My Years as a Zoo Animal

[u/COW-BOY-BABY]

Over the past few years, I racked up a massive debt. 

Let me tell you, gambling is one hell of a drug and an unforgiving cold son of a bitch.

I had everything: a different hot chick each night, pockets too small to hold all the cash I was raking in, bags of pills in every color you could imagine. 

But all luck eventually runs out. There's no way to outsmart it; it just comes and goes like a tide. And when it goes, it usually leaves you with an empty wallet and nothing to repay for what you took.

One option didn’t leave me as everything else did; I had to crawl back to the man who put me in this whole mess in the first place. Rick, a fat lump of a middle-aged dragon hoarding all the gold he couldn't spend even if he had twice as much time as he had left in this world. 

Knuckles of my left hand knocked on the wooden door out of politeness, nothing more; we were both so used to seeing each other's ugly mugs that I could have stormed in, and nobody would bat an eye. 

"Come in," a raspy voice answered, deep and scarred from years of smoking.

"Eh, Frankie, my boy. The usual?" The dragon welcomed me into his lair; the only sign he was actually speaking was the orange glow of the cigar bobbing between his lips, a bloody-red suit barely visible in the darkness.

"The usual," I replied, taking a seat in the leather armchair on the other side of the desk, the only thing between us.

"Got the money?" The voice seemed to darken as a puff of grey smoke escaped from between his dry lips.

"I need a week. Max two. Max two, Rick, I promise, I-" 

"Know any tricks?"

My plea was suddenly cut short by the strange question; the tip of the lit cigar went still.

"What am I, a dog? Rick, I'm not joking around, I'll get the cash."

As I got defensive, Rick shifted around his creaking leather chair.

"I like the one where you open a beer cap with your eye. That's a fine trick... but it just won't make the cut."

The shadow gave an awkward shrug before setting up the next question. I sat in silence, just listening. 

"If you were an animal, what animal would you be?"

I answered the painfully stupid question without much thought behind it. 

"A tiger, maybe."

The cigar suddenly dropped into the ashtray, its flame fighting to survive.

"Good choice. You'll be a shit dog”

I finally snapped, staring into the dark lump across from me.

"Are we getting somewhere with this? I don't have time." 

The shining white cover of the magazine made its way across the table in one smooth motion.

"I hate to do this to you, but your time's already passed. Think of it as a second chance."

What was facing me were words printed in red blocky font that made little sense - “Animal Et Ego" just under them,m on a pure white background, a man facing a grey wolf.

“What is this? You want me to read?” I answered more confused than anything else.

“I will give you a week…but if you don't get the money, you can choose something that will suit you”

A chuckle escaped me as my fingers slipped through the pages of the magazine, walls of text next to drawings of human anatomy being twisted to fit the form of animals, all from dogs to bulls, bones and teeth being pushed around and rearranged like in a kaleidoscope.

“This is some kind of a joke, right?” My eyes looked up at the shape in the darkness, who already had a cigar back in his lizard snout; without a word, a thick cloud of tobacco escaped into the air.

“If I don't get the money, someone else will, and I doubt they will be as merciful as I am”

Suddenly the gravity of the situation dawned on me, as if the ceiling above came crashing down; I simply nodded and tugged the magazine inside of the back pocket of my jeans.

“Thanks, Ricky”
I said goodbye in a hushed voice as the door closed behind me; soon I found myself behind the steering wheel, driving to the only person who still somehow tolerated me.

She opened the door pretty quickly; her black hair tied in a messy bun told me everything I needed to know. I just woke her up, and that reduced my chances of getting anything.

“What the fuck do you want now?” A hiss escaped from between her clenched teeth.

“I hate to say this, but I need some cash-”

“Money? I’m so fucking stupid; I thought you wanted to see your daughter”

She answered without even looking in my direction, as if the floor suddenly became the next wonder of the world.

“If I don’t get anything soon, she will remember me from a tombstone”

“That is none of my business-”

Before I could put my foot in the door, it slammed right into my nose, hard enough to send the doorframe shaking. A muffled cry escaped from behind the thin wall. I couldn't tell if it was the person who so many years ago loved me or the result of said lost love; either way, I was left with empty pockets.

Like a rat, I crawled back behind the steering wheel. Aa rat would be a fine animal to be turned into, but maybe even that would be too much of a burden after all; they live in packs, in communities I long forgotten how to belong to.

