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[by Ross Levine]

Before Sydney Bitner arrived back in New York from Africa, he was already the object of more publicity than he'd ever dreamed of. Just the thought of all that attention devoted to his singular triumph had him at the rail of the cargo ship, looking out over the rolling, gray Atlantic, imagining himself among the great explorers -- Cortez, Columbus, Darwin -- and all because of the precious animal stowed safely away in the hold of the vessel.

Sydney Bitner had miraculously captured a quagga.

A noble quagga, half-horse, half-zebra -- a peculiarity in the first place -- but now whose hundred years of supposed extinction made it even more strange and extraordinary. Sydney had gone to Africa a humble tourist, trying to escape, he said, some of the sorrow of his wife's passing. And now he was returning a conqueror, the envy of scientists the world over -- he, who'd barely made it out of high school in one piece.

Sydney kept returning to the hold to check on his treasure. Each time he went down the creaky stairway, and came upon the odd but glorious animal, he felt a flash of pride and accomplishment never before part of his life. He'd concocted a tale of stalking the quagga through the bush, days on end, with nothing to eat and little to drink, until finally, almost ready to relinquish the hunt and declare his quagga a hallucination induced by some selvatic fever, there it was again in a clearing. He was able to creep close enough to lasso the incongruous beast for the enrichment of civilization.

In actuality, however, the quagga had followed Sydney into his room at a Kenyan safari compound to munch on a straw hat he had purchased the day prior, and Sydney had been about to complain to the management. But the very look of the animal aroused enough curiosity in him (another rare occurrence that day) that he investigated further (he asked a few pointed questions of a precocious brat in a room a few doors down) and learned that all such creatures had become extinct nearly a century ago. All such 'equus quagga,' with their reddish, donkey-like bodies, and their striped zebra heads, the bold, black, vertical markings gradually disappearing across the fore-flanks -- like a zebra nature forgot to finish, or a horse with a hankering for a more exotic 'persona.'

"You're a freak," Sydney told his prize as the quagga munched quietly on some green hay in its makeshift pen. "But don't feel bad, we all are -- till something happens, something like dumb luck -- and then there we are, riding the crest of the wave."

And precisely at that moment, the boat pitched a bit, the quagga stopped chewing and, looking bewildered, stared squarely into Sydney's eyes. Sydney reached over the side of the pen and stroked its bristly mane like a lapidary caressing a priceless gem.

When the ship pulled into its berth in New York harbor, there was a literal army awaiting it, a mass of people hoping to get a view of the quagga and thereby add something precious and monumental to their ordinary lives. Of course, most of them had never even heard of a quagga, at least not until they saw one of the photos Sydney had released to the evening news some nights before, but now it seemed as familiar as a blue jay or a squirrel.

"Quagga, quagga, quagga," they shouted, deriving pleasure from the name itself, that opening 'q,' sign of something spectacular to come, then the two 'g's with an 'a' to round it off. Even the steady rain had not dissuaded them, and they came in droves under their umbrellas until the rotting, dilapidated wharf looked as if it were covered with a dense crop of mushrooms. There were reporters there as well, hoping for a magnificent shot to grace the evening edition -- one had even brought a carrot along to perhaps coax a smile from the beast. And there were politicians, ready and willing to be photographed with the quagga whether it smiled or not -- friends of animals, be they living or extinct, and promoters of a wonderful new world, plain at one end, striped at the other. And last, a great congregation of scientists, all of them skeptical, expecting the precipitation in the air to streak the paint on the garish donkey's head and expose Sydney Bitner as the most foolhardy hoaxer of the day. Yet in their hearts, they too longed to see a quagga, a real one -- they were weary of bending over petri dishes and animal dung all day, and were, if not openly, at least secretly pulling for Sydney, hoping his discovery would stretch the limits of the possible, and make their own chimerical theories and hypotheses a little more apt to turn true.

