I have a pet elephant. His name is Nosehair.
He’s a male adolescent, past puberty, but, in my opinion, a long way from adulthood.
I’d love to post a picture of him, but he won’t let me. He’s very shy. Sometimes I can’t get him to leave the apartment. I wonder sometimes if he was dropped on his head or something.
It’s a good thing I live next to the greenbelt, because you should see the mountains of crap he puts out. I try to wait until after sundown to take him for his walk, but we can’t always. Sometimes someone will catch him, squatting, and they’ll be all shocked and offended. My standard spiel is: We’re with the city; it’s a fertilization project for the park.
That usually works to calm them down, although I don’t know if it’s because they believe it. Frankly, you know, it’s a public park—they may not speak my language. But I maintain an air of officialdom. You can guide people to think what you want them to think. It’s not that hard. Images are powerful. Airs of officialdom work well. I carry a fake badge.
Nosehair really likes the girl elephants. He’s at that age, you know. He watches Nat Geo a lot. But there aren’t a lot of girl elephants around here, that we know of, so, I guess he’s frustrated. He told me about it, asked if I could take him to the zoo or somewhere where he can meet some girls.
Well, I would, sure, if I were the social director. But let’s face it, Nosehair, you’re my pet. I keep you alone in the house all day, because that’s what people do to pets.
You want to be with your own kind, sure, everybody does. And to date… the instinct to procreate, I suppose. But I started to question that a long time ago. I looked around my high school and said, Why do people go through these dating rituals? They couldn’t tell you. Or they’d give you some kind of circular answer. They’d think you’re stupid to ask.
The reason is to eventually procreate, presumably. But is that a goal, an achievement? You think it must be, sure. But I asked, Why? It’s just the same thing, over and over.
My eighth grade teacher advised me, one day when I got in trouble doing some kind of flirting thing with some girls, that I should stay away from them. “Stay away from those girls, Ken, they’re nothin’ but trouble.” You know, Nosehair, he might have been right. You should consider that possibility.
* * *
You know, if Nosehair really wanted to meet a girl, he’d bust out of my apartment and go looking for one. He’s an elephant, after all, who’s gonna stop him? But no, he sits here all day, waiting for me to come home from work and take him for his walk, feed him, do our home schooling and internet and TV watching. Oh, so much fun.
* * *
I’m encouraging Nosehair to become a monk, like I almost was.
I used to live in Hollywood. There’s a monastery in the Hollywood Hills that always fascinated me. When I learned about this place, I wanted to apply. Being a monk in the Hollywood Hills… what could be better? Well, you might think, being an actor, or something like that, in Hollywood, would be better. Yeah, I can see that, sure. You let your creative side out.
But being a monk, you’d have lots of time to write. I don’t know about acting. They probably have plays and stuff.
Somewhere around fourth or fifth grade I was in a school play—a version of The Pied Piper. After I read my few lines at one rehearsal, a teacher told me backstage that I needed to work on them. She was right. Maybe with the monks—my own kind, you know—I’d be comfortable enough to let it out, act for real. I might be good, who knows?
Actors can get you to believe. It’s not that hard.
But I eventually forgot about the monastery. When the Internet happened and I rediscovered computer programming. I stayed up nights writing code. Kind of my own personal monastery. And it was creative.
One day I went down to Tijuana and bought a baby elephant. The guy wanted 30 bucks but I talked him down to 11. I also bought a whip, in case the little guy got out of hand. But he was just a sweetheart, sleeping in the car the whole way back.
When I moved out of there, I shipped him in a U-Box. You might think that’s cruel, but I knew he’d probably like it. Plenty of time to think.
* * *
I’ve been crazy about girls, too, but in a different way. When you question the reason for dating, and tell your date that, they likely won’t want to stay with you. So I always liked to scan the room for women who seemed to be questioning human rituals, as I do. It’s something you can see in someone’s eyes, I think. But I’ve been wrong.
One girl in college, I thought she had the outer space eyes, but it turned out she just wanted to move to Houston and get in the oil and gas business.
Another girl, out in L.A., by coincidence also got in the energy field, sort of, by marrying a solar tycoon.
They’re both well to do now, with kids.
* * *
Energy.
Tonight, I’ll take Nosehair out to the park. When nobody’s around, in the dark. After he’s done his business, I’ll climb up on him, whip him (gently—it’s our little routine), and we’ll thunder across the meadow and down the trail through the trees. Across the creek and up the hill. We’ll get to the top of the hill and look out over the placid lake, at the city lights beyond.
We’ll catch our breath. He’ll kind of look up at me. With those questioning eyes.
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