How to Care for a Giraffe
How to Care for a Giraffe
Serialized and presented in weekly installments beginning October 10
When the opportunity came, Jerry, the giraffe, took it. He walked out of the zoo and followed Ina home. In her twelve years, Ina has never shrunk from a challenge, whether it’s standing alongside her transgender best friend Karl or going out of her way to befriend Mike, the unhoused man living in the park. She hides Jerry in the vacant lot next door and does everything she can to learn about his past. Karl is the first to come to her assistance, as the two of them devise plan after plan to feed Jerry. When Mike joins in, at first as a lark but then as if his life depends on it, it becomes clear that a vacant lot is no place for a giraffe and that their giraffe—Jerry—has a past as traumatic as Karl’s and Mike’s. It’s only naturally then that he picked Ina to follow home, and that Ina isn’t going to let him down.