- The first heartbreaking cry, appealing to the silent and deaf, preoccupied only with themselves and their own affairs, was already his first play. One of the characters, Jerry, has to repeat the same phrase "I was at the zoo just now" three times at the beginning before the other one hears and responds, and the drama begins. It is minimal, this drama, in all respects: both in length - up to an hour of playing time, and stage accessories - two garden benches in New York's Central Park, and the number of characters - there are two of them, i.e. exactly as much as is necessary for dialogue, for the most elementary communication, for the movement of drama.
- It arises from Jerry's seemingly naive, irrepressible, obsessive desire to "talk for real", and the flow of his phrases, joking, ironic, serious, defiant, eventually overcomes Peter's inattention, bewilderment, wariness.
- The dialogue quickly reveals two models of relations with society, two characters, two social types.
- Peter is a 100% standard family American, and as such, according to the current notion of well-being, he has only two: two daughters, two televisions, two cats, two parrots. He works in a publishing house that produces textbooks, earns fifteen hundred a month, reads "Time", wears glasses, smokes a pipe, "not fat and not thin, not handsome and not ugly," he is like others of his circle.
- Peter represents that part of society, which in America is called the "middle class", more precisely, the upper - wealthy and enlightened - its layer. He is pleased with himself and the world, he is, as they say, integrated into the System.
- Jerry is a tired, downtrodden, slovenly dressed man, who has cut off all personal, family, family ties. He lives in some old house on the West Side, in a nasty hole, next to the same as him, the destitute and outcasts. He is, in his own words, an "eternal temporary resident" in this house, society, world. The obsession of a dirty and stupid landlady, this "vile parody of lust," and the furious enmity of her dog are the only signs of attention to him from those around him.
- Jerry, this lumpen intellectual, is by no means an extravagant figure: his aloof fellows densely populate the plays and novels of modern American authors. His fate is trivial and typical. At the same time, we guess in him the undiscovered possibilities of an extraordinary emotional nature, sensitively reacting to everything ordinary and vulgar.
- Peter's indifferently philistine mind cannot perceive Jerry otherwise than by correlating him with some generally accepted idea of \u200b\u200bpeople - a robber? bohemian resident of Greenwich Village? Peter cannot, does not want to believe what this strange stranger is feverishly talking about. In the world of illusions, myths, self-deception, in which Peter and his kind exist, there is no place for unpleasant truth. Is it better to leave the facts to fictions, literature? - sadly drops Jerry. But he makes contact, twisting his insides in front of a random oncoming one. Peter is confused, annoyed, intrigued, shocked. And the more unattractive the facts, the more he resists them, the thicker the wall of incomprehension against which Jerry is beating. “A person must communicate somehow, at least with someone,” he furiously convinces. - If not with people .... then with something else ... But if we can’t understand each other, why did we even come up with the word “love”?
- With this frankly polemical rhetorical question addressed to preachers of abstract saving love, Albee completes the eight-page monologue of his hero, singled out in the play as "The Story of Jerry and the Dog" and playing a key role in its ideological and artistic system. "History" reveals Albee's predilection for monologue as the most obvious way of self-expression of a character in a hurry to speak out, wanting to be heard.
- In a preliminary remark, Albee indicates that the monologue should be "accompanied by an almost uninterrupted game", i.e. takes him beyond the limits of purely verbal communication. The very structure of the Olbian paramonologues, in which various types of phonation and kinesics are used, their disjointed rhythms, intonation differences, pauses and repetitions, are designed to reveal the insufficiency of language as a means of communication.
- In terms of content, "History" is both an experience in communication that Jerry puts on himself and a dog, and an analysis by the playwright of forms of behavior and feelings - from love to hatred and violence, and, as a result, an approximate model of human relations that will vary, refine, turn with new and new facets, but will not achieve the integrity of the worldview and artistic concept. Albee's thought moves as Jerry moved from the zoo, now and then giving a big detour. At the same time, the problem of alienation is undergoing changes, being interpreted either as concrete social, or abstractly moral, or existentially metaphysical.
- Of course, Jerry's monologue is not a thesis or a sermon, it is a sad and bitter story of the hero about himself, whose penetration is not conveyed by printed text, a parabolic story where the dog, like the mythological Cerberus, embodies the evil existing in the world. You can adapt to it or try to overcome it.
- In the dramatic structure of the play, Jerry's monologue is his last attempt to convince Peter - and the viewer - of the need for understanding between people, the need to overcome isolation. The attempt fails. Peter not only doesn't want to - he can't understand Jerry, or the dog story, or his obsession, or what others need: repeated "I don't understand" three times only betrays his passive confusion. He can not abandon the usual system of values. Albee uses the technique of absurdity and farce. Jerry begins to openly insult Peter, tickling and pinching him, pushing him off the bench, slapping him, spitting in his face, forcing him to pick up the knife he threw. And finally, the last argument in this fight for contact, the last desperate gesture of an alienated person - Jerry himself impales on a knife, which Peter grabbed in a fright, in self-defense. The result, where the normal "I - you" relationship is replaced by the connection "killer - victim", is terrible, absurd. The call to human communion is permeated with disbelief in the possibility, if not the assertion of the impossibility of such, except through suffering and death. This bad dialectic of the impossible and the inevitable, in which the positions of existentialism, which is the philosophical justification of anti-art, are discernible, does not offer either a substantive or formal resolution of the dramatic situation and greatly weakens the humanistic pathos of the play.
- The power of the play, of course, is not in the artistic analysis of alienation as a socio-psychological phenomenon, but in the very picture of this monstrous alienation, which is acutely realized by the subject, which gives the play a distinctly tragic sound. The well-known conventionality and approximateness of this picture is compensated by a merciless satirical denunciation of the deaf pseudo-intelligent philistinism, brilliantly personified in the image of Peter. The tragedy and satire of the picture shown by Albee allows us to draw a certain moral lesson.
- But what happened at the zoo anyway? Throughout the play, Jerry tries to talk about the zoo, but every time his feverish thought flies away. Gradually, nevertheless, from scattered references, an analogy is formed between the zoo and the world, where everyone is “fenced off with bars” from each other. The world as a prison or as a menagerie are the most characteristic images of modernist literature, betraying the mindset of the modern bourgeois intellectual ("We are all locked in a solitary cell of our own skin," notes one of Tennessee Williams' characters). Albee, in the whole system of the play, asks the question: why are people in America so divided that they no longer understand each other, although they seem to speak the same language. Jerry is lost in the jungle of a big city, in the jungle of society, where there is an ongoing struggle to survive. The society is divided by partitions. On one side are comfortable and benevolent conformists such as Peter, with his "own little zoo" - parrots and cats, which turns from a "plant" into an "animal" as soon as an outsider encroaches on his bench (= property). On the other - a crowd of unfortunate people, locked in their closets and forced to lead an unworthy human, animal existence. That's why Jerry went to the zoo to once again "take a closer look at how people behave with animals and how animals behave with each other and with people too." He exactly repeated the path of his direct ancestor about the "Nil stoker Yank" ("Shaggy Monkey", 1922), "the instinctive anarchist worker doomed to collapse," according to A. V. Lunacharsky, who threw a fruitless challenge to the mechanical bourgeois crowd and also tried to understand the measure of human relationships through the inhabitants of the menagerie. Incidentally, the expressionistic texture of this and other O'Neill dramas of those years gives the key to many moments in Albee's plays.
