A few days into our arrival one summer my Mother and I were bright and early boarding the subway …. or tube as its known in London, to take us over to the zoo. I was excited and impatient and sure that Guy would recognize an old friend and annual visitor and oh so longed for the thirty five minute train ride to end. It did eventually and we arrived at the zoo to ignore all it had to offer until we had visited that great beast from the French Cameroon’s.
And there he was. Powerful and handsome and as usual , unmoving as we stood before his large cage. Within but a whisker of a moment of our arrival Guy suddenly leaped up and I was awe struck at his quick and sure movements. And so was my Mother as what happened next was that Guy latched hold of a bucket and bounced it off the bars of his cage. Its contents …a full buckets worth which proved to be rancid water and gorilla urine….surged through the bars to drench my Mother from top to bottom.
I was really pissed that we didn’t get to see the rest of the zoo that day ….but a woman riding home on the subway with gorilla urine dripping from her dress is unlikely to be a study in sympathetic behavior…..
I continued to visit Guy almost to the time he died in 1978 and apart from my minds eye, never did see him move from his handsome cross armed pose again.
