Missy

A few miles downriver of Vidalia, Wayne stepped out of his trailer and stared wide-eyed at the massive hippo in his back yard. The hippo gnashed its teeth as it stomped up the sod Wayne had recently lain. Monday mornings were never his favorite, and he couldn’t decide if the hippo was a great excuse to call in sick, or a muddy gray pain in the rear. Wayne breathed in the burning rubber smell that clung to his skin; a good excuse, he decided. Nancy would be happy to have him home, but she’d be right upset that his priority was a hippopotamus. Wayne lit a Camel and calculated the wages he’d lose when it struck him that the hippo could be worth a good deal more. He walked to the shed by the side of the trailer and found the horse tranquilizers from when he rode, before his surgery. The gun safe stood in the corner of the shed, and Wayne pulled out the loaded hunting rifle. He was not about to be eaten by a hippo, he decided, not on his own property.

Back in his kitchen, Wayne mixed the small ketamine tablets in with a pack of romaine and took the salad outside. Wayne’s feet sunk into the riverbank as he eased toward the hippo, smiling into its bloodshot eyes and placing the salad bowl as close as he could before he feared it might snap him up instead. The hippo let out a robust grunt, and then began a guttural groaning that shook Wayne’s bones. It was as if a boulder had grown legs and teeth and was now angrily huffing at whatever was in its path. The hippo started for Wayne, and he threw himself to the ground. The hippo ran past him and bumped full speed into the garage, almost knocking it over. It shook its head and let out a roar resembling that of a freight train’s before it ambled back down to the riverbank for a swim. Wayne sat on the ground in disbelief. He stood up, grabbed the salad, and followed the hippo. He dangled a piece of lettuce in front of its face but got no reaction. He laughed as he taunted the hippo that didn’t know it was being taunted. The screen door cracked behind him, and Wayne dropped the salad bowl onto the ground.

“Waynebaby, what’re you doin?” Nancy stood cross-armed on the back steps.

“Tryin to catch a hippo, sweetheart.” Wayne backed away from the salad bowl towards the trailer. “I put some of those old horse tranqs in there. We can sell her to the wildlife park north of Natchez, make about ten grand off the whole mess.”

“Can’t we just call animal control, or how about you use that rifle? It’s a damn hippo, Wayne,” Nancy said, exasperated. “You couldn’t even catch Rex when he done ran off.”

“Wait and see,” Wayne said. “Once we get ‘er over to the park, we’ll have enough money to set here by the river til we keel over. Ten grand, Nancy. You know what I make.” Nancy chewed on the words, ‘ten grand’—it was half her teacher’s pension. Nancy wasn’t too fond of the State of Louisiana, neither; bad investments had left Nancy and her peers without two nickels to scratch. Even between the pension and Wayne’s fixing trucks, she knew they’d never come close to paying off Wayne’s surgery this year. He really say we’re fixin to make ten grand on a hippo? Nancy and Wayne stood on the porch, watching the hippo sidle up to the salad bowl and lower its head. The way the hippo ate its lettuce reminded Nancy of the cookie monster. Its watery eyes smiled at her as it chomped the salad down its gullet.

“What do you reckon we ought to name her?” Nancy asked. “I vote for Missy.”

Nancy looked over and watched Wayne’s face tighten the same way it did when the Saints were down in the fourth quarter. After a few minutes of watchful cigarette drags, the couple felt relieved to see the hippo flop like a concrete sack in the mud.

“Once we get ‘er in the trailer we can drive your Missy over to the zoo and make the sale. I bet they’re just waiting to get their hands on something like her.”

“I saw the bank statement on the coffee table yesterday, Wayne.” Nancy probed. “This better work.”

“It will work, how many times have I got to promise you? Wildlife parks buy exotic pets all the times,” Wayne said, “and that bank statement wasn’t none of your business.” He looked over at the hippo, making sure it was still as a tree stump, and took Nancy by the hand to the truck. The easy part was over now, Wayne thought.

News of the lost shipping container displeased those at the Audubon Zoo, who were hoping for a new assortment of animals for its expanded Africa exhibit. Henry LeCirque, however, spun in his gator-leather chair towards the map on his wall. He took a pencil from the desk drawer and walked to the map, tracing a curious line up through the Mississippi River. He thought about the swamps. The alligators would snatch up the loose monkeys and lemurs within the next few days if the authorities couldn’t catch them first. But in one of the cages on that container was a prize worthy of LeCirque’s notorious hunting skills. Somewhere upriver, if not in the delta itself, bumbled a monstrous hippo rumored to be almost the size of a small pontoon, weighing twice what a female hippo should. It was supposed to bask in the water and false riverbanks of the Audubon, to be gawked at by country yokels who couldn’t tell it from a rhino. LeCirque had better plans. What a beautiful hide, such fine leather it would make. And the journey would make for excellent pictures to hang on the wall, scenes that would rival renaissance artwork.

