driving herself to the hospital, but the Kaiser people called an ambulance, which Mamma couldn't afford.

The last time I heard this story was on the way to the sea, in Mamma's famous pickup, as I was eight years old. The fast food soda cup sat slightly crumpled in the cup holder. Mamma then said, "I wish she'd had enough guts to stomp on my head. That surely would have done it."

I started to cry, picturing the baby elephant stomping on Mamma's head. Mamma didn't seem to notice.

"Oh, well. The past is the past. That's what your dad said on the phone yesterday, when I brought up slavery. 'The past is the past'. If only it stayed there, Arlo. If only it would stay there."

I was still crying. My legs were stiff. I'd been sitting in the truck for hours, without barely a stop. I wasn't sure where we were going, or why it had to take so long. I was under the impression that after church, Mamma and I would go right home. Perhaps that was still the way we were headed. Perhaps I was hallucinating. Perhaps I was in some state of transcendent delusion; a hellish, never-ending, distorted version of the world. I cried all the way to the beach, where Mamma drove across the short strip of sand.

"I love you, Arlo. I want you to grow up so big and strong. I want you to have everything in this life. More than your father can give you. More than I could ever give you. I want you to be successful at everything you do."

The truck was filling up with water from the ocean. Waves crashed against the sides, jolting it, like an aggressive rocking crib. I screamed, crying, my voice tearing against my throat. Mamma wrapped me in a hug. The water was at my knees.