#milesstroth

This is a short story I wrote awhile ago when I was bored one morning. I posted it on FB, but figured I’d give it a home here.

The Death of Cecil the Lion, the Dawn of a New Hero

Tragedy recently struck the Los Angeles Zoo with word that Jeffry, the zoo’s beloved giraffe, was dying. Mark Hamble, the zoo’s currator, said, “Old age has finally caught up with Jeffry. He can no longer stand and is being made as comfortable as possible in his last few days with us.”

Things seemed pretty bleak at the LA Zoo until Phil Lapcum, a pediatrist from Wisconsin, stepped in. Dr. Lapcum, inspired by his hero, DDS Walter Palmer, offered the LA Zoo $100,000 dollars to hunt and kill Jeffry.

“When we received the check,” Hamble explains, “we were thrilled! We assumed it was a donation in honor of Jeffry. The memo line said, “For Jeffry,” but when we read the attached letter we figured it was a joke and didn’t try to cash the check.”

The zoo tried to contact Dr. Lapcum, but his out of office message was simply, “I’m a hunter now!” Zoo officials dismissed the whole thing as a prank.

Phil Lapcum was a sportsman. He arrived in Los angeles with only a sling-shot mounted onto a fully automatic AK47. He was not stopped at the airport for his AK47 because his is white, as are all pediatrists.

So, with only the precise location of the zoo as a reference point, Dr. Lapcum hailed a cab and told the driver exactly where to go.

Meanwhile at the zoo, Jeffry, surrounded by those who had cared for and loved him, passed on. “It was sad, but it was also beautiful, “ said Hamble. “Jeffry had led a full life and death was gentle in taking him.” The whole of the zoo observed a moment of silence at the passing of this noble giant.

That silence would soon be broken.

Phil Lapcum stood in a very short line at the front of the zoo. The line was short because it was a weekday and not a lot of people go to the zoo during the week. Which is a shame, they really should. It’s relatively inexpensive, you get outside, lots to see, and the gorillas, I mean, wow, the gorillas alone are worth the trip.

The line didn’t bother Dr. Lapcum. He knew the value of patience in a hunt and had honed that ability within himself through hours of looking at peoples feet. Two, one, and in. Again no one questioned his openly carried AK47 because he was white and obviously a pediatrist.

Phil Lapcum had refused the map offered to him upon his entrance to the zoo because he was a sportsman. He would stalk the great beast using only his skills as a hunter. He decided on pure animal intuition to randomly go right.

Now the LA Zoo is basically one big circle. If you stay on the main concourse you will eventually pass by every exhibit. It is uphill as you enter and, assuming you continue in the same direction, downhill back to the entrance. Dr. Lapcum didn’t know this and kept doubling back to try and find a way to go downhill into the zoo. He was doing this because it was hot and he wasn’t sure how many bottles of water he could drink.

Now when it’s hot, like ninety plus degrees hot, don’t go to the zoo, like ever. It’s miserable. It ain’t cheap, your outside, none of the animals are out and nobody wants to look at gorillas when it’s that hot. Really, in the summer, fuck that place.

Dr. Phil Lapcum almost gave up. He cried at the thought of Jeffry not being dead. In his despair he looked though his tears to the heavens for a sign…and found one. There, just above him, as if put there on purpose, was his sign. “Giraffes,” with an arrow literally pointing to where giraffes could be found. Phil Lapcum cried harder now, but these were not tears of sadness these, were tears of the hunt.

Mark Hamble lay a large blanket over Jeffry’s body, for Jeffry was no longer there. A wordless glance shared among Hamble and Jeffry’s keepers said what all already knew in their hearts. Jeffry was in Heaven. The matter of his remains, while necessary to be dealt with, an unimportant task. A strange calm came over them in that moment, as if Jeffry himself…no, that’s crazy…but still. No one said it, but they all felt it as they left Jeffry’s paddock to resume their duties.