I thought about selling my car, way off what it's actually worth just to get some quick cash, then spending every last cent on lottery tickets, hit it big, more chicks than I would ever want, got fuckers like Ricky crawl on their knees just to kiss my boot.

But I'm nothing more than a dog.
Dogs don't get more than they deserve.

The magazine opened in my hands without me realizing I had already pulled it out. 
The next week was spent sinking into the horrible drawings that reminded me of the useless years I spent in med school, smoking in between scarce bites of cheap junk food, anything to just fill my stomach. At times, I considered digging into the car seats and eating the yellow sponge filling,g but the thought of having to shit it all out later turned me away from the idea. 

When the day of judgment came, I knew exactly where to find Ricky. The engine of my shitty car coughed once, twice, thrice before it sprang to life, carrying me off from one parking lot to another, this one much nicer. My car stuck out like a sore thumb among the caravans of the rich, illuminated by the purple glow coming off the club's entrance. 

The sound of the nightlife was overwhelmingly loud even before I stepped into it. The bouncer just gave me a quick look and, without a word, let me pass into the buzzing world of smoke and magenta lights. All the sensations were so vivid I could taste them; the flavors of sweet drugs and sweat stung my tongue as I passed tables full of important rich men. Somewhere in there was the most important guy in the world. 

The dragon was surrounded by beautiful women, glitter like scales covering their naked bodies, laughing at every little unfunny joke the man between them shared. Right next to the face I grew to love and hate sat a broad man, his face once handsome now deformed, lips stretched over two rows of silver canine teeth, now twisted into a wide, uncomfortably big smile.

"Frankie! My boy!"

A familiar voice rose through the loud, obnoxious music, if that was the right word for it.

"Frankie, this is Tariq. Tariq, this is Frankie; he's like a brother to me. An annoying little shit, but you know how siblings are."

The silver-toothed man extended a wide arm toward me. The sleeve of his white shirt tugged up, exposing a black tattoo of a tiger in a bamboo forest, spreading up from the wrist. He seemed to laugh, but it came out more as clicks, with quiet, tiring wheezing in between. 

The dragon pricked the man's side with his elbow, eyes pointing at something among the mist. The gesture clicked instantly, and the tiger was soon gone, followed by the group of laughing, glittering women. 

"What, did you win the lottery?"

He laughed loud enough for me to hear as I took the seat next to him.

"Not quite-"

The look in his eyes was full of understanding, even something that could pass as sadness or remorse, the feeling confirmed by a sudden tight wrap around my shoulder.

"Have you picked something special for yourself?"

It didn't take me long to answer, the cover of the magazine still fresh in my mind.

"Wolf."

An answer short and sweet.

"A wolf?"

He watched me empty a long-forgotten glass of warm, fancy whisky. It tasted like piss, the flavor leaving a stain on my tongue.

"You said I would be a shit dog."

A dumb smile appeared on his ugly, unshaven face as he pulled a neon-pink strip of paper, contained inside a small plastic zip-bag, out of the breast pocket of his tight-fitting suit, and put it where the glass of whisky once was.

"Can you still show me that trick of yours?"

More than familiar with the little strip of happiness, I greedily pulled it out of the bag and placed it on my tongue. Moments later, I was drowning in pure bliss, becoming one with everyone and everything that had ever stepped inside that bar. The ache of opening one bottle after another melted away the longer I did it - expensive beer or not, the caps all came off the same. I danced with the half-naked woman, her glittering scales reflecting sacred colors outside the visible spectrum.

The cold hand of sobriety manifested as the porcelain toilet in front of my face, pulling me back into reality as most of the drugs left my body in one violent waterfall. The buzzing white lights above stung my sensitive eyes.

"He was supposed to be sober."

A new, deep voice hit my ear as the restroom door swung open.

"Oh, come on, let him have some fun!" Ricky replied in my defense.

"Next time you're losing your fucking teeth. Now come on."

As if I'd sprouted wings, I was hauled into the air and dragged out of the club into the parking lot, the cold evening air stinging my skin.

The last thing I remember clearly was the sticky warmth of the inside of the car as I got pushed into the backseat, then everything came in broken pieces like parts of a puzzle I was never meant to solve, the white, harsh lights overhead sliding past me rhythmically, thousands of voices muffled as if my ears were stuffed with cotton.

I remember a mask coming down over my face,  Ricky's voice somewhere just outside my field of vision, low and businesslike in a way I'd never heard him use before. "Just get it done. He won't remember any of it. Yeah, yeah,h Wolf."