- The obvious, but requiring several levels of analysis, ambiguity of the metaphorical image of the zoo, deployed throughout the text and collected in the broad and capacious title "The Zoo Story", excludes an unambiguous answer to the question of what happened at the zoo.
- And the final conclusion from this whole "zoological story" is, perhaps, that the face of the dead Jerry - and the playwright alludes to this in no uncertain terms - will inevitably rise before the eyes of Peter, who has fled the scene, whenever he sees on a television screen or a newspaper page violence and cruelty, causing at least pangs of conscience, if not a sense of personal responsibility for the evil that is happening in the world. Without this humanistic perspective, which assumes the civic responsiveness of the reader or viewer, everything that happened in Albee's play will remain incomprehensible and contrived.
Peter
in his early forties, neither fat nor thin, neither handsome nor ugly. He wears a tweed suit and horn-rimmed glasses. Smokes a pipe. And although he, so to speak, is already entering middle age, the style of his clothes and manner of carrying himself is almost youthful.
Jerry
about forty years old, dressed not so much poorly as slovenly. Once a toned, muscular figure begins to grow fat. Now it cannot be called beautiful, but traces of its former attractiveness are still quite clearly visible. Heavy gait, lethargy of movements are not explained by promiscuity; if you look closely, you can see that this man is immensely tired.
Central Park in New York; summer sunday. Two garden benches on both sides of the stage, bushes, trees, sky behind them. Peter sits on the right bench. He is reading a book. He puts the book on his knees, wipes his glasses and goes back to reading. Enter Jerry.
Jerry. I was at the zoo just now.
Peter ignores him.
I say I've just been to the zoo. MISTER, I WAS AT THE ZOO!
Peter. Huh?.. What?.. Excuse me, are you talking to me?..
Jerry. I was at the zoo, then I walked, until I ended up here. Tell me, did I go north?
Peter (puzzled). To the north? .. Yes ... Probably. Let me think.
Jerry (points to the room). Is this Fifth Avenue?
Peter. It? Yes of course.
Jerry. What is this street that crosses it? That one, right?
Peter. Is that one? Oh, it's Seventy-four.
Jerry. And the zoo is near 65th, so I was heading north.
Peter (he can't wait to get back to reading). Yes, apparently so.
Jerry. Good old north.
Peter (almost automatically). Haha.
Jerry (after a pause). But not directly north.
Peter. I... well, not directly north. So to speak, in a northerly direction.
Jerry (watches Peter fill his pipe trying to get rid of him). Do you want to get lung cancer?
Peter (raises her eyes at him, not without irritation, but then smiles). No sir. You won't make a living from this.
Jerry. That's right, sir. Most likely, you will get cancer in your mouth and you will have to insert such a thing as Freud had after he had half his jaw removed. What are they called, these things?
Peter (reluctantly). Prosthesis?
Jerry. Exactly! Prosthesis. You are an educated person, aren't you? Are you a doctor by any chance?
Peter. No, I just read about it somewhere. I think it's in Time magazine. (Picks up the book.)
Jerry. I don't think Time magazine is for morons.
Peter. In my opinion, too.
Jerry (after a pause). It's very good that Fifth Avenue is there.
Peter (absently). Yes.
Jerry. I can't stand the western part of the park.
Peter. Yes? (Carefully, but with a glimmer of interest.) Why?
Jerry (carelessly). I don't know myself.
Peter. BUT! (He turns back to the book.)
Jerry (looks silently at Peter until he looks up at him, embarrassed). Maybe we should talk? Or do you not want to?
Peter (with obvious reluctance). No... why not.
Jerry. I see you don't want to.
Peter (puts the book down, takes the pipe out of his mouth. Smiling). No, really, I would love to.
Jerry. It's not worth it if you don't want to.
Peter (finally resolutely). Not at all, I'm very happy.
Jerry. It's like his... Today is a glorious day.
Peter (unnecessarily looking up at the sky). Yes. Very glorious. Wonderful.
Jerry. And I was at the zoo.
Peter. Yes, I think you already said… didn't you?
Jerry. Tomorrow you will read about it in the papers if you don't see it on TV tonight. Do you have a TV?
Peter. Even two - one for children.
Jerry. Are you married?
Peter (with dignity). Of course!
Jerry. Nowhere, thank God, it is not said that this is mandatory.
Peter. Yes ... it is of course ...
Jerry. So you have a wife.
Peter (not knowing how to continue this conversation). Well, yes!
Jerry. And you have kids!
Peter. Yes. Two.
Jerry. Boys?
Peter. No, girls... both girls.
Jerry. But you wanted boys.
Peter. Well... of course, every person wants to have a son, but...
Jerry (slightly derisive). But that's how dreams fall, right?
Peter (with irritation). I didn't mean to say that at all!
Jerry. And you're not going to have any more children?
Peter (absently). No. No more. (Kai would wake up, with annoyance.) How did you know?
Jerry. Maybe the way you cross your legs, and something else in your voice. Or maybe I guessed it by accident. Your wife doesn't want to, does she?
Peter (furiously). None of your business!
Pause.
Jerry nods. Peter calms down.
Well, that's right. We won't have any more children.
Jerry (soft). This is how dreams fall.
Peter (forgiving him this). Yes ... perhaps you are right.
Jerry. Well... what else?
Peter. And what did you say about the zoo ... what will I read about it or see? ..
Jerry. I'll tell you later. You're not angry that I'm asking you?
Peter. Oh, not at all.
Jerry. Do you know why I'm coming to you? I rarely have to talk to people, unless you say: give me a glass of beer, or: where is the bathroom, or: when the session begins, or: do not let your hands free, buddy, and so on. In general, you know.
Peter. To be honest, I don't know.
Jerry. But sometimes you want to talk to a person - to talk for real; want to know everything about it...
Peter (laughs, still feeling awkward). And today your guinea pig is me?
Jerry. On such a sunny Sunday afternoon, there is nothing better than talking to a decent married man who has two daughters and a ... er ... dog?
Peter shakes his head.
Not? Two dogs?
Peter shakes his head.
Um. No dogs at all?
Peter shakes his head sadly.
Well, that's weird! As far as I understand, you must love animals. Cat?
Peter nods sadly.
Cats! But it cannot be that it is you of your own free will... Wife and daughters?
Peter nods.
Curious, do you have anything else?
Peter (he has to clear his throat). There are ... there are two more parrots. U ... um ... each daughter has one.
Jerry. Birds.
Peter. They live in a cage in my girls' room.
Jerry. Do they get sick with something? .. Birds, that is.
