Rupert

Note to readers: Although I’d like to post these stories in chronological order, events sometimes conspire to derail this desire. As I was pressed to come up with an alternative, I improvised by finding this story on an often unused hard drive. Enjoy!

Once, whilst growing up in Africa, Nairobi to be exact, I encountered an orphaned baby rhinoceros. His name was Rupert and just a few weeks old at the time. His mother, named Gerty, had been poached because she had an unusually long front horn which instead of pointing up, drooped forward. The wardens in the game park where these rhinoceroses lived found the orphan and brought him to Nairobi to stay at the home of one of the chief wardens before being shipped off to a London zoo.

The son of the chief warden was one of our schoolmates. Naturally, as soon as we learned of Rupert, we were quite keen to see him. So on the first Saturday after his arrival, we got to go over and meet Rupert. He was perhaps two feet long and stood perhaps 14 or 16 inches off the ground. He must have already weighed in at 150 pounds; a very dense (that’s “high specific gravity” to those of you not versed in scientific argot) creature not unlike a highly animated engine block. The top of his snout had what appeared to be two psoriasis spots where his horns were already beginning to grow. Reportedly, he was either asleep or very keen on playing an endless game of tag in which he was always IT. He was already especially fond of running into people’s shins as a means by which to bring them down. As soon as he had brought down one person, he would quickly focus on a new victim. Sometimes one of the family dogs got this honor. The dogs didn’t have a clue how to deal with Rupert. Rupert’s hide was too thick for their bite to be effective, and when they barked at him, Rupert simply interpreted this as their call for a chase. At first the dogs could easily outrun Rupert, but as he strengthened significantly over the few days he was a guest, his speed improved and he could occasionally catch the dogs. He was usually a lot rougher with the dogs than with people. Fortunately his attention was focused almost entirely on finding a new victim to chase down, so the dogs remained relatively unharmed, albeit befuddled and confused.

The only break in the action was feeding time. Our friend’s parents had set up a large jug with an oversized nipple to serve as a baby bottle. At the time Rupert was drinking several gallons of a formula of milk and vitamin supplements a day. Periodically, perhaps once every five minutes, Rupert would break off his spirited game of tag for a few seconds to drink formula. Of course, as he was drinking his eyes were darting around in an exited attempt to locate his next victim.

I understand that Rupert was shipped off to live off the rest of this life in the London Zoo. I don’t know how long rhinoceroses live and as it’s been over forty five years since this encounter, I would imagine that he’s since passed on to that big game of tag in the sky. I wonder how long after they got him up to London had he been keen on playing endless games of tag.

Postscript: I contacted the London Zoo via the Contact the Zoo webpage and was eventually put in touch with the Zoo Registrar. I had asked if there were any records of the Zoo having taken delivery of a baby rhino in or abouts late 1962. She went through the records and discovered that indeed the zoo did take delivery of a baby rhino sent from Kenya in 1962. They named him Bwana something or another. Apparently nobody troubled themselves to include in the Bills of Lading the name “Rupert” so lacking same the Zoo staff renamed him. Come to think of it, Rupert was unable to tell them his name either. He lived until the late 1990s when he was moved to a location south east of London where they cared for geriatric zoo animals. That’s where Rupert met his demise and, if appropriate for zoo animals, where he was interred.

But first, a little about Paris

Somebody wrote that when good Americans die, the heaven they go to looks a lot like Paris, presumably the Champs-Élysées in April. OK.

Before my family moved to Africa, we stayed in Paris for a few weeks. My father had been stationed there for several months prior to the rest of the family’s arrival. We would have joined him sooner but my mother had to close out the family business (a trucking company) and make arrangements for shipment of household goods, activities that took months to complete. Also during that time, I completed the first grade at one of the last one-room schools left in the county and celebrated my seventh birthday.

In late August everything was finally in readiness for the flight over to Paris. As was typically our process, we spent the last night before embarking on a journey at my grandmother’s house. The next morning my uncle gave us a ride to the airport. In those days there was no security at the airport. Passengers and those bidding a bon voyage could mingle freely around the aircraft. Non-passengers could even climb aboard to see what the insides of an aircraft looked like if they cared to. Everything was relaxed and informal.

The first leg of the journey took us from Green Bay to Chicago, a short flight of just over an hour. There was a brief layover in Chicago, followed by a six-hour flight to New York’s Idyllwild airport which would later be renamed JFK after Jack Kennedy’s assassination. There was yet another layover before the last leg of the journey from New York to Paris. Mind you, the aircraft we traveled on were all propeller driven, a DC-3 for the first leg, a DC-6 for the second leg and an Air France Super G Constellation for the final leg. I don’t remember much about the first two legs except that another aircraft, a double-decker, had to stop suddenly to let our aircraft pass and I recall seeing the front end dip down as a result. The final leg was far more memorable.

The flight to Paris left New York well after sunset. New Yorkers were probably already getting about on the town. The flying time in those days was around twelve hours as opposed to the five or six now. The flight featured a full multi-course dinner service, a transformation of the cabin into sleeping quarters and finally a breakfast service. There were no movies in those days.

