Would an adult look like a fool running around inside a zoo? The answer might surprise you.

About a year ago on an especially unseasonably warm January afternoon I set out for a jog-around. I say jog, not run, and if you saw how slowly I move and how unfar my feet lift up off the ground, you’d know why. I move more slowly than racewalkers but faster than standers-still.

You can tell by the brand-name athletic towel hung around my neck, “please don’t run over me” reflective orange and yellow flourescent sweatbands, wraparound polarized and polarizing sunglasses, Lycra and Spandex layering, knee pads, specially designed running shoes (giving extra support for people like me whose feet were bound in China when they were girls), 4-water-bottle-holder belt and SONY Walkman with belt clasp that I am a serious jogger, though, not just a walker.

I am blessed to live a few hundred feet above the Smithsonian National Zoo, so I use that American resource as the locus for my runs. I usually run (jog) “around” the zoo in the sense of outside it: i.e., along the perimeter of the zoo, on surface streets.

But as it was off-season and off-hours, about 6 PM, and since the usual impediments to me running through the zoo—impenetrable, uncompromising herds of fat, slow-walking tourists—were not around I thought I would do what I always laugh about because of the visual: I would indeed “run around” in the zoo, not around-but-outside the zoo.

Into the entrance I go. Petting farm, so many memories, on the left. I actually laugh out loud remembering all the times I’ve petted the “funny-looking” chickens. Beer pavilion on the right, good times. Ape aviary. Butterfly habitat, so fun. Public bathrooms where I go pee. One-hundred sixty-five acres of zoolicious fun.

But no people whatsoever. No animals, either. At least none I can see from the path.

This place that gets 2 million visitors per year now has only one visitor: Me.

Even with New Edition’s “Candy Girl” blaring into my ears from my Walkman and sweat pouring out of every part of my body I have the presence of mind to wonder: Am I supposed to be in here?

As if to answer my question, it is suddenly dark out—the sun sets in the first five minutes of my jog.

At the pace I’m jogging around at, the zoo seems to go on forever.

I start thinking how I’m not scared of what I can see, but what I can’t see. I’m scared of people or animals hiding in the brush waiting to see me jog by, then jumping out and stealing my awesome runner’s sunglasses.

Or worse.

I’m giddy with fear now, jogging in a slow zig-zag formation, wondering if I should turn back or finish crossing the zoo. What’s the difference, though? I don’t know where the hell I am. I’ve already gotten lost twice and had to retrace my steps (using the painted elephant prints on the asphalt), my shins hurt, I’m crying silently (so as not to make noise that would attract predators).

I want my mommy and I’m conjuring up the scariest scenes in movies like Deliverance, or The Wizard of Oz. It’s like a combination of them, with a big chunk of Blair Witch thrown in, and a hint of Personal Best.

Shit, it’s time to flip the tape in my Walkman. But that will make noise… I’ll just do without music.

Just then I face a terrible choice. A monstrous choice. I see a swirling light in the distance and I emit a silent scream. It is a vehicle, a security vehicle patrolling the park. Half of me, the terrified child half, wants to run up to these long-missed other human beings and beg them to drive me to the nearest entrance/exit of the zoo! To save me, in other words.

But the other half of me is afraid, too. Afraid I’m not supposed to be in the zoo at all, because it’s off-season and off-hours and clearly it’s closed for business. That’s clear, since I am the only human being I’ve seen in hours in this zoo.

Beep… beep… beep… beep goes the security vehicle, getting closer. I’m still torn, but in the end I have to decide one way or the other before the vehicle turns the bend.

The guilty adult wins out, and I decide to hide in the bushes until the vehicle passes. Like an animal, a criminal, a maniac, a murderer or a trespasser would do.

Later, in the safety of the well-trafficked street outside the zoo, to which I bolted (switching finally from jog to run) as fast as my little feet would carry me as soon as the safety vehicle had passed out of view, I thought, “Wait a minute. You can’t be a trespasser in the National Zoo! You’re a U.S. taxpayer. You own this place.” Then I felt better. My ego was restored.

And, yes, I’ve gone back to jogging the periphery now. Because I have already proved I can make it. I crossed the zoo. Alone. At night. Like a true American man.

Tags: Blair Witch Project, Deliverance, jogging, New Edition, Personal Best, Smithsonian National Zoo, The Wizard of Oz, Walkman