Somehow a bulldozer driver and an electric locomotive driver met ... It looks like the beginning of a joke. We met somewhere on the 500th kilometer in a snowy wilderness under the howling of the wind and wolves ... Two solitudes met, both "uniform": one in the form of a railway worker, the other in a prison padded jacket and with a shaved head. This is nothing but the beginning of "An Unforgettable Acquaintance" - the premiere of the Moscow Theater of Satire. Actually, in "Satire" they figured out for three, i.e. decided to divide two one-act plays by Nina Sadur and Edward Albee into three artists: Fyodor Dobronravov, Andrey Barilo and Nina Kornienko. Everything in the performance is paired or doubled, and only director Sergei Nadtochiev, who was invited from Voronezh, managed to turn the divisible into a single, integral performance. The nameless wasteland, which even trains whistle, whistling non-stop, suddenly turned out to be twinned with New York's Central Park, and the domestic restless former convict found a common theme for silence with the American loser. The seeming gap between the circumstances of the plays "Go" and "What Happened at the Zoo" turned out to be only an intermission.
“Go!”, Echoing the name of the play, a man, located on the rails, shouts to the driver. A play is built around a peasant's attempt to commit suicide in a railway way. A man, he is a man, the whole country rests on him, and he is no longer there for her. “You are a hero! You were in prison….,” a young machinist (A. Barilo) throws at a man who has lived and decided not to live (F. Dobronravov). "You're a traitor, man! You betrayed us! You betrayed all generations! ”, - youth throws experience and instead of extending a helping hand, he beats his fist in the jaw. But the conflict of generations in the play is not resolved by force. Years and rails separate the characters, but unite the starry sky, and a hundred-ruble note passed from hand to hand. The stars on the back of the stage are shining, falling every now and then. “Zvezdets!”, - the characters explain, without guessing anything. Lives don't come true, let alone wishes.
The play by Nina Sadur, written in 1984, has not lost its relevance, but has “raised in price”. It's not about the scenery, it is minimal and sufficient and convenient for such an acting performance (scenography - Akinf Belov). It has risen in price in the sense of an increase in the cost of life, although life is still a penny, but for a fiver, according to the play, you can no longer buy red wine. In the performance, the red price for the red one is one hundred rubles, and the indecently expensive sweets mentioned in the play at 85 rubles per kilogram go for 850. Focusing on prices, updating the text, the director, however, retained the mention of execution as a criminal punishment (this trouble is promised by one character to another) that in our time there was a legal moratorium on the death penalty and illegal executions here and there looks like some kind of omission.
So the engineer would have continued to stand for life in the cold, and the peasant to lie on the rails for death, if “Grandma in boots” had not appeared on the tracks (railway and life). “Once upon a time there was a gray goat with my grandmother,” but he ran away. The grandmother was looking for a goat, but she found a man. “I am a nobody,” the man lamented, and under the light of the abyss full of stars, he suddenly turned out to be needed by someone.
All three are not loners, but lonely people. Their loneliness is simple, truthful, they have nothing to talk about, but no one to talk to. They do not have an abstract “stress”, but quite concretely something “has happened”. But the author, unlike life, is kind to his characters. A conscientious machinist who does not want to “turn around” in life will turn around in the cold, but he will also receive a wise word of hope “for warming up”. A man who has fallen ill with his soul will warm himself at his grandmother, and now the grandmother will surely find a runaway goat. On the rails separating the heroes, a wrinkled hundred-ruble note will remain - the truth, the one that the characters revealed to each other without knowing it themselves, do not buy. The rails will not disappear, but the paths-roads with which they are laid out will curl and intertwine (projection onto the stage) as the lives of the characters on this winter night. Snow will fall on the stage, but the frost will not chill anyone, only the “sick world” will have a slightly lower temperature. Even the author will not deny him a chance for recovery.
Through the intermission, night will give way to day, silver winter to crimson autumn, snow to rain, and the railway to a neat park path. Here, a quiet family American Peter (A. Barilo), a very average representative of the middle class, will have an unforgettable acquaintance. This phrase for the name of the performance is taken from E. Albee's play. But under the title that promises something pleasant, a chilling story will be revealed.
Peter only has a couple (for a "double" performance, and this seems to be no coincidence): two daughters, two cats, two parrots, two televisions. Jerry "eternal sojourner" has everything in a single copy, with the exception of two photo frames, empty. Peter, looking for peace from his family in the shade of the trees, would dream of "waking up alone in his cozy bachelor flat", while Jerry dreams of never waking up. The characters are no longer separated by rails, but by classes, environment, lifestyle. Handsome Peter with a pipe and a Time magazine can't understand sloppy, nervous Jerry in patched pants. Jerry is bright and uncommon, and Peter is a man of general rules, standards and schemes, he does not understand and is afraid of exceptions. To him E. Albee, a few years after the premiere of the play, dedicated its continuation: the prehistory of the meeting between Peter and Jerry. The play was called "At Home at the Zoo" and told about a different kind of loneliness, loneliness among relatives and friends, loneliness and at the same time the impossibility of being alone.
Peter in the play symbolizes the generally accepted, Jerry is not accepted by anyone, regurgitated into life and rejected by it. He is a desperate man, because he is desperate. Different from the others, extraordinary Jerry stumbles upon polite, but indifference. People have a lot to do and no one cares about anyone. People make contacts, increase the number of "friends", but lose friends; maintaining connections and acquaintances, they will not support a stranger in trouble, or just on an escalator. “A person must somehow communicate with at least someone ...”, Jerry shouts into the hall, for whom it is easier to sit on VKontakte than to make contact. Jerry shouts at the faceless mass, reminding them that it is made up of people. “We are spinning this way and that,” the speakers shout in English, as if answering the driver from the first short story, who did not want to “spin”. We spin and spin, taking an example from the planet. Each around its own axis.
Peter and after him the audience will be taken out of the so-called "comfort zone", out of the predictable course of events. Mikhail Zhvanetsky once remarked that “I won’t forget you” sounds nice, like a confession, and “I will remember you” sounds like a threat. Peter will remember the meeting on the bench forever, and the public will not forget "what happened at the zoo." The domestic viewer knows that from Pushkin to Bulgakov, meetings on the benches do not bode well - in this American play, you should not count on a happy ending either.
Both plays appear “out of the blue” and are driven by verbal pull. The loneliness and desire of the characters to leave the life that did not claim them united these stories. In an attempt to commit suicide, the characters turn to people: having lived a lonely life, they decide at least to meet death not alone. The characters have no one to talk to, they spoke to themselves and themselves, they sentenced themselves. With a snatched, caught interlocutor, a barely lukewarm dialogue will certainly turn into an exchange of monologues: how to dose the avalanche of the unspoken? There are no pauses on the stage, the suicide characters are, as it were, driven between a pause of silence of the lived and a pause of death, which nothing can interrupt. Only in this narrow gap, lined like a stave with stripes of sleepers, then with strips of benches, can you talk a lot. But the performance, leaving in words, still penetrates the audience. In fairness, in this case, this is not the effect of the theater, but the theatricality of what is happening. So, according to the remark to the central monologue of Albee's play, the author counts on a hypnotic effect that could fill the character-listener, and with it the whole hall. The text is really creepy. In the performance, however, the monologue, trimmed for the convenience of the actor and the audience, achieves a certain effect not thanks to the actors' recitation, but with the music of Alfred Schnittke. Fedor Dobronravov, and the whole performance is proof of this, is quite capable of capturing and retaining the audience, but at the key moments the actor seems to be urging, urging, and only well-chosen music allows you to decompose the text into measures, hear the semitones in it, feel the climax, wince at the sudden ending.