Phil Lapcum greedily swallowed large mouthfuls of churro and washed them down with diet coke as he followed the giraffe arrow signs up into the zoo. And then in a moment, there it was. A sign that said Giraffes but with no arrow. Dr. Lapcum was momentarily confused. Had he lost the favor of the gods? He almost doubled back again when it occurred to him that maybe this is where the giraffes actually were. Keen is the mind of the hunter. Now feeling as Orion led by Artemis, Phil Lapcum pushed on.

Just a few steps, before being confronted with a ridiculously tall door. It seemed insane to him, the unnecessary height of this door. He was about to double back when he had a vision. Long ago Dr. Lapcum realized that when he thought about something sometimes he would see images in his mind. He never told a soul about his ability to do this, and his secret power was about to be very useful. In his vision, Dr. Lapcum saw a giraffe laying down in this doorway before him. This seemed to confirm his thinking that the doorway was built by fools. Then his vision changed and the giraffe was sitting. While interesting, Dr. Lapcum’s contempt for the door builders remained the same. But then, though exhausted by the use of his brain pictures, the final image came to him, the giraffe standing in doorway. The image vanished but Dr. Lapcum had already discerned its’ message. This doorway, madness to the untrained eye, was built by giraffes.

Slowly Dr. Lapcum pulled open one of the stupid big doors and entered. Once inside, Dr. Lapcum saw that everything was moronically oversized, completely useless for anything but a standing giraffe. He chuckled to himself, pleased in having already dissected this riddle. His movements were efficient as he walked from paddock to paddock hunt reading the names on the enormous gates. And then, there it was, “Jeffry.” The gate was ajar, as if this hell beast were daring the great huntsman to enter. Enter he did.

The lair of this man eater seemed empty save for a blanket so large that it was dumb. Ever so gently Dr. Lapcum pulled back one end of the blanket to reveal the head of the already dead giraffe. The hunter reeled and fell back, horrified and confused at the sight. “This giraffe was laying down! Why was everything here so absurdly overbuilt?!” His mind raced, but this was no time for brain pictures. Dr., hunter, hero Phil Lapcum leveled his weapon to the beast, closed his eyes and click, nothing. The gun had jammed!

Phil Lapcum froze. What fury was about to be released upon him by this Goliath? Jeffry, of course, was still very dead. His body stiffening, his eyes which had looked on so many children, now looked at nothing. Because he was dead.

“The slingshot!” With only minor difficulty Dr. Lapcum removed the slingshot from where he had taped it to his AK47. Now all he needed was a projectile. In another vision his mind gave him the brain picture he needed. The bullet necklace that came with his AK47 when he won it at a fair, COMPLETELY LEGAL in Wisconsin.

Phil Lapcum stood straight up now. And in doing so became slightly taller than the highest point of the dead laying down giraffe. Again, only with minor difficulty, he removed his prized neck dick, loaded it into his slingshot, leveled it on the dead giraffe, closed his eyes and click, nothing. The slingshot had jammed!

When the Allied Forces stormed the beaches at Normandy, many knowing they were rushing to certain death, their combined bravery could not hold a candle to what happened next in that giraffe paddock. Dr. Phil Lapcum, hunter, hero, pediatrist, feinted and died.

The keeper who discovered Phil Lapcum’s body rushed to Mark Hamble to inform him that a pediatrist had died in Jeffry’s paddock. After visually confirming that the man was a pediatrist, Hamble ran as fast as he could and cashed that check.

Every doctor who examined Dr. Lapcum’s remains concluded, irrevocably, that it was heat stroke brought on by dehydration. But others, others who weren’t there, who only heard about this about an hour ago, know better. Phil Lapcum was murdered by Jeffry the giraffe’s spirit in a ghost battle, wherein, Jeffry the giraffe snuck up behind the good Dr. and strangled him. This is a fact!

No statues will be built, but they should. This man, so clearly a pediatrist, represents everything that was great about America when he did this. But, no. He leaves behind no wife, no children and a failed practice. The money he paid for the hunt, his life savings, is going to be used to build some batty gigantic giraffe thing.

So it is up to us to remember. Remember that one day not long ago a man gave everything he had on this earth in an attempt to hunt and kill an already dead giraffe named Jeffry.