2003-10-08 � Heaven on Earth

On the same day Roy was mauled by his pet ferocious beast a second, and frankly far more interesting, tiger story broke. I mean, let's get real about Siegfried and Roy, okay? Everybody who ever considered it knew it was just a matter of time. Some things do not make good pets, no matter how much love you show them. I suspect this is why no man has been able to stay married to Roseanne, for example.

Regardless, the more interesting story goes as follows. A man presented himself at a New York City hospital claiming to have been attacked by a pit bull. He was lying, but before the nosey hospital personnel could pin him down regarding the true nature of his injury, he checked himself out of the hospital and fled to Philadelphia where he checked himself into another hospital under a false name.

Back in New York, the hospital called the police, as they were required to do by law when an animal attack is reported, and the police set about an investigation. It was not a difficult investigation because the man, Antoine Yates, used his real name and address at the New York hospital. The police arrived at Yates' residence, a tenth floor apartment in a Harlem housing project, and asked the super to open the door. Inside they came face to face with a 460 pound Bengali tiger so the police shut the door and regrouped outside.

Much of the investigation was captured by local news crews and broadcast on the local evening news. We were treated to images of police hanging out of a window just below the tiger apartment and using a telescope with a camera on the end to peer in at the tiger, who was lounging slothfully on furniture which had been upended in an apparent effort to provide the tiger with exercise.

A cop with a heavy Brooklyn accent was interviewed on camera. "Well, animal control they told us once we darted it the tiger might charge. They told us it might charge. And it did, boy. It charged. It did not like that dart. Not one bit."

The police fired tranquilizer darts at the tiger from outside the window, apparently pissing the tiger off. Once the tiger was down, they entered the apartment where they secured the beast and attempted to remove him from the apartment.

It was at that point they discovered a five foot alligator living in Yates bathtub. I guess Yates showered at the gym.

Neighbors told the police they were aware there was a wild animal in the building as it would occasionally roar, but their only complaints came when animal urine would soak through the floor and "trickle down the windows."

The tiger, whose name is Ming (Yates named the alligator Al�totally clever, right?), was apparently well taken care of. Yates built him a special sand box and fed him twenty-five chicken thighs per day. Yes, he tried to litter train Ming. There are no reports about the maintenance of Al the alligator, though one presumes Yates was equally inventive when it came to reptile care.

Yates was eventually discovered in that Philly hospital room despite the false name. I'm not sure, but I assume this is because he presented with vicious tiger wounds and somebody put two and two together. He was subsequently shipped up to NYC to face indictment on reckless endangerment charges.

In his defense, Kia Cruz, Yates sister-in-law was quoted to say, and I swear I'm not making this up, "I don't think he did anything wrong, besides keeping it in a project. It needed its own plot of land, like 110th Street, Central Park." I dunno. Tigers in the park? She's clearly forgotten about Central Park's extensive and restrictive leash laws.

When asked why he was raising a tiger and an alligator in a one bedroom apartment in the projects Yates told reporters, and I swear to God this is also 100% true, he told them "I realized that this is my calling in life. I'm trying to create a Garden of Eden, something that this world lacks."

Read it again. He was creating the Garden of Eden.

The mind boggles.

But the story goes on. Ming's vet indicated that Ming had been trained to "hate men" and would rock his cage when he heard male voices, especially during the first few hours after his liberation from the ghetto. And the Associated Supermarket near Yates' apartment, the very market where all those chicken thighs were purchased, already feeling the pinch of the Hateful Bush Economy TM, has lost it's "best customer." The market reports a significant loss on its ledger.

But no, I totally get what he was going for. Keeping wild animals whose nature will cause them to turn on you eventually in your New York City cracker box, that totally sounds like paradise to me too. I mean, yeah, the reptile molts sometimes, and yeah, the tiger's feces are the size of eggplants. But what really counts is that Ming only ate Yates' calf "down to the bone." I mean, it's paradise if you can crawl out and survive, right?

Yates reports missing Ming and a strong desire to be reunited with the beast.

Wow.

Posted at 11:17 p.m.

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