Ivan the polar bear

When Gary Richmond, a zookeeper at the Los Angeles Zoo, was given keys to every cage in the zoo, he was cautioned sternly to guard them with his life and to pay exacting attention to which doors he opened and which doors he closed.

“Richmond,” the supervisor said, “these keys will let you in to care for millions of dollars worth of animals.  Some of them could never be replaced, but you could be, if you catch my drift.  Some of the animals would hurt themselves if they got out, and more significantly, they might hurt or even kill somebody.  You wouldn’t want that on your conscience.”

I took him seriously, and performed flawlessly for four months.  Then, something happened with the most dangerous animal at the zoo.  Ivan was a polar bear who weighed well over nine hundred pounds and had killed two perspective mates.  He hated people and never missed an opportunity to attempt to grab anyone passing by his cage.

I let him out of his night quarters into the sparkling morning sunshine by pulling a lever to his guillotine door.  No sooner had he passed under it than I realized that, at the other end of the hall, I had left another door opened.  It was the door I would use to go outside if Ivan was locked up.  Now Ivan could walk to the other end of the outdoor exhibit and come in that door I had left open, and, if he so chose, eat me.

In terror, I looked at the guillotine door.  Ivan was still in sight.  He was a creature of routine, and he always spent the first hour of his morning pacing.  His pattern was L-shaped.  He would walk from the door five steps straight out, and then turn right for three steps.  He would rock back and forth and come back to the guillotine door again, which he would bump with his head.  He would repeat that cycle for one hour and then rest.

I timed his cycle and determined that I had seventeen seconds to run down the hallway and shut the open door.  I staked my life on the fact that he would not vary his routine.  He didn’t seem to notice the wide open door, which is unusual.  Animals tend to notice the slightest changes in their environment.

I decided that when he made his next turn, I would run down the hallway, hoping upon hope that I would not meet Ivan at the other end.

He turned and I ran.  With every step my knees weakened.  My heart pounded so hard I felt sure it would burst from fear.  I made the corner and faced the critical moment.  Ivan was still out of sight; I lunged for the door handle.  As I reached out for the handle, I looked to the right.  There was the bear…eight feet away.  Our eyes met.  His were cold and unfeeling…and I’m sure mine expressed all the terror that filled the moment.  I pulled the huge steel door with all my strength.  It clanged shut and the clasp was secure.  My knees buckled and I fell to the floor racked with the effects of too much adrenaline.  I looked up and Ivan was staring at me through the window in the door.

Fear, caution, rules, standards, consequences

Max Anders, The Good Life: Living with meaning in a “never-enough” world (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1993), 250.