Jacob {Arrival at the Zoo} <fragment>

First Part of Jacob's journey, mistaken for some kind of rare marsupial, taken to a zoo.

PART I.

And just like that, Jacob fell into the deepest fixation, upon arrival to a dark place called Zoo to his vacant living quarters. It was with the big green door to his new home.

         The court ordained to take the "Marsupial" to that place, where he supposedly Belonged. An environment where he would be fed and properly taken cared of.
         They obviously had figured upon a stroke of genius, they'd just figure what the hell he really was after they got their business plan off the ground. He was right where they wanted him to be.
         A place where he could be gawked at by the endless crowds of people. That was his destination, far away from the others while either continued maintaining a clear view where the other was.
         The stocky one from, "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb" duo, a pair of zoo hands forced by a greasy rude boss to squeeze in third shift!
         The short and angry one opened the steel-laminated slab wide. The nerve-cringing moan of the hinges—a tooth-grinding lament—sent a ghoulish chill down everyone's spines. The sudden relief came only when the door abruptly hit the tired gray rubber stopper fixed to the base of the wall.
         Automatically, the other custodian, 'Muscle-Head', Jacob had a long habit of nick naming people thus making them less frightening. So, Muscle-Head was bestowed upon him by the child. It was the first thing that startled the child, a huge ape-like mug. He was in charge of containing the animal, and he had Jacob restrained all right! In a brutish fistful of filthy brown pajama cloth is what he had. He instantly tossed the boy, lopsided, inside.
         There was a bit of disgust in his handling of Jake, a clear hostility in Muscle-Head's body language.
         Jake was possessed; in a full blown trance like state. He managed to actually escape everything that went down in a sort of manner. You know? The child was in the angriest, eyeballs in the back of his skull convulsing kind, of mesmerized while hypnotized mental jailbreak. Lost in the drab crudely maintained door from the minute they forced him into his "enclosure."
         From the dim ankle height orange led-lit concrete halls, and three sharp turns. They had arrived.
         A Backroom kind of slumber rose from the ground. The whole zoo reeked somehow of sleep.
         That boy was just some place else; comfortably numb. Perhaps he was a billion leagues away, or he was capable of phasing off to a pocket outside of time, unbothered with what we were doing with him.
         Jacob was assigned two zoo approved handlers, though by the time they finally came to pick him up you could see the third shift written deep in the creases of both their faces. With their grimy clothes, exposed wild haired beer bellies, and the rotting take-out wrappers, soggy from a few too many lunches on the go.
         They were all festering in a heap crumpled into the shady corners, under the seats, or tossed in the back. Making its own brand of awful.
          A gut-wrenching stench, a mix of circumstances reeked the whole five-hour windowless van trip, over to the zoo.
         It was close to eleven o'clock at night! Both transport workers became irrelevant, ripped from this plane of existence, as far as the brain of this weird kid was concerned.

Poof!
         They ceased to exist in Jacob's mind. He was in control.
         By remaining lost within the metal slab, knowing it would form the final piece keeping him away from the hostile, panic-driven, and cruel pack of social animals. Selfish jackals who swear themselves as human! What a joke, what a sad, sad joke...
         His eyes were washing themselves in waves into the dullness of this cold gate plastered in a vomit green, rubber paint. Noticing how tall it was, how the darkness draped down one side of it.
         A big swoosh of air made the kid flinch! They all took it head on.
         A loud bang thundered immediately after! It echoed as violently as well as unexpected in the minds of all of them!
         Out from the deepest dark it seemed to have belched—a harsh, stern command barked, a frightening call into attention.
         It was the unpredictable hurt, from a stepfather's leather belt. Shouting so much yelling. Mom becoming cold distant. One sided hugs. It triggered a lot in the kid.
         The noise boomed down endless halls with the same intensity, bouncing off hidden snares of nothingness clawing dread down Jacob's heart, made the kid jerk up into a tight clam; muscle and fear. Making his stomach curl from a thick deep horror that stabbed from deep inside.
         Naturally, it just stopped. Swiftly replaced by the sound of dry metal in a toothy grinding, a brisk hand stabbed the shaft down to its lip, and then came the chaotic thrashing of keys, that gave away to silence.
         His belief in the crude half-baked promises that spewed out of her foam edged mouth, while her thick leathery hands always shook so much they stole all the boy's confidence. Her words felt so long ago, unreachable in Jacob's mismatched eyes.
         Almost becoming a lost event inside a boy's brain, a disappointing sobbing from Mom, instead of... well, what ever a resilient adult should sound like. Mother's long distance phone call and pipe burnt fingertips; she promised but, never came back as herself. The kid suspected the hypnotic maelstrom he was suffering so badly to be from mom's naivety, an endless urge to step off the ledge she was taught, she left a self destructive rot hidden wet and so very deep somewhere inside the boy!
         So many directions echoing back to the boy it undoubtedly was a large place. Why was the door slammed shut just like the adults did in their fits...
         Jacob began to doubt, was it a door really or another enclosure shielded from the world just as some animals enjoy the perks safe in a pen? He stood up straight, pulled his hood behind his head, and faced the direction that scared him from even glancing that way. Where people will be.
         One hundred and eighty degrees. The crackling of his warn down, barely held together, naked foot showing, plastic pajama feet scuffing the ground was the only sound that flooded his ears. He saw the darkness behind an enormous plexiglas window extending from wall to wall. Obi's face was lit in a ghoulish light while he watched him turn his head to the right side of his environment. Popped a squat, and scanned his surroundings.