However, the degree of tragedy here is significantly lowered. To the delight of the audience. Helped editing text and selecting music. The play of absurdity, voiced by Mario Lanza's hit, finally gave way to music and flowed after it according to the laws of melodrama. Here, Fyodor Dobronravov’s divertissements also found a place: whether it’s a ditty about Aunt Manya (from the first act), or “Be with me” from M. Lanz’s repertoire in Russian translation. The director squeezed into the play a third character, not foreseen by the author - a peppy American old woman in huge headphones, completely immersed in the music of Chubby Checker. This pretty old woman does not show interest in others, she simply lives for her own pleasure. Only at the end of the performance will she show courtesy and open a black umbrella over Jerry, who is getting wet in the rain. He won't need it anymore.
Both parts of the performance turned out to be “not so different from each other”. There is no reason to complain about the lack of stage time or material. There was enough here. After all, it was no coincidence that, at first glance, the postscript on the poster “two short stories for three artists based on plays” turned out to be strange. Two short stories based on plays are, in essence, two retellings of plays, two simple, sincere, heartfelt stories in faces. Any retelling in comparison with the original source loses a lot. The performance of "Satire" balances on the verge of melodrama and tragicomedy, the actors do not seem to want to spoil the public's mood with all their might. The walls of the theater, accustomed to laughter, apparently dispose to this. Laughter no matter what. "Unforgettable Acquaintances" is an attempt to transform the role not only for Fyodor Dobronravov, for whom this performance can be considered a benefit, but also for the theater, which allowed itself to deviate from the usual genre. A little bit. But the direction is right.
The format of the premiere of the Satire Theater is quite understandable - life, in general, is also a one-act play. Its ending is predictable, but the plot manages to wind in the most bizarre way. It seems that the performance based on it is doomed to failure: the director does not explain the idea, all the actors claim to be the main roles, and every year it is more and more difficult for the make-up artist to “youngen” and preen ... There are no samples, rehearsals, runs ... Everything is for the public. Every day is a premiere - for the first and last time.
Photo from the official website of the theater
Central Park in New York, summer Sunday. Two garden benches facing each other, bushes and trees behind them. Peter is sitting on the right bench, he is reading a book. Peter is in his early forties, perfectly ordinary, wears a tweed suit and horn-rimmed glasses, smokes a pipe; and although he is already entering middle age, his style of dress and demeanor are almost youthful.
Enter Jerry. He is also under forty, and he is dressed not so much poorly as slovenly; his once toned figure is beginning to grow fat. Jerry cannot be called handsome, but traces of former attractiveness are still quite clear. His heavy gait, lethargy of movements are explained not by promiscuity, but by immense fatigue.
Jerry sees Peter and starts a casual conversation with him. Peter doesn't pay any attention to Jerry at first, but then he does answer, but his answers are short, absent-minded and almost mechanical - he can't wait to return to his interrupted reading. Jerry sees that Peter is in a hurry to get rid of him, but continues to ask Peter about some little things. Peter reacts weakly to Jerry's remarks, and then Jerry falls silent and stares at Peter until he looks up at him, embarrassed. Jerry offers to talk and Peter agrees.
Jerry remarks what a nice day it is, then states that he was at the zoo and that everyone will read about it tomorrow in the papers and see it on TV. Does Peter have a TV? Oh yes, Peter even has two televisions, a wife and two daughters. Jerry venomously remarks that, obviously, Peter would like to have a son, but it didn’t work out, and now his wife doesn’t want to have any more children ... In response to this remark, Peter boils up, but quickly calms down. He is curious about what happened at the zoo, what will be written in the newspapers and shown on television. Jerry promises to talk about this incident, but first he really wants to "really" talk to a person, because he rarely has to talk to people: "Unless you say: give me a beer, or: where is the restroom, or: do not let your hands go buddy, and so on. And on this day, Jerry wants to talk to a decent married man, to find out everything about him. For example, does he have a... uh... dog? No, Peter has cats (Peter would have preferred a dog, but his wife and daughters insisted on cats) and parrots (each daughter has one). And in order to feed "this crowd" Peter serves in a small publishing house that publishes textbooks. Peter earns fifteen hundred a month, but never carries more than forty dollars with him ("So ... if you ... bandit ... ha ha ha! .."). Jerry begins to find out where Peter lives. Peter gets out awkwardly at first, but then nervously admits that he lives on Seventy-fourth Street, and notices Jerry that he is not so much talking as interrogating. Jerry doesn't pay much attention to this remark, he talks absently to himself. And then Peter again reminds him of the zoo...
Jerry absentmindedly replies that he was there today, "and then came here", and asks Peter, "what's the difference between upper-middle class and lower-middle class"? Peter doesn't understand what this has to do with it. Then Jerry asks about Peter's favorite writers ("Baudelaire and Marquand?"), then suddenly declares: "Do you know what I did before I went to the zoo? I walked all of Fifth Avenue—all the way on foot.” Peter decides that Jerry lives in Greenwich Village, and this consideration seems to help him understand something. But Jerry does not live in Greenwich Village at all, he just took the subway to get there to get to the zoo (“Sometimes a person has to take a big detour to the side in order to get back the right and shortest way back”). In fact, Jerry lives in an old four-story apartment building. He lives on the top floor, and his window overlooks the courtyard. His room is a ridiculously cramped closet, where instead of one wall there is a wooden partition separating it from another ridiculously cramped closet in which a black fag lives, he always holds the door wide when he plucks his eyebrows: “He plucks his eyebrows, wears a kimono and goes to the closet, that's all." There are two more rooms on the floor: in one lives a noisy Puerto Rican family with a bunch of children, in the other - someone whom Jerry has never seen. This house is not a pleasant place, and Jerry doesn't know why he lives there. Perhaps because he does not have a wife, two daughters, cats and parrots. He has a razor and a soap dish, some clothes, an electric stove, dishes, two empty photo frames, some books, a deck of pornographic cards, an ancient typewriter, and a small safe box without a lock, which contains sea pebbles that Jerry collected more child. And under the stones are letters: “please” letters (“please don’t do such and such” or “please do such and such”) and later “once” letters (“when will you write?” , "when will you come?").
Jerry's mom ran away from dad when Jerry was ten and a half years old. She embarked on a year-long adultery tour of the southern states. And among so many other affections of Mommy, the most important and unchanged was pure whiskey. A year later, dear mother gave her soul to God in some landfill in Alabama. Jerry and daddy found out about it just before New Year's. When daddy came back from the south, he celebrated the New Year for two weeks in a row, and then drunk hit the bus ...
