Creepy Pete and the birth of the Zoo

Creepy Pete then and now

Up the road from where I work is the friendliest team of salespeople I've ever met. They work at Harts gas station and while their job isn't particularly glamorous they're always enthusiastic, personable, and friendly.

Creepy Pete is the front runner of this team of stellar sales associates. Creepy Pete's in his sixties. He's tall, balding, bespectacled, and always has his top two shirt buttons undone. Creeping up over his shirt collar is a bushy main of graying chest hair- he has more chest hair creeping up over his shirt collar than most people have on their entire body (there's a good chance he's growing it out to donate to locks of love...). But that's not why we call him Creepy Pete. He's got that twangy, nice-guy-up-the-street-who-is-really-friendly-but-kinda-creepy style and sometimes words fly out of his mouth that make you turn and stare at him in awe like "I'm not sure if that really came out of your mouth...and I'm not sure if I should laugh or squirm in discomfort." He got the name Creepy Pete when one day we went into Harts on a break. At the cash register my friend asked me if I was going to get a Pepsi, I told him I was giving up cafffeine. Creepy Pete chimed in "I'd rather you give up sex than caffeine. I can't make money off sex habits, but I can make money off caffeine habits." We both looked at him baffled and gave a perfunctory smile, then walked out. My friend went ghostly white. From then on he became known as Creepy Pete. Sometimes we walk in and he's totally normal, sometimes we walk in and he'll squawk like a bird in our direction or make some off-hand comment. I've wondered how a person like Creepy Pete got his start in a lucrative career such as working as a Sales Attendent at a gas station in American Fork Utah...since I don't know, I've made it up. What follows is Creepy Pete's Back Story:

Creepy Pete: The historical contributions of a weirdo
The turn of the 19th century brought an exciting era of prosperity, innovation, and sexually transmitted diseases to America (The std's have no part in this story but I don't feel we can ignore that they existed so...). All around the nation new arenas for entertainment were being devised daily. One in particular was the world-renowned "Coney Island" in New York. In May of 1903 Mr. Zooloco Broslowski bartered the services of his 7 year old son Pete to pay for his wiskey habit to the famed but cruel Master of the Coney Island Freak Show, Igor Radmanovich.

Mr. Radmanovich was a brutal perfectionist who put Pete in charge of cleaning the circus freak's cages. Although he loved the circus freaks he took care of, Pete was miserable. His master, Igor, would beat him severally with his wooden cane if he left even one of the bearded lady's feeding dishes dirty, or didn't pick up every peice of the circus midget's poop. After the park closed and his master had passed out with a bottle of cognac in hand, Pete would play bridge with the midgets (although he later admitted they were stinking filthy cheats), horse-whip the Bearded lady to keep her emitting testosterone, and practice his yodelling with Aquaman. He greatly enjoyed his alone time after Igor passed out and would dream of escaping with his friends and going into business himself.

One night Pete woke his friends shortly after Igor passed out. He gathered all of the freaks together and told them he had devised a plan for them to leave their wicked master and go into business themselves (all except for Aquaman, with whom he had been at enmity after Aquaman tried to harpoon him at the Halloween Party). They all agreed to Pete's plan, hopped into the back of Igor's hauling truck and drove away. They continued to drive until at last the truck broke down. They named the little place where they landed Omaha, Nebraska which, in Circus Midget tongue, means "dumpy flat land that normal people wouldn't move to to save their lives". Here, they decided, is where they would start their new lives and gain great fortune. They named their new show the "Zoo" after Pete's alcoholic father. They set up paddocks for each of the circus freaks where people could adore them, they set up booths for the kiddies to play games, and invented snack foods to sell at their new "concession stands." One treat Pete was particularly proud of was his Greasy Spearchucker, a treat that took an ordinary stick of butter and deep fried it (later the name was changed when it was determined the name "spearchucker" was a racial slur).
At first only the local "Indians" would come to their show-- they loved watching the white man make a fool of himself. While most of the circus freaks were too afraid to confront the Indian's harrassment (it is common knowledge that Indians turn into werewolfs at midnight much the same way Chinese men turn into tigers at midnight) the bearded lady wasn't afraid. One day as they approached her paddock, the young Indian boys started throwing their Greasy Spearchuckers at her. The bearded lady withstood their abuse for a few minutes before she stopped in the middle of her yodelling routine, jumped down from her stage and bit clean through one of the Indian boy's calf muscles and dragged him back to her feeding area and devoured him.
News of the bearded ladies actions spread and there was some worry about the safety of Pete's zoo and Pete decided he'd have to build cages for his freaks to keep his visitors safe. As time passed his zoo became more and more popular, not because of his circus freaks, but because of the potential threat of dangerous creatures behind bars. As the years passed Pete's zoo continued to grow. More and more people developed Zoo's of their own to showcase their circus freaks and enjoyed great prosperity...until the 60's. The hippy movement brought with it the notion by some radicals that caging human-like creatures was unethical.
Over time Pete slowly replaced his circus freaks with exotic animals, but it came at a cost. Pete believed the heart and soul of a zoo lied in showcasing weirdo circus freaks. Although the new animals were interesting to look at, they didn't compare to the circus freaks to Pete. He soon left the Zoo business to pursue his first love "Gas Station Attendancy" where he has worked ever since. While most don't know he was the founder of the modern zoo, every now and then he lets out a squawk at a random customer, or say some raunchy thing he learned from the bearded woman- and he gets a gleam in his eye, and a tear trickles down his cheek for his old friends.