He determined to start his search efforts in New Orleans. The container fell off the ship not far from the port the previous night. A hippo could only travel so far. He would begin by arriving at the scene, at the port. There were questions he needed answered, such as the hippo’s particular appearance, its preferred diet, its habits. Anything important that could help him determine its whereabouts. Then, he would head to the police station and use his signature French-Canadian charm to learn about any recent sightings of the creature. Once he had its trail, it was simply a matter of time before LeCirque caught up. He was quick, and he knew it. LeCirque left his office, hopped into his convertible, and sped off down the highway. The car would be able to keep a cool ninety miles per hour, sure to outpace the hippo. Meanwhile upriver, the sleeping hippopotamus snored loudly.

Vidalia betrayed everything natural to LeCirque’s champagne senses. The greatest signifier of wealth seemed to be owning a riverfront shack rather than a double-wide trailer, and God help those with a single-wide. Speaking with the residents, he wondered if any of them could pronounce Brunello Cucinelli. Never mind the Denny’s Diehards, thought LeCirque. Whatever their taste in suits and eateries, each of their homes lined the riverbank, providing each homeowner with a unique story about the time they saw a hippo swim by. Dotty Wilson dropped an entire pot of coffee when she saw it lumber by; she cursed that damn thing for the mess it made. Patty Benedict had mistaken it for an alligator at first. When she finally saw the body attached to the eyes peeping out of the water, she’d nearly had a heart attack. So it went down the row of houses, and LeCirque felt that he was getting vital information. No more than an hour had passed since the last reported sighting. If he could catch up with the hippo during its afternoon nap, or during a soak, he was certain he’d have a purple leather trophy under his belt. He imagined the hippo’s head mounted on his wall, a smiling face for his guests.

LeCirque stopped daydreaming. There were still entire neighborhoods situated along the riverbank, and he intended to canvas each one as best he could. So far, though, the process was like trying to sweep sunshine off the sidewalk. Everyone had something to say, and to LeCirque, that meant no one did. In fact, there was only one couple in the neighborhood that had never seen the hippo. This did not upset LeCirque. Perhaps they’d been asleep, or away. Not everyone can sit and stare out of windows all morning. But when the man named Wayne Paulier claimed that neither he nor his wife had even heard of a hippo on the loose, Henry LeCirque grew concerned. Either this couple, living in modern America, did not have access to even a newspaper— or they were lying. LeCirque prided himself on his ability to spot a lie from miles away. An animal instinct of his, he bragged that if he hadn’t such a joy for hunting big game, he’d have made a mighty fine police detective. LeCirque decided he would ask them later that afternoon if they hadn’t spotted the hippo. He was sure the beast would be further upriver by then, but LeCirque was ready to pounce on the Pauliers like a leopard, asking them everything they knew about the hippo’s whereabouts. There were surely others with far worse plans than his. A wild animal shouldn’t be sitting caged in a zoo. At least being hunted, an animal could die with its pride. He needed to catch it first. For now, though, he cruised down the road to the next batch of trailers. He had a long day ahead of him.

Wayne spent the better part of two hours trying to coax the hippopotamus into the horse trailer, while Nancy dialed her mah-jongg group to ask if they too had been visited by the strange tourist. His dark purple suit made him seem straight out of a children’s book, and his Ambrose Burnside facial hair gave him a comically serious demeanor. Yes, all her friends said, they had been visited by a Mr. Henry Le Cirque. In fact, Dotty’s husband had gotten his autograph. Wouldn’t you believe it Nancy, they said, that there was a hippopotamus right in our own backyard. Nancy agreed and hung up the phone. She walked outside to the horse trailer where Wayne was heaving the hippo into the back.

The two of them hopped into the truck and sped off. Wayne was ready to get his money and get on with his day, avoiding any future run-ins with whack jobs trying to capture hippos. Nancy, fiddling with the review mirror, worried about the side-burned hunter chasing after them, shooting their tires out, doing whatever it takes to capture the hippo for a trophy. She had heard all about the man from her friends on the phone, and now Nancy grew almost fearful for the hippo. After all, it hadn’t asked to be here. She had watched it take a dip in the river, eyes poking through the surface. Its eyes were almost kind, like it knew it was overstaying its welcome and was grateful for its hosts.