But Jerry was not left alone - his mother's sister was found. He remembers little about her, except that she did everything harshly - and slept, and ate, and worked, and prayed. And on the day when Jerry graduated from high school, she "suddenly pooped right on the stairs in front of her apartment" ...
Suddenly, Jerry realizes that he forgot to ask the name of his interlocutor. Peter introduces himself. Jerry continues his story, he explains why there is not a single photo in the frame: “I have never met a single lady again, and it never occurred to them to give me photographs.” Jerry confesses that he cannot make love to a woman more than once. But when he was fifteen, he dated a Greek boy, the son of a park watchman, for a whole week and a half. Perhaps Jerry was in love with him, or maybe just for sex. But now Jerry really likes pretty ladies. But for an hour. Not more...
In response to this confession, Peter makes some kind of insignificant remark, to which Jerry responds with unexpected aggressiveness. Peter also boils, but then they ask each other's forgiveness and calm down. Jerry then remarks that he expected Peter to be more interested in the porno cards than the photo frames. After all, Peter must have already seen such cards, or he had his own deck, which he threw away before his marriage: “For a boy, these cards serve as a substitute for practical experience, and for an adult, practical experience replaces fantasy. But you seem to be more interested in what happened at the zoo." At the mention of the zoo, Peter perks up and Jerry tells...
Jerry talks again about the house he lives in. In this house, the rooms get better with every floor down. And on the third floor there lives a woman who cries softly all the time. But the story, in fact, is about the dog and the mistress of the house. The mistress of the house is a fat, stupid, dirty, spiteful, perpetually drunk pile of meat (“you must have noticed: I avoid strong words, so I can’t describe her properly”). And this woman with her dog guards Jerry. She's always hanging down the stairs and making sure Jerry doesn't drag anyone into the house, and in the evenings, after another pint of gin, she stops Jerry and tries to squeeze him into a corner. Somewhere on the edge of her bird brain, a vile parody of passion stirs. And Jerry is the object of her lust. To discourage his aunt, Jerry says: “Is yesterday and the day before yesterday not enough for you?” She puffs up, trying to remember ... and then her face breaks into a blissful smile - she remembers something that was not there. Then she calls the dog and goes to her room. And Jerry is saved until next time...
So about the dog... Jerry talks and accompanies his long monologue with an almost continuous movement that has a hypnotic effect on Peter:
- (As if reading a huge poster) THE STORY ABOUT JERRY AND THE DOG! (Normal) This dog is a black monster: a huge muzzle, tiny ears, red eyes, and all the ribs sticking out. He growled at me as soon as he saw me, and from the very first minute this dog made me feel no peace. I am not Saint Francis: animals are indifferent to me... as well as people. But this dog was not indifferent... Not that he threw himself at me, no - he hobbled briskly and persistently after me, although I always managed to get away. This went on for a whole week, and, oddly enough, only when I went in - when I went out, he did not pay any attention to me ... Once I became thoughtful. And I decided. First I'll try to kill the dog with kindness, and if it doesn't work... I'll just kill it. (Peter winces.)
The next day I bought a whole bag of cutlets. (Further, Jerry depicts his story in faces). I opened the door and he was already waiting for me. Trying on. I cautiously entered and put the cutlets ten paces from the dog. He stopped growling, sniffed the air and moved towards them. He came, stopped, looked at me. I smiled at him ingratiatingly. He sniffed and suddenly - din! - pounced on cutlets. As if he had never eaten anything in his life, except for rotten cleanings. He ate everything in an instant, then sat down and smiled. I give you my word! And suddenly - time! - how to rush at me. But even then he did not catch up with me. I ran into my room and began to think again. To tell the truth, I was very hurt and angry. Six excellent cutlets! .. I was simply offended. But I decided to try again. You see, the dog obviously had an antipathy towards me. And I wanted to know if I could overcome it or not. For five days in a row I brought cutlets to him, and the same thing always repeated: he would growl, sniff the air, come up, devour, smile, growl and - once - at me! I was just offended. And I decided to kill him. (Peter makes a pathetic protest.)
Don't be afraid. I didn't succeed... That day I bought only one cutlet and what I thought was a lethal dose of rat poison. On the way home, I mashed the cutlet in my hands and mixed it with rat poison. I was both sad and disgusted. I open the door, I see - he is sitting ... He, poor fellow, did not realize that while he was smiling, I would always have time to escape. I put in a poisoned cutlet, the poor dog swallowed it, smiled and once again! - to me. But I, as always, rushed upstairs, and he, as always, did not catch up with me.
AND THEN THE DOG GOT SICK!
I guessed because he no longer lay in wait for me, and the hostess suddenly sobered up. That same evening she stopped me, she even forgot about her vile lust and for the first time opened her eyes wide. They turned out to be just like a dog's. She whimpered and begged me to pray for the poor dog. I wanted to say: madam, if we are to pray, then for all the people in such houses as this one ... but I, madam, do not know how to pray. But... I said I would pray. She rolled her eyes at me. And suddenly she said that I was lying all the time and, probably, I want the dog to die. And I said I didn't want that at all, and that was the truth. I wanted the dog to live, not because I poisoned him. Frankly, I wanted to see how he would treat me. (Peter makes an indignant gesture and shows signs of growing dislike.)
It is very important! We must know the results of our actions ... Well, in general, the dog recovered, and the mistress was again drawn to gin - everything became as before.
After the dog got better, I was walking home from the cinema in the evening. I walked and hoped that the dog was waiting for me... I was... obsessed?.. mesmerized?.. It hurt my heart to meet my friend again. (Peter looks at Jerry mockingly.) Yes, Peter, with his friend.
So, the dog and I looked at each other. And since then it has been that way. Every time we met, we froze, looked at each other, and then pretended to be indifferent. We already understood each other. The dog returned to the heap of rotten garbage, and I walked unhindered to myself. I realized that kindness and cruelty only in combination teach to feel. But what's the point of this? The dog and I came to a compromise: we don’t love each other, but we don’t offend either, because we don’t try to understand. And tell me, can the fact that I fed the dog be considered a manifestation of love? Or maybe the dog's efforts to bite me were also a manifestation of love? But if we can’t understand each other, then why did we even come up with the word “love”? (Silence falls. Jerry walks over to Peter's bench and sits beside him.) This is the end of Jerry and the Dog Story.
