years ago

He turned to me at the bar, and talked to me until his beer went warm in his hand.  A mama's boy, finishing college, majoring in zoology.  He wanted to be an elephant keeper at the San Diego Zoo.  That was the only thing he wanted, all he had wanted since he was a child.  He wanted it with the simplicity of a saint's faith.  I probed, conversationally: Was there any possibility the job would not be all he hoped?  None.  What if he couldn't get the elephant-keeping job at the San Diego Zoo?  He would, but he allowed that there were a few other zoos he could imagine working at.  Already he was keeping exotic livestock behind his mother's trailer.  And what if even those jobs were not available?  He would have this job, period - he was absolute.  I marveled.  He gave off the scent of cedar chips, and ever since they have been to me the smell of his beautiful fanaticism.