This Savage Garden

by Kendra Pintor

My husband suffers from anxiety. It’s the soul wounds, he says, pointing to where the hunters’ bullet grazed his arm. Transgenerational trauma is hard to get out of the bloodstream, the doctor confirms while studying her chart. We couldn’t understand the medical jargon even if she were willing to share her notes with us, so we just nod in agreement. My husband suffers from night terrors, I add. It’s like he’s there, back in the hunt. The doctor frowns, nods. This is common with ghosts, she explains. Sometimes, they travel up from the heart and burrow into the brain. She grabs a pen and begins scribbling a prescription. Alprazolam should clear that right up, she says. Ghosts hate the flavor.

In the dim light of our kitchen, I turn the little orange bottle around, trying to make sense of the prescribed dosage: Two pills in the morning, one guttural scream before bed. My husband follows the instructions, but the night terrors persist. Perhaps that wasn’t guttural enough? I can’t help but comment after he shoves his head into the pillow, only to yelp and hiccup. I am doing the best I can, he whimpers, turning on his side. The label says scream, babe, I remind him, tired. You have to scream.

In the morning, my husband swallows his pills before breakfast. I sit at the kitchen table, sorting through a pile of mail. Junk, junk, bill, junk—what is this? My husband rounds the counter and pulls the vibrant red envelope from my hand. He tears into it with his teeth and withdraws two golden, shimmery slips of paper. Finally, he exclaims. I’ve been waiting for these! He shows me two tickets, shaky and breathless with excitement. The Savage Garden? I ask, reading the label. It’s the new zoo opening in The Hills, he clarifies. This surprises me. I did not even know they were building a new zoo, and in such a ritzy area.

That night, while my husband gets down on all fours and tries to scream, I examine the golden tickets:

You’re Invited to the Savage Garden

WHEN: 5 p.m. Friday, March 24

WHERE: The Savage Garden, The Hills

Run with the Dhole, Cambodia’s Wild Dog, Endangered.

Witness the Red-Ruffed Monkey of the Old World, Dead in the Wild.

Perhaps, even, find yourself.

After some mild interrogation, my husband admits that someone representing The Savage Garden’s debut had emailed him, inviting him and his brother to be a part of the first-look experience. They had copied my brother on the email, he explained to me around the yawn of his mouth. But he texted me today and said he can’t make it Friday…Marcy’s ballet recital… he goes on. My husband whimpers, and yelps, and strains to scream. I set the tickets on the bedside table and pull the blanket up to my chin. Dead in the wild, I whisper.

Dead in the Wild.

Dead in the Wild.

Dead in the Wild.

 We arrive by early evening and pull into the new zoo’s empty parking lot, right up to the front. There are a few other parked cars, and a small group of people lingering outside what appears to be the entrance—large, Jurassic Park-esque double doors. Arched letters appear above the gigantic gateway: Welcome to The Savage Garden. While I point out to my husband how odd the empty parking lot feels, he comments on how this emphasizes what an exclusive experience this is. I notice that he’s dabbing a napkin against the re-opened wound on his arm, the scratch of a phantom bullet. He works his jaw back and forth, shakes his head, and then he smiles at me, and I smile back, trying not to show my uncertainty.

As soon as we join the group of our fellow visitors, the gigantic double doors open and a flurry of attendants usher out to greet us. They are all dressed in a traditional zookeeper’s outfit, though the colors are starkly different; their shirts are a deep shade of crimson, paired with black shorts, and boots buckled with metal. Welcome to The Savage Garden, one of them speaks generally to the whole group. We hope you will feel at home here. The attendants begin passing out lanyards to all the guests, but when they approach my husband, they point at me and ask him, Who is this? He blinks, and then, Oh, he realizes their meaning. My brother could not make it, he explains. This is my wife. The attendant looks me up and down, and then makes eye contact with the one who addressed the group, who nods. The attendant hands me a lanyard and walks briskly away. I inspect the lanyard; SPEC. 13. My husband’s lanyard is SPEC. 14.

SPEC.? My tone is more apprehensive than I want it to be. Spectator, my husband clarifies, an edge to his voice, as if he is annoyed at me. For the first time, I wonder if he’s all right. Perhaps if I had asked faster, or if the attendant hadn’t been so pushy, or my husband would have waited before moving with the crowd, I would have been able to ask the following question: why are we here? Something I realize, with shock, that I hadn’t thought to ask before now.

The zoo is all winding cement roads through thick, green foliage. Like a jungle, it is humid. Unlike a zoo, it is empty. There are massive, entrenched enclosures on either side of the road, lush with bamboo, watering holes, ropes and medicine balls, fake caves for hiding, lots and lots of fronds, trees for shade…but no animals. The silence of the Savage Garden, of our group, of the attendant leading us, is unsettling. All that I can hear is the rush of water. Where are the animals?

Then, we stop at an enclosure. The Scimitar-horned Oryx, Northern Africa, Dead in the Wild, the attendant explains, gesturing at the empty enclosure. Everyone in our group cranes their neck to look but come away disappointed. Still, no one asks where the animal is. This goes on for over an hour. We stop, the attendant rattles off vague facts, there is no animal, we move on. Finally, we reach a rather large enclosure, which the attendant implies belongs to a singular snake.

Ethiopian, Snake, Unknown, they say, about to move on, when I raise my hand: What animal is it? Everyone looks at me, their facial expressions seeming to convey shock, though I think it is a fair question. We cannot see anything in the enclosure, and there are no placards with pictures or descriptions for us to read. The attendant blinks at me, as if this is the dumbest question they have ever had to treat as valid. I just want to know what kind of snake needs such a large space…and where are all the animals, anyways…I mean, what kind of zoo is this? I go on. The attendant smiles, razor sharp. This isn’t a zoo, they say. This is a Savage Garden.

I nearly scoff, but my sight snags on my husband, who is sweating profusely. All my attention goes to holding his arm, asking if he is all right, using the sleeve of my shirt to dry him off. The wound is open and bleeding. We made a mistake, he says, shaking. The ghosts are telling me it’s time to leave. The group goes slightly ahead, stopping at the final enclosure. The attendant says something to the tune of, We’re in luck, it’s feeding time. My husband is becoming frantic, he wants to go back to the car. I look back down the road and notice for the first time the other attendants, all of them lined up, blocking the way back. Ahead, the group of people seem agitated, whispering to one another fervently. I’ll be right back, I tell my husband, determined to ask the attendant for help.

As I pass the final enclosure, I stop. Down in the pit I see another attendant, a zookeeper, tugging on a large rope. The end of the rope is tied to something inside a small, fake cave. In the background, I can hear my husband shouting my name, but it is hard to focus on his voice as the zookeeper in the pit pulls on the rope and brings a man, crawling on all fours, into plain view. Shock sends the group of tourists into a frenzy, and in the background, I can hear my husband, screaming. But all I can do is stare at the caged man, and the brand on his naked body.

            SPEC. 1.