Peter is silent. Jerry suddenly changes his tone abruptly: “Well, Peter? Do you think you can print it in a magazine and get a couple of hundred? BUT?" Jerry is cheerful and lively, Peter, on the contrary, is alarmed. He is confused, he declares almost with tears in his voice: “Why are you telling me all this? I DID NOT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING! I DON'T WANT TO LISTEN ANY MORE!" And Jerry peers eagerly at Peter, his cheerful excitement is replaced by languid apathy: “I don’t know what I thought of it ... of course you don’t understand. I don't live on your block. I am not married to two parrots. I am a perpetual temporary resident, and my home is the ugliest little room on the West Side, in New York, the greatest city in the world. Amen". Peter steps back, tries to be funny, Jerry forced to laugh at his ridiculous jokes. Peter looks at his watch and starts to leave. Jerry doesn't want Peter to leave. He first persuades him to stay, then begins to tickle. Peter is terribly ticklish, he resists, giggles and screams in falsetto, almost losing his mind ... And then Jerry stops tickling. However, from the tickling and internal tension, Peter is almost hysterical - he laughs and is unable to stop. Jerry looks at him with a fixed, mocking smile, and then says in a mysterious voice: "Peter, do you want to know what happened at the zoo?" Peter stops laughing and Jerry continues, “But first I'll tell you why I got there. I went to see how people behave with animals and how animals behave with each other and with people. Of course, this is very approximate, since everyone is fenced off with bars. But what do you want, it's a zoo," - with these words, Jerry pushes Peter in the shoulder: "Move over!" - and continues, pushing Peter harder and harder: “There were animals and people, Today is Sunday, there were a lot of children there [poke in the side]. It's hot today, and the stench and shouting was decent there, crowds of people, ice cream sellers ... [Poke again] ”Peter starts to get angry, but obediently moves - and here he is sitting on the very edge of the bench. Jerry pinches Peter's arm, pushing him off the bench: “They were just feeding the lions, and the keeper [pinch] came into one lion's cage. Do you want to know what happened next? [twist]" Peter is stunned and outraged, he urges Jerry to stop the outrage. In response, Jerry gently demands that Peter leave the bench and move to another, and then Jerry will tell what happened next ... Peter plaintively resists, Jerry, laughing, insults Peter ("Idiot! Stupid! You plant!Go lie down on the ground! "). Peter boils up in response, he sits tighter on the bench, demonstrating that he will not leave it anywhere: “No, to hell! Enough! I won't give up the bench! And get out of here! I warn you, I'll call the policeman! POLICE!" Jerry laughs and doesn't move from the bench. Peter exclaims in helpless indignation, “Good God, I came here to read in peace, and all of a sudden you take my bench away from me. You lost your mind". Then he again fills with rage: “Come on, get off my bench! I want to be alone!” Jerry mockingly teases Peter, inflaming him more and more: “You have everything you need - a house, and a family, and even your own little zoo. You have everything in the world, and now you also need this bench. Is this what people are fighting for? You yourself don't know what you're talking about. You are a stupid person! You have no idea what others need. I need this bench!” Peter trembles with indignation: “I have been coming here for many years. I am a solid person, I am not a boy! This is my bench, and you have no right to take it away from me!” Jerry challenges Peter to a fight, urging him on, “Then fight for her. Protect yourself and your bench.” Jerry pulls out and snaps open an intimidating-looking knife. Peter is scared, but before Peter can figure out what to do, Jerry hurls the knife at his feet. Peter freezes in horror, and Jerry rushes to Peter and grabs him by the collar. Their faces are almost close to each other. Jerry challenges Peter to a fight, slapping at every word "Fight!", and Peter screams, trying to escape from Jerry's arms, but he holds on tight. Finally, Jerry exclaims, "You didn't even manage to give your wife a son!" and spits in Peter's face. Peter is furious, he finally breaks free, rushes to the knife, grabs it and, breathing heavily, steps back. He grips the knife, his arm outstretched in front of him not to attack, but to defend. Jerry, sighing heavily, ("Well, so be it ...") with a run, bumps his chest into the knife in Peter's hand. A moment of complete silence. Then Peter screams, pulls his hand back, leaving the knife in Jerry's chest. Jerry lets out a scream - the scream of an enraged and mortally wounded beast. Stumbling, he walks to the bench, sinks onto it. The expression on his face now changed, became softer, calmer. He speaks, and his voice sometimes breaks, but he seems to overcome death. Jerry smiles, "Thanks, Peter. I really thank you." Peter stands still. He froze. Jerry continues, “Oh, Peter, I was so afraid that I would scare you away. .. You don't know how I was afraid that you would leave and I would be left alone again. And now I'll tell you what happened at the zoo. When I was at the zoo, I decided that I would go north ... until I met you ... or someone else ... and I decided that I would talk to you ... tell you all ... such that you don't... And that's what happened. But... I don't know... Is that what I was thinking? No, it's unlikely... Although... that's probably it. Well, now you know what happened at the zoo, right? And now you know what you'll read in the newspaper and see on TV... Peter!... Thank you. I met you... And you helped me. Nice Peter." Peter almost faints, he doesn't move and starts crying. Jerry continues in a weakening voice (death is about to come): “You better go. Someone can come, you don't want to be caught here, do you? And don't come here again, this is no longer your place. You lost your bench, but you defended your honor. And I'll tell you what, Peter, you're not a plant, you're an animal. You are also an animal. Now run, Peter. (Jerry pulls out a handkerchief and wipes the fingerprints off the knife handle with an effort.) Just take the book... Hurry up...” Peter hesitantly walks to the bench, grabs the book, steps back. He hesitates for a while, then runs away. Jerry closes his eyes, delirious: "Run, the parrots have cooked dinner ... cats ... lay the table ..." Peter's plaintive cry is heard from afar: "OH MY GOD!" Jerry shakes his head with his eyes closed, teasing Peter contemptuously, and at the same time in his voice he pleads: "Oh ... god ... my." Dies.
The action takes place in the summer in New York's Central Park, one of those warm Sundays. In the middle of the park there are two benches, behind which are lush bushes and trees. On one of the benches, which are set just opposite each other, Peter sits and reads a book. Peter is typical of the American working class - a forty-year-old man of absolutely ordinary appearance, dressed in a tweed suit. Peter has large horn-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose and a pipe in his teeth. Despite the fact that it is already hard enough to call him a youth, all his manners and habit of dressing are almost youthful.
At that moment Jerry enters. This man was once certainly attractive, but now only slight traces of this remain. He is dressed rather sloppily than poorly, and his sluggish movements and heavy gait indicate his colossal fatigue. Jerry is already starting to swim in fat, making his former attractive physical form almost invisible.
Jerry, seeing Peter, sits down on the bench opposite and starts a leisurely, meaningless conversation with him. At first, Peter pays little attention to Jerry - his answers are abrupt and mechanical. With all his appearance, he demonstrates to his interlocutor that his only desire is to return to reading as soon as possible. Naturally, Jerry sees that he does not arouse any interest in Peter and he wants to get rid of him as soon as possible. Nevertheless, he continues to ask him about all sorts of little things, and Peter is just as sluggish in answering the questions posed. This lasts until such a conversation bothers Jerry himself, after which he falls silent and begins to stare at his unlucky interlocutor. Peter feels his gaze and finally looks up in embarrassment. Jerry invites Peter to talk, and he is forced to agree.
