An old man sits in a rocking chair, and both are upholstered with faded red paisleys. The old man, my grandfather, sits with his back ramrod straight against the chair and his neck inclined forward as he peers out the large bay window. His pale blue eyes have grown watery with age, but it is water over steel and makes them none the softer. My grandfather watches the birds, but they don't watch him back.

So the man sits in the chair and rocks with a steady creaking and cracking that beats in time with the ticking and tocking of the clock on the wall. The arm of the chair cups his own arm, the one with hole worn in at the elbow of the faded red sleeve, while the other arm lays in his lap. The man lifts the arm with the hole in the sleeve to scratch at the crown of his head. His fingernails need trimming.

The man's hair is cropped so close to his skull that the scalp peeks through, but it is a good look, a nice look, for his hair is still thick and sturdy and white as ice or snow. Below the man's hair and over his steely blue eyes crawl two wild, woolly caterpillars trying to pass as eyebrows, but no one is fooled, and the caterpillars bristle slightly in indignation. The man's jowls droop, dog-like, but the corners of his mouth set themselves in a thoughtful smile that pulls the skin a little more taut around his sloping jaw line and square-ish chin.

Granddaddy takes in a deep breath of air that smells like Standard Cookies, for that is what is baking in the kitchen, and he exhales the air that is in old people. However, his air is not the antiseptic air of frail old people, but the vibrant air of mothballs and musty books that not-so-frail old people like to keep around to make their houses smell like wisdom. In Granddaddy's lap lies a letter, which he has written in his scrawling print and sighed, "T. O. M. –The Old Man." The letter is addressed to my father, but it won't be mailed today. It won't be mailed because Granddaddy is watching the birds, and the birds are watching him back.

Wet bamboo leaves slapped my face as I walked the cedar mulch path, the small bits of bark crunching under my rubber-soled shoes. The air burned against my skin. Rivulets of sweat ran down my face and damp hair plastered to my neck in dark springy curls. Dew from the bamboo threatened to drip in my eyes, but I couldn't wipe it away; I carried a shiny metal bowl full of scratch and chopped green in one hand and a five-gallon bucket of water in the other. My shoulder was stiffening from the strain of the bucket's weight, pulling me off-balance.

I weaved a little as I followed the path, tripping along, my toes catching on the tiny lumps in the ground. I ducked under something that looked like a fig tree, but I knew differently; fig trees don't grow in South America.

Carefully, I eased over the low, wooden fence and emerged in a dark, cramped alcove where the tall bamboo snuffed out all the light. I crushed the dry, dead undergrowth as I sidled over to the wire cage. I set the water bucket in a clear, level spot on the ground and put the metal bowl on the flattened top of the fence post. I knew it would not spill there. At eight thirty in the morning, very few people come to visit the Chattanooga Zoo.

I shoved my hand into my jeans pocket and dug out the square, blue-lock key Reagan gave me that morning. My usual zookeeper, Jennifer, would always give me a copied key that couldn't open some of the locks, but that day I had the real thing.

Pride bubbled at the back of my throat as I inserted the key into the lock and gave it a deft twist. Not every volunteer got a blue-lock key. Of course, not every volunteer came in at seven forty-something in the morning, five days a week for six weeks of her precious summer to melt in the heat of the sun as she fed all varieties of exotic animals and scooped just as many varieties of exotic poop. But I felt privileged; that day I held in my hand the key that unlocked every gate and door in the zoo (exempting the concession stand—which I found utterly unimportant).

The lock on the wire door fell open and I unhooked it from the thick chains it bound together. I fed the chain through the hole in the door until I heard the links jangle against the wire gridding of the cage on the other side. I knew it had dropped loose. I grabbed the bowl of food with my left hand and took the bucket in my right hand as I nudged the door open with my foot. I squeezed through, then set the water bucket in front of the door so it wouldn't swing open when I let it go.

The George's pheasant cocked his head to the side in a very bird-like manner as he watched me from his big, tree limb perch. He made an inquisitive chirp that reminded me of Chicken when she's hungry, and I smiled at him, swapping out his empty bowl for the full one, then scrubbing and replenishing his water dish before leaving. The red and gold bird hopped down from his perch, throwing mulch into the air when he landed, and ran over to his bowl, his yellow-crested head bobbing turbo-speed with each step. I picked up a mealworm that had dropped from his bowl and tossed the bug to him as I locked the door, pulling the chain as tight as possible so he couldn't wriggle through the gap between the edge of the door and the post.

I gathered up the pheasant's dirty dish and my bucket and stepped back onto the path. I'd fed the macaws and the pheasant, and cleaned both the kinkajou exhibit and the cages by the jag building; all I had left was to wash the windows. I went to the jag building to exchange the bucket for a squeegee and the bowl for a towel and a bottle of window cleaner, then headed to the Mayan ruins across from the pheasant. I vaulted the double-containment barrier and knelt on the fake stone ledge in front of the window of the exhibit.

Sasha watched me as I sprayed the window, squeegeed the liquid off, then rubbed it dry. She followed the back and forth rhythm of the towel with her hypnotic green-gold eyes as she crouched on the other side of the glass. Her tail flicked irritably—once, twice—then she attacked, her sharp claws screeching against the thick glass and he long canines showing sharp and yellow.

My mouth twisted into a lop-sided grin, only a few inches away from her snarling visage. "Good morning, Meanness," I said.

Sasha's ears twitched back briefly and she laid down beside the window in a calm, sphinx-like pose. She gave me a wry look. Good morning, human, the jaguar seemed to say, her eyes narrowed begrudgingly.

I shrugged and began to whistle a tune I learned from a mocking bird as I worked.