Behind the chain-link fence the jaguar prowled, his tail whipping back and forth, his lips parting to expose long ivory teeth. On the viewing bench, Blake and I leaned into each other. So far today everything had gone well: this morning the bus left on time from San Ignacio, it dropped us off at the proper stop, the zoo was only a short walk down a dirt road, and the rain storms were clearing. Now the sun pushed aside the black and blue clouds that had hung low for a week over Belize. Its heat flooded our backs and necks.

A man wearing a khaki baseball cap sat down. “Will you go inside the cage?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“For $50 U.S. I can take you in there.”

These guys’ll say anything for money, I thought. “That’s too much money,” I said. I craned forward to examine his face. It was round, wide-cheeked, pool-eyed. A logo stitched into his shirt said “Belize Zoo.” He opened a plastic container he held on his lap to reveal chunks of meat, pink and moist. He pawed out a hunk and tossed it through the fence. The jaguar pounced.

“You’ll be inside a cage in there, safe,” the man said. “You can pet the jaguar. You can feed him.”

Blake is my nephew, trusted to me for a week by my sister so we could travel, just the two of us, into a tropical country to see animals. Thirteen years old, he still loved animals as much as he did when he was 6, when his own zoo of Beanie Baby toys overwhelmed their footlocker pen. I pondered the likelihood that in this cage we’d get sliced by a claw or punctured by a tooth.

Three young women arrived, speaking Spanish. I converse well enough in Spanish, but this proposition needed words I did not have. “This guy works for the zoo,” I said. “For $50 he’ll take us all inside a small cage behind this fence. We could split the cost.” One woman spoke English, and after deliberating, they agreed.

We followed the path skirting the jaguar pen. By zoo terms, the pen was large, not a fully fake reconstruction, but a living slice of jungle – tree canopies, murky pools, ripples of sun and shade. It resembled the real habitat Blake and I had seen elsewhere in Belize. We left the public path for a narrow trail along the cat’s fence. At the back of the pen stood a wooden shed built like a chicken coop with a cantilevering door.  “How long have you worked here?” I asked our guide.

“Ten years. I grew up in the south. I came here because I needed a job.”

“What is your job, exactly?”

He turned, lifting his chest. “I am a zookeeper.”

Another zoo worker arrived, signaled the jaguar into the shed, and slammed the door shut from the outside. Our guide opened a gate. “Now run to the cage.” We sprinted through the jaguar’s shady world and crawled into a cage the size of a big doghouse. Three boards on the ground functioned as seats. Blake squatted next to the cage barrier. The three girls hunkered near him. I stood. All eyes were on the shed. The zookeeper whispered into his radio.  When the door swung open, the cat burst out and dashed to us. It leapt onto the cage roof, its fat paw pads landing just inches from my head. A rush of air stirred my hair. I lurched to the ground, picturing how useless a shield my paper-thin scalp would be under the swipe of a claw. What the jaguar couldn’t achieve with his paw, though, he affected with his gaze as he stared, unblinking, into my face. He was my superior.

The zookeeper pushed raw chicken legs through the side of the cage.  The cat jumped from the roof. It became clear the zookeeper had done this many times. The show seemed carefully rehearsed, a theatrical play. The zookeeper handed a slimy leg to Blake. Blake poked the small bone through the fence. The cat snapped it away. “Pet him,” the zookeeper said, smiling. Eyeing the cat’s teeth, Blake extended three fingers and stroked its pelt. The spotted fur looked silky and taut.

In a sunny spot outside the jaguar’s pen, another scene was unfolding; a crowd had filled a wooden viewing platform to witness our little drama. Their coos and oohs drowned out our screeches of delight. Finished with his snack, the cat crawled again onto the roof, whirled in a somersault, gnawed viciously at the metal fence wiring. Then, the zookeeper asked his accomplice to signal the cat back inside the coop. Our $50 face-to-face time was over. Moments later, the curious audience greeted us outside: “Were you scared? How did you get to do that? How much did it cost?”

The zookeeper raised his voice to make sure everyone could hear: “I’ll take you in. It’s a very special experience.” The five of us previous cell-mates, still a little breathless, nodded vigorously in agreement. In the end, though, the onlookers wandered away, muttering things about high cost or not enough time. None believed the cage visit was special enough. Meanwhile, behind the fencing, the jaguar prowled.

Belize Zoo Ticket price $10

www.belizezoo.org

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