And with that, despite the protests of disappointed civic and academic luminaries, and amidst the cheers of those who had seen and touched a quagga for the first and only time in their lives, Sydney barked instructions to the driver, and car and cargo took off noisily down the time-worn cobblestone street, headed for Sydney's present home in suburban New Rochelle. It was late April, and out in the bedroom communities, the trees were just beginning to leaf. The drizzle had stopped, and a patch of bright sky appeared from behind the dark clouds. The limo and trailer pulled up on a quiet street, and Sydney marched his coveted find behind the modest house where no less than four carpenters were busy at work trying to finish its stall. There was also a gangly young security guard who asked, when he saw the quagga, "What's that? Some kind o' joke?"

"Never mind," said Sydney, "just guard it with your life." Entering the house, Sydney had to take his phone off the hook to silence the perpetual ringing. A gang of police, officials and reporters was soon pulling up in front of the residence with news that scientists and environmentalists were already in court trying to take away Sydney's prize, and that politicians, in the name of humanity, were demanding more or less the same, claiming that the public had an implied, inalienable right to ownership of the beast. While the police awaited their warrant, and Sydney devoured his nails and pulled at the remnants of hair on his middle-aged scalp, the quagga lazily munched hay along with freshly sprouted grass in the yard. It looked at Sydney in a way that maddened him -- as if its own fate were of no consequence, while he, lucky Sydney, was pacing back and forth agonizing over that very issue. Sydney knew that if the courts took away the quagga, he would be left empty-handed, with transportation costs to pay, hay bills, security, and everything else. And it was quite likely that they would take it away, since there were plenty of laws on the books about sequestering wild animals, whether extinct or not, in suburban neighborhoods. And there was little chance now of hiding the quagga, not with the whole world camped out on his front lawn.

So when inevitably the police banged on his door waving their court order, with the politicians behind them demanding the quagga be relinquished to the public domain, Sydney remained in the backyard and sent the security guard -- after first plucking the gun from his holster -- to the door with a note: "Any attempt to remove the quagga from these premises will result in my shooting it in the head. SYDNEY BITNER"

The authorities were appalled. They megaphoned their myriad voices into the yard, begging Sydney to be reasonable and desist from such a reckless course of action.

"Get lost!," Sydney yelled back. "You can send your scientists tomorrow, they can do all the tests they want -- but the quagga stays here, dead or alive, it's your choice!"

That night, the news media seemed more enthralled with the somewhat prosaic life of Sydney Bitner than with the quagga. Bitner, they broadcasted, was a moderately successful house painter, and had lived in a quiet Westchester neighborhood with his wife Arlene some thirty years until her recent death from cancer. The couple had never had any children because, according to a certain Dr. Morris, Bitner's sperm count had proven abnormally low.

Watching a television hooked to a rather long extension cord, Sydney's jaw dropped as he sat outside in the quagga 's still unfinished stall. The carpenters had long since fled -- only the security guard remained. He was scarcely twenty-one and had a youth's thirst for adventure. He liked Sydney, and even though he still couldn't grasp the import of a half-finished zebra, he sensed excitement (and money) and had thus far remained loyal to his employer.

"How the hell did they find that quack Morris!?" asked Sydney, amazed, then humiliated that his low sperm count was now part of the national consciousness.
"They got their ways," answered the guard, who had switched the television to another station to ogle a shapely quiz show hostess.

Sydney angrily turned the TV to another news station and learned that he was an international wildlife smuggler who had absconded with all sorts of rare animals over the years. He switched channels again and heard himself described as an environmental terrorist willing to destroy the world in the name of saving it. On yet a third network, he was a racist who planned to torture the animal unless the government arranged for his passage back to South Africa, where he belonged to a clandestine organization working to restore apartheid, which was why he would not hesitate to kill the quagga, the living symbol of miscegenation. Sydney, having gotten an earful, let the guard watch the quiz show. Naturally, one of the clues was "half-zebra, half-horse." Sydney threw a handful of alfalfa pellets at the TV and, gun in hand, told the guard to go.

"Just tell them you managed to slip away," said Sydney, and the youth said goodbye to the quagga, shook Sydney's free hand and surrendered himself to the crew of law enforcement agents still on duty out front.

[Next Page: "With his consciousness ebbing from exhaustion, the last he felt was a moist, raspy tongue dragging gently across his face. When he came to, he was alone in a silent, windowless room...'"]