Mom was peeved because we were hurrying to catch a Jersey-bound bus before traffic thickened. Also because she'd asked me often while in the zoo, "Do you have to pee, Frankie?" a query I'd consistently declined lest peeing interrupt gorging.
As a working mom with a no-account spouse, Mary was skilled at stage- managing her brood at home and on the road. She knew there were no lavs between zoo and bus, plus the terminal's would be squalid.
It's at this point that my memory of zoo becomes indelible, as when JFK was shot and Nixon resigned. Mom asked a primal question as the Duffys, amid a stream of others exiting the zoo, flowed across a wide moist lawn.
"Number 1 or Number 2?"
I struggled to recall which digit symbolized which biological function as Mom steered us toward a huge chestnut tree. Its wide trunk would shield the four of us from crowds flowing by on both sides.
"Which?" she barked, her tone informing that I was pushing my luck.
"Number 1. . ." I replied, voice petering to an uncertain ellipsis.
She stood me on the tree's near side, dropped my shorts and BVDs to ankle level, shielded my young moon with her hand and ordered, "Okay, go."
I was still wrestling with the #1 or #2 options. To this day, using numbers to represent words seems wildly abstract. If you need a symbol, why not "pee" and "poo" instead of #1 and #2? Why abstract primal functions?
"Go!" Mom ordered, smacking butt to prod bladder. I went — but not in the direction she'd expected.
"SPLAT!"
"Oh-my-god . . . you d-e-v-i-l!" she shrieked while backing away as though she'd been shot in the hand.
