Heaven is Full of Elephants Timothy Stammeyer

Benjamin was only nine, but he could name every zoo animal in Latin. It didn’t take long for his father to realize it wasn’t a thumb on the stove curiosity. He loved the elephant most of all, and there were signs of his affection everywhere. On the playground, the other kids joined his game of Jungle Chase, the elephant ruling the swings. Most of all, his favorite shoes, ones he wore only around the apartment, made a trumpeting sound as he stepped through the narrow hallway that led to his father’s room. Everyone could see it—

Benjamin had a thirst for wildness. When his father saw the ad from Brinkfield Zoo, he canceled his Saturday shift, removing all the money from the emergency jar.

That absent spring day was the last Benjamin had on earth. It started like the rest, eating scrambled eggs with strawberry jam, then sliding into the rusted pick-up that drove them across the country. Instead of the usual route, his father turned right onto Beaverdale, the road that led to the east part of the county. The zoo was in the nearby city, just twenty miles from their home in Little Creek. It was a surprise, and Benjamin only noticed where they were going when he saw the billboard: “Roar into Adventure.” They parked in the back lot, people streaming in from all over, littering the concrete like shrapnel. It’s then he saw the sign, “Lucy, the Magnificent Painting Elephant!” Standing there stunned, he looked at Lucy’s picture, the curve of her back leading to a billowing trunk that held a paintbrush.

It was rumored Lucy could paint the American flag, and the city buzzed with anticipation. As Benjamin and his father walked gleefully through the rose bushes that lined the concourse, old men from the Legion unpacked ceremonial banners at the enclosure’s south side. Others were putting blanks in their guns for a salute, which seemed reckless next to the flamingos. A choir from St. Luke’s Lutheran Church had been practicing “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee” just for the occasion, joined by a bagpiper in full uniform. Like when his mother was alive, Benjamin and his father stopped to take a picture in front of Lancelot the Lion, a trimmed shrub just beyond the penguins. They joined the expanding crowd, still thirty minutes before Lucy was set to take the stage, an oversized easel facing the audience. The elephants were normally at the zoo’s far end, but with Lucy, the giraffes were moved inside to leave space for the show. This meant that the painting elephant was about to perform yards away from where young Benjamin stood. And unfortunately for Benjamin, only nine years old, his life would end in eight minutes.

Of course, neither Benjamin nor his father knew anything about his death and certainly didn’t expect him to die somewhere between zebras and spotted seals, barking for fish in the middle of Iowa.

Benjamin ran ahead of his father, eager to catch sight of Lucy, who, at the time, was being brought over from the staging area by Joey, her trainer. The crowd grew thicker by the minute—a watering hole of wide-eyed humans. Weaving easily through the crowd, Benjamin veered left until he found himself standing at a tall gate covered in green mesh. Searching like at a treasure hunt, he found a peep hole and peered in. Rounding the corner of the isolation building was the elephant, and Benjamin couldn’t stifle his excitement. He turned back to his father who was busy watching the St. Luke’s choir warm up on the lawn. Four minutes left.

Brimming with joy, Benjamin started to sprint down the length of the gate, running his fingers along the bumpy mesh. The gates at the zoo were automatic, opened only by a key card. With the fame of Lucy, there was an extra security guard at the gate who, unfortunately again for Benjamin, had her friend’s bachelorette party the night before and had fallen asleep, the card dangling from her wrist. Seeing his chance, wise Benjamin lifted the card to the gate and, to his surprise, a voice chimed in monotone—Opening Gate B-2. At this point, the security guard startled and started profaning the boy. Twenty seconds left.

Seeing the gate wide open, Lucy made a dash for freedom. After all, elephants are really not meant to be painters, and she was enticed by a taste of opportunity. The security guard was too busy yelling at the boy that she didn’t notice the one-animal stampede. Lucy didn’t see the boy either, and Benjamin was so in awe of the sixton majesty he just stood there. One second to go.

Everything seemed to happen rather slowly, Benjamin’s eyes wide and dilated, the security guard’s hangover headache starting to intensify, the trainer running desperately behind, leash in hand, and Lucy wanting to return to what she was destined for. In that second, she raised her giant foot in triumph, just a step more until she crossed the threshold. Benjamin, unfortunately, was out of seconds, and his crushed body lay beside the security guard who, in all fairness, was asked to resign from the Brinkfield Zoo.