Jerry starts the conversation with a story about his visit to the zoo today, which everyone will know about tomorrow, write in newspapers and even show on TV. He asks if Peter has a TV, to which he replies that he even has two. In general, Peter not only has two TVs, but also two daughters, as well as a loving wife. Jerry, not without a certain amount of sarcasm, notices that Peter probably would like two sons, but that didn’t grow together, and his wife no longer wants children. Such a remark causes Peter's well-founded anger, but he quickly calms down, attributing the situation to the incorrectness of his new acquaintance. Peter changes the subject and asks Jerry why his trip to the zoo should be in the papers and on TV.
Jerry promises to talk about it, but before that he wants to really talk to a person, because, according to him, he rarely does this, except with sellers. And today, Jerry wants to chat with a decent married man and learn about him as much as possible. Do you have a dog? - asks Jerry, to which Peter replies that there are no dogs, but there are cats and even parrots. Peter himself, of course, would not mind getting a good dog, but his wife and daughters insisted on cats and these parrots. Jerry also learns that in order to feed his family and pets, Peter works for a small textbook publishing house. Peter's salary is about one and a half thousand dollars a month, but he never carries large sums of money with him, as he is afraid of robbers.
Suddenly, Jerry starts asking where Peter lives. Peter at first clumsily tries to get out and turn the conversation in a different direction, but then he nevertheless admits that his house is located on 74th street. After that, Peter makes a remark to Jerry that he no longer communicates, but interrogates. Jerry is talking to himself and does not respond to the remark he received. Peter distracts his interlocutor with another question about the zoo. He gets an absent-minded reply, which boils down to Jerry "first going here and then going there." While Peter is pondering what his interlocutor wanted to tell with this saying, Jerry suddenly asks the question - what is the difference between the lower and upper middle class?
The question catches Peter off guard, who doesn't understand what it's all about. Jerry changes the subject and wants to know Peter about his favorite writers. Without waiting for an answer, he asks if Peter knows that he walked all the way to Fifth Avenue before going to the zoo. After receiving this information, Peter decides that Jerry most likely lives in Greenwich Village, and gradually begins to understand at least a little something. However, Jerry immediately refutes this conclusion, saying that he rode the subway to Fifth Avenue in order to then walk it from beginning to end. As it turned out, he lives in an old four-story house, on the top floor. The windows of his ridiculously small room overlook the courtyard. Inside Jerry's dwelling, according to him, a weak wooden partition was installed instead of a wall, protecting him from a neighbor - a black representative of sexual minorities. Jerry says that his neighbor plucks his eyebrows, goes to the toilet and wears a kimono - this is the end of his to-do list.
On the fourth floor, where Jerry lives, there are also two more cramped dwellings, one of which is inhabited by a huge Puerto Rican family that is unpleasant to him, and in the other - one whom Jerry has never seen. Since the place is hardly an attractive place to live, Jerry informs Peter that he doesn't know why he lives there. Most likely, because he does not have two daughters, a wife, cats and parrots, and also he does not earn fifteen hundred dollars a month. All Jerry's possessions are a deck of pornographic cards, some clothes, a soap dish, a razor, an electric stove, an old typewriter, a small amount of dishes, a couple of books and two empty photo frames. His main wealth is a small safe in the form of a box in which he keeps sea pebbles.
He collected these pebbles as a child, just when his beloved mother unexpectedly ran away from her father. It was to his mother that Jerry dedicated numerous letters that are stored in a safe under the sea pebbles. In them, he asks her not to do this or that, and also dreams that one day she will return. At the same time, Jerry learned that his mother was on a tour of the South Coast of the United States, with a bottle of cheap whiskey as her constant companion. A year after her unexpected flight, her body was found in some landfill in Alabama. The news of this came just before the New Year. Jerry's father decided not to postpone the celebration of such a significant event, and therefore drank for two weeks, at the end of which he landed under a bus. Custody of Jerry was issued by the sister of his unlucky mother, who was an ardent adherent of religion, and therefore always prayed on time. She died the day Jerry graduated from high school.
At this point, Jerry remembers that he did not ask the name of his interlocutor. Peter introduces himself and Jerry continues his story. He explains the absence of a photo in frames by the fact that he did not meet women more than once. In general, according to his confession, he can have sex with one woman only once. The reason, in his opinion, lies in the fact that at the age of fifteen he had sexual contact with the son of a watchman in a nearby park. Surprised by this confession, Peter reprimands Jerry, after which he boils over. Peter gets angry too, but they eventually calm down. After a mutual apology, Jerry tells Peter that he was surprised that he was more interested in photo frames than in pornographic cards, which, according to him, every youth should have. Then he states that Peter is more interested in the zoo. After these words, Peter comes to life, and Jerry finally begins to talk.
However, he is not talking about the zoo. And back about his gloomy house. As follows from his story, the quality of life improves on the lower floors, and more decent and pleasant people live there. However, Jerry wants to tell Peter about the owner of the house and her vicious dog. The hostess is a fat, stupid and always dirty carcass, and her main occupation is the constant control of what Jerry does. According to him, she is constantly on duty with her dog on the stairs and makes sure that he does not take anyone to her home, and after taking a certain amount of alcohol, she openly pesters him. Jerry is the object of lust of this fat and stupid woman, which he strongly resists. To get rid of her presence, Jerry hints to her that they had sex yesterday, after which she remembers what was not there - this is also facilitated by the fact that the hostess is constantly very drunk and simply does not remember most of her actions.
At this point, Jerry begins the story about the owner's dog, while reading his monologue in a very expressive and emotional way. Dog. According to Jerry, he is a real fiend. A huge black monster, with red eyes and small pointed ears, has been haunting Jerry since the first day of their "acquaintance". He could not explain what the dog's increased attention to his person was - he just sometimes followed him, while not trying to pounce and bite. Jerry decided that if the dog did not leave him alone, then he would kill him - either with kindness or with cruelty. Peter after these words shudders.
Jerry says that the next day he bought six large meatballs especially for the dog and invited him to eat them. The dog gladly accepted the offer, gobbled up all the cutlets with appetite, and then suddenly attacked Jerry! He was shocked by such "gratitude" of the dog, but decided to continue trying to appease his opponent. For five days, Jerry wore the dog selected cutlets, and each time everything happened according to the same scenario - he ate all the cutlets, after which he attacked Jerry trying to escape. After that, Jerry decided to kill the dog.
To Peter's timid attempts to object, Jerry reassures him, saying that he did not succeed in carrying out his plan. “I bought him just one cutlet that day, which I mixed with rat poison on the way home,” says Jerry. He gave this cutlet to the dog, who ate it with pleasure, and then, according to the established tradition, tried to catch up with Jerry, but, as usual, she did not succeed. A few days later, Jerry realized that the poison had begun to take effect, since no one was waiting for him on the stairs. One day he saw the mistress of the house there, who was so upset that she did not even try to once again demonstrate her lust towards Jerry. "What happened?" - he asked. To which the mistress of the house asked him to pray for the fate of the poor dog, who was seriously ill. To Jerry's reply, in which he told her that he did not know how to pray, she raised her puffy eyes and reproached him for wanting her dog dead. Here Jerry admitted that he would like the dog to survive, because in this case he will be able to see how the attitude of the mistress of the house will change towards him, because, as he believes, it is very important to know the results of his actions. After this revelation, Peter feels a growing dislike for Jerry.
