Gathering of Imbeciles: Book One

By Paul Kmiotek

Gathering of Imbeciles is an irreverent look at zookeeping through the eyes of Donald, a keeper at the fictitious Corona Park Zoo. The four short stories that chronicle his adventures - chock-full of feces, urine, and pus - would likely not be picked up by Disney-Pixar for an uplifting, animal-related Summer release. Donald may well be the next comic anti-hero for disgruntled workers everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Kmiotek
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012

Paul Kmiotek

Paul is a former zookeeper. He lives in Upstate New York with his wife and two children. He’s won numerous awards for his artwork but has never won a thing for his writing. He can’t decide whether Matt Damon or Kevin James should play Donald in the movie version of the book. Actually Kevin James might be better as Dexter.

Book preview

Gathering of Imbeciles

Book One

An Indefensible History of the Corona Park Zoo

By Paul E Kmiotek

Cover Art and Illustrations by Paul E Kmiotek

Copyright 2012 by Paul E Kmiotek

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental . . . no, seriously.

Dedicated to my lovely wife Megan, who

has endured more permutations of this

abomination than any one person deserves.

Also to Donald and Guenther – they

know who they are – who made it

all so easy.

CONTENTS:

1. Kudos, Muffy

2. Pablo, Dexter, and Golda Meir

3. A Day at the Races

4. April Showers

1

Kudos, Muffy

I

Donald O’Reilly-Guttenberg-Chen-Kavoulopolis (his parents had hyphenated their family names and his wife insisted that she too deserved the same consideration (he wasn’t quite sure where the ‘Chen’ fit in)) and management were on the same page. Management respected Donald. They knew that he was the only competent keeper at the zoo . . . even without his incessant reminders. They were, in fact, fully aware of their own plentiful faults and shortcomings . . . even without his incessant reminders. They even agreed with Donald that the zoo was in dire need of a complete and radical overhaul, all the way from the pinnacles of management right down to the lowliest shit-picker, and fully concurred with his frequent criticisms and suggestions. They just didn’t have the balls to actually implement them. But if he were in charge . . .

Donald picked up his cup of luke-warm coffee, checked to make sure the patch was still intact, and lit another Virginia Slim. It was still ten minutes until break time, but having finished prepping all the animal diets an hour ago, he deserved this time much more than the lazy mopes who were still working out in the field.

He was sitting in his office with the Daily News, open to the racing page, lying across his naked, hairy knees, his pants in a rumpled pile around his ankles. Donald’s office was the furthest stall to the left in the Administration Building’s men’s room. He preferred this stall for two reasons. First, it was the handicapped stall, so it was much roomier than the other two, plus it had its own sink. Second, being a corner stall, it was impossible to be surrounded should there be unusually heavy traffic in the facility.

He was studying the day’s races and simultaneously trying to ignore the two pairs of eyes warily peering at him from behind the bowl and from under the sink. The eyes belonged to two of the three 4 ft long spectacled caiman, Marsha, Greg, and Bobby, who shared the space - at least from October through May, when it was too cold to be outside on exhibit - with the keeper. The third crocodilian lay along the wall beneath the non-handicapped sinks. This probably accounted for the disproportionate number of men walking around the zoo with dirty hands.

There was a toilet brush