Lucy hesitated for a moment like she noticed a splinter and then paraded through the zoo’s concourse, trunk high. She started running to the seal enclosure, the St. Luke’s choir scattering like a Sunday sermon gone too long. Parents covered their children, strollers rolling like Indy cars, ushering them down the walkway back to the entrance. A woman came over the loudspeaker piped into the zoo, “Remain calm. Please make your way to the exit.” And unfortunately for Lucy, she only had five minutes left to live.

Of course, Lucy didn’t know any of this, as she was an elephant. At the level of her eyes, she spotted a shining piece of metal, which looked rather like a second sun. Intrigued, she ran headlong toward the shimmer, which was really the reflection of a hundred mirrors, part of a sculpture titled “Running Free,” a name rather inappropriate for fifty acres of caged animals. A group of homeschooled children were standing right behind the sculpture, a day trip that turned unimaginably bad. Quivering and pouting with gusto, Lucy stopped suddenly like at a yellow light. Three minutes to go.

As the children cried, knowing full well that animal science was no longer a viable career path, Lucy stood there not thinking much of anything. Her vantage point was highest in the zoo, making her perspective different from the humans standing below. From that height, she saw the tops of heads, the smooth rocks for seal sitting, the roofs of the small huts that sold souvenirs. With her, the children below stayed still in a game of freeze tag. Ten seconds left.

At this point, zookeepers with both tranquilizers and guns had made it behind the painting elephant, ready to shoot whichever they deemed necessary. Noting the elephant dangerously close to the cowering children, they opted for firepower of the bullet variety and shot Lucy twelve times with slugs the size of strawberries. Like young Benjamin just minutes before, Lucy was out of seconds, lying in a dead heap, her last sight a glimpse of the snack shop.

Everyone was dazed, hunching their shoulders and looking around for someone to say something. But no one did, no one dared to, watching the still bodies as if they would come back to life.

Benjamin’s father looked down at the boy, and then to the elephant yards away, and finally to the police officer who was gently prodding him to leave the boy alone so they could do what any father dreads. Naturally, the father would not leave, holding Benjamin’s bluing hand like the first day home from the hospital. But the fact remained, young Benjamin would never come back; he was gone to a place beyond anyone’s comprehension.

It was two months and twenty-four days before Benjamin’s father returned to Brinkfield. The organizers of the zoo, prompted by the St. Luke’s Choir, had asked to hold a memorial service at the grounds. Caught in grief, he declined many times, always saying the moment wasn’t right. But, with the urging of his sister, Benjamin’s father caved, letting the zoo move forward with the preparations. When he walked to the scene, the area where his son died had been scrubbed clean. The only marks of tragedy were the piles of flowers littered on the fence line of the enclosure. There were dozens of little plush animals mixed in with the roses.

Among them, there were no elephants.

There was nothing that even resembled the creature, none plastered to signs or guide posts. At the ceremony, when asked to say a few words, Benjamin’s father declined, too taken by the moment that his throat was dry. Instead, the head of the zoo offered a prayer for the boy, and the St. Luke’s Choir sang, “It is Well with My Soul.” After they hit their last off-key note, the gathered crowd dispersed, leaving only Benjamin’s father who sat on a bench with the backrest of a zebra.

He sat there far past closing, but no one had the heart to tell him to leave. The lights around the zoo still shone brightly, illuminating the place like a prison. After a while, Benjamin’s father heard a slight whistling sound, a tune that he remembered from childhood but couldn’t place. The unseen whistler had feet that shuffled along the broad walkway leading to the bench.

When Benjamin’s father looked around, he saw a janitor come into the light. She was old, her forehead wrinkled, her graying hair wispy around her ears. She took a Kleenex from her pocket, blew her nose, and then, gently like rain, sat next to the man on the bench. There was something about that woman so familiar that the father told her the whole story.

He told her of Benjamin’s love of animals and homemade jungle java. He told her of his school report on the African Savannah, his flip book of facts that won the prize for third graders at Woodson Elementary. He told her of the death of Benjamin’s mother, the hardship of trying to be a single dad in a world so dominated by what a father is supposed to be. He told her of the past two months, the tears, the therapy visits, the nagging sense that there had to be something more out of this hell.

When he finished, the woman sighed slightly and leaned in. “Don’t worry,” she said in the sweetest of tones. “Heaven is full of elephants.”