Two hippos go to church

The heat wave in the summer of 1954 scalded Boston, Massachusetts like a burn from a hot stove. Those folk in the North End fled their stuffy homes for a chance of a cool breeze from the Charles River or the Harbor, while those in the South End flocked east to the Old Harbor’s beaches. This story is not about these Bostonians,though. This story begins in the New England Aquarium, a short ways east of Faneuil Hall.

Following a dry spring rainy season, this heat wave severely exacerbated the drought, elevating the crisis so much so that Mayor Hynes issued an emergency plee begging residents to reduce their consumption. The situation inside the Aquarium was madness: penguins sweltered without relief in waterless enclosures, fish bumped fins as tanks boiled low, and the largest creatures – two newly acquired, gossip-causing hippopotamuses – rebelled wildly as their great pools dried, and with it, their ability to wallow and calm their skin.

Fearing for their safety, the caretaker for these two hippos – siblings whose names were Dodger and Betsey – smuggled over a last bucket of precious water from the penguin enclosure. Approaching the hippos’ habitat, the caretaker placed the bucket on the ground and stared through the fence at the two beautiful but painfully blistered creatures, who stared angrily back just on the other side. Empathizing with their plight of being locked in a foreign – and now barrenly dry – land, a deep feeling of remorse gripped the caretaker’s heart. Hoisting up the bucket, the caretaker tossed the water, but even in the very instant of doing so, the caretaker caught the look in both of the eyes of the siblings. Understanding passed between all three of them, and as the water splashed on the hippos, who rejoiced, the caretaker leaped aside.

Backing up, the hippos together charged the fence, barreling toward it with their thick, stout bodies. A great stampeding raucous of bent metal filled the air, echoing the freedom the hippos felt in their hearts. They carefully ran past visitors and staff before crashing through the doors to the outside world. To their initial dismay, the blinding sun beamed down on them, aggravating their skin, when, simultaneously, they noticed the broad expanse of the Harbor before them. A knowing glance quickly passing between them, they roared full speed ahead to the water and jumped in.