Wayne tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, peering at the highway through a veil of cigarette smoke. Nancy peeked over her shoulder now and again, trying to see the hippo through the slats in the horse trailer. They passed the three-story brick shops in downtown Natchez, past antebellum mansions, picket fenced suburbs, and onto a two-lane road buffeted by thick woods. Turning onto a gravel road, Wayne pointed out the sign to Nancy: ‘Wild Tommy’s Safari Adventure Park’ was painted on a white background in thick red letters. An arrow directed them up the road and into the parking lot. Wayne put out his camel and looked at Nancy. His eyes were sure of themselves, but his lips were tight, as if he was trying to stop his breath from escaping.

“You go and deal with the office, I’ll keep an eye on Missy,” said Nancy. Wayne rolled his eyes and shut the truck door, lighting another camel as he walked to the main office. Inside, Wayne was greeted by the hum of fluorescent lights and metal fans. The tile floor was yellow but was probably once white, as were the walls (the ones that weren’t wood-paneled). Across the square room was a long desk. Sitting there was a lone man in a khaki safari shirt and wire-rim glasses chewing an unlit cigar. Wayne stepped up to the desk and knocked twice, but the man was immersed in the daily copy of The Democrat.

“I’m lookin to unload an animal, considerable size, and rarity. Who do I talk to about that?” Wayne hoped to generate some intrigue.

“Can’t help. No more Komodo dragons, Burmese python, piranhas, any type of wolf passing as a dog, and no dogs tryin to pass for wolves. If you don’t got none of those, then I suppose I ain’t seen it all.”

“How about a hippo?” The man looked up from his newspaper, raising an eyebrow. Wayne tried to hide a wry smile. The man rolled his cigar around in his mouth.

“You mean to tell me you have a hippopotamus for sale?”

“Caught it this morning in my own backyard, just wanderin around. I’m asking ten grand for it, I can take cash or a check. I figure y’all need it more’n I do.” The man let the cigar roll around in his mouth before he took it out and set down his paper.

“You better be pullin my leg,” he said. ‘If it’s parked out there, I’ll have to take a look at it before we go through with a sale. But if it’s in fine fettle, we’ll cut your check.”

In the parking lot, Wayne opened the door to the trailer. Wild Tommy stopped rolling the cigar in his mouth, as if he had been expecting to see a pig in purple paint. The hippo looked sleepily at Tommy, and after attempting to get up and move toward him, stumbled on its legs, and plopped back down. Tommy examined the animal from eyes to tail, although he could have skipped the rest of the examination.

“Cataracts.” Tommy said.
“Sorry?”
“Cataracts. Your friend here’s going blind. I can’t spend the money on more veterinary care right now. Sick hippo won’t do.” Tommy winced and folded his arms, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I’ll tell you what I can do, though. I’ll take her off your hands for a hunnerd dollars, and I won’t call the zoo in New Orleans whose lost hippo’s been found.”

“Excuse me? You think we stole a hippo from a zoo?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all, friend-o. I’m asking you for the hippo and a benjamin, and I won’t tell no one y’all was here. Or you can keep it, maybe try to sell it to some other bozo who ain’t been reading the news. It’ll cost you, though.” Tommy grinned, baring gray-ish yellow teeth, and held out his palm. Wayne frowned and pulled out his wallet, passing Tommy two fifty-dollar bills. Tommy’s hand still stuck out, palm open. Wayne placed another hundred in his palm. Tommy looked at the money, nodded to himself and then to Wayne. He turned on his heels and walked back into the front office.

Through the side-view mirror, Nancy saw Wayne’s face drop and then observed the ensuing argument, which Wayne would later cite as proof that he was the righteous one. Sitting in the parking lot, Nancy kept chewing on those words, “ten grand”, but seeing Wayne’s deal fall apart made the words bland and inedible. It was a big nothing to begin with. In her head, the hippo sat under the live oak on the riverbank, napping there every day, with Nancy to feed it lettuce and Wayne to give it its medicine. A nice pet. Or maybe the hippo would simply move on, getting bored of the domesticated life in Vidalia. It didn’t matter now. She called for Wayne to get in the car. It was time to go, before that LeCirque could catch on to the hippo’s whereabouts.

Wayne drove silently, chain-smoking camels while Nancy blew away the smoke clawing at her nostrils. There would be no ten grand. Just Wayne’s bad back and a two-ton hippo. Wayne hated each mile he drove. Tomorrow he’d get up, make another futile attempt to work off the bills that sat on his kitchen table taunting him. The next pension check wouldn’t come in for another two weeks. The VA benefits— Wayne almost blew a synapse trying to figure out what dandy thought of the bright idea to call them benefits. They had reached the bridge over to Vidalia when Wayne pulled the truck over. Nancy didn’t know what to think, but she knew asking Wayne when he got this way wouldn’t get her far. Wayne just puffed at his camel and got out, stepping to the back of the trailer. Maybe if he simply set the hippopotamus free would release him of all this burden. Perhaps, Wayne thought, he had made the wrong decision calling in sick this morning.