Jerry continued his story, from which it follows that the dog eventually recovered, and the mistress again became addicted to alcohol. In general, everything is back to square one. And then one day, returning home from the cinema, Jerry sincerely hoped that the dog would be waiting for him in the stairwell, as before. Ignoring Peter's mocking look, Jerry calls the dog a friend in his monologue. Jerry tensed up a lot and told Peter that he still met face to face with the dog. Staring at each other with unblinking eyes, Jerry realized that there was some kind of contact between them and thought that he fell in love with the dog. He really wanted the dog to love him too. Jerry, who had serious problems communicating with people, decided that he needed to start somewhere else if he could not get along with the person. For example, with communication with animals.
Jerry suddenly spoke sharply in a conspiratorial tone. In his opinion, a person is obliged to communicate with someone, since this is the very essence of human nature. He can communicate with anything - with a bed, a mirror, a razor, and even cockroaches. Jerry suggests that you can talk with toilet paper, but he himself refutes this. “With a safe, with vomit, with love from pretty ladies, and then you realize that they are not pretty at all and not ladies at all,” Jerry continues. Sighing heavily, he asks Peter if it is possible to be friends with God, and where is God himself - maybe in a gay neighbor going to the closet in a kimono, or in a woman who is crying quietly on the floor below?
Jerry kept talking about the fact that after that incident, they met with the dog almost every day, silently looking at each other. It seemed to him that he already fully understood the dog, and the dog understood him. The dog was going back to his trash, and Jerry was going to his cramped closet. He did not talk about anything with the dog, but there was some kind of agreement between them, according to which they did not love each other, but tried not to offend. Jerry again embarked on philosophical reflections - “Can it be considered a manifestation of love that I fed the dog? Or maybe the fact that he stubbornly tried to bite me is also an attempt on his part to show his love for me? Jerry suddenly calms down and sits down on the bench next to Peter. After that, he informs him that the story about him and the dog of the mistress of the house is completed.
Peter is thoughtfully silent. Suddenly, Jerry changes the subject and tone, asking his interlocutor if it is possible to get a small fee if this story is printed in a magazine? Jerry shows how much fun he has, while Peter is downright alarmed. He makes claims to Jerry, informing him that he no longer wants to listen to all this nonsense. Glancing at Peter, Jerry suddenly changes his mask of amusement into apathy and tells him that he just wanted to talk to an interesting person. And since he does not live in a more or less prestigious area, is not married to two parrots, and does not have a prestigious job, it is quite obvious that Peter did not understand him. Peter, in turn, tries to laugh it off and defuse the situation, but Jerry reacts to his inappropriate jokes very sluggishly.
Peter, seeing that there will be no further conversation, looks at his watch and informs Jerry that he has to leave. But Jerry doesn't want that at all. First, he begins to convince him that Peter should stay, and then proceeds to tickle. Peter is terribly ticklish, he giggles funny, dodges, trying to get rid of Jerry, who is torturing him. Suddenly, Jerry stops tickling him, but Peter's internal tension continues to take its toll, leaving him unable to stop and continues to giggle hysterically. At that moment, Jerry, with a slight smile on his face, asks him if he wants to know what happened at the zoo?
Peter stops laughing and looks at Jerry expectantly. He, in turn, first begins to tell what prompted him to visit the zoo. According to him, he went there to see how people treat animals and how animals behave with people. By and large, this is all approximate, since both sides are separated by strong gratings, which makes direct contact between them impossible. Continuing his story, Jerry suddenly begins to push Peter on the shoulder, demanding that he move. Each time he does it more and more, while saying that the zoo was crowded today, so the smell was still the same. When an angry Peter is already sitting almost on the very edge of the bench, Jerry begins to pinch him, not for a minute stopping his story, in which the watchman entered the cage with a lion that needed to be fed.
Peter interrupts him, demanding that he stop this mess of pushing and pinching. However, in response, Jerry only laughs, and in an ultimatum form offers Peter to move to another bench, because only in this case, he will tell him what happened in the cage with the lion. Outraged, Peter refuses, after which Jerry begins to openly laugh at him and insult him, calling him a dumbass. He suggests that Peter go lie down on the ground as he is nothing but a vegetable. Peter boils up and defiantly sits back down on the bench next to Jerry, demanding he leave. At the same time, Peter threatens his opponent with the police. However, Jerry, who hasn't stopped laughing all this time, doesn't do anything that Peter requires of him. Peter's anger is gradually replaced by despair - "God, I just came here to read an interesting book, and you, crazy, are taking away my bench!"
Jerry teasingly teases Peter, reminding him that he has a family, a house, a wife and beautiful daughters, so why does he need this bench as well. Jerry categorically declares that from now on this is his bench, which Peter strongly disagrees with, telling him that he has been coming to this place for many years. After these words, Jerry offers a forceful solution to the issue, in other words, calls the opponent to a fight. With the words - "So protect your bench" - he takes out a knife from his clothes of impressive size. Suddenly, he throws it at the feet of Peter, taken aback and numb with fear. After that, he rushes to him and grabs him by the collar. At this moment, their faces are very close, and Peter feels the hot breath of his opponent. Jerry tells him that he's a loser because he couldn't make at least one son and spits in his face, adding a couple of slaps. Mad with rage, Peter grabs the knife and before he can realize anything, Jerry rushes at the wide blade of the weapon.
“Well, so be it,” Jerry says, and there is a moment of silence. Peter finally understands what happened and, with a scream, he takes a step back, leaving Jerry with a knife that sticks out in his chest to the very handle. Jerry lets out a guttural scream, more like the guttural roar of a wounded animal, and sits back on the bench with difficulty. An expression of a certain peace appears on his face and it becomes softer and more humane. He turns to Peter, who, while still at the zoo, decided to go north until he meets someone like him to tell him all these horrors. Jerry doubts if this is what he planned at the zoo, was it supposed to end like this? He looks up and asks Peter - "Now you understand what happened at the zoo, right?". Jerry thinks that now Peter knows what he will see on TV tomorrow and read in the papers. With horror on his face, Peter steps back a step further and begins to cry.
Jerry tells Peter to leave because someone might see him here. Finally, he explains to Peter that he is not a plant, but not a person either. He is an animal. "Go away," Jerry tells him, and reminds Peter to get his book. At these words, he carefully erases the fingerprints from the handle of the knife sticking out of his chest. Peter hesitantly walks over to the bench, picks up a book, and stands still for a while. However, animal fear prevails over him, as a result of which he takes off and runs away. Jerry at this time is already delirious, repeating to himself a story he had just invented about how the parrots cooked dinner, and the cats set the table. Hearing in the distance the heart-rending cry of Peter, crying out to God, Jerry distorts him with a half-open mouth, after which he dies.
The summary of the novel “What happened at the zoo” was retold by Osipova A.S.
Please note that this is only a summary of the literary work "What Happened at the Zoo". This summary omits many important points and quotations.
