The Funky Gibbon

 The sun was setting over the San Pueblo Zoo, casting a golden glow over the concrete enclosures and butter-scented popcorn carts. The human visitors had long since gone home, leaving behind a profound, peaceful silence.

Except for Sector 4: The Primate Pavilion.

Here, the silence was shattered by a thumping bassline that rattled the reinforced glass.

UNTS-UNTS-UNTS-UNTS.

Night Zookeeper Henderson trudged down the dimly lit path, shining his heavy-duty flashlight. He rubbed his tired eyes. He was getting too old for night shifts. Earlier in the week, it was the capuchins trying to hack the vending machines. Tonight, the noise was coming from the gibbon habitat.

Henderson approached the enclosure, aiming his beam through the glass. What he saw made him drop his half-eaten tuna sandwich.

In the center of the artificial jungle, standing proudly atop a hollow faux-log, was Barnaby.

Barnaby was a Müller’s gibbon—a creature normally known for gentle arboreal swinging and melancholic hooting. Right now, however, Barnaby was wearing a pair of discarded, glow-in-the-dark tourist sunglasses. He had somehow rigged a stolen MP3 player to the habitat’s internal misting speakers, and a heavy, synth-heavy disco track was blasting at deafening levels.

Around him, the other gibbons were forming a circle.

"Barnaby!" Henderson yelled, banging on the glass. "Turn that down! You're going to wake the flamingos!"

Barnaby didn't flinch. He adjusted his sunglasses, caught the beat, and snapped his extraordinarily long arms outward. His elbow joints clicked with the rhythm.

“Oh, he’s got the rhythm!” whispered Brenda, a chimpanzee from the neighboring enclosure, peering through the wire mesh with a bag of stolen peanuts. “Look at that footwork!”

Barnaby dropped into a deep, funky squat. With arms that spanned nearly five feet, he began to windmill—his knuckles brushing the astroturf in a blur of motion. He spun on his heel, thrust his pelvis toward the glass, and executed a flawless moonwalk across a fallen log, his fluffy grey-brown fur swaying with every pelvic pop.

The lemurs in the next tree over started clapping. A mandrill began beatboxing in 4/4 time.

Henderson stood frozen, flashlight dangling from his limp fingers. He had a degree in zoology. He had studied mammalian psychology for four years. Nowhere in his textbooks had Dr. Henderson learned how to handle a primate pop-and-lock sensation.

"This is a violation of Zoo Code 4-B," Henderson muttered weakly. "Quiet hours begin at eight."

Barnaby spun around, pointed a finger gun directly at Henderson, and let out a soulful, gibbon-pitched “Woooo!”

Then, the drop came. The song exploded into a frenetic brass section.

Unable to help himself, Barnaby grabbed two hanging vines, hoisted himself into the air, and launched into a series of gravity-defying backflips, twisting through the mist-maker spray like a furry gymnast possessed by the ghost of James Brown. He landed in a dramatic split, one hand raised to the sky, chest heaving, holding the pose.

Silence descended. The music track ended with a fading vinyl scratch.

The zoo was entirely still, save for the heavy breathing of a very sweaty gibbon.

Henderson blinked. Slowly, mechanically, the zookeeper raised his hands and began to clap. One slow, reluctant round of applause. Then two.

Brenda the chimp started cheering. The mandrill hooted.

Barnaby gave a classy, sweeping bow, swept the glow-in-the-dark sunglasses down his snout, and gave Henderson a cheeky wink. With practiced casualness, the gibbon grabbed a half-eaten banana from a rock, peeled it with his toes, and ambled back up into his sleeping hammock as if he hadn't just single-handedly revolutionized zoological entertainment.

Henderson clicked off his flashlight, sighed, and picked up his squished tuna sandwich.

"I'm not writing this in the incident report," Henderson mumbled to himself, turning back toward the staff quarters. "Nobody would ever believe that the gibbon has better rhythm than I do."