Back at the double-wide, Nancy went inside to lay down on the couch and try to hold on to some sanity. Wayne opened the door to the horse trailer and tried to get Missy to come out and return to her spot in the water. The hippo sat motionless at the back of the trailer, apparently as tired as the others were from the events of the day. Wayne stepped inside and eased towards Missy, but she caught his scent and snapped her jaws; a low growl sent Wayne skittering away. He went to the kitchen to grab another bag of romaine, and then to the shed for more tranquilizers. Back at the trailer, he fed Missy her dinner and let her fall sleep in her nest of hay.

Inside, Nancy had flipped the TV station to the local news. Missy was now Louisiana’s top priority fugitive. According to the news it would be just hours before authori- ties caught up with the hippopotamus, and residents had no reason to fear that the animal would attack. Wayne laughed at that as he sat down on the couch.

“Ain’t no catching her unless they’re looking through individual trailers, that right Nan?” Nancy nodded silently, rubbing her temple. “What’s wrong, hon? We’re gonna sell that hippo, I promise you. These things take time.”

A moment passed before Nancy replied “I don’t want to sell her.” Wayne almost spit out his beer.

“What do you mean you don’t want to sell her? Ten grand, Nancy!”

“She ain’t worth ten grand, you and I both know that. And what’s it matter, anyway? We got jobs. We get by. That poor girl is lost, and we’re either going to take care of her, or set her free. And I don’t want to set her free for no trophy hunters to shoot her, neither. I want her safe.”

Wayne set his drink on the coffee table and lit a Camel. Nancy didn’t give him the eyes, no facial expression whatsoever. She simply stared at the TV when she said she wanted this, and that’s how Wayne knew she was being serious. He smoked and thought, about how much a hippo needs to be fed, if you ever need to bathe them, and if there’s a good chance of your pet hippo murdering you. The answers to all questions no matter how small were lost on Wayne right now.

“How do you expect us to take care of a hippo? I can barely remember to sod the yard in the spring, and now this?”

“I don’t see how we have another choice,” said Nancy, “I want Missie alive.” So it was that the two of them sat in the living room couch, annoyed at each other in only a way lovers can be. They turned off the world, even for an hour or so forgetting about Missie, as they watched their programs. Nancy draped her legs across Wayne’s lap, and they dozed off to sleep while The Equalizer hummed on the television. Safe in the double-wide, the only interruptions were the occasional grunts and groans of a four-thousand-pound hippopotamus in the backyard.

The sun glowed red against the sky as Le Cirque pulled into the parking lot at the Magnolia Motel. It had been a long day, for him and the hippo, he was sure. The day had seen him canvassing trailer parks, police stations, animal control, and finally canoeing himself up and down the river. He had a close run-in with an alligator, almost losing a paddle in the process of batting it away, but Henry Le Cirque had seen no hippo— just the subtle hints it gave to him in the form of chewed up leaves, and poop. The poop was always the clincher. Le Cirque had gone as far as the waterworks before concluding the hippo had not traveled any further upriver that day. Somewhere along the Mississippi, perhaps in a shaded nook on the Vidalia side, or under a pier on the Natchez side, she sat in the water like a purple iceberg, eyes warily watching for passersby to chomp on.

In his room, he sat at the desk and poured himself a glass of gin, straight up Bombay Sapphire, his favorite drink after a day of groundwork. He laid a map out and began circling in red pen the areas of the river most likely to contain a hippo. She would be tough to spot in the first place— despite being over twice the size of Le Cirque’s convertible, he was sure he’d have to look twice before getting an eye on her. There were three inlets that seemed especially suitable for hippos, and the big game hunter decided he would begin with these places the next morning, early before the hippo could get a head start on roaming upriver. The issue, however, was not in not knowing which inlet to survey or stream to follow, but in knowing that in going to any one of these places, Henry’s hippo could vanish to another in the blink of an eye. No, he needed something more. More information, more eyes. His mind wandered back to Wayne and Nancy Paulier. They claimed they had not seen nor heard of the hippo. Le Cirque knew it was a lie, but what for he didn’t know. At the time, he had not been so concerned with finding out; after all, he had plans of his own. Perhaps they had accidentally shot it themselves, those amateur hunters, and didn’t want to ruffle feathers by reporting their blunder. Could Nancy have simply been spooked, and unwilling to talk about her encounter with the beast?