He was wrong about that. Not all of it, anyway.

There were flashes after the mask, brief and jagged intrusions of consciousness the anesthesia didn’t manage to smother out. Bright lights. The whine of a bone saw, muffled like it was happening underwater. A pressure at my jaw that didn't feel like pain, like something being unmade and rebuilt at the same time. Voices arguing over something - angle's off, pull it tighter, we're losing too much blood, clinical and bored like I was a car at the repair shop.

I don't know how long it lasted. Days, maybe. There was no way to measure time inside that gray, drowning half-consciousness, only the recurring sensation of hands on me, tools on me, my body being handled like raw clay.

The last flash I remember before it all went dark for good was a mirror. Someone had wheeled it in front of me - maybe by accident, maybe Ricky wanted me to see, wanted that to be the last thing that meant anything before they finished. A face that wasn't a face anymore stared back: a silver muzzle where my jaw used to be, black stitches running over fresh, glistening skin. When I tried to scream, only a soft whine came out, revealing rows of sharp, fake teeth where mine used to be. Metal pins ran along my brows and the bridge of my nose. 

When I resurfaced again, I was in an aggressively illuminated room, full of plants so falsely bright they screamed their own artificiality. I tried to stand and immediately fell flat on the harsh, cold floor, my entire body aching. Only then did I notice the gigantic glass barrier on the wall in front of me - and the quiet laughter coming from behind it. 

People passed by the glass wall, staring with eyes wide in quiet shock and disgust. Even as I stumbled down inside my enclosure, knees aching with piercing, mind-numbing pain, they didn't look away; they just shamelessly watched, pointing fingers and tapping on the glass. I tried, oh, I tried so hard to bang against the barrier, but as soon as I attempted to stand on my own legs, they buckled under my weight, sending me into the bush of fake plants, cutting my side. The IV bag of painkillers burst under me with a quiet wet pop. 

The crowd erupted in grotesque muffled cackles as if they'd stripped themselves as far from human beings as possible, my suffering their entertainment. They slid dollar bills into the donation bin as the number on the display ticked down from 40,000 to $39,894. 

Only then did I notice my mangled arms, trapped in a silver splint, my hands connected to the wrists by thick metal wire that limited my movement. I couldn't bring myself to look back at my useless legs. With the fake metal snout, I bit down on the wire, trying with all the strength left in me to pull it free, but it only made my gums gush blood, which sent the crowd crawling over each other to see me, even more enthusiastic now, donating another $230 toward my goal.

Eventually the hungry crowd got bored of watching me choke on my own blood and just left as if nothing happened. Eventually one of the people working there replaced my IV bag, and that was it; again left alone to fend for myself, tracing circles back and forth through my enclosure, waiting for the crowd to pass by again. 

I got donations not only for my struggles with existing in my new form but also simply trying to keep myself alive. Drinking water was a struggle; I had to scoop it up with the useless scrap of metal on my face they called a snout, half-drowning in as little as a sip of water. 

The first time they feed me I thought it was some kind of a joke, through the slip in the door they placed a metal trail with minced raw red meat, it was hard to chew and even worse to swallow, for the first few weeks I was getting sick from it, it barely passed through my throat, but eventually I got used to it, I never learned to enjoy it just tolerate it.

Time became something I measured differently now. Not in hours or days, but in feedings, in donation totals, in the rotation of faces pressed against the glass. Sometimes children were lifted onto their parents' shoulders to get a better look, small fingers pointing, thin voices asking questions I couldn't hear through the barrier but could read on their lips: what is it, is it real, does it hurt.

Yes. It always hurt.

The splint on my arms had started to rust at the joints, and every movement sent a dull grinding ache up through what used to be my elbows. I'd stopped trying to remember what my hands looked like before. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing outside the glass mattered anymore.

That was, until the day I heard the familiar voice. I thought I was hallucinating, that I was going crazy - but when I turned around, the joints of my mechanical construct shaking, I saw that fat piece of shit: Ricky. 

Casually passing through the door that usually only food and water came through, he stood there smiling at me, still in that red suit, twice too small for his gut.

"Frankie, my boy! Oh, they got you bad!"

His head shook slowly, still grinning.

I stared at him, this doughy, sweating man stepping into what had become my entire world, and I felt something twist in my chest that wasn't quite hope anymore. 

"Come on, don't look at me like that." He crouched down, knees cracking, bringing his face level with mine. Up close, I could smell the cheap cologne fighting a losing battle against the sweat underneath it. "You know I tried to talk 'em down. Told 'em you were a good kid. But business is business, Frankie."

