In Love and Trouble by Alice Walker

the rope. He stumbled on the uneven ground, a pile of grit and gravel collected in the toe of his shoe. He could not stop to empty out his shoe, nor could he stop to rest, because he did not have the time. It was getting late in the afternoon and there was a chance the gorilla would be missed. He hoped he would not be missed until at least tomorrow, which would give him time. He jerked on the rope. He would have to reach the top of the high hill very soon or the gorilla was going to fall down and go to sleep right where he was.
    “C’mon,” he said encouragingly to the gorilla, who looked at him with dreamy yellow eyes. He had been talking to him soothingly all the way but the gorilla was drowsy from the medicine the zoo keepers had given him and did not reply except to grunt sluggishly deep in his throat. He hoped to have better luck with him when he woke up tomorrow.
    All around them now were trees and grass and vines and he hoped the scenery was pleasing to the gorilla. It was pleasing to him, and he was himself a person; who did not need trees and grass and vines. There was a faint drone from the direction of the highway as cars whizzed to and fro around the outer edges of the zoo. They sounded, he thought, like wasps or big flies, as he swatted at the gnats that were hanging around his face. Behind him he felt a tugging on the rope as the gorilla cleared the air in front of his face, too, but with a sluggish petulant swipe, and his black plastic eyelids had started to droop.
    The boy leading the gorilla was young and very lean, with exceptionally black skin that seemed to curve light around his bones. The skin of his face was stretched taut by the pointed severity of his cheeks, and this flattened his nose, which was broad and rounded at the tip.
    There was a wistful gentleness in his face, an effortless grace in the erect way he held his head. It was not apparent, in his stride, what he had suffered. Those first days at the zoo, when he stood crying in front of the gorilla cage, had left no lines of agony on his face. The hour of his deliverance was not stamped forever on his forehead; when he embraced the God that others—his mother—had chosen for him.
    The boy tugged hard at the rope; they were going over a big lump of ground that was a half-submerged rock. The gorilla stopped abruptly, sniffed resentfully at the boy, and without further notice sat down on the ground. The boy pulled the rope once more but the gorilla didn’t budge and instead stretched himself out sullenly and fell asleep. Soon he began to snore, which caused the boy to stand over him and look wonderingly into his open mouth. It was deep rose and pink inside, trimmed in black, like a pretty cave. His big swooping teeth were like yellowed icicles and rusty stalagmites. There was a sturdy bush nearby to which the boy fastened the end of the rope, looking back momentarily at the mouth. Then he raked together leaves and grass and branches to make the place where they would spend the night more comfortable. Then he took from under his shirt half a loaf of rye bread and a small bottle half full of red wine. He laid them carefully underneath the bush around which he had tied the rope. Then he left the gorilla sleeping as he walked away from their campsite to try to figure out where they were.
    They were still within the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, that much he knew, for they had not yet come up against the high fence that surrounded the zoo. However, it was not his intention to get outside the zoo, so this did not bother him. He hoped that if the zoo keepers missed the gorilla before nightfall they would think he had been taken out of the area, for that would keep them safe until he had got what he wanted from the gorilla, and the gorilla would have received the kind of homage he deserved from him.
    He satisfied himself that he would be able to spot searchers if they started up the hill toward them. There were trees and shrubs and vines and large