         The huge tinted glass doors were promptly used, that left Obi. The man locking the front doors behind both fleeing slobs. Loud and proud announcing he was from Nigeria, any opportunity he got. A janitor, his mop and bucket made that clear. As clearly as he challenged Down Syndrome, happy, ultimately lost, independant, and you knew for sure if you encountered this human, his name was "Obi", always with a big smile while he threw his head back in pride.
         Obi, was no fool. An eighty three year old migrant. He left his mop leaning against the wall, and just began walking. The rhythm of his bothered paces, his beaten-up, tired work boots down the corridor was all that could be heard.
         Once Obi closed the door he was covered in a veil of flickering light, a bluish and grayish hue covered the front of him as he looked up, in the hum of the computers. Boxes slumped sadly forgotten in the dark of one corner. Ancient metal and plywood desks on the opposite walls. He pulled a chair over to where the screens were.
         Watching the dingy yellowish monitors they had set up in rows. Three vertical and nine across, mounted on the back wall. The place reeked of mold. The image on the outdated screens was black and white. Grainy as hell.
         Obi knew Jacob wasn't any type of animal, no, he was no special marsupial! Jacob was a child. A boy born into a perfect storm. Tempered in a drama that didn't belong to him. Trauma, the violence, the abundance of rejection, well, the bottom line was he found himself to be unwanted.
         The filthy bear pajama had little to no real base to declare the kid some kind of animal! Never did he ever make a low whimper, not even a faint whisper, no attempt at all to say he was just a kid that gave up on the adults in his life and he decided to hide inside his bear onesie. Clad somehow in a moment he cherished.

*Missing Files.

         The boy apparently had adapted in a peculiar, way. Enjoyed when people shuffled by. Prudently far and glass barrieded away from him.
         In reality, the kid had out grone the dirty bear get-up. Jake could see his feet, to him they appeared a tad oafish after quite a while of being hidden. They were filthy, and naked! His gesture makes me conclude he was a little startled how different they had become. It began to pinch him all over or dug into his armpits even chafed him on the crotch area. The boy had became convinced that his protection from Mom's freak-outs, his armor as much as a safe place in his eyes; where it never really mattered if Daddy was gone, it just didn't fit him anymore.
         Time. A ravenous unescapable poltergeist.
         The absolute definition of existence, the very essence of it, change. Hollow of mercy, love, sadness, where what follies of men, or women, wishes, hope, have no meaning in it's pass.
         Months had drawled into deformed creatures, weeks. Aware of the amount of wasted, so many dates squandered one after another.
         Days leaked into the next. Forgotten unperceived days that pile into one huge angry lump of doe.
         It became plain as daylight to the child's eyes, the bear pajama deal was over. People gawking at him believing he is anything other than human, done.
         Obi, which filled the kid with content telling him his name meant "God's Heart" of "Father's Heart" in Nigeria. Said to him "You're lost white boy! You don't belong Jake-up! you just don't"
         Yolanda's drabby eyes drooped over her old lady glasses, her head appeared out his barely ajar door. Her gaze was as sour as always.
         She made him uneasy, rude, and rough in whatever he had to do with her.
         It was about five fifty in the afternoon, "Hi! Jake, umm, your Mother's dead. Ok? Em, O.D I suppose."
         Quickly as she appeared she was gone. The door locked.