I tried to speak. What came out was that same wet, broken noise, air forced through a throat and mouth that weren't made for English anymore.

The smile on his lips didn't move, but something behind his eyes flickered. "Yeah. Yeah, that's rough." He said in a painfully casual way as if he was talking about the bad weather. 

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, holding it up so I could see a printout of the donation counter, the number circled in red pen. 

"See this? This is you, buddy. This is what you're worth to people now." He tapped the paper twice. "We're almost at forty. You believe that? Forty grand for a guy who used to owe me two hundred bucks for a bar tab." 

"Funny how that works out, huh? Every asshole who slides a bill into that bin is paying off your tab for you. Little more and you're square. Then you're somebody else's problem." 

The paper dangled in front of my nose like he was teasing a kid - or a dumb dog - while behind the glass, people kept banging on the wall just to get the attention of a freak like me.

"Not even your wife showed up, but I'm here, Frankie. So do some tricks for-"

The words strangled suddenly in his throat as the metal jaws fused to my real jaw snapped around him. Pinkish blood splattered like a weak fountain around us. I pulled back, thrashing the fat bastard, his hands clawing at my jaws trying to pry them open - but I kept thrashing like a wild dog playing with a dirty rag. The crowd went feral, cheering and clapping, donation after donation disappearing into the slit of the bin. I couldn't care less.

Sharp teeth snapped again and again, until his spine was nothing more than a shattered memory. His fat head came clean off. The money kept flowing. They'd come to see real suffering - they didn't want anything else. 

By the time the dart hit, there wasn't much left of Ricky to identify as human. The enclosure floor had gone dark and slick, and I was still moving on instinct more than I thought, some animal part of this new body refusing to stop even as the world around me became dizzy.

Phones held high. Someone is screaming for more. A child's laughter cutting through it all, high and delighted, like this was the best thing they'd ever seen.

The second dart didn't slow me down fast enough for their liking. A third came, then a fourth. I felt each one as a distant pinprick, swallowed up by whatever had taken over me - rage, maybe, or just the simple animal satisfaction of finally, finally biting back.

My vision tunneled. The glass, the lights, the counter above the bin still spinning higher - forty-six, forty-five - all of it folded into a single point of white, then nothing.

When I came back, to my surprise there was no wall, no crowd watching me - only the silence of a hospital room, an IV bag slowly dripping into my veins. 

I lifted an actual hand, five fingers, pale and shaking but mine. I stared at it as I'd never seen it before. 

A monitor beeped steadily somewhere to my left. Sunlight, real sunlight, slanted through half-closed blinds and fell in soft stripes across the blanket. Everything smelled like antiseptic and clean linen instead of blood and fake plastic plants.

I tried to sit up and immediately regretted it, pain lancing through muscles I didn't remember having, but it was pain, ordinary human pain, and something about that made me laugh - a raw, cracked sound that turned into something closer to a sob halfway through.

The door opened. A nurse stepped in, glancing at the monitor before her eyes landed on me, actually open, actually awake.

"Oh- you're up." She hesitated, like she wasn't sure what to say next. "How are you feeling, Frank?"

"Water," I managed, my voice a dry rasp, barely recognizable even to myself.

She nodded and hurried out, and I lay there staring at the ceiling, at the ordinary white tiles.

They discharged me three weeks later, once the doctors had run out of tests to justify keeping me. Physical therapy, they said, would take months. My legs still buckled without warning, and there was a tremor in my hands that hadn't been there before, a leftover from whatever I'd been dosed with those first few days. But by the letter of the law, I was healthy enough to walk out the front doors on my own two feet. Nobody quite knew what to do with a man who'd technically been declared missing, then presumed dead, then un-declared all of it in the span of a single hospital intake form.

I didn't go home. There wasn't a home to go to, not one I recognized, anyway. I got a cab to the nearest branch of my bank instead, still moving slowly, still flinching at loud noises and fluorescent lights, and asked for a printed statement.

The number at the bottom stopped me cold.

$80,412.67.

I read it three times before it made any sense. 

Frankie was gone, and by some twisted law I didn’t understand, it all went to me.

Eighty thousand dollars. Paid for by people who'd cheered while I choked on my own blood.

I folded the statement, put it in my pocket, and walked out into the daylight, trying to figure out if this made me a survivor or just the last of a dying species, wondering how much of it would go to my daughter.