Henry Le Cirque couldn’t stand to have unanswered questions. A marriage proposal gone awry and an absent father had distilled in him a pure hatred of unknowns. He got into his car and peeled out of the motel parking lot, following the highway back to the trailer park where the Pauliers lived. Le Cirque parked his car a block down from the Paulier’s. He got out and began slinking down the street, careful not to draw the attention of a barking dog or a drunk neighbor sitting on their porch. The willows provided him with all the cover he needed, and the moon was pale in the sky. He approached the lone trailer at the end of the block, tucked away between the trees in its own world. That little rectangular shack, made of aluminum with the bicycles loose in the yard, held the keys to his search. There was a yellow glow it gave off, the golden aura of a treasure chest. Le Cirque snuck around the side of the trailer, ballet dancing over loose paint cans and jugs of gasoline.

Towards the back of the trailer, he snuck up against the detached garage and peaked out from around the corner. He hadn’t brought his hunting equipment with him. He just needed to know that the hippo was here, that he had been right all along. He squinted his eyes into the darkness of the backyard. The river lapped gently against the banks, and the branches in the large live oak swayed and beckoned him. There, under the tree, Le Cirque made out a pair of ears. His stomach tightened. Attached the ears was a head with a moonlit snout and the biggest mouth he had ever seen. Its purple-grey flesh was wrinkled and wet, and he could see the full weight of its body heaving with each breath, as if even in its sleep it was belabored by its sheer size. Le Cirque clapped a hand over his mouth to stop a giggle from erupting. The hippo was so spectacular, a true event of a creature, yet the wry smile that its mouth curled into couldn’t help but endear Le Cirque. He wanted to pet it. He began inching towards the hippopotamus, stepping softly so as not to wake the sleeping giant.

A screen door creaked open, and a loud crack rang out like an axe striking wood, and then a second one. Le Cirque fell flat on the ground holding the side of his head, unable to hear his own screams. He cried out, searching for help, and saw Wayne standing at the trailer’s back door. Smoke fell from the hunting rifle’s barrel. Wayne walked up to where Le Cirque writhed like a grub on a hook, searching for his missing ear in the dark. The hippo didn’t move. Nancy raced to the door to see what the commotion was in her yard and found a bloody scene.

“Waynebaby, what on God’s green earth are you doing?”

“Your husband shot my ear off!” screamed Le Cirque. “Would you pipe down there,” said Nancy, “I didn’t ask what you were doing. I can see you been shot. I’m wondering what the hell you’re doing getting my husband hot enough to shoot you.”

“He’s trying to steal Missy,” said Wayne. They looked over at the sleeping hippopotamus but were distracted by the trophy hunter’s screams. “Go get some him bandages, Nan. I’ll deal with the rest of this mess out here.” Le Cirque sat on the ground holding onto his right ear and crying, not making any attempt to hide the ugly way his face shriveled with each sob. Wayne walked over to where Missy lay sleeping under the oak tree. Her outline was unmistakable against the landscape. A large purple-gray boulder, still as can be. Something wet trickled along the ground leading up to the oak. The dark trickle led Wayne right to Missy’s heart. Wayne’s tongue dropped down into his throat, and he felt the gravity underneath him give way. He knelt down next to her and shed a tear. He tuned out LeCirque’s blubbering cries and Nancy’s stern reprimands and put his head against Missy’s side. He rubbed her back and cried.

Missy lay on the riverbank under the live oak, her wide mouth agape. Her once pointy ears drooped down, and flies buzzed all about. The Pauliers would be the ones responsible for hiring the tow truck that would remove the hippo’s body from the yard. Nancy didn’t know how Wayne would deal with that news once his bond was posted. The police had arrived after a gunshot was called in. They came to find one Mr. Henry LeCirque, a man holding on to his ear and cursing the stars. Nancy cleared up what had happened, telling them of the invasion of privacy, and the cause of the commotion. Wayne had been catatonic when the officers pulled him up from the ground next to Missy. By the end of the night, Nancy was ready to pass out on the couch to the sound of The Equalizer.

The next morning, Nancy walked up to the body and crossed her arms, hearing nothing but the buzz of cicadas and the rush of the Mississippi river. The smell of wet mud and death plucked at her nose. In the bowl at the base of the oak tree, Missy lay still, a gray hunk of mass that used to have cataracts and a place she was supposed to be. Missy’s face to her seemed peaceful, almost as if she was eternally letting out one final growl from her deep belly. Nancy could have sworn that before she turned to go back inside, Missy winked at her.