The dinner service proved to be quite the experience for a Midwestern lad who’d never encountered so many courses in a meal before. At home we typically had only three: a salad, a main course we still typically misname an entrée and dessert. The French had a few more jammed in between. There was soup. There was a fish course. There may have been more than one dessert. After all that the adults got to sip after-dinner liqueurs and smoke tobacco.

Curiously, the cabin didn’t have any overhead bins. The reason would be demonstrated about an hour after the dinner service when the cabin crew diligently went about transforming the cabin into sleeping quarters. Over the seats were drop-down panels above which were diminutive double beds with privacy curtains! Once setup, the crew installed little ladders so passengers could climb into the beds. As there wasn’t room for everyone only half of the passengers could utilize this feature. I remember climbing up there and changing into my pajamas. Not much room but at age seven I easily fit. Those who stayed below availed themselves of the alcoholic beverage service, chain smoked and chattered loudly in French all through the night. At one point when the ruckus proved too much, my mother leaned over the edge and yelled out: “Fermer la bouche!” Those below obliged.

The next morning the cabin crew aroused everybody. We changed into our street clothing and climbed out of the sleepers. Soon the cabin was transformed back into seating. And then the crew served coffee in diminutive cups accompanied with equally diminutive pastries, none of which appeared to be copies of any other. They served orange juice that I remember having an unfamiliar sour taste. I may have been served a class of milk. Then the breakfast service was squared away and soon thereafter we descended through the clouds to be greeted by a sea of red tiled roofs.

In those days the main Paris airport was Orly, some twenty or so kilometers south the city. My father met us and helped us through customs, a somewhat lengthy process in those days. Once through those formalities we hailed a cab and sped to a serviced apartment my father rented in the 8^th, about a fifteen minute walk from the US embassy. I recall the cab going by what seemed like a miles-long auto wrecking yard along Avenue de Stalingrad and that it occurred to me that the French must have been very poor drivers for there to be so many wrecked automobiles.

The serviced apartment was in a hotel that had a front desk and retail lobby with a mezzanine. The elevator was one of those brass and glass affairs surrounded by an open stairway. It was operated by a series of old men who didn’t speak English. It was dark in there. It was late August and Paris was already feeling the pinch of a wet autumn. In the weeks that followed I don’t remember ever seeing the sun. It was always cold and wet.

My dad took me around to see a few sights. One of those was the Notre Dame cathedral. Unlike today, there were just a handful of kiosks devoted to selling souvenirs. The majority of the people I saw were actually interested in participating in mass. I remember seeing a lot of older women dressed in black and knew them to be widows. As I’d never seen Catholics practice their sacraments before, I quickly concluded that the French must be worshiping a different god than we did. I was particularly taken by those who took it upon themselves to kiss a glass-covered relic positioned near the entrance.

We took a two-day trip up to Brussels to visit the 1958 World’s Fair. We took a train. I was taken by the diminutive size of the rolling stock that made up freight trains. On the way my father ordered dinner by swiping his finger across the length of the menu to indicate that we’d be having all the courses: I was full after the first and unable to try anything after the second. Like Paris, Brussels was cold and wet. Each county had an exhibit hall at the fair but I don’t remember much except for the Atomium, a large stainless steel expo building that was shaped like an atom. It featured perhaps eight two-story spheres connected by a series of tubes within which were stairs and escalators. As I’d never used escalators before, I nervously executed a little skip getting on and off them to avoid being eaten by the mechanisms. Once while doing this I accidently kicked some guy who turned to express his outrage in a native tongue that was completely foreign and alarming to me.

Since I was a kid, it seemed natural that I should get sick. So, when it was clear that I had something, dad took it upon himself to take me to see a doctor. I seem to recall the clinic being on the second floor of some walkup along some avenue. The place was chaotic. I recall seeing a man holding in one hand what I presumed was his infant son and in the other a loaded hypodermic syringe. He apparently was waiting for someone to administer whatever was in that syringe. Everybody, including the staff, was smoking. The French doors to the balconies overlooking the street were open and the street noise was defining. I was horrified and as soon as my father sensed it, we adjourned ourselves to the embassy where the staff nurse quickly diagnosed my ailment and provided a familiar remedy.

As we were to move to Morocco, my father decided that we ought to see about purchasing a car that we could use once we got there. At that time, many of the retail establishments surrounding the Arc de Triomphe (Place Charles de Gaulle) were automobile dealerships. I remember that we went into a Volkswagen dealership that had every model of vehicle they made on display. There was a display of a beetle that included a set specialized luggage designed to fit into the diminutive trunk in such a manner that every cubic centimeter of space was leveraged. There were even two symmetrically designed triangular suitcases that fit on either side of yet another tapered suitcase designed to fit neatly under the trunk lid. It was amazing but my dad didn’t buy anything.

A few days later we rented a car and drove south to Spain on our way to Morocco. We spent the night a small inn someplace in France along the way. I commented on the racket of somebody chopping emanating from the kitchen. As I had yet to finish my sour French orange juice, my father informed me that the kitchen staff was chopping up a boy from one of the other tables who hadn’t finished his orange juice.

Stay tuned